Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 063

Those of our time who have considered in the establishment of the duty of
a prince the good of his affairs only, and have preferred that to the
care of his faith and conscience, might have something to say to a prince
whose affairs fortune had put into such a posture that he might for ever
establish them by only once breaking his word: but it will not go so;
they often buy in the same market; they make more than one peace and
enter into more than one treaty in their lives. Gain tempts to the first
breach of faith, and almost always presents itself, as in all other ill
acts, sacrileges, murders, rebellions, treasons, as being undertaken for
some kind of advantage; but this first gain has infinite mischievous
consequences, throwing this prince out of all correspondence and
negotiation, by this example of infidelity. Soliman, of the Ottoman
race, a race not very solicitous of keeping their words or compacts,
when, in my infancy, he made his army land at Otranto, being informed
that Mercurino de’ Gratinare and the inhabitants of Castro were detained
prisoners, after having surrendered the place, contrary to the articles
of their capitulation, sent orders to have them set at liberty, saying,
that having other great enterprises in hand in those parts, the
disloyalty, though it carried a show of present utility, would for the
future bring on him a disrepute and distrust of infinite prejudice.
Now, for my part, I had rather be troublesome and indiscreet than a
flatterer and a dissembler. I confess that there may be some mixture of
pride and obstinacy in keeping myself so upright and open as I do,
without any consideration of others; and methinks I am a little too free,
where I ought least to be so, and that I grow hot by the opposition of
respect; and it may be also, that I suffer myself to follow the
propension of my own nature for want of art; using the same liberty,
speech, and countenance towards great persons, that I bring with me from
my own house: I am sensible how much it declines towards incivility and
indiscretion but, besides that I am so bred, I have not a wit supple
enough to evade a sudden question, and to escape by some evasion, nor to
feign a truth, nor memory enough to retain it so feigned; nor, truly,
assurance enough to maintain it, and so play the brave out of weakness.
And therefore it is that I abandon myself to candour, always to speak as
I think, both by complexion and design, leaving the event to fortune.
Aristippus was wont to say, that the principal benefit he had extracted
from philosophy was that he spoke freely and openly to all.
Memory is a faculty of wonderful use, and without which the judgment can
very hardly perform its office: for my part I have none at all. What any
one will propound to me, he must do it piecemeal, for to answer a speech
consisting of several heads I am not able. I could not receive a
commission by word of mouth without a note-book. And when I have a
speech of consequence to make, if it be long, I am reduced to the
miserable necessity of getting by heart word for word, what I am to say;
I should otherwise have neither method nor assurance, being in fear that
my memory would play me a slippery trick. But this way is no less
difficult to me than the other; I must have three hours to learn three
verses. And besides, in a work of a man’s own, the liberty and authority
of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the
matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author. The more
I mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must
solicit it negligently; for if I press it, ‘tis confused, and after it
once begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed;
it serves me at its own hour, not at mine.
And the same defect I find in my memory, I find also in several other
parts. I fly command, obligation, and constraint; that which I can
otherwise naturally and easily do, if I impose it upon myself by an
express and strict injunction, I cannot do it. Even the members of my
body, which have a more particular jurisdiction of their own, sometimes
refuse to obey me, if I enjoin them a necessary service at a certain
hour. This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they
shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance. Being
once in a place where it is looked upon as barbarous discourtesy not to
pledge those who drink to you, though I had there all liberty allowed me,
I tried to play the good fellow, out of respect to the ladies who were
there, according to the custom of the country; but there was sport enough
for this pressure and preparation, to force myself contrary to my custom
and inclination, so stopped my throat that I could not swallow one drop,
and was deprived of drinking so much as with my meat; I found myself
gorged, and my, thirst quenched by the quantity of drink that my
imagination had swallowed. This effect is most manifest in such as have
the most vehement and powerful imagination: but it is natural,
notwithstanding, and there is no one who does not in some measure feel
it. They offered an excellent archer, condemned to die, to save his
life, if he would show some notable proof of his art, but he refused to
try, fearing lest the too great contention of his will should make him
shoot wide, and that instead of saving his life, he should also lose the
reputation he had got of being a good marksman. A man who thinks of
something else, will not fail to take over and over again the same number
and measure of steps, even to an inch, in the place where he walks; but
if he made it his business to measure and count them, he will find that
what he did by nature and accident, he cannot so exactly do by design.
