Thus the Preacher describes the Man of Pleasure, and the maxims by which he rules his life. How true the description is I need not tarry to prove; 'tis a point every man can judge for himself. Judge also whether the warning which the Preacher subjoins be not equally true to experience (vv. 11, 12). For, after having depicted, or personated, the Man who trusts in Wisdom, and the Man who devotes himself to Pleasure, he proceeds to show that even the Man who blends mirth with study, whose wisdom preserves him from the disgusts of satiety and vulgar lust, is nevertheless--to say nothing of the Chief Good--very far from having reached a certain good. _Then_, at least, "the race was not (always) to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither was bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the learned." Those who had the fairest chances had not always the happiest success; nor did those who bent themselves most strongly to their ends always reach their ends. Those who were wanton as birds, or heedless as fish, were often taken in the snare of calamity or swept up by the net of misfortune. At any moment a killing frost might blight all the growths of Wisdom and destroy all the sweet fruits of Pleasure: and if they had only these, what could they do but starve when they were gone? The good which was at the mercy of accident, which might vanish before the instant touch of disease or loss or pain, was not worthy to be, or to be compared with, the Chief Good, which is a good for all times, in all accidents and conditions, and renders him who has it equal to all events.
[Sidenote: _Nor in Devotion to Affairs and its Rewards._ Ch. ix., v. 13-Ch. x., v. 20.]
So far, then, Coheleth has been occupied in retracing the argument of the first Section of the Book. Now he returns upon the second and third Sections: he deals with the man who plunges into public affairs, who turns his wisdom to practical account, and seeks to attain a competence, if not a fortune. He lingers over this stage of his argument, probably because the Jews, then as always, even in exile and under the most cruel oppression, were a remarkably energetic, practical, money-getting race, with a singular faculty of dealing with political issues or handling the market; and, as he slowly pursues it, he drops many hints of the social and political conditions of the time. Two features of it he takes much to heart: first, that wisdom, even of the most practical and sagacious sort, did not win its fair recognition and reward--a very natural complaint in so wise a man; and, secondly, that his people were under tyrants so gross, self-indulgent, indolent, and unstatesman-like as the Persians of his day--also a natural complaint in a man of so wise and patriotic a spirit.
He opens with an anecdote in proof of the slight regard in which the most valuable and remunerative sagacity was held. He tells us of a poor man--and I have sometimes thought that this poor man may have been the Author himself; for the military leaders of the Jews, though among the most expert strategists of that era, were often very learned and studious men--who lived in a little city, with only a few inhabitants. A great king came up against the city, besieged it, threw up the lofty military causeway, as high as the walls, from which it was the fashion of the time to deliver the assault. By his Archimedian wit the poor man hit on a stratagem which saved the city; but though his service was so signal, and the city so little that the "few men in it" must have seen him every day, "yet no one remembered that same poor man," or lent a hand to lift him from his poverty. Wise as he was, his wisdom did not bring him bread, nor riches, nor favour (vv. 13-15). Therefore, concludes the Preacher, wisdom, great gift though it is, and better, as in this instance, than "an army to a beleaguered city" (chap, vii., ver. 19), is not of itself sufficient to secure success. A poor man's wisdom--as many an inventor has found--is despised even by those who profit by it. Although his counsel, in the day of extremity, is infinitely more valuable than the loud bluster of fools, or of a ruler among fools, nevertheless the ruler, because he is foolish, may be affronted to find one of the poorest men in the place wiser than himself; he may easily cast his "merit in the eye of scorn," and so rob him both of the honour and the reward of his achievement (vv. 16, 17)--an ancient saw not without modern instances. For the fool is a greater power in the world, especially the fool who is wise in his own conceit. Insignificant in himself, he may nevertheless do great harm and "destroy much good." Just as a tiny fly, when it is dead, may make the sweetest ointment offensive by infusing its own evil savour, so a man, when his wit is gone, may with his little folly cause many sensible men to distrust the wisdom they should honour (chap. x., ver. 1):--who has not met such a hot-headed want-wit in, for example, the lobbies of the House of Commons? To a wise man, such as Coheleth, the fool, the presumptuous conceited fool, is "rank and smells to heaven," infesting sweeter natures than his own with a most pestilent corruption. He paints us a picture of him--paints it with a keen graphic scorn which, if the eyes of the fool were in his head (chap. ii., ver. 14), and "what he is pleased to call his mind" could for a moment shift from his left hand to his right (ver. 2), might make him nearly as contemptible to himself as he is to others. As we read ver. 3 the unhappy wretch stands before us. We see him coming out of his house; he goes dawdling down the street, for ever wandering from the path, attracted by the merest trifle, staring at familiar objects with eyes that have no recognition in them, knowing neither himself nor others; and, with pointed finger, chuckles after every sober citizen he meets, "There goes a fool!"