26. Chap. 3. Of three Commerces 50. Chap. 4. Of Diversion 71. Chap. 5. Vpon some Verses of Virgil. 88. Chap. 6. Of Coaches 190. Chap. 7. Of the inconvenience of Greatness 222. Chap. 8. Of the Art of Conferring 230. Chap. 9. Of Vanity 269. Chap. 10. Of managing the Will 371. Chap. 11. Of Cripples 410. Chap. 12. Of Physiognomy 428. Chap. 13. Of Experience 477. ESSAYS OF Michael Seigneur de Montaigne The Third BOOK CHAP. I. Of Profit and Honesty NO Man is free from speaking foolish things but the worst on 't is when a Man studies to play the Fool. Ne iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit Lest it with him do come to pass To take great Pains to be an Ass. This does not concern me mine slip from me with as little care as they are of little value and 't is the better for them I would presently part with them for what they are worth and neither buy nor sell them but as they weigh I speak in Paper as I do to the first I meet and that this is true observe what follows To whom ought not Treachery to be hateful when Tyberius refus'd it in a thing of so great Importance to him He had word sent him from Germany that if he thought fit they would rid him of Ariminius the most potent Enemy the Romans had by Poyson He return'd answer That the People of Rome were wont to revenge themselves of their Enemies by open ways and with their Swords in their hands and not clandestinely and by Fraud Wherein he quitted the utile for the honest You will tell me that he was a Deceiver and did not speak as he thought I believe so too and 't is no great Miracle in Men of his Profession But the acknowledgement of Virtue is not less valid in the Mouth of him that hates it for as much as truth forces it from him and if he will not inwardly receive it he at least puts it on and with it makes himself outwardly fine Our outward and inward Structure is full of imperfection but there is nothing useless in Nature not so much as Inutility it self nothing has insinuated it self into this Vniverse that has not therein some fit and proper place Our Being is cemented with sickly Qualities Ambition Jealousie Envy Revenge Superstition and Despair have so natural a Possession in us that the Image is discern'd in Beasts Nay and Cruelty so unnatural a Vice for even in the midst of Compassion we feel within I know not what tart-sweet titillation of ill-natur'd Pleasure in seeing others suffer and the Children feel it Suave meri magno turbantibus aequora ventis Et Terra magnum alterius spectare laborem 'T is sweet from Land to see a Storm at Sea And others sinking whilst our selves are free of the Seeds of which Qualities whoever should divest man would destroy the Fundamental Conditions of human Life Likewise in all Governments there are necessary Offices not only abject but vicious also Vices have there a help to make up the seam in our piecing as Poysons are useful for the Conservation of Health If they become excusable because they are of use to us and that the common Necessity covers their true Qualities we are to resign this part to the strongest and boldest Citizens who sacrifice their Honour and Conscience as others of old sacrific'd their Lives for the good of their Country We who are weaker take upon us the parts of Actions both that are more easie and less hazardous the publick Weal requires that a Man should betray and lye and massacre let us leave this Commission to Men that are more obedient and more supple In earnest I have often been troubled to see Judges by Fraud and false hopes of Favour or Pardon allure a Criminal to confess his Fact and therein to make use of Cozenage and Impudence It would become Justice and Plato himself who countenances this manner of proceeding to furnish me with other means more suitable to my own liking This is a malicious kind of Justice and I look upon it as no less violated by it self than by others I said not long since to some company in Discourse that I should hardly be drawn to betray my Prince for a particular Man who should be very much asham'd to betray any particular Man for my Prince and do not only hate deceiving my self but that any one should deceive through me I will neither afford matter nor occasion to any such thing In the little I have had to mediate betwixt our Princes in the Divisions and Subdivisions by which we are at this time torn to pieces I have been very careful that they should neither be deceiv'd in me nor deceive others by me People of that kind of trading are very reserv'd and pretend to be the most moderate imaginable and nearest to the Opinions of those with whom they have to do I expose my self in my true Opinion and after a method the most my own a young and tender Negotiator and one who had rather fail in the Affair than be wanting to my Self And yet it has been hitherto with so good luck for Fortune has doubtless the best share in it that little has past from hand to hand with less suspition or more