Tis impossible to be sure of any thing
Where do theories, ideas and thought processes originate?
We like to think of each and every word uttered as being of the now. Our thoughts are pertinent and specific to the narrative of the now. But history tells us that nothing is new.
I, like one third of the Globe, find myself in a Government guidance lock-down. Technically speaking I could suggest I am in a semi lock-down as I am in the office a couple of times a week, yet for the majority of my time I am at home, working. That working from home releases two hours from the commute to the office. Time to think. Time to kill. Days merge into other days and over the last five weeks I like many others have lost track of real time, my world has shrunk to the intimate, the indoors, the familiar, the outside world now radiates only via the internet or from the media. It was the media which began my thinking, but in reality like many things it was actually something else.
This morning I heard Professor Brian Cox talking on the BBC. Although his exact words fail me, the essence of his narrative formed in the notion that;
"The age of certainty in humans has now ended, we as a global society need to re-embrace doubt"
He was of course discussing the Global pandemic of the corona-virus or Covid-19 which has paralysed much of the world for months and will continue to do so for many months ahead. In doing so Professor Cox may have been delving back into a historical quote;
"in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
We all know this phrase, but where does it originate?
Down through history since this was penned in the 18th Century, the full quote by one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, the polymath Benjamin Franklin (b.1706; d.1790), has been misquoted and often adapted to suit a need. Yet this phrase did not originate with Franklin either.
It was on November 13th, 1789, that Franklin wrote in a letter to scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy (b. 1720; d. 1800) contained within this phrase that has travelled through history ever since:
“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
Franklin and Le Roy were pioneering exponents of scientific advancement which in the 18th Century formed into two camps of intense debate towards the 'form and process' of electricity. Franklin was of the opinion that electricity consisted of a single electric fluid whereas a different approach emanated from Abbé Nollet’s doctrine of two distinct streams of electric fluids. Debate in the scientific community of the time was robust and came to a head in 1753 with a full blown attack of Franklin's views by Nollet. Le Roy supported the Franklin camp and over time these two eminent scientists became friends.
Despite the geographical distance between them their friendship lasted until Franklin's death. The letter is poignant in that Franklin hints at the illness that will eventually cause his death. Poignant towards the situation we are all in now. Franklin was not a well man in his later life and died due to complications of a lung condition, pleurisy. Reputedly Franklin's last words “A dying man can do nothing easily.” were to his daughter who tried to get Franklin to turn onto his side to bring relief to his condition.
Years before Franklin's death he had published an essay on pleurisy, from a doctor in Virginia, who had looked at a method of curing a 'Fatal Distemper' of which the principal part of the cure seemed to revolve around rattle-snake venom, as discovered by native American Indians. Today with Covid-19, many alternative methods of treatment are being suggested, especially in the United States; seemingly nothing is new.
But to return to the phrase,
"in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
While Franklin is often quoted as the author of this, and deservedly so, the origins can possibly go back even further into the 18th Century. A quick look at the Adam Smith website unearths this passage;
The thought had been expressed by two earlier writers. Daniel Defoe in “The Political History of the Devil” (1726) had said “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believ’d,” and even earlier in Christopher Bullock’s “The Cobbler of Preston” (1716) appears the line, “Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes.”
Daniel Defoe (b.1660; d.1731) was of course one of Britain's most prolific authors, reputedly penning over 300 works; the best known of which being Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. Defoe was a Protestant Dissenter and strongly anti-Catholic and towards the latter years of his life penned a trilogy to provide his vivid view of politics and society in the early eighteenth century. The Political History of the Devil published in 1726 was the first of these and in this Defoe suggests the Devil influences mankind both through a physical (supernatural) form, and then reacting to changing times moves from this supernatural (witches) to the ordinary world of “beaus, beauties, wits, and fools. Here is the passage from the book [Guthenburg]
"As I have thus suggested that the Devil himself has politically spread about this Notion concerning his appearing with a Cloven-Foot, so I doubt not that he has thought it for his Purpose to paint this Cloven-Foot so lively in the Imaginations of many of our People, and especially of those clear sighted Folks who see the Devil when he is not to be seen, that they would make no Scruple to say, nay and to make Affidavit too, even before Satan himself, whenever he sat upon the Bench, that they had seen his Worship’s Foot at such and such a Time; this I advance the rather because ’tis very much for his Interest to do this, for if we had not many Witnesses, viva voce, to testify it, we should have had some obstinate Fellows always among us, who would have denied the Fact, or at least have spoken doubtfully of it, and so have rais’d Disputes and Objections against it, as impossible, or at least as improbable; buzzing one ridiculous Notion or other into our Ears, as if the Devil was not so black as he was painted, that he had no more a Cloven-Foot than a Pope, whose Apostolical Toes have so often been reverentially kiss’d by Kings and Emperors: but now alas this Part is out of the Question, not the Man in the Moon, not the Groaning-Board, not the speaking of Fryar Bacon’s Brazen-Head, not the Inspiration of Mother Shipton, or the Miracles of Dr. Faustus, Things as certain as Death and Taxes, can be more firmly believ’d: The Devil not have a Cloven-Foot! I doubt not but I could, in a short Time, bring you a thousand old Women together, that would as soon believe there was no Devil at all; nay, they will tell you, he could not be a Devil without it, any more than he could come into the Room, and the Candles not burn blue, or go out and not leave a smell of Brimstone behind him".