My library, which is a fine one among those of the village type, is
situated in a corner of my house; if anything comes into my head that I
have a mind to search or to write, lest I should forget it in but going
across the court, I am fain to commit it to the memory of some other.
If I venture in speaking to digress never so little from my subject, I am
infallibly lost, which is the reason that I keep myself, in discourse,
strictly close. I am forced to call the men who serve me either by the
names of their offices or their country; for names are very hard for me
to remember. I can tell indeed that there are three syllables, that it
has a harsh sound, and that it begins or ends with such a letter; but
that’s all; and if I should live long, I do not doubt but I should forget
my own name, as some others have done. Messala Corvinus was two years
without any trace of memory, which is also said of Georgius Trapezuntius.
For my own interest, I often meditate what a kind of life theirs was, and
if, without this faculty, I should have enough left to support me with
any manner of ease; and prying narrowly into it, I fear that this
privation, if absolute, destroys all the other functions of the soul:
“Plenus rimarum sum, hac atque iliac perfluo.”
[“I’m full of chinks, and leak out every way.”
--Ter., Eunuchus, ii. 2, 23.]
It has befallen me more than once to forget the watchword I had three
hours before given or received, and to forget where I had hidden my
purse; whatever Cicero is pleased to say, I help myself to lose what I
have a particular care to lock safe up:
“Memoria certe non modo Philosophiam sed omnis
vitae usum, omnesque artes, una maxime continet.”
[“It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy,
but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.”
--Cicero, Acad., ii. 7.]
Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so
treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain. I know, in
general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more.
I turn over books; I do not study them. What I retain I no longer
recognise as another’s; ‘tis only what my judgment has made its advantage
of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the
author, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and
I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writings
and compositions than the rest. I am very often quoted to myself, and am
not aware of it. Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and
examples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him,
and yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not
contenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from
rich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with
reason. It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that other
books do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have
read, and what I give, as well as what I receive.
Besides the defect of memory, I have others which very much contribute to
my ignorance; I have a slow and heavy wit, the least cloud stops its
progress, so that, for example, I never propose to it any never so easy a
riddle that it could find out; there is not the least idle subtlety that
will not gravel me; in games, where wit is required, as chess, draughts,
and the like, I understand no more than the common movements. I have a
slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it
apprehends well, for the time it retains it. My sight is perfect,
entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and
heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to
have one to read to me. The younger Pliny can inform such as have not
experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those
who devote themselves to this employment.
There is no so wretched and coarse a soul, wherein some particular
faculty is not seen to shine; no soul so buried in sloth and ignorance,
but it will sally at one end or another; and how it comes to pass that a
man blind and asleep to everything else, shall be found sprightly, clear,
and excellent in some one particular effect, we are to inquire of our
masters: but the beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and
ready for all things; if not instructed, at least capable of being so;
which I say to accuse my own; for whether it be through infirmity or
negligence (and to neglect that which lies at our feet, which we have in
our hands, and what nearest concerns the use of life, is far from my
doctrine) there is not a soul in the world so awkward as mine, and so
ignorant of many common things, and such as a man cannot without shame
fail to know. I must give some examples.
I was born and bred up in the country, and amongst husbandmen; I have had
business and husbandry in my own hands ever since my predecessors, who
were lords of the estate I now enjoy, left me to succeed them; and yet I
can neither cast accounts, nor reckon my counters: most of our current
money I do not know, nor the difference betwixt one grain and another,
either growing or in the barn, if it be not too apparent, and scarcely
can distinguish between the cabbage and lettuce in my garden. I do not
so much as understand the names of the chief instruments of husbandry,
nor the most ordinary elements of agriculture, which the very children
know: much less the mechanic arts, traffic, merchandise, the variety and
nature of fruits, wines, and viands, nor how to make a hawk fly, nor to
physic a horse or a dog. And, since I must publish my whole shame, ‘tis
not above a month ago, that I was trapped in my ignorance of the use of
leaven to make bread, or to what end it was to keep wine in the vat.
They conjectured of old at Athens, an aptitude for the mathematics in
him they saw ingeniously bavin up a burthen of brushwood. In earnest,
they would draw a quite contrary conclusion from me, for give me the
whole provision and necessaries of a kitchen, I should starve. By these
features of my confession men may imagine others to my prejudice: but
whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am,
I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper
such mean and frivolous things as these: the meanness of the subject
compells me to it. They may, if they please, accuse my project, but not
my progress: so it is, that without anybody’s needing to tell me, I
sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the
folly of my design: ‘tis enough that my judgment does not contradict
itself, of which these are the essays.
“Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus,
Quantum noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas;
Et possis ipsum to deridere Latinum,
Non potes in nugas dicere plura mess,
Ipse ego quam dixi: quid dentem dente juvabit
Rodere? carne opus est, si satur esse velis.
Ne perdas operam; qui se mirantur, in illos
Virus habe; nos haec novimus esse nihil.”
[“Let your nose be as keen as it will, be all nose, and even a nose
so great that Atlas will refuse to bear it: if asked, Could you even
excel Latinus in scoffing; against my trifles you could say no more
than I myself have said: then to what end contend tooth against
tooth? You must have flesh, if you want to be full; lose not your
labour then; cast your venom upon those that admire themselves; I
know already that these things are worthless.”--Mart., xiii. 2.]
I am not obliged not to utter absurdities, provided I am not deceived in
them and know them to be such: and to trip knowingly, is so ordinary with
me, that I seldom do it otherwise, and rarely trip by chance. ‘Tis no
great matter to add ridiculous actions to the temerity of my humour,
since I cannot ordinarily help supplying it with those that are vicious.
I was present one day at Barleduc, when King Francis II., for a memorial
of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of
himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw
himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon? I will not, therefore, omit
this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a
very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the
affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to
choose:
“Ne si, ne no, nel cor mi suona intero.”
[“My heart does not tell me either yes or no.”--Petrarch.]
I can maintain an opinion, but I cannot choose one. By reason that in
human things, to what sect soever we incline, many appearances present
themselves that confirm us in it; and the philosopher Chrysippus said,
that he would of Zeno and Cleanthes, his masters, learn their doctrines
only; for, as to proofs and reasons, he should find enough of his own.
Which way soever I turn, I still furnish myself with causes, and
likelihood enough to fix me there; which makes me detain doubt and the
liberty of choosing, till occasion presses; and then, to confess the
truth, I, for the most part, throw the feather into the wind, as the
saying is, and commit myself to the mercy of fortune; a very light
inclination and circumstance carries me along with it.
“Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc atque
Illuc impellitur.”
[“While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this
way and that.”--Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]
The uncertainty of my judgment is so equally balanced in most
occurrences, that I could willingly refer it to be decided by the chance
of a die: and I observe, with great consideration of our human infirmity,
the examples that the divine history itself has left us of this custom of
referring to fortune and chance the determination of election in doubtful
things:
“Sors cecidit super Matthiam.”
[“The lot fell upon Matthew.”--Acts i. 26.]
Human reason is a two-edged and dangerous sword: observe in the hands of
Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many several points
it has. I am thus good for nothing but to follow and suffer myself to be
easily carried away with the crowd; I have not confidence enough in my
own strength to take upon me to command and lead; I am very glad to find
the way beaten before me by others. If I must run the hazard of an
uncertain choice, I am rather willing to have it under such a one as is
more confident in his opinions than I am in mine, whose ground and
foundation I find to be very slippery and unsure.
Yet I do not easily change, by reason that I discern the same weakness in
contrary opinions:
“Ipsa consuetudo assentiendi periculosa
esse videtur, et lubrica;”
[“The very custom of assenting seems to be dangerous
and slippery.”--Cicero, Acad., ii. 21.]
especially in political affairs, there is a large field open for changes
and contestation:
“Justa pari premitur veluti cum pondere libra,
Prona, nec hac plus pane sedet, nec surgit ab illa.”
[“As a just balance, pressed with equal weight, neither dips
nor rises on either side.”--Tibullus, iv. 41.]
Machiavelli’s writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject,
yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so,
have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never
wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as
infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended
in favour of long suits:
“Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;”
[“We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy” (or),
“It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds.”
--Horace, Epist., ii. 2, 97.]
the reasons have little other foundation than experience, and the variety
of human events presenting us with infinite examples of all sorts of
forms. An understanding person of our times says: That whoever would, in
contradiction to our almanacs, write cold where they say hot, and wet
where they say dry, and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if
he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting
where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at
Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer. I have the same opinion of
these political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as
fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far
as to shock principles that are broad and manifest. And yet, in my
conceit, in public affairs, there is no government so ill, provided it be
ancient and has been constant, that is not better than change and
alteration.
Our manners are infinitely corrupt, and wonderfully incline to the worse;
of our laws and customs there are many that are barbarous and monstrous
nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger
of stirring things, if I could put something under to stop the wheel, and
keep it where it is, I would do it with all my heart:
“Numquam adeo foedis, adeoque pudendis
Utimur exemplis, ut non pejora supersint.”
[“The examples we use are not so shameful and foul
but that worse remain behind.”--Juvenal, viii. 183.]
The worst thing I find in our state is instability, and that our laws,
no more than our clothes, cannot settle in any certain form. It is very
easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are
full of it: it is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of ancient
observances; never any man undertook it but he did it; but to establish a
better regimen in the stead of that which a man has overthrown, many who
have attempted it have foundered. I very little consult my prudence in
my conduct; I am willing to let it be guided by the public rule. Happy
the people who do what they are commanded, better than they who command,
without tormenting themselves as to the causes; who suffer themselves
gently to roll after the celestial revolution! Obedience is never pure
nor calm in him who reasons and disputes.
In fine, to return to myself: the only thing by which I something esteem
myself, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective; my
recommendation is vulgar, common, and popular; for who ever thought he
wanted sense? It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction
in itself; ‘tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; ‘tis
tenacious and strong, but what the first ray of the patient’s sight
nevertheless pierces through and disperses, as the beams of the sun do
thick and obscure mists; to accuse one’s self would be to excuse in this
case, and to condemn, to absolve. There never was porter or the silliest
girl, that did not think they had sense enough to do their business.
We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength,
experience, activity, and beauty, but an advantage in judgment we yield
to none; and the reasons that proceed simply from the natural conclusions
of others, we think, if we had but turned our thoughts that way, we
should ourselves have found out as well as they. Knowledge, style, and
such parts as we see in others’ works, we are soon aware of, if they
excel our own: but for the simple products of the understanding, every
one thinks he could have found out the like in himself, and is hardly
sensible of the weight and difficulty, if not (and then with much ado) in
an extreme and incomparable distance. And whoever should be able clearly
to discern the height of another’s judgment, would be also able to raise
his own to the same pitch. So that it is a sort of exercise, from which
a man is to expect very little praise; a kind of composition of small
repute. And, besides, for whom do you write? The learned, to whom the
authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of
learning, and allow of no other proceeding of wit but that of erudition
and art: if you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all
the rest you have to say worth? Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle,
according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself; vulgar
souls cannot discern the grace and force of a lofty and delicate style.
Now these two sorts of men take up the world. The third sort into whose
hands you fall, of souls that are regular and strong of themselves, is so
rare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us; and ‘tis so
much time lost to aspire unto it, or to endeavour to please it.
‘Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her
favours is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with
his share: is it not reason? whoever should see beyond that, would see
beyond his sight. I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does
not think the same of his own? One of the best proofs I have that mine
are so is the small esteem I have of myself; for had they not been very
well assured, they would easily have suffered themselves to have been
deceived by the peculiar affection I have to myself, as one that places
it almost wholly in myself, and do not let much run out. All that others
distribute amongst an infinite number of friends and acquaintance, to
their glory and grandeur, I dedicate to the repose of my own mind and to
myself; that which escapes thence is not properly by my direction:
“Mihi nempe valere et vivere doctus.”
[“To live and to do well for myself.”
--Lucretius, v. 959.]
Now I find my opinions very bold and constant in condemning my own
imperfection. And, to say the truth, ‘tis a subject upon which I
exercise my judgment as much as upon any other. The world looks always
opposite; I turn my sight inwards, and there fix and employ it. I have
no other business but myself, I am eternally meditating upon myself,
considering and tasting myself. Other men’s thoughts are ever wandering
abroad, if they will but see it; they are still going forward:
“Nemo in sese tentat descendere;”
[“No one thinks of descending into himself.”
--Persius, iv. 23.]
for my part, I circulate in myself. This capacity of trying the truth,
whatever it be, in myself, and this free humour of not over easily
subjecting my belief, I owe principally to myself; for the strongest and
most general imaginations I have are those that, as a man may say, were
born with me; they are natural and entirely my own. I produced them
crude and simple, with a strong and bold production, but a little
troubled and imperfect; I have since established and fortified them with
the authority of others and the sound examples of the ancients, whom I
have found of the same judgment: they have given me faster hold, and a
more manifest fruition and possession of that I had before embraced. The
reputation that every one pretends to of vivacity and promptness of wit,
I seek in regularity; the glory they pretend to from a striking and
signal action, or some particular excellence, I claim from order,
correspondence, and tranquillity of opinions and manners:
“Omnino si quidquam est decorum, nihil est profecto magis, quam
aequabilitas universae vitae, tum singularum actionum, quam
conservare non possis, si, aliorum naturam imitans, omittas tuam.”
[“If anything be entirely decorous, nothing certainly can be more so
than an equability alike in the whole life and in every particular
action; which thou canst not possibly observe if, imitating other
men’s natures, thou layest aside thy own.”--Cicero, De Of., i. 31.]
Here, then, you see to what degree I find myself guilty of this first
part, that I said was the vice of presumption. As to the second, which
consists in not having a sufficient esteem for others, I know not whether
or no I can so well excuse myself; but whatever comes on’t I am resolved
to speak the truth. And whether, peradventure, it be that the continual
frequentation I have had with the humours of the ancients, and the idea
of those great souls of past ages, put me out of taste both with others
and myself, or that, in truth, the age we live in produces but very
indifferent things, yet so it is that I see nothing worthy of any great
admiration. Neither, indeed, have I so great an intimacy with many men
as is requisite to make a right judgment of them; and those with whom my
condition makes me the most frequent, are, for the most part, men who
have little care of the culture of the soul, but that look upon honour as
the sum of all blessings, and valour as the height of all perfection.
What I see that is fine in others I very readily commend and esteem: nay,
I often say more in their commendation than I think they really deserve,
and give myself so far leave to lie, for I cannot invent a false subject:
my testimony is never wanting to my friends in what I conceive deserves
praise, and where a foot is due I am willing to give them a foot and a
half; but to attribute to them qualities that they have not, I cannot do
it, nor openly defend their imperfections. Nay, I frankly give my very
enemies their due testimony of honour; my affection alters, my judgment
does not, and I never confound my animosity with other circumstances that
are foreign to it; and I am so jealous of the liberty of my judgment that
I can very hardly part with it for any passion whatever. I do myself a
greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie. This
commendable and generous custom is observed of the Persian nation, that
they spoke of their mortal enemies and with whom they were at deadly war,
as honourably and justly as their virtues deserved.
I know men enough that have several fine parts; one wit, another courage,
another address, another conscience, another language: one science,
another, another; but a generally great man, and who has all these brave
parts together, or any one of them to such a degree of excellence that we
should admire him or compare him with those we honour of times past, my