Solemn Dissertation on the Philosophy of Silence

DE PHILOSOPHIA SILENTII

...it, and besides, this type of man has a more tender sense of injury inflicted, with the concurrent danger of losing honor and fame, by which all the affairs of the proud stand and fall: in the melancholic, it is persistent, because of the more frequent repetition of the injury, the fear of new evil imminent from the injurer, and not least the abundance of black bile, which produces movement in the desire for vengeance just as it is slower in the blood. From which it is very easy to discern concerning whose anger Solomon spoke, Proverbs 12, verse 16: "The fool immediately indicates his anger." Let silence therefore remain a probable sign of anger, not entirely certain; common, not definitely proper, because lovers also love silence; general, not special, like eyes that are fierce in anger: and in view of this, it must be properly joined with others.

If indeed philosophy contains any part within its scope where silence is observed before others, certainly Politics must be called by me by this name. It exists as the assiduous investigator of those arcana secrets which hide the affairs of those associating or those ruling. How much prudence of those associating requires silence has been said in part in §. IV & XIIX. However, nothing happens more frequently in civil life conversation than to entrust something to another under the pledge of silence. Such an imposition of silence is ambiguous, not unworthy of being more openly explained in the philosophy of silence. Namely, something is entrusted to someone's faith in conversation, whether daily or select. In that daily one, a protestation entirely contrary to the fact occurs, especially when it is instituted among those whose faith the other has not yet sufficiently tested, or, lacking opportunity, could not test. If, however, a decision is sought from a select conversation, the friend's customs should be weighed, and in them the intention: whether he is a feigned or a true friend. Among the former, divulgence is in the open, provided...