TRUE AND FALSE SIMPLICITY[1]
Born in 1651, died in 1715; Preceptor to the sons of the Dauphin in 1689; Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695.
There is a simplicity that is a defect, and a simplicity that is a virtue. Simplicity may be a want of discernment. When we speak of a person as simple, we may mean that he is credulous and perhaps vulgar. The simplicity that is a virtue is something sublime; every one loves and admires it; but it is difficult to say exactly what this virtue is.
Simplicity is an uprightness of soul that has no reference to self; it is different from sincerity, and it is a still higher virtue. We see many people who are sincere, without being simple; they only wish to pass for what they are, and they are unwilling to appear what they are not; they are always thinking of themselves, measuring their words, and recalling their thoughts, and reviewing their actions, from the fear that they have done too much or too little. These persons are sincere, but they are not sim-
- ↑ Translated by Mrs. Follen for a volume of "Sermons of Fenelon " (1829). In French, the latest edition of Fenelon's complete works is that of Leclerc, in thirty-eight volumes (Paris, 1827–30).
74
