The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

  Most people, when their arguments fail, change voice and expression, and instead of retrieving themselves betray their weaknesses and susceptibility by an unmannerly anger. In the excitement of jesting we can sometimes nip those secret chords of one another’s imperfections which we cannot even pluck without offence when we are calm; we warn each other profitably of each other’s faults. There are other sports, physical ones, rash and harsh in the French manner, which I hate unto death. I am touchy and sensitive about such things: in my lifetime I have seen two princes of the blood [C] royal [B] laid in their graves because of them. [C] It is an ugly thing to fight for fun.45

  [B] In addition when I want to judge another man I ask him to what extent he is himself satisfied; how far he is happy with what he has said or written. I want him to avoid those fine excuses: ‘I was only playing at it’ –

  Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud

  [It was taken off the anvil only half finished]46

  – ‘I only spent an hour on it’; ‘I have not seen it since’.– ‘All right,’ I say: ‘let us leave those examples. Show me something which does represent you entirely, something by which you are happy to be measured.’ And then I say ‘What do you consider the most beautiful aspect of your work? Is it this quality or that quality? Is it its gracious style, its subject-matter, your discovery of the material, your judgement, your erudition?’

  For I normally find that men are as wrong in judging their own work as other people’s, not simply because their emotions are involved but because they lack the ability to understand it and to analyse it. The work itself, by its own momentum and fortune, can favour the author beyond his own understanding and research; it can run ahead of him. There is no work that I can judge with less certainty than my own: the Essays I place – very hesitantly and with little assurance – sometimes low, sometimes high.

  Many books are useful for their subject-matter: their authors derive little glory from them. And there are good books which as far as good workmanship is concerned are a disgrace to their authors. I could write about our style of feasting, about our clothing – and I could write it gracelessly; I could publish contemporary edicts and the letters of princes which come into the public domain; I could make an abridgement of a good book (and every abridgement of a good book is a daft one) and then the book itself could chance to get lost. Things like that. From such compilations posterity would derive unique assistance: but what honour would I derive from them except for being lucky? A good proportion of famous books fall in that category.

  When I was reading a few years ago Philippe de Commines – a very good author, certainly – I noted the following saying as being above average: ‘We should be wary of doing such great services to our master that we render him unable to reward them justly.’ I should have praised not him but his discovery of a topic. Not long ago I came upon this sentence in Tacitus: ‘Beneficia eo usque læta sunt dum videntur exolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur.’ [Good turns are pleasing only in so far as they seem repayable. Much beyond that we repay with hatred not gratitude.] [C] Seneca puts it forcefully: ‘Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat.’ [He for whom not to repay is a disgrace wants his benefactor dead.] Quintus Cicero, with a laxer turn of phrase, writes: ‘Qui se non putat satisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo potest.’ [He who cannot repay his debt to you can in no wise love you.]47

  [B] An author’s subject can, when appropriate, show him to be erudite or retentive, but if you are to judge what qualities in him most truly belong to him and are the most honourable (I mean the force and beauty of his soul) you must know what is really his and what definitely is not; and in that which is not, how much we are indebted to him for his selection, disposition, ornamentation and the literary quality of what he had contributed. Supposing he has taken somebody else’s matter and then ruined the style, as often happens! People like us who have little experience of books are in difficulties when we come across some fine example of ingenuity in a modern poet or some strong argument in a preacher. We dare not praise them for it before we have learned from a scholar whether that item is original to them or taken from another. Until I have done that I remain suspicious.

  I have just read through at one go Tacitus’ History (something which rarely happens to me: it is twenty years since I spent one full hour at a time on a book. I did it on the recommendation of a nobleman highly esteemed in France both for his own virtue and for that sustained quality of ability and goodness which he is seen to share with his many brothers). I know of no author who combines a chronicle of public events with so much reflection on individual morals and biases.48 [C] And it appears to me (contrary to what appears to him) that, as he has the particular task of following the careers of the contemporary Emperors (men so odd and so extreme in their various characters) as well as the noteworthy deeds which they provoked in their subjects above all by their cruelty, he has a more striking and interesting topic to relate and discourse upon than if he had to tell of battles and world revolutions. Consequently I find him unprofitable when he dashes through those fair, noble deaths as though he were afraid of tiring us by accounts both too long and too numerous.

  [B] This manner of history is by far the most useful. The unrolling of public events depends more on the guiding hand of Fortune: that of private ones, on our own.49 Tacitus’ work is more a judgement on historical events than a narration of them. There are more precepts than accounts. It is not a book to be read but one to be studied and learnt. It is so full of aphorisms that, apposite or not, they are everywhere. It is a seed-bed of ethical and political arguments to supply and adorn those who hold high rank in the governing of this world. He pleads his case with solid and vigorous reasons, in an epigrammatic and exquisite style following the affected manner of his century. (They were so fond of a high style that when they found no wit or subtlety in their subject-matter they resorted to witty subtle words.) He is not all that different from Seneca, but while he seems to have more flesh on him Seneca is more acute. Tacitus can more properly serve a sickly troubled nation like our own is at present: you could often believe that we were the subject of his narrating and berating. Those who doubt his good faith clearly betray that they resent him from prejudice. He has sound opinions and inclines to the right side in the affairs of Rome. I do regret though that, by making Pompey no better than Marius and Scylla only more secretive, he judged him more harshly than is suggested by the verdict of men who lived and dealt with him.50 True, Pompey’s striving to govern affairs has not been cleared of ambition nor a wish for vengeance: even his friends feared that victory might make him go out of his mind, though not to the extremes of insanity of those other two. Nothing in his life suggests to us the menace of such express tyranny and cruelty. Besides we ought never to let suspicions outweigh evidence: so on this point I do not trust Tacitus.

  That the accounts which he gives are indeed simple and straight can perhaps be argued from the very fact that they do not exactly fit his concluding judgements, to which he is led by the slant he had adopted; they often go beyond the evidence which he provides – which he had not deigned to bias in the slightest degree. He needs no defence for having assented to the religion of his day, in accordance with the laws which bade him to do so, and for being ignorant of the true religion. That is his misfortune not his fault.51

  What I have chiefly been considering is his judgement: I am not entirely clear about it. For example, take these words from the letter sent to the Senate by the aged ailing Tiberius: ‘What, Sirs, should I write to you, what indeed should I not write to you at this time? I know that I am daily nearing death; may the gods and goddesses make my end worse if I know what to write.’ I cannot see why he applies them with such certainty to a poignant remorse tormenting Tiberius’ conscience. Leastways when I came across them I saw no such thing.52

  It also seemed to me a bit weak of him when he was obliged to mention that he had once held an honourable magistracy in Ro
me to go on and explain that he was not referring to it in order to boast about it. That line seemed rather shoddy to me for a soul such as his: not to dare to talk roundly of yourself betrays a defect of thought. A man of straight and elevated mind who judges surely and soundly employs in all circumstances examples taken from himself as well as from others, and frankly cites himself as witness as well as third parties. We should jump over those plebeian rules of etiquette in favour of truth and freedom. [C] I not only dare to talk about myself but to talk of nothing but myself. I am wandering off the point when I write of anything else, cheating my subject of me. I do not love myself with such lack of discretion, nor am I so bound and involved in myself, that I am unable to see myself apart and to consider myself separately as I would a neighbour or a tree. The error is the same if you fail to see the limits of your worth or if you report more than you can see. We owe more love to God than to ourselves.53 We know him less, yet talk about him till we are glutted.

  [B] If Tacitus’ writings tell us anything at all about his character, he was a very great man, upright and courageous, whose virtue was not of the superstitious kind but philosophical and magnanimous. You could find some of his testimony rather rash; for example he maintains that when a soldier’s hands grew stiff with the cold while carrying a pile of wood they adhered to his load, broke away from his arms and stuck there dead.54 In similar cases my custom is to bow to the authority of such great witnesses. When he says that, by favour of Serapis the god, Vespasian cured a blind woman in Alexandria by anointing her eyes with his saliva and also performed some additional miracle or other, he was following the dutiful example of all good historians who keep a chronicle of important happenings: included among public events are popular rumours and opinions. Their role is to give an account of popular beliefs, not to account for them: which part is played by Theologians and philosophers as directors of consciences. That is why his fellow-historian, great man as he was, most wisely said: ‘Equidem plura transcribo quant credo: nam nec affirmare sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi.’ [I do indeed pass on more than I believe. I cannot vouch for the things which I doubt, nor can I omit what I have been told by tradition.] And another says: ‘Haec neque affirmare, neque refellere operae pretium est: famae rerum standum est.’ [These things are neither to be vouched for nor denied: we must cling to tradition.]55 Tacitus, writing during a period in which belief in portents was on the wane, says that he nevertheless does not wish to fail to provide a foothold for them, and so includes in his Annals matters accepted by so many decent people with so great a reverence for antiquity.

  [B] That is very well said. Let them pass on their histories to us according to what they find received, not according to their own estimate. I, who am monarch of the subject which I treat and not accountable for it to anyone, do not for all that believe everything I say. Sometimes my mind launches out with paradoxes which I mistrust [C] and with verbal subtleties which make me shake my head; [B] but I let them take their chance. [C] I know that some men gain a reputation from such things. It is not for me alone to judge them. I describe myself standing up and lying down, from front and back, from right and left and with all my inborn complexities. [B] Even [C] minds56 [B] of sustained power are not always sustained in their application and discernment.

  That is, grosso modo, the Tacitus which is presented to me, vaguely enough, by my memory. [C] All grosso-modo judgements are lax and defective.57

  9. On vanity

  [Montaigne justifies his digressions and expresses his admiration for the ‘motley’ style of Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, with its varied themes, its ‘party-coloured’ subject-matter; there is the suggestion that such a style is particularly appropriate to Man who is (in the final words) ‘the jester of the farce’. ‘On vanity’ is just such a motley, with abrupt changes of subject from vanity (in general and particular) to travel and to political morality. Although philosophy aims at ‘re-forming’ a man (that is, at improving and remoulding his soul as Socrates did) it hardly ever succeeds in its aim. Montaigne’s own soul is unreformed (in that sense) and so never content. Wisdom consists in learning how to accept that fact and to welcome such palliatives as inquiry and travel.]

  [B] Perhaps there is no more manifest vanity than writing so vainly about it. That which the Godhead has made so godly manifest should be meditated upon by men of intelligence anxiously and continuously.1 Anyone can see that I have set out on a road along which I shall travel without toil and without ceasing as long as the world has ink and paper. I cannot give an account of my life by my actions: Fortune has placed them too low for that; so I do so by my thoughts. Thus did a nobleman I once knew reveal his life only by the workings of his bowels: at home he paraded before you a series of seven or eight days’ chamber-pots. He thought about them, talked about them: for him any other topic stank. Here (a little more decorously) you have the droppings of an old mind, sometimes hard, sometimes squittery, but always ill-digested. And when shall I ever have done describing some commotion and revolution of my thoughts, no matter what subject they happen upon, when Diomedes wrote six thousand books on the sole subject of philology?2 What can babble produce when the stammering of an untied tongue smothered the world under such a dreadful weight of volumes? So many words about nothing but words! O Pythagoras! Why couldest thou not conjure such turbulence!3

  A certain Galba in days gone by was criticized for living in idleness. He replied that everyone should have to account for his actions but not for his free time. He was deceiving himself: for justice also takes note and cognizance of those who are not employed. The Law ought to impose restraints on silly useless writers as it does on vagabonds and loafers. Then my own book and a hundred others would be banished from the hands of our people. I am not joking. Scribbling seems to be one of the symptoms of an age of excess. When did we ever write so much as since the beginning of our Civil Wars? And whenever did the Romans do so as just before their collapse? Apart from the fact that to make minds more refined does not mean that a polity is made more wise, such busy idleness arises from everyone slacking over the duties of his vocation and being enticed away. Each individual one of us contributes to the corrupting of our time: some contribute treachery, other (since they are powerful) injustice, irreligion, tyranny, cupidity, cruelty: the weaker ones like me contribute silliness, vanity and idleness. When harmful things are compelling then, it seems, is the season for vain ones; in an age when so many behave wickedly it is almost praiseworthy merely to be useless. I console myself with the thought that I shall be one of the last they will have to lay hands on. While they are dealing with the more urgent cases I shall have time to improve, for to me it seems contrary to reason to punish minor offences while we are ravished by great ones. Philotimus, a doctor, recognized the symptoms of an ulcerated lung from the features and breath of a patient who brought him his finger to be dressed. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘this is no time to be worrying about fingernails!’4

  While on this subject, a few years ago a great man, whom I recall with particular esteem, in the midst of our great ills, when there was no justice, law or magistrate functioning properly any more than today, went and published edicts covering some wretched reform or other of our clothing, eating and legal chicanery.5 Such things are tidbits on which we feed an ill-governed people to show that we have not entirely forgotten them. Others do the same when they issue detailed prohibitions of swear-words, dances and sports for a people sunk in detestable vices of every kind.6 It is not the time to wash and to get the dirt off once you have caught a good fever. [C] It is right only for Spartans about to rush into some extreme mortal danger to start combing and dressing their hair.7

  [B] I have a worse habit myself: if one of my shoes is askew then I let my shirt and my cloak lie askew as well: I am too proud to amend my ways by halves. When my condition is bad I cling violently to my illness: I abandon myself to despair and let myself go towards catastrophe, [C] casting as they say the haft after the axe-head; [B] stubbor
nly, I want to get worse and think myself no longer worth curing. Either totally well or totally ill.

  It is a boon for me that the forlorn State of France should correspond to the forlorn age I have reached. It is easier for me to accept that my ills should be augmented by it than that such good things as I have should be troubled by it. The words I utter when wretched are words of defiance: instead of lying low my mind bristles up. Contrary to others I find I am more prayerful in good fortune than in bad. Following Xenophon’s precept, though not his reasoning, I am more ready to make sheep’s eyes at Heaven in thanksgiving than in supplication.8 I am more anxious to improve my health when it beams upon me than to restore it when I have lost it; prosperous times serve to discipline me and instruct me, as rods and adversities do to others. [C] As though good fortune were incompatible with a good conscience, men never become moral except when fortune is bad. For me good luck9 [B] is a unique spur to measure and moderation. Entreaties win me over: menaces I despise; [C] good-will makes me bow: fear makes me unbending.

  [B] Among men’s characteristics this one is common enough: to delight more in what belongs to others than to ourselves and to love variation and change:

  Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu

  Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis.