all that is considered high and great in this world. The state
with its posts of honour, patriotism and national pride; the stateliness
of ceremonies, the delusion of caste and nobility--what is it but folly?
War, the most foolish thing of all, is the origin of all heroism. What
prompted the Deciuses, what Curtius, to sacrifice themselves? Vainglory.
It is this folly which produces states; through her, empires, religion,
law-courts, exist.

This is bolder and more chilling than Machiavelli, more detached than
Montaigne. But Erasmus will not have it credited to him: it is Folly who
speaks. He purposely makes us tread the round of the _circulus
vitiosus_, as in the old saw: A Cretan said, all Cretans are liars.

Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion. And there is much more
passion than reason in the world. That which keeps the world going, the
fount of life, is folly. For what else is love? Why do people marry, if
not out of folly, which sees no objections? All enjoyment and amusement
is only a condiment of folly. When a wise man wishes to become a father,
he has first to play the fool. For what is more foolish than the game of
procreation?

Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with folly all that is
vitality and the courage of life. Folly is spontaneous energy that no
one can do without. He who is perfectly sensible and serious cannot
live. The more people get away from me, Stultitia, the less they live.
Why do we kiss and cuddle little children, if not because they are still
so delightfully foolish. And what else makes youth so elegant?

Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They are awkward at
everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in playing, in social intercourse.
If they have to buy, or to contract, things are sure to go wrong.
Quintilian says that stage fright bespeaks the intelligent orator, who
knows his faults. Right! But does not, then, Quintilian confess openly
that wisdom is an impediment to good execution? And has not Stultitia
the right to claim prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out
of bashfulness, undertake nothing in circumstances where fools pluckily
set to work?

Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a psychological sense.
Indeed the consciousness of falling short in achievement is the brake
clogging action, is the great inertia retarding the progress of the
world. Did he know himself for one who is awkward when not bending over
his books, but confronting