So we are foolish and ridiculous, absurd in our actions, behaviour, food, clothing, customs, and deliberations. We mock and point at one another, though in the end we are all fools, and the greatest asses are those who take most care to hide their ears. An individual, once convinced or fixed in an opinion, counts everyone who does not share his feelings an idiot and an ass: “He considers nothing right except what pleases him.” Those who think differently are all fools in his eyes, for “people think whatever they want is right to want.” He will not say with Atticus, “To each his own bride; to me, mine”—let everyone enjoy his own spouse. His alone is beautiful, “his own love,” and so on.

He despises everyone in comparison with himself, will imitate no one and listen to no one but himself: as Pliny said, he is his own law and example. What Hippocrates long ago rebuked in his letter to Dionysius is borne out in our own time: “Everyone considers superfluous in another what he himself neither possesses nor values.” Whatever he lacks or does not esteem, he calls unnecessary, useless, mere foolishness in someone else—like Aesop’s fox, who, after losing his tail, wanted all the other foxes to cut theirs off.

The Chinese say that we Europeans have one eye, they themselves two, and everyone else is blind—though Scaliger counts them beasts too, “nothing but cattle.” Just so, you and your followers are the only wise people, others are middling, and the rest out of their minds, mere idiots and asses. Failing to acknowledge our own errors and imperfections, we confidently ridicule others, as though we alone were exempt and merely watching everyone else. We think it a fine thing—as indeed it is—“to enjoy other people’s madness,” amusing ourselves with their crooked ways, though the man who laughs is more at fault than the rest.

“Change the name, and the story is about you.” He might take himself by the nose for a fool. What one writer calls “the greatest proof of foolishness” is to be ridiculous to others without noticing it, as Marsyas was when he competed with Apollo, “not realizing he was being made a laughing-stock,” as Apuleius says. The case is his own; he stands convicted of madness. As Augustine aptly concludes, in the eyes of the wise and of angels, he looks like someone who, to our eyes, walks upside down.

So you laugh at me, I at you, and both of us at a third, who turns the poet’s words back upon us: “Alas! They say I am mad, when they themselves are mad.” We accuse others of madness and folly while being the greatest fools ourselves. For it is a chief sign and characteristic of a fool, as Ecclesiastes 10:3 indicates, to domineer, vilify, condemn, criticize, and call others fools out of pride and self-conceit—“we do not see the part of the knapsack behind our backs”—to rebuke in others the faults we are most guilty of, and teach what we do not practise ourselves.

For a fickle man to write about constancy, an irreligious man lay down rules of holiness and piety, a fool write a treatise on wisdom, or, like Sallust, fiercely denounce those who plunder countries while being a most oppressive extortioner in office himself—this betrays weakness and plainly shows such people’s lack of judgement. “Which of us sins in a way more worthy of crucifixion?” Who is the fool now?

Or perhaps in some places we are all mad together, so no one notices: “A surfeit of error and madness removes both the absurdity and the astonishment.” We are like Gaius Fimbria in ancient Rome, at least in Cicero’s judgement: a bold, reckless madman, regarded as such by everyone except those as mad as himself. In such a case, no one takes any notice. No doubt he will seem mad to few, for most people suffer from the same disease. When all are mad, all equally oppressed, who can tell one madman from the rest?

But suppose they do notice, and someone is plainly shown to be mad. He now recognizes his folly, whether in action, gesture, speech, or some foolish obsession with building, boasting, quarrelling, spending, gambling, courting, scribbling, or babbling, which makes him ridiculous to others and on which he dotes. He admits as much; yet all your eloquence cannot reclaim him. Despite everything said against it, he will persist in his folly.

It is “a lovable madness, a most welcome delusion of the mind,” so pleasing, so delicious that he cannot give it up. He knows his error but makes no effort to escape it. Tell him what it will lead to—beggary, sorrow, illness, disgrace, shame, loss, madness—yet the angry man will prefer revenge, the lustful man his prostitute, the thief his loot, the glutton his belly, to his own welfare. Warn a pleasure-seeker, a miser, or an ambitious man about his wayward course, wean him from it a little, and immediately he cries, “By heaven, my friends, you have killed me!” You have ruined him; and, like a dog returning to its vomit, he goes back to it again.

No persuasion, no advice will have any effect. Say what you will: You may shout and mingle sea with sky— you are speaking to the deaf. Demonstrate your case as Ulysses did to Elpenor, Gryllus, and the rest of his companions, those swinish men: he is immovable in his disposition. A hog he will remain; pound him in a mortar, and he will still be the same.

If he is fixed in a heresy or some perverse opinion, as some of our ignorant Papists are, convince his understanding, show him that sect’s various follies and absurdities, force him to say “I am defeated by the truth,” make it as clear as the sun: he will persist in error, perverse and obstinate as ever. As the saying goes, “If I am mistaken in this, I am gladly mistaken, and I do not want this error taken from me.” I will do as I have done, as my predecessors did, and as my friends now do: I will be a fool for company.

Tell me now: are these men mad or not? “Come, answer!” Are they ridiculous? “Name any judge you like.” Are they “of sound mind,” sober, wise, and sensible? Have they common sense? Which of these is the madder?

For my part, I agree with Democritus: I think they deserve to be laughed at, a company of brain-sick fools, as mad as Orestes and Athamas. Let them ride the ass and all sail off together to the Anticyras in the ship of fools. I need take little further trouble to prove what I say, make no solemn declaration or swear to it; I think you will believe me without an oath. In a word, are they fools? I leave it to you, though you too are fools and madmen, and I am just as mad to ask. For what did Mercury say in the comedy? It is foolish to ask justice of the unjust. Still, I will accept your judgement: what do you think?

But since I undertook at the outset to show that kingdoms, provinces, and families were melancholy as well as individuals, I will examine them separately. What I have so far discussed at large, in general terms, I will now consider in detail and prove with more specific and evident arguments, testimonies, and illustrations—and do so briefly. Now hear why everyone is as foolish as you.

My first argument comes from Solomon, an arrow drawn from his quiver of maxims. Proverbs 3:7: “Do not be wise in your own eyes.” And 26:12: “Do you see a man wise in his own opinion? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Isaiah pronounces woe upon such people, in 5:21: those “who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight.” From this we may gather that self-conceit is a serious fault, and that people who think too well of themselves are badly deceived: a particularly strong argument for proving their folly.

Many people, says Seneca, would undoubtedly have been wise if they had not imagined they had already reached perfect knowledge before they were even halfway there. Too forward, too ripe, too hasty, too quick and ready: wise too soon, pious too soon, husbands too soon, fathers too soon, priests too soon, too soon qualified for every office and eager to undertake it.

They thought too highly of themselves—of their worth, courage, skill, expertise, learning, judgement, eloquence, and good qualities—and that ruined everything. All their geese are swans; this plainly proves that they are no better than fools. In former times there were only seven wise men; now you can scarcely find as many fools.