Thus in an uncertain world, it seems only death and taxes can be firmly believed. And Defoe lived through very uncertain times, as we do today, albeit as a 5 year old in London. During 1665 the bubonic plague reached London, where Defoe lived, and of course survived. The Great Plague of London as it is sometimes called, lasted for around 18 months between 1665 and 1666 killing an estimated 100,000 people - roughly 25% of the population of the Capital. For a century or so Europe and Britain succumbed to wave after wave of pandemics. By 1750 the worst was over, but following the arrival of the Black Death in the 14th Century (which coincidentally originated in China) an estimated half of Europe's population had been lost to repeated waves and pandemics of various forms.
Defoe himself wrote about this in 1722 - being too young to recall much of what happened himself, memories remained of the appalling deaths which occurred. Pulling together eyewitness accounts, possibly from family archives and spoken word of mouth stories he produced A Journal of the Plague Year. This work by Defoe has been quoted and repeated by social media and other commentators during the current pandemic in 2020, as an example of, and trying to understand, what we are going through via the eyewitness accounts of history. The frontispiece of the book begins...
"Being Observations or Memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665.
Written by a CITIZEN who continued all the while in London. Never made publick before".
Again history teaches us something with the first sentence of
"It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard in ordinary discourse that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there".
But what of the final Death and Taxes reference - that of Christopher Bullock’s “The Cobler of Preston” [Note only one b in cobler]
Christopher Bullock (b.1690?; d. 1724) came from a theatrical family. His first reported appearance on stage took place in 1708 at the theatre in Drury Lane. A few years later he was one a handful of actors who acquired the name of 'deserters' by quitting the Drury Lane company in 1714–15 and joining the reconstructed theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which is where his own plays were staged. Including the farce comedy 'Cobler of Preston,' first acted on 24 January 1716, and taking as inspiration and structure Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew.'
"You lye, you are not fure ; for I fay,
Woman, 'tis impoffible to be fure of any thing but Death and Taxes—
therefore hold your Tongue, or you (hall both be foundly whipt —
Sure I know my Office —
Give me fome Sack —
Lord, how I fweat !
Why I was in a Dream for fifteen Years myfelf,
and dreamt I marry'd you — Dorcas is your Name" ?
No reference to plagues or pestillence, but given the speaker had been in a dream for 15 years, a malaise might have been induced.
Bullock died young in 1724 which it is said cut short a career of some promise. Although his record in Lempriere's Biographical Dictionary is brief - an eminent English actor of low comedy, and author of two comedies and four farces.
I began this commentary with a question. Where do theories, ideas and thought processes originate?
History is often the answer, but you can discover with some investigation which aspect of history is correct, and of course where blind alleys occur. Given that Christopher Bullock's play was influenced by Shakespeare, Defoe's works influenced by his dissenting diatribes against Catholicism, or Franklin's polymath approach to life influenced his views on the world, all of the above and none of the above are reliable sources for understanding how the certainty of history reflects in the modern age.
As I come full circle with this commentary, and with half an eye on the pandemic of 2020, I'd like to suggest my own quote on Covid-19 - by mis-quoting Professor Brian Cox, and everyone above.
As I come full circle with this commentary, and with half an eye on the pandemic of 2020, I'd like to suggest my own quote on Covid-19 - by mis-quoting Professor Brian Cox, and everyone above.
" .....in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.... though we may need to re-embrace doubt ..... given the age of certainty in humans has now ended”
Notes and References :
Benjamin Franklin : https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin
John-Baptiste Le Roy - in Encyclopedia.Com
Full Text of the 'Death and Taxes quote. https://archive.org/details/394520-benjamin-franklin-to-le-roy-death-and-taxes/mode/2up
On the Affairs of France.
Philadelphia, 13 November, 1789.
It is now more than a year, since I have heard from my dear friend Le Roy. What can be the reason ?
Are you still living'? Or have the mob of Paris mis-taken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole.
Great part of the news we have had from Paris, for near a year past, has been very afflicting. I sincerely wish and pray it may all end well and happy, both for the King and the nation. The voice of Philosophy I apprehend can hardly be heard among those tumults. If any thing material in that way had occurred, I am persuaded you would have acquainted me with it. However, pray let me hear from you a little oftener ; for, though the distance is great, and the means of conveying letters not very regular, a year's silence between friends must needs give uneasiness.
Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency ; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
My health continues much as it has been for some time, except that I grow thinner and weaker, so that I cannot expect to hold out much longer.
My respects to your good brother, and to our friends of the Academy, which always has my best wishes for its prosperity and glory. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever yours most affectionately,
B. Franklin.
Afterword to Every Man His Own Doctor, 1736
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0026
In 1734 Franklin reprinted John Tennent’s Every Man his own Doctor, which had been published earlier that year in a “second edition” in Williamsburg, Va. Franklin may have concluded this “third edition” with the address to his readers, which is reprinted below; but no complete copy is known. In 1736 he reprinted Tennent’s pamphlet in a “fourth edition” with the address to his readers and a postscript based on Tennent’s Essay on Pleurisy, published at Williamsburg in 1736.
Benjamin Franklin Last Words : “A dying man can do nothing easily.” - https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/benjamin-franklins-last-days-funeral-and-a-u-s-senate-slight
Adam Smith Blog : Nothing is certain but death and taxes
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/death-and-taxes
Daniel Defoe - British Library. https://www.bl.uk/people/daniel-defoe
The Political History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe pub.1726 : https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-political-history-of-the-devil-by-daniel-defoe
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of the Devil, by Daniel Defoe
The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe
The Cobler of Preston (pub. 1716), a farce. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.
https://archive.org/details/coblerofprestonf00bull/page/n4/mode/2up
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