favour and privacy I have a free and open way that easily insinuates it self and obtains belief with those with whom I am to deal at the first meeting Sincerity and pure Truth in what Age sover pass for current and besides the liberty and freedom of a Man who treats without any Interest of his own is never hateful or suspected and he may very well make use of the Answer of Hipperides to the Athenians who complain'd of his blunt way of speaking My Masters do not consider whether or no I am free but whether I am so without a Bribe or without any advantage to my own Affairs My liberty of Speaking has also easily clear'd me from all suspition of dissembling by its vehemency leaving nothing unsaid how home and bitter soever so that I could have said no worse behind their backs and in that it carried along with it a manifest shew of simplicity and negligence I pretend to no other fruit by acting than to Act and add to it no long pursuit nor proposals every action plays its own Game win if it can As to the rest I am not sway'd by any Passion either of love or hatred towards the great ones nor have my Will captivated either by particular injury or obligation I look upon our King with an affection simply loyal and respective neither prompted on nor restrain'd by any private Interest and I love my self for it Neither does the general and just Cause attract me otherwise than with moderation and without Animosity I am not subject to these penetrating and entirely affected Engagements Anger and Hatred are beyond the duty of Justice and are Passions only useful to those
the same Instinct and Impression I brought with me from my Nurse I yet retain no Temptation whatever had the power to make me alter it Not so much as my own Discourses which in some things lashing out of the Common Road of modest Speaking might easily license me to Actions that my Natural Inclination makes me hate I will say a prodigious thing but I will say it however I find my self in many things more curb'd and retain'd by my Manners than my Opinion and my Concupiscence less debaucht than my Reason Aristippus instituted Opinions so bold in favour of Pleasure and Riches as made all the Philosophers murmur at him But as to his Manners Dionysius the Tyrant having presented three Beautiful Women before him to take his choice he made answer That he would choose them all and that it had hapned ill to Paris to have prefer'd one before the other two But having taken them home to his House he sent them back untoucht His Servant finding himself over-loaden upon the Way with the Money he carried after him he order'd him to pour out and throw away that which troubled him And Epicurus whose Doctrines were so irreligious and effeminate was in his Life very laborious and devout He writ to a Friend of his that he liv'd only upon Biscuit and Water intreating him to send him a little Cheese to lye by him against he had a mind to make a Feast Must it be true that to be a perfect good Man we must be so by an Occult Natural and Universal Propriety without Law Reason or Example The Debauches wherein I have been ingag'd have not been I thank God of the worse sort and I have condemn'd them in my self for my Judgment was never infected by them On the contrary I accuse them more severely in my self than in any other But that is all for as to the rest I oppose too little resistance and suffer my self to encline too much to the other side of the Ballance excepting that I imoderate them and prevent them from mixing with other Vices which for the most part will cling together if a Man have not a care I have contracted and curtal'd mine to make them as single as I can Nec ultra Errorem foveo For as to the Opinion of the Stoicks who say That the Wise Man when he Works Works by all the Vertues together though one be most apparent according to the Nature of the Action and of this the similitude of a Humane Body might serve them to some Instance for the Action of Anger cannot work but that all the Humours must assist though Choler predominate if from thence they will draw a like Consequence that when the Wicked Man does wickedly he does it by all the Vices together I do not believe it to be simple so or else I understand them not for I effectually find the contrary These are witty and substantial Subtilties which Philosophy sometimes insists upon I follow some Vices but I fly others as much as a Saint would do The Peripateticks also disown this indissoluble Connexion and Aristotle is of Opinion that a Prudent and Just Man may be intemperate and lascivious Socrates confessed to some who had discover'd a certain inclination to Vice in his Physiognomy that it was in truth his Natural Propension but that he had by Discipline corrected it And such as were familiar with the Pihlosopher Stilpo hath said That being born subject to Wine and Women he had by Study rendred himself very abstinent both from the one and the other What I have in me of Good I have quite contrary by the chance of my Birth and hold it not either by Law Precept or any other Instruction The Innocency that is in me is a simple and unexperienced one little Vigour and less Art Amongst other Vices I mortally hate Cruelty both by Nature and Judgment as the very extream of all Vices But with so much tenderness withal that I cannot see a Chickens Neck pul'd off without trouble and cannot without impatience endure the Cry of a Hare in my Dogs Teeth though the Chase be a violent Pleasure Such as have Sensuality to encounter willingly make use of this Argument to shew that it is altogether vicious and unreasonable that when it is at the height it subjects us to that degree that a Man's Reason can have no access and instance our own Experience in the Act of Love Wherein they conceive that the Pleasure does so transport us that our Reason cannot perform its Office whilst we are so benumn'd and extasied in Delight I know very well it may be otherwise and that a Man may sometimes if he will gain this point over himself to sway his Soul even in the Critical moment to think of some thing else But then he must leisurely incline and ply it to that bent I know that a Man may triumph over the utmost effort of this Pleasure I have experienced it in my self and have not found Venus so imperious a Goddess as many and some more reform'd than I declare I do not consider it as a Miracle as the Queen of Navar does in one of the Tales of her Heptameron which is a marvilous pretty Book of that kind nor for a thing of extream difficulty to pass over whole Nights where a Man has all the Convenience and Liberty he can desire with a long-coveted Mistress and yet be just to his Faith first given to satisfie himself with Kisses and innocent Embraces without pressing any further I conceive that the Example of the Pleasure of the Chace would be more proper wherein though the Pleasure be less yet the Ravishment and the Surprize are more by which the Reason being astonished has not so much leisure to prepare it self for the Encounter when after a long Quest the Beast starts up on a sudden in a place where peradventure we least expected Which sudden motion with the ardour of the Shouts and Crys of the Hunters so strikes us that it would be hard for such as are eager of the Chace to turn their Thoughts upon the instant another way And also the Poets make Diana triumph over the Torch and Shafts of Cupid Quis non malarum quas amor curas habet Haec inter obliviscitur Who amongst such Delights would not remove Out of his Thoughts the anxious cares of Love But to return to what I was saying before I am tenderly compassionate of other's Afflictions and should easily cry for Company if upon any occasion whatever I could cry at all Nothing tempts my Tears but Tears and not only those that are real and true but whatever they are either feign'd or painted I do not much lament the Dead and should envy them rather but I very much lament the Dying The Savages do not so much offend me in roasting and eating the Bodies of the Dead as they do who torment and persecute the Living Nay I cannot look so much as upon the
those that are visible Sebonde applyed himself to this laudable and noble Study and demonstrates to us that there is not any part or member of the World that disclaims or derogates from its Maker It were to do a Wrong to the Divine Bounty did not the Universe consent to our Belief The Heavens the Earth the Elements our Bodies and our Souls all these concur to this if we can but find out the way to use them For this World is a Sacred Temple into which Man is introduced there to contemplate Statues not the Works of a Mortal Hand but such as the Divine Purpose has made the Objects of Sence the Sun the Stars the Waters and the Earth to represent those that are intelligible to us The invisible things of God says St. Paul appear by the Creation of the World his Eternal Wisdom and Divinity being considered by his Works Atque adeo faciem caeli mon invidet orbi Ipse Deus vultusque suus corpusque recludit Sempér volvendo Séque ipsum inculcat offert Vt benè cognosci possit doceátque videndo Qualis eat doceatque suas attendere leges And God himself envies not Men the Grace Of seeing and admiring Heaven's Face But rowling it about does still anew Object its Face and Body to our view And in t ' our Minds himself inculcates so That we may well the mighty Moover know Instructing us by seeing him the cause Of all to rev'rence and obey his Laws Now our Prayers and Humane Discourses are but as Steril and undigested Matter The Grace of God is the Form 'T is that which gives fashion and value to it As the vertuous Actions of Socrates and Cato remain vain and fruitless for not having had the Love and Obedience of the true Creator of all things for their End and Object and for not having known God So is it with our Imaginations and Discourses they have a kind of Body but it is an inform Mass without Fashion and without Light if Faith and Grace be not added to it Faith coming to tinct and illustrate Sebonde's Arguments renders them firm and solid and to that degree that that they are capable of serving for Directions and of being the first Guides to an Elementary Christian to put him into the way of this Knowledge They in some measure form him to and render him capable of the Grace of God by which means he afterward compleats and perfects himself in the true Belief I know a Man of Authority bred up to Letters who has confest to me to have been reduced from the Errors of Miscreancy by Sebonde's Arguments And should they be stripped of this Ornament and of the Assistance and Approbation of the Holy Faith and be looked upon as mere Humane Fancies only to contend with those who are precipitated into the dreadful and horrible Darkness of Irreligion they will even there find them as solid and firm as any others of the same Quality than can be opposed against them so that we shall be ready to say to our Opponents Si melius quid habes accerse vel imperium fer If you have Arguments more fit Produce them or to these submit Let them admit the force of our Reasons or let them shew us others and upon some other Subject better woven and a finer Thread I am unawares half engaged in the second Objection to which I propos'd to make answer in the behalf of Sebonde Some say that his Arguguments are weak and unable to make good what he intends and undertake with great ease to confute them These are to be a little more roughly handled for they are more dangerous and malicious than the first Men willingly wrest the sayings of others to favour their own prejudicate Opinions to an Atheist all Writings tend to Atheism he corrupts the most Innocent Matter with his own Venom these have their Judgments so prepossest that they cannot relish Sebonde's Reasons As to the rest they think we make them very fair play in putting them into the Liberty of our Religion with Weapons merely Human which in her Majesty full of Authority and Command they durst not attack The means that I shall use and that I think most proper to subdue this Frenzy is to crush and spurn under foot Pride and Human Fierceness to make them sensible of the Inanity Vanity and Vileness of Man To wrest the wretched Arms of their Reason out of their Hands to make them bow down and bite the Ground under the Authority and Reverence of the Divine Majesty 'T is to that alone that Knowledge and Wisdom appertain that alone that can make a true Estimate of it self and from which we purloin whatever we value our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God not permits that any one would be More wise than he Let us subdue this Presumption The first Foundation of this Tyranny of the Evil Spirit Deus superbis resistit Humilibus autem dat gratiam God resists the Proud but gives Grace to the Humble Understanding is in all the Gods says Plato and not at all or very little in Men. Now it is in the mean time a great Consolation to a Christian Man to see our Frail and Mortals Parts so fitly suited to our Holy and Divine Faith that when we employ them to the Subjects of their own Mortal and Frail Nature they are not even there more equally or more firmly adjusted Let us see then if Man hath in his power other more forcible and convincing Reasons than those of Sebonde That is to say if it be in him to arrive at any certainty by Arguments and Reasons For St. Augustin disputing against the people has good cause to reproach them with Injustice in that they maintain the part of our Belief to be false that our Reason cannot establish And to shew that a great many things may be and may have been of which our Nature could not sound the Reason and Causes he proposes to them certain known and undoubted Experiments wherein Men confess they see nothing and this he does as all other things with a curious and ingenious Inquisition We must do more than this and make them know that to convince the weakness of their Reason there is no necessity of culling out rare Examples And that it is so defective and so blind that there is no so clear Facility clear enough for it that to it the easie and the hard is all alone that all Subjects equally and Nature in general disclaims its Authority and rejects its Mediation What does Truth mean when she preaches to us to fly wordly Philosophy when she so often inculcates to us That our Wisdom is but Folly in the sight of God That the vainest of all Vanities is Man That the Man who presumes upon his Wisdom does not yet know what Wisdom is and that Man who is nothing if he think himself to be any thing does seduce and deceive himself These Sentences
some who were afraid of staying behind as in a dreadful solitude and did not commonly observe any other sollicitude amongst them than that of Sepultures they were troubled to see the dead bodies scatter'd about the Fields at the mercