Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 045
Total number of words is 4977
Total number of unique words is 1478
45.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words
65.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words
74.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
Expressive motions with their hands and eyes.”
And why not, as well as our dumb people, dispute, argue, and tell
stories by signs? Of whom I have seen some, by practice, so clever and
active that way that, in fact, they wanted nothing of the perfection
of making themselves understood. Lovers are angry, reconciled, intreat,
thank, appoint, and, in short, speak all things by their eyes:
“Even silence in a lover
Love and passion can discover.”
What with the hands? We require, promise, call, dismiss, threaten, pray,
supplicate, deny, refuse, interrogate, admire, number, confess, repent,
fear, express confusion, doubt, instruct, command, incite, encourage,
swear, testify, accuse, condemn, absolve, abuse, despise, defy, provoke,
flatter, applaud, bless, submit, mock, reconcile, recommend, exalt,
entertain, congratulate, complain, grieve, despair, wonder, exclaim, and
what not! And all this with a variety and multiplication, even emulating
speech. With the head we invite, remand, confess, deny, give the lie,
welcome, honour, reverence, disdain, demand, rejoice, lament, reject,
caress, rebuke, submit, huff, encourage, threaten, assure, and inquire.
What with the eyebrows?--what with the shoulders! There is not a motion
that does not speak, and in an intelligible language without discipline,
and a public language that every one understands: whence it should
follow, the variety and use distinguished from others considered, that
these should rather be judged the property of human nature. I omit
what necessity particularly does suddenly suggest to those who are in
need;--the alphabets upon the fingers, grammars in gesture, and the
sciences which are only by them exercised and expressed; and the nations
that Pliny reports have no other language. An ambassador of the city of
Abdera, after a long conference with Agis, King of Sparta, demanded of
him, “Well, sir, what answer must I return to my fellow-citizens?” “That
I have given thee leave,” said he, “to say what thou wouldest, and as
much as thou wouldest, without ever speaking a word.” is not this a
silent speaking, and very easy to be understood?
As to the rest, what is there in us that we do not see in the operations
of animals? Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better
distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that
of bees? Can we imagine that such, and so regular, a distribution of
employments can be carried on without reasoning and deliberation?
“Hence to the bee some sages have assign’d
Some portion of the god and heavenly wind.”
The swallows that we see at the return of the spring, searching all the
corners of our houses for the most commodious places wherein to build
their nest; do they seek without judgment, and amongst a thousand choose
out the most proper for their purpose, without discretion? And in that
elegant and admirable contexture of their buildings, can birds rather
make choice of a square figure than a round, of an obtuse than of a
right angle, without knowing their properties and effects? Do they bring
water, and then clay, without knowing that the hardness of the latter
grows softer by being wetted? Do they mat their palace with moss or down
without foreseeing that their tender young will lie more safe and easy?
Do they secure themselves from the wet and rainy winds, and place their
lodgings against the east, without knowing the different qualities of
the winds, and considering that one is more wholesome than another?
Why does the spider make her web tighter in one place, and slacker in
another; why now make one sort of knot, and then another, if she has not
deliberation, thought, and conclusion? We sufficiently discover in most
of their works how much animals excel us, and how unable our art is to
imitate them. We see, nevertheless, in our rougher performances, that we
employ all our faculties, and apply the utmost power of our souls; why
do we not conclude the same of them?
Why should we attribute to I know not what natural and servile
inclination the works that excel all we can do by nature and art?
wherein, without being aware, we give them a mighty advantage over us
in making nature, with maternal gentleness and love, accompany and learn
them, as it were, by the hand to all the actions and commodities of
their life, whilst she leaves us to chance and fortune, and to seek out
by art the things that are necessary to our conservation, at the same
time denying us the means of being able, by any instruction or effort of
understanding, to arrive at the natural sufficiency of beasts; so that
their brutish stupidity surpasses, in all conveniences, all that our
divine intelligence can do. Really, at this rate, we might with great
reason call her an unjust stepmother: but it is nothing so, our polity
is not so irregular and unformed.
Nature has universally cared for all her creatures, and there is not
one she has not amply furnished with all means necessary for the
conservation of its being. For the common complaints I hear men make (as
the license of their opinions one while lifts them up above the clouds,
and then again depresses them to the antipodes), that we are the only
animal abandoned naked upon the bare earth, tied and bound, not having
wherewithal to arm and clothe us but by the spoil of others; whereas
nature has covered all other creatures either with shells, husks,
bark, hair, wool, prickles, leather, down, feathers, scales, or silk,
according to the necessities of their being; has armed them with talons,
teeth, or horns, wherewith to assault and defend, and has herself taught
them that which is most proper for them, to swim, to run, to fly, and
sing, whereas man neither knows how to walk, speak, eat, or do any thing
but weep, without teaching;
“Like to the wretched mariner, when toss’d
By raging seas upon the desert coast,
The tender babe lies naked on the earth,
Of all supports of life stript by his birth;
When nature first presents him to the day,
Freed from the cell wherein before he lay,
He fills the ambient air with doleful cries.
Foretelling thus life’s future miseries;
But beasts, both wild and tame, greater and less,
Do of themselves in strength and bulk increase;
They need no rattle, nor the broken chat,
Ay which the nurse first teaches boys to prate
They look not out for different robes to wear,
According to the seasons of the year;
And need no arms nor walls their goods to save,
Since earth and liberal nature ever have,
And will, in all abundance, still produce
All things whereof they can have need or use:”
these complaints are false; there is in the polity of the world a
greater equality and more uniform relation. Our skins are as sufficient
to defend us from the injuries of the weather as theirs are; witness
several nations that yet know not the use of clothes. Our ancient Gauls
were but slenderly clad, any more than the Irish, our neighbours, though
in so cold a climate; but we may better judge of this by ourselves: for
all those parts that we are pleased to expose to the air are found very
able to endure it: the face, the feet, the hands, the arms, the head,
according to the various habit; if there be a tender part about us,
and that would seem to be in danger from cold, it should be the stomach
where the digestion is; and yet our forefathers were there always
open, and our ladies, as tender and delicate as they are, go sometimes
half-bare as low as the navel. Neither is the binding or swathing of
infants any more necessary; and the Lacedæmoman mothers brought theirs
in all liberty of motion of members, without any ligature at all. Our
crying is common with the greatest part of other animals, and there are
but few creatures that are not observed to groan, and bemoan themselves
a long time after they come into the world; forasmuch as it is a
behaviour suitable to the weakness wherein they find themselves. As
to the custom of eating, it is in us, as in them, natural, and without
instruction;
“For every one soon finds his natural force.
Which he, or better may employ, or worse.”
Who doubts but an infant, arrived to the strength of feeding himself,
may make shift to find something to eat And the earth produces and
offers him wherewithal to supply his necessity, without other culture
and artifice; and if not at all times, no more does she do it to beasts,
witness the provision we see ants and other creatures hoard up against
the dead seasons of the year. The late discovered nations, so abundantly
furnished with natural meat and drink, without care, or without cookery,
may give us to understand that bread is not our only food, and that,
without tillage, our mother nature has provided us sufficiently of all
we stand in need of: nay, it appears more fully and plentifully than she
does at present, now that we have added our own industry:
“The earth did first spontaneously afford
Choice fruits and wines to furnish out the board;
With herbs and flow’rs unsown in verdant fields.
But scarce by art so good a harvest yields;
Though men and oxen mutually have strove,
With all their utmost force the soil t’ improve,”
the debauchery and irregularity of our appetites outstrips all the
inventions we can contrive to satisfy it.
As to arms, we have more natural ones than than most other animals more
various motions of limbs, and naturally and without lesson extract more
service from them. Those that are trained to fight naked are seen
to throw themselves into the like hazards that we do. If some beasts
surpass us in this advantage, we surpass many others. And the industry
of fortifying the body, and covering it by acquired means, we have by
instinct and natural precept? That it is so, the elephant shows
who sharpen, and whets the teeth he makes use of in war (for he has
particular ones for that service, which he spares, and never employs
them at all to any other use); when bulls go to fight, they toss and
throw the dust about them; boars whet their tusks; and the ichneumon,
when he is about to engage with the crocodile, fortifies his body,
and covers and crusts it all over with close-wrought and well-tempered
slime, as with a cuirass. Why shall we not say that it is also natural
for us to arm ourselves with wood and iron?
As to speech, it is certain that if it be not natural it is not
necessary. Nevertheless I believe that a child which had been brought up
in an absolute solitude, remote from all society of men (which would
be an experiment very hard to make), would have some kind of speech to
express his meaning by. And ‘tis not to be supposed that nature should
have denied that to us which she has given to several other animals:
for what is this faculty we observe in them, of complaining, rejoicing,
calling to one another for succour, and inviting each other to love,
which they do with the voice, other than speech? And why should they
not speak to one another? They speak to us, and we to them. In how many
several sorts of ways do we speak to our dogs, and they answer us?
We converse with them in another sort of language, and use other
appellations, than we do with birds, hogs, oxen, horses, and alter the
idiom according to the kind.
“Thus from one swarm of ants some sally out.
To spy another’s stock or mark its rout.”
Lactantius seems to attribute to beasts not only speech, but laughter
also. And the difference of language which is seen amongst us, according
to the difference of countries, is also observed in animals of the
same kind. Aristotle, in proof of this, instances the Various calls of
partridges, according to the situation of places:
“And various birds do from their warbling throats
At various times, utter quite different notes,
And some their hoarse songs with the seasons change.”
But it is yet to be known what language this child would speak; and of
that what is said by guess has no great appearance. If a man will allege
to me, in opposition to this opinion, that those who are naturally deaf
speak not, I answer that this is not only because they could not receive
the instruction of speaking by ear, but rather because the sense of
hearing, of which they are deprived, relates to that of speaking, and
that these hold together by a natural and inseparable tie, in such
manner that what we speak we must first speak to ourselves within, and
make it sound in our own ears, before we can utter it to others.
All this I have said to prove the resemblance there is in human things,
and to bring us back and join us to the crowd. We are neither above nor
below the rest All that is under heaven, says the sage, runs one law and
one fortune:
“All things remain
Bound and entangled in one fatal chain.”
There is, indeed, some difference,--there are several orders and
degrees; but it is under the aspect of one and the same nature:
“All things by their own rites proceed, and draw
Towards their ends, by nature’s certain law.”
Man must be compelled and restrained within the bounds of this polity.
Miserable creature! he is not in a condition really to step over the
rail. He is fettered and circumscribed, he is subjected to the same
necessity that the other creatures of his rank and order are, and of
a very mean condition, without any prerogative of true and real
pre-eminence. That which he attributes to himself, by vain fancy and
opinion, has neither body nor taste. And if it be so, that he only, of
all the animals, has this liberty of imagination and irregularity of
thoughts, representing to him that which is, that which is not, and that
he would have, the false and the true, ‘tis an advantage dearly bought,
and of which he has very little reason to be proud; for thence springs
the principal and original fountain of all the evils that befal
him,--sin, sickness, irresolution, affliction, despair. I say, then,
to return to my subject, that there is no appearance to induce a man to
believe that beasts should, by a natural and forced inclination, do the
same things that we do by our choice and industry. We ought from like
effects to conclude like faculties, and from greater effects greater
faculties; and consequently confess that the same reasoning, and the
same ways by which we operate, are common with them, or that they have
others that are better. Why should we imagine this natural constraint in
them, who experience no such effect in ourselves? added that it is more
honourable to be guided and obliged to act regularly by a natural and
inevitable condition, and nearer allied to the divinity, than to act
regularly by a temerarious and fortuitous liberty, and more safe to
entrust the reins of our conduct in the hands of nature than our
own. The vanity of our presumption makes us prefer rather to owe our
sufficiency to our own exertions than to her bounty, and to enrich the
other animals with natural goods, and abjure them in their favour,
in order to honour and ennoble ourselves with goods acquired, very
foolishly in my opinion; for I should as much value parts and virtues
naturally and purely my own as those I had begged and obtained from
education. It is not in our power to obtain a nobler reputation than to
be favoured of God and nature.
