The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) 📕

The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of the classes of the literati;⁠⸻they began and ended with the word Nose; and had it not been for a petitio principii, which one of the ablest of them ran his head against in the beginning of the combat, the whole controversy had been settled at once.

A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood⁠—and not only blood⁠—but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a succession of drops⁠—(a stream being but a quicker succession of drops, that is included, said he).⁠⸺⁠Now death, continued the logician, being nothing but the stagnation of the blood⁠⸺⁠

I deny the definition⁠⸺⁠Death is the separation of the soul from the body, said his antagonist⁠⸺⁠Then we don’t agree about our weapons, said the logician⁠—Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the antagonist.

The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in the nature of a decree⁠⸺⁠than a dispute.

Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not possibly have been suffered in civil society⁠⸺⁠and if false⁠—to impose upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater violation of its rights, and must have had still less mercy shown it.

The only objection to this was, that if it proved anything, it proved the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false.

This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the advocates of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit a decree, since the stranger ex mero motu had confessed he had been at the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest, etc. etc.⁠⸻To this it was answered, it was impossible there should be such a place as the Promontory of Noses, and the learned be ignorant where it lay. The commissary of the bishop of Strasburg undertook the advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases, showing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long nose: in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten authorities,12 which had decided the point incontestably, had it not appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapter-lands had been determined by it nineteen years before.

It happened⁠⸺⁠I must not say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of Strasburg⁠⸺⁠the Lutheran, founded in the year 1538 by Jacobus Surmis, counsellor of the senate,⁠⸺⁠and the Popish, founded by Leopold, archduke of Austria, were, during all this time, employing the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the affair of the abbess of Quedlingberg’s placket-holes required)⁠⸺⁠in determining the point of Martin Luther’s damnation.

The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate à priori, that from the necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of October 1483⁠⸻when the moon was in the twelfth house, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus in the third, the Sun, Saturn, and Mercury, all got together in the fourth⁠—that he must in course, and unavoidably, be a damn’d man⁠—and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be damn’d doctrines too.

By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio13 (in reading this my father would always shake his head) in the ninth house, which the Arabians allotted to religion⁠—it appeared that Martin Luther did not care one stiver about the matter⁠⸻and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars⁠—they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and blaspheming⁠⸺⁠with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt) sailed before the wind, in the lake of hellfire.

The little objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was, that it must certainly be the soul of another man, born Oct. 22, 83, which was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner⁠—inasmuch as it appeared from the register of Islaben in the county of Mansfelt, that Luther was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the 22nd day of October, but on the 10th of November, the eve of Martinmas day, from whence he had the name of Martin.

[⁠⸺⁠I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, I know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess of Quedlingberg⁠⸺⁠It is to tell the reader, that my father never read this passage of Slawkenbergius to my uncle Toby, but with triumph⁠⸻not over my uncle Toby, for he never opposed him in it⁠⸺⁠but over the whole world.

—Now you see, brother Toby, he would say, looking up, “that christian names are not such indifferent things;”⁠⸻had Luther here been called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damn’d to all eternity⁠⸻Not that I look upon Martin, he would add, as a good name⁠⸺⁠far from it⁠⸺’tis something better than a neutral, and but a little⁠⸺⁠yet little as it is, you see it was of some service to him.

My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could show him⁠⸺⁠yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in Hafen Slawkenbergius’s Decads full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them which my father read over with half the delight⁠⸻it flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together⁠⸺⁠his Names and his Noses.⁠⸺⁠I will be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the Alexandrian Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head at one stroke.]

The two universities of Strasburg were hard