For instance, take the fox, the people of Thrace make use of when they
wish to pass over the ice of some frozen river, and turn him out before
them to that purpose; when we see him lay his ear upon the bank of
the river, down to the ice, to listen if from a more remote or nearer
distance he can hear the noise of the waters’ current, and, according as
he finds by that the ice to be of a less or greater thickness, to retire
or advance,--have we not reason to believe thence that the same rational
thoughts passed through his head that we should have upon the like
occasions; and that it is a ratiocination and consequence, drawn from
natural sense, that that which makes a noise runs, that which runs
is not frozen, what is not frozen is liquid, and that which is liquid
yields to impression! For to attribute this to a mere quickness of the
sense of hearing, without reason and consequence, is a chimæra that
cannot enter into the imagination. We are to suppose the same of
the many sorts of subtleties and inventions with which beasts secure
themselves from, and frustrate, the enterprizes we plot against them.
And if we will make an advantage even of this, that it is in our power
to seize them, to employ them in our service, and to use them at our
pleasure, ‘tis still but the same advantage we have over one another. We
have our slaves upon these terms: the Climacidæ, were they not women
in Syria who, squat on all fours, served for a ladder or footstool, by
which the ladies mounted their coaches? And the greatest part of free
persons surrender, for very trivial conveniences, their life and being
into the power of another. The wives and concubines of the Thracians
contended who should be chosen to be slain upon their husband’s tomb.
Have tyrants ever failed of finding men enough vowed to their devotion?
some of them moreover adding this necessity, of accompanying them in
death as well as life? Whole armies have bound themselves after this
manner to their captains. The form of the oath in the rude school of
gladiators was in these words: “We swear to suffer ourselves to be
chained, burnt, wounded, and killed with the sword, and to endure all
that true gladiators suffer from their master, religiously engaging both
body and soul in his service.”
Uire meum, si vis, flamma caput, et pete ferro
Corpus, et iutorto verbere terga seca.
“Wound me with steel, or burn my head with fire.
Or scourge my shoulders with well-twisted wire.”
This was an obligation indeed, and yet there, in one year, ten thousand
entered into it, to their destruction. When the Scythians interred their
king they strangled upon his body the most beloved of his concubines,
his cup-bearer, the master of his horse, his chamberlain, the usher of
his chamber, and his cook. And upon the anniversary thereof they killed
fifty horses, mounted by fifty pages, that they had impaled all up the
spine of the back to the throat, and there left them fixed in triumph
about his tomb. The men that serve us do it cheaper, and for a less
careful and favourable usage than what we treat our hawks, horses and
dogs withal. To what solicitude do we not submit for the conveniences of
these? I do not think that servants of the most abject condition would
willingly do that for their masters that princes think it an honour to
do for their beasts. Diogenes seeing his relations solicitous to redeem,
him from servitude: “They are fools,” said he; “‘tis he that keeps and
nourishes me that in reality serves me.” And they who entertain beasts
ought rather to be said to serve them, than to be served by them. And
withal in this these have something more generous in that one lion
never submitted to another lion, nor one horse to another, for want of
courage. As we go to the chase of beasts, so do tigers and lions to
the chase of men, and do the same execution upon one another; dogs upon
hares, pikes upon tench, swallows upon grass-hoppers, and sparrow-hawks
upon blackbirds and larks:
“The stork with snakes and lizards from the wood
And pathless wilds supports her callow brood,
While Jove’s own eagle, bird of noble blood,
Scours the wide country for undaunted food;
Sweeps the swift hare or swifter fawn away,
And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey.”
We divide the quarry, as well as the pains and labour of the chase, with
our hawks and hounds. And about Amphipolis, in Thrace, the hawkers and
wild falcons equally divide the prey in the half. As also along the lake
Mæotis, if the fisherman does not honestly leave the wolves an equal
share of what he has caught, they presently go and tear his nets in
pieces. And as we have a way of sporting that is carried on more by
subtlety than force, as springing hares, and angling with line and hook,
there is also the like amongst other animals. Aristotle says that the
cuttle-fish casts a gut out of her throat as long as a line, which she
extends and draws back at pleasure; and as she perceives some little
fish approach her she lets it nibble upon the end of this gut, lying
herself concealed in the sand or mud, and by little and little draws it
in, till the little fish is so near her that at one spring she may catch
it.
As to strength, there is no creature in the world exposed to so many
injuries as man. We need not a whale, elephant, or a crocodile, nor any
such-like animals, of which one alone is sufficient to dispatch a great
number of men, to do our business; lice are sufficient to vacate Sylla’s
dictatorship; and the heart and life of a great and triumphant emperor
is the breakfast of a little contemptible worm!
Why should we say that it is only for man, or knowledge built up by
art and meditation, to distinguish the things useful for his being, and
proper for the cure of his diseases, and those which are not; to know
the virtues of rhubarb and polypody. When we see the goats of Candia,
when wounded with an arrow, among a million of plants choose out
dittany for their cure; and the tortoise, when she has eaten a viper,
immediately go out to look for origanum to purge her; the dragon to rub
and clear his eyes with fennel; the storks to give themselves clysters
of sea-water; the elephants to draw not only out of their own bodies,
and those of their companions, but out of the bodies of their masters
too (witness the elephant of King Porus whom Alexander defeated), the
darts and javelins thrown at them in battle, and that so dexterously
that we ourselves could not do it with so little pain to the
patient;--why do we not say here also that this is knowledge and reason?
For to allege, to their disparagement, that ‘tis by the sole instruction
and dictate of nature that they know all this, is not to take from them
the dignity of knowledge and reason, but with greater force to attribute
it to them than to us, for the honour of so infallible a mistress.
Chrysippus, though in other things as scornful a judge of the condition
of animals as any other philosopher whatever, considering the motions of
a dog, who coming to a place where three ways met, either to hunt after
his master he has lost, or in pursuit of some game that flies before
him, goes snuffing first in one of the ways, and then in another, and,
after having made himself sure of two, without finding the trace of
what he seeks, dashes into the third without examination, is forced to
confess that this reasoning is in the dog: “I have traced my master to
this place; he must of necessity be gone one of these three ways; he is
not gone this way nor that, he must then infallibly be gone this other;”
and that assuring himself by this conclusion, he makes no use of his
nose in the third way, nor ever lays it to the ground, but suffers
himself to be carried on there bv the force of reason. This sally,
purely logical, and this use of propositions divided and conjoined, and
the right enumeration of parts, is it not every whit as good that the
dog knows all this of himself as well as from Trapezuntius?
Animals are not incapable, however, of being instructed after our
method. We teach blackbirds, ravens, pies, and parrots, to speak: and
the facility wherewith we see they lend us their voices, and render both
them and their breath so supple and pliant, to be formed and confined
within a certain number of letters and syllables, does evince that they
have a reason within, which renders them so docile and willing to learn.
Everybody, I believe, is glutted with the several sorts of tricks that
tumblers teach their dogs; the dances, where they do not miss any one
cadence of the sound they hear; the several various motions and leaps
they make them perform by the command of a word. But I observe this
effect with the greatest admiration, which nevertheless is very common,
in the dogs that lead the blind, both in the country and in cities: I
have taken notice how they stop at certain doors, where they are wont
to receive alms; how they avoid the encounter of coaches and carts, even
there where they have sufficient room to pass; I have seen them, by the
trench of a town, forsake a plain and even path and take a worse, only
to keep their masters further from the ditch;--how could a man have
made this dog understand that it was his office to look to his master’s
safely only, and to despise his own conveniency to serve him? And how
had he the knowledge that a way was wide enough for him that was not so
for a blind man? Can all this be apprehended without ratiocination!
I must not omit what Plutarch says he saw of a dog at Rome with the
Emperor Vespasian, the father, at the theatre of Marcellus. This dog
served a player, that played a farce of several parts and personages,
and had therein his part. He had, amongst other things, to counterfeit
himself for some time dead, by reason of a certain drug he was supposed
to eat After he had swallowed a piece of bread, which passed for the
drug, he began after awhile to tremble and stagger, as if he was taken
giddy: at last, stretching himself out stiff, as if dead, he suffered
himself to be drawn and dragged from place to place, as it was his part
to do; and afterward, when he knew it to be time, he began first gently
to stir, as if awaking out of a profound sleep, and lifting up his head
looked about him after such a manner as astonished all the spectators.
The oxen that served in the royal gardens of Susa, to water them, and
turn certain great wheels to draw water for that purpose, to which
buckets were fastened (such as there are many in Languedoc), being
ordered every one to draw a hundred turns a day, they were so accustomed
to this number that it was impossible by any force to make them draw one
turn more; but, their task being performed, they would suddenly stop and
stand still. We are almost men before we can count a hundred, and have
lately discovered nations that have no knowledge of numbers at all.
There is more understanding required in the teaching of’ others than in
being taught. Now, setting aside what Democritus held and proved, “That
most of the arts we have were taught us by other animals,” as by the
spider to weave and sew; by the swallow to build; by the swan and
nightingale music; and by several animals to make medicines:--Aristotle
is of opinion “That the nightingales teach their young ones to sing, and
spend a great deal of time and care in it;” whence it happens that those
we bring up in cages, and which have not had the time to learn of their
parents, want much of the grace of their singing: we may judge by this
that they improve by discipline and study; and, even amongst the wild,
it is not all and every one alike--every one has learnt to do better
or worse, according to their capacity. And so jealous are they one of
another, whilst learning, that they contention with emulation, and by
so vigorous a contention that sometimes the vanquished fall dead upon the
place, the breath rather failing than the voice. The younger ruminate
pensively and begin to mutter some broken notes; the disciple listens
to the master’s lesson, and gives the best account he is able; they
are silent oy turns; one may hear faults corrected and observe some
reprehensions of the teacher. “Ï have formerly seen,” says Arrian, “an
elephant having a cymbal hung at each leg, and another fastened to his
trunk, at the sound of which all the others danced round about him,
rising and bending at certain cadences, as they were guided by
the instrument; and ‘twas delightful to hear this harmony.” In the
spectacles of Rome there were ordinarily seen elephants taught to move
and dance to the sound of the voice, dances wherein were several changes
and cadences very hard to learn. And some have been known so intent upon
And why not, as well as our dumb people, dispute, argue, and tell
stories by signs? Of whom I have seen some, by practice, so clever and
active that way that, in fact, they wanted nothing of the perfection
of making themselves understood. Lovers are angry, reconciled, intreat,
thank, appoint, and, in short, speak all things by their eyes:
“Even silence in a lover
Love and passion can discover.”
What with the hands? We require, promise, call, dismiss, threaten, pray,
supplicate, deny, refuse, interrogate, admire, number, confess, repent,
fear, express confusion, doubt, instruct, command, incite, encourage,
swear, testify, accuse, condemn, absolve, abuse, despise, defy, provoke,
flatter, applaud, bless, submit, mock, reconcile, recommend, exalt,
entertain, congratulate, complain, grieve, despair, wonder, exclaim, and
what not! And all this with a variety and multiplication, even emulating
speech. With the head we invite, remand, confess, deny, give the lie,
welcome, honour, reverence, disdain, demand, rejoice, lament, reject,
caress, rebuke, submit, huff, encourage, threaten, assure, and inquire.
What with the eyebrows?--what with the shoulders! There is not a motion
that does not speak, and in an intelligible language without discipline,
and a public language that every one understands: whence it should
follow, the variety and use distinguished from others considered, that
these should rather be judged the property of human nature. I omit
what necessity particularly does suddenly suggest to those who are in
need;--the alphabets upon the fingers, grammars in gesture, and the
sciences which are only by them exercised and expressed; and the nations
that Pliny reports have no other language. An ambassador of the city of
Abdera, after a long conference with Agis, King of Sparta, demanded of
him, “Well, sir, what answer must I return to my fellow-citizens?” “That
I have given thee leave,” said he, “to say what thou wouldest, and as
much as thou wouldest, without ever speaking a word.” is not this a
silent speaking, and very easy to be understood?
As to the rest, what is there in us that we do not see in the operations
of animals? Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better
distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that
of bees? Can we imagine that such, and so regular, a distribution of
employments can be carried on without reasoning and deliberation?
“Hence to the bee some sages have assign’d
Some portion of the god and heavenly wind.”
The swallows that we see at the return of the spring, searching all the
corners of our houses for the most commodious places wherein to build
their nest; do they seek without judgment, and amongst a thousand choose
out the most proper for their purpose, without discretion? And in that
elegant and admirable contexture of their buildings, can birds rather
make choice of a square figure than a round, of an obtuse than of a
right angle, without knowing their properties and effects? Do they bring
water, and then clay, without knowing that the hardness of the latter
grows softer by being wetted? Do they mat their palace with moss or down
without foreseeing that their tender young will lie more safe and easy?
Do they secure themselves from the wet and rainy winds, and place their
lodgings against the east, without knowing the different qualities of
the winds, and considering that one is more wholesome than another?
Why does the spider make her web tighter in one place, and slacker in
another; why now make one sort of knot, and then another, if she has not
deliberation, thought, and conclusion? We sufficiently discover in most
of their works how much animals excel us, and how unable our art is to
imitate them. We see, nevertheless, in our rougher performances, that we
employ all our faculties, and apply the utmost power of our souls; why
do we not conclude the same of them?
Why should we attribute to I know not what natural and servile
inclination the works that excel all we can do by nature and art?
wherein, without being aware, we give them a mighty advantage over us
in making nature, with maternal gentleness and love, accompany and learn
them, as it were, by the hand to all the actions and commodities of
their life, whilst she leaves us to chance and fortune, and to seek out
by art the things that are necessary to our conservation, at the same
time denying us the means of being able, by any instruction or effort of
understanding, to arrive at the natural sufficiency of beasts; so that
their brutish stupidity surpasses, in all conveniences, all that our
divine intelligence can do. Really, at this rate, we might with great
reason call her an unjust stepmother: but it is nothing so, our polity
is not so irregular and unformed.
Nature has universally cared for all her creatures, and there is not
one she has not amply furnished with all means necessary for the
conservation of its being. For the common complaints I hear men make (as
the license of their opinions one while lifts them up above the clouds,
and then again depresses them to the antipodes), that we are the only
animal abandoned naked upon the bare earth, tied and bound, not having
wherewithal to arm and clothe us but by the spoil of others; whereas
nature has covered all other creatures either with shells, husks,
bark, hair, wool, prickles, leather, down, feathers, scales, or silk,
according to the necessities of their being; has armed them with talons,
teeth, or horns, wherewith to assault and defend, and has herself taught
them that which is most proper for them, to swim, to run, to fly, and
sing, whereas man neither knows how to walk, speak, eat, or do any thing
but weep, without teaching;
“Like to the wretched mariner, when toss’d
By raging seas upon the desert coast,
The tender babe lies naked on the earth,
Of all supports of life stript by his birth;
When nature first presents him to the day,
Freed from the cell wherein before he lay,
He fills the ambient air with doleful cries.
Foretelling thus life’s future miseries;
But beasts, both wild and tame, greater and less,
Do of themselves in strength and bulk increase;
They need no rattle, nor the broken chat,
Ay which the nurse first teaches boys to prate
They look not out for different robes to wear,
According to the seasons of the year;
And need no arms nor walls their goods to save,
Since earth and liberal nature ever have,
And will, in all abundance, still produce
All things whereof they can have need or use:”
these complaints are false; there is in the polity of the world a
greater equality and more uniform relation. Our skins are as sufficient
to defend us from the injuries of the weather as theirs are; witness
several nations that yet know not the use of clothes. Our ancient Gauls
were but slenderly clad, any more than the Irish, our neighbours, though
in so cold a climate; but we may better judge of this by ourselves: for
all those parts that we are pleased to expose to the air are found very
able to endure it: the face, the feet, the hands, the arms, the head,
according to the various habit; if there be a tender part about us,
and that would seem to be in danger from cold, it should be the stomach
where the digestion is; and yet our forefathers were there always
open, and our ladies, as tender and delicate as they are, go sometimes
half-bare as low as the navel. Neither is the binding or swathing of
infants any more necessary; and the Lacedæmoman mothers brought theirs
in all liberty of motion of members, without any ligature at all. Our
crying is common with the greatest part of other animals, and there are
but few creatures that are not observed to groan, and bemoan themselves
a long time after they come into the world; forasmuch as it is a
behaviour suitable to the weakness wherein they find themselves. As
to the custom of eating, it is in us, as in them, natural, and without
instruction;
“For every one soon finds his natural force.
Which he, or better may employ, or worse.”
Who doubts but an infant, arrived to the strength of feeding himself,
may make shift to find something to eat And the earth produces and
offers him wherewithal to supply his necessity, without other culture
and artifice; and if not at all times, no more does she do it to beasts,
witness the provision we see ants and other creatures hoard up against
the dead seasons of the year. The late discovered nations, so abundantly
furnished with natural meat and drink, without care, or without cookery,
may give us to understand that bread is not our only food, and that,
without tillage, our mother nature has provided us sufficiently of all
we stand in need of: nay, it appears more fully and plentifully than she
does at present, now that we have added our own industry:
“The earth did first spontaneously afford
Choice fruits and wines to furnish out the board;
With herbs and flow’rs unsown in verdant fields.
But scarce by art so good a harvest yields;
Though men and oxen mutually have strove,
With all their utmost force the soil t’ improve,”
the debauchery and irregularity of our appetites outstrips all the
inventions we can contrive to satisfy it.
As to arms, we have more natural ones than than most other animals more
various motions of limbs, and naturally and without lesson extract more
service from them. Those that are trained to fight naked are seen
to throw themselves into the like hazards that we do. If some beasts
surpass us in this advantage, we surpass many others. And the industry
of fortifying the body, and covering it by acquired means, we have by
instinct and natural precept? That it is so, the elephant shows
who sharpen, and whets the teeth he makes use of in war (for he has
particular ones for that service, which he spares, and never employs
them at all to any other use); when bulls go to fight, they toss and
throw the dust about them; boars whet their tusks; and the ichneumon,
when he is about to engage with the crocodile, fortifies his body,
and covers and crusts it all over with close-wrought and well-tempered
slime, as with a cuirass. Why shall we not say that it is also natural
for us to arm ourselves with wood and iron?
As to speech, it is certain that if it be not natural it is not
necessary. Nevertheless I believe that a child which had been brought up
in an absolute solitude, remote from all society of men (which would
be an experiment very hard to make), would have some kind of speech to
express his meaning by. And ‘tis not to be supposed that nature should
have denied that to us which she has given to several other animals:
for what is this faculty we observe in them, of complaining, rejoicing,
calling to one another for succour, and inviting each other to love,
which they do with the voice, other than speech? And why should they
not speak to one another? They speak to us, and we to them. In how many
several sorts of ways do we speak to our dogs, and they answer us?
We converse with them in another sort of language, and use other
appellations, than we do with birds, hogs, oxen, horses, and alter the
idiom according to the kind.
“Thus from one swarm of ants some sally out.
To spy another’s stock or mark its rout.”
Lactantius seems to attribute to beasts not only speech, but laughter
also. And the difference of language which is seen amongst us, according
to the difference of countries, is also observed in animals of the
same kind. Aristotle, in proof of this, instances the Various calls of
partridges, according to the situation of places:
“And various birds do from their warbling throats
At various times, utter quite different notes,
And some their hoarse songs with the seasons change.”
But it is yet to be known what language this child would speak; and of
that what is said by guess has no great appearance. If a man will allege
to me, in opposition to this opinion, that those who are naturally deaf
speak not, I answer that this is not only because they could not receive
the instruction of speaking by ear, but rather because the sense of
hearing, of which they are deprived, relates to that of speaking, and
that these hold together by a natural and inseparable tie, in such
manner that what we speak we must first speak to ourselves within, and
make it sound in our own ears, before we can utter it to others.
All this I have said to prove the resemblance there is in human things,
and to bring us back and join us to the crowd. We are neither above nor
below the rest All that is under heaven, says the sage, runs one law and
one fortune:
“All things remain
Bound and entangled in one fatal chain.”
There is, indeed, some difference,--there are several orders and
degrees; but it is under the aspect of one and the same nature:
“All things by their own rites proceed, and draw
Towards their ends, by nature’s certain law.”
Man must be compelled and restrained within the bounds of this polity.
Miserable creature! he is not in a condition really to step over the
rail. He is fettered and circumscribed, he is subjected to the same
necessity that the other creatures of his rank and order are, and of
a very mean condition, without any prerogative of true and real
pre-eminence. That which he attributes to himself, by vain fancy and
opinion, has neither body nor taste. And if it be so, that he only, of
all the animals, has this liberty of imagination and irregularity of
thoughts, representing to him that which is, that which is not, and that
he would have, the false and the true, ‘tis an advantage dearly bought,
and of which he has very little reason to be proud; for thence springs
the principal and original fountain of all the evils that befal
him,--sin, sickness, irresolution, affliction, despair. I say, then,
to return to my subject, that there is no appearance to induce a man to
believe that beasts should, by a natural and forced inclination, do the
same things that we do by our choice and industry. We ought from like
effects to conclude like faculties, and from greater effects greater
faculties; and consequently confess that the same reasoning, and the
same ways by which we operate, are common with them, or that they have
others that are better. Why should we imagine this natural constraint in
them, who experience no such effect in ourselves? added that it is more
honourable to be guided and obliged to act regularly by a natural and
inevitable condition, and nearer allied to the divinity, than to act
regularly by a temerarious and fortuitous liberty, and more safe to
entrust the reins of our conduct in the hands of nature than our
own. The vanity of our presumption makes us prefer rather to owe our
sufficiency to our own exertions than to her bounty, and to enrich the
other animals with natural goods, and abjure them in their favour,
in order to honour and ennoble ourselves with goods acquired, very
foolishly in my opinion; for I should as much value parts and virtues
naturally and purely my own as those I had begged and obtained from
education. It is not in our power to obtain a nobler reputation than to
be favoured of God and nature.
For instance, take the fox, the people of Thrace make use of when they
wish to pass over the ice of some frozen river, and turn him out before
them to that purpose; when we see him lay his ear upon the bank of
the river, down to the ice, to listen if from a more remote or nearer
distance he can hear the noise of the waters’ current, and, according as
he finds by that the ice to be of a less or greater thickness, to retire
or advance,--have we not reason to believe thence that the same rational
thoughts passed through his head that we should have upon the like
occasions; and that it is a ratiocination and consequence, drawn from
natural sense, that that which makes a noise runs, that which runs
is not frozen, what is not frozen is liquid, and that which is liquid
yields to impression! For to attribute this to a mere quickness of the
sense of hearing, without reason and consequence, is a chimæra that
cannot enter into the imagination. We are to suppose the same of
the many sorts of subtleties and inventions with which beasts secure
themselves from, and frustrate, the enterprizes we plot against them.
And if we will make an advantage even of this, that it is in our power
to seize them, to employ them in our service, and to use them at our
pleasure, ‘tis still but the same advantage we have over one another. We
have our slaves upon these terms: the Climacidæ, were they not women
in Syria who, squat on all fours, served for a ladder or footstool, by
which the ladies mounted their coaches? And the greatest part of free
persons surrender, for very trivial conveniences, their life and being
into the power of another. The wives and concubines of the Thracians
contended who should be chosen to be slain upon their husband’s tomb.
Have tyrants ever failed of finding men enough vowed to their devotion?
some of them moreover adding this necessity, of accompanying them in
death as well as life? Whole armies have bound themselves after this
manner to their captains. The form of the oath in the rude school of
gladiators was in these words: “We swear to suffer ourselves to be
chained, burnt, wounded, and killed with the sword, and to endure all
that true gladiators suffer from their master, religiously engaging both
body and soul in his service.”
Uire meum, si vis, flamma caput, et pete ferro
Corpus, et iutorto verbere terga seca.
“Wound me with steel, or burn my head with fire.
Or scourge my shoulders with well-twisted wire.”
This was an obligation indeed, and yet there, in one year, ten thousand
entered into it, to their destruction. When the Scythians interred their
king they strangled upon his body the most beloved of his concubines,
his cup-bearer, the master of his horse, his chamberlain, the usher of
his chamber, and his cook. And upon the anniversary thereof they killed
fifty horses, mounted by fifty pages, that they had impaled all up the
spine of the back to the throat, and there left them fixed in triumph
about his tomb. The men that serve us do it cheaper, and for a less
careful and favourable usage than what we treat our hawks, horses and
dogs withal. To what solicitude do we not submit for the conveniences of
these? I do not think that servants of the most abject condition would
willingly do that for their masters that princes think it an honour to
do for their beasts. Diogenes seeing his relations solicitous to redeem,
him from servitude: “They are fools,” said he; “‘tis he that keeps and
nourishes me that in reality serves me.” And they who entertain beasts
ought rather to be said to serve them, than to be served by them. And
withal in this these have something more generous in that one lion
never submitted to another lion, nor one horse to another, for want of
courage. As we go to the chase of beasts, so do tigers and lions to
the chase of men, and do the same execution upon one another; dogs upon
hares, pikes upon tench, swallows upon grass-hoppers, and sparrow-hawks
upon blackbirds and larks:
“The stork with snakes and lizards from the wood
And pathless wilds supports her callow brood,
While Jove’s own eagle, bird of noble blood,
Scours the wide country for undaunted food;
Sweeps the swift hare or swifter fawn away,
And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey.”
We divide the quarry, as well as the pains and labour of the chase, with
our hawks and hounds. And about Amphipolis, in Thrace, the hawkers and
wild falcons equally divide the prey in the half. As also along the lake
Mæotis, if the fisherman does not honestly leave the wolves an equal
share of what he has caught, they presently go and tear his nets in
pieces. And as we have a way of sporting that is carried on more by
subtlety than force, as springing hares, and angling with line and hook,
there is also the like amongst other animals. Aristotle says that the
cuttle-fish casts a gut out of her throat as long as a line, which she
extends and draws back at pleasure; and as she perceives some little
fish approach her she lets it nibble upon the end of this gut, lying
herself concealed in the sand or mud, and by little and little draws it
in, till the little fish is so near her that at one spring she may catch
it.
As to strength, there is no creature in the world exposed to so many
injuries as man. We need not a whale, elephant, or a crocodile, nor any
such-like animals, of which one alone is sufficient to dispatch a great
number of men, to do our business; lice are sufficient to vacate Sylla’s
dictatorship; and the heart and life of a great and triumphant emperor
is the breakfast of a little contemptible worm!
Why should we say that it is only for man, or knowledge built up by
art and meditation, to distinguish the things useful for his being, and
proper for the cure of his diseases, and those which are not; to know
the virtues of rhubarb and polypody. When we see the goats of Candia,
when wounded with an arrow, among a million of plants choose out
dittany for their cure; and the tortoise, when she has eaten a viper,
immediately go out to look for origanum to purge her; the dragon to rub
and clear his eyes with fennel; the storks to give themselves clysters
of sea-water; the elephants to draw not only out of their own bodies,
and those of their companions, but out of the bodies of their masters
too (witness the elephant of King Porus whom Alexander defeated), the
darts and javelins thrown at them in battle, and that so dexterously
that we ourselves could not do it with so little pain to the
patient;--why do we not say here also that this is knowledge and reason?
For to allege, to their disparagement, that ‘tis by the sole instruction
and dictate of nature that they know all this, is not to take from them
the dignity of knowledge and reason, but with greater force to attribute
it to them than to us, for the honour of so infallible a mistress.
Chrysippus, though in other things as scornful a judge of the condition
of animals as any other philosopher whatever, considering the motions of
a dog, who coming to a place where three ways met, either to hunt after
his master he has lost, or in pursuit of some game that flies before
him, goes snuffing first in one of the ways, and then in another, and,
after having made himself sure of two, without finding the trace of
what he seeks, dashes into the third without examination, is forced to
confess that this reasoning is in the dog: “I have traced my master to
this place; he must of necessity be gone one of these three ways; he is
not gone this way nor that, he must then infallibly be gone this other;”
and that assuring himself by this conclusion, he makes no use of his
nose in the third way, nor ever lays it to the ground, but suffers
himself to be carried on there bv the force of reason. This sally,
purely logical, and this use of propositions divided and conjoined, and
the right enumeration of parts, is it not every whit as good that the
dog knows all this of himself as well as from Trapezuntius?
Animals are not incapable, however, of being instructed after our
method. We teach blackbirds, ravens, pies, and parrots, to speak: and
the facility wherewith we see they lend us their voices, and render both
them and their breath so supple and pliant, to be formed and confined
within a certain number of letters and syllables, does evince that they
have a reason within, which renders them so docile and willing to learn.
Everybody, I believe, is glutted with the several sorts of tricks that
tumblers teach their dogs; the dances, where they do not miss any one
cadence of the sound they hear; the several various motions and leaps
they make them perform by the command of a word. But I observe this
effect with the greatest admiration, which nevertheless is very common,
in the dogs that lead the blind, both in the country and in cities: I
have taken notice how they stop at certain doors, where they are wont
to receive alms; how they avoid the encounter of coaches and carts, even
there where they have sufficient room to pass; I have seen them, by the
trench of a town, forsake a plain and even path and take a worse, only
to keep their masters further from the ditch;--how could a man have
made this dog understand that it was his office to look to his master’s
safely only, and to despise his own conveniency to serve him? And how
had he the knowledge that a way was wide enough for him that was not so
for a blind man? Can all this be apprehended without ratiocination!
I must not omit what Plutarch says he saw of a dog at Rome with the
Emperor Vespasian, the father, at the theatre of Marcellus. This dog
served a player, that played a farce of several parts and personages,
and had therein his part. He had, amongst other things, to counterfeit
himself for some time dead, by reason of a certain drug he was supposed
to eat After he had swallowed a piece of bread, which passed for the
drug, he began after awhile to tremble and stagger, as if he was taken
giddy: at last, stretching himself out stiff, as if dead, he suffered
himself to be drawn and dragged from place to place, as it was his part
to do; and afterward, when he knew it to be time, he began first gently
to stir, as if awaking out of a profound sleep, and lifting up his head
looked about him after such a manner as astonished all the spectators.
The oxen that served in the royal gardens of Susa, to water them, and
turn certain great wheels to draw water for that purpose, to which
buckets were fastened (such as there are many in Languedoc), being
ordered every one to draw a hundred turns a day, they were so accustomed
to this number that it was impossible by any force to make them draw one
turn more; but, their task being performed, they would suddenly stop and
stand still. We are almost men before we can count a hundred, and have
lately discovered nations that have no knowledge of numbers at all.
There is more understanding required in the teaching of’ others than in
being taught. Now, setting aside what Democritus held and proved, “That
most of the arts we have were taught us by other animals,” as by the
spider to weave and sew; by the swallow to build; by the swan and
nightingale music; and by several animals to make medicines:--Aristotle
is of opinion “That the nightingales teach their young ones to sing, and
spend a great deal of time and care in it;” whence it happens that those
we bring up in cages, and which have not had the time to learn of their
parents, want much of the grace of their singing: we may judge by this
that they improve by discipline and study; and, even amongst the wild,
it is not all and every one alike--every one has learnt to do better
or worse, according to their capacity. And so jealous are they one of
another, whilst learning, that they contention with emulation, and by
so vigorous a contention that sometimes the vanquished fall dead upon the
place, the breath rather failing than the voice. The younger ruminate
pensively and begin to mutter some broken notes; the disciple listens
to the master’s lesson, and gives the best account he is able; they
are silent oy turns; one may hear faults corrected and observe some
reprehensions of the teacher. “Ï have formerly seen,” says Arrian, “an
elephant having a cymbal hung at each leg, and another fastened to his
trunk, at the sound of which all the others danced round about him,
rising and bending at certain cadences, as they were guided by
the instrument; and ‘twas delightful to hear this harmony.” In the
spectacles of Rome there were ordinarily seen elephants taught to move
and dance to the sound of the voice, dances wherein were several changes
and cadences very hard to learn. And some have been known so intent upon
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- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 024Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4791Total number of unique words is 161742.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words60.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words68.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 025Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4729Total number of unique words is 145543.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words62.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words69.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 026Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4895Total number of unique words is 151546.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words75.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 027Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4959Total number of unique words is 155746.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 028Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4818Total number of unique words is 158641.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 029Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4939Total number of unique words is 155044.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words70.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 030Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4888Total number of unique words is 155443.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words62.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 031Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4799Total number of unique words is 155843.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 032Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4784Total number of unique words is 166741.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words57.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 033Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4887Total number of unique words is 153143.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words62.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 034Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4763Total number of unique words is 149343.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words62.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words69.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 035Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4777Total number of unique words is 164541.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words59.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words68.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 036Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4812Total number of unique words is 156642.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words59.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words67.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 037Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4976Total number of unique words is 146249.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words69.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words77.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 038Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4949Total number of unique words is 144146.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 039Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5086Total number of unique words is 141551.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words69.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words77.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 040Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5052Total number of unique words is 141248.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words67.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 041Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4988Total number of unique words is 142545.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 042Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4890Total number of unique words is 142745.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 043Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4805Total number of unique words is 153242.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words70.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 044Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4969Total number of unique words is 141643.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words62.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 045Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4977Total number of unique words is 147845.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 046Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4918Total number of unique words is 166839.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words57.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words65.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 047Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4959Total number of unique words is 160942.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 048Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4840Total number of unique words is 163539.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words55.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words63.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 049Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4930Total number of unique words is 143640.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 050Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4742Total number of unique words is 153038.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words56.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words65.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 051Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4932Total number of unique words is 151539.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words55.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words63.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 052Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4878Total number of unique words is 157839.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words56.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words63.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 053Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4811Total number of unique words is 152337.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words55.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words63.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 054Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4864Total number of unique words is 153440.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words67.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 055Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5000Total number of unique words is 141944.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 056Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4864Total number of unique words is 159241.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words67.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 057Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4881Total number of unique words is 151840.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 058Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4940Total number of unique words is 147243.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words59.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 059Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4669Total number of unique words is 155741.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 060Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4782Total number of unique words is 150542.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words59.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 061Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4884Total number of unique words is 146542.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words60.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words69.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 062Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4856Total number of unique words is 155544.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words69.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 063Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5006Total number of unique words is 146246.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 064Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4849Total number of unique words is 149143.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 065Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4893Total number of unique words is 151146.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 066Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4875Total number of unique words is 153343.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words69.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 067Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4837Total number of unique words is 156644.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 068Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4970Total number of unique words is 152046.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 069Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4964Total number of unique words is 144646.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 070Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4908Total number of unique words is 146945.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 071Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4980Total number of unique words is 141251.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 072Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4907Total number of unique words is 144945.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 073Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4977Total number of unique words is 140946.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 074Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5152Total number of unique words is 139948.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words67.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 075Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4857Total number of unique words is 143845.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 076Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4965Total number of unique words is 145445.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 077Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5078Total number of unique words is 142345.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 078Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4990Total number of unique words is 145845.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 079Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4812Total number of unique words is 156446.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 080Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4787Total number of unique words is 162140.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words57.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 081Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4763Total number of unique words is 161542.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words57.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words66.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 082Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4779Total number of unique words is 154844.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words60.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words67.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 083Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4866Total number of unique words is 155542.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 084Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4776Total number of unique words is 155742.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words70.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 085Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4785Total number of unique words is 157145.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 086Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4747Total number of unique words is 156741.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words62.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words70.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 087Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5022Total number of unique words is 145547.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words75.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 088Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4935Total number of unique words is 142746.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 089Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4966Total number of unique words is 139148.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 090Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4888Total number of unique words is 149743.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words69.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 091Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4903Total number of unique words is 145544.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 092Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5068Total number of unique words is 150346.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 093Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4993Total number of unique words is 145847.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 094Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4866Total number of unique words is 147544.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 095Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4816Total number of unique words is 144045.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 096Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4894Total number of unique words is 154343.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words61.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words70.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 097Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4901Total number of unique words is 146346.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words63.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 098Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4772Total number of unique words is 161040.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words58.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words65.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 099Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4909Total number of unique words is 145147.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 100Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4899Total number of unique words is 148047.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words67.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 101Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4939Total number of unique words is 145244.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 102Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5068Total number of unique words is 144246.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 103Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4987Total number of unique words is 147947.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 104Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 5081Total number of unique words is 148248.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 105Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4841Total number of unique words is 152741.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words60.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words68.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 106Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4628Total number of unique words is 141048.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words78.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 107Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 4543Total number of unique words is 144747.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words77.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 108Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 2607Total number of unique words is 90156.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words75.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words82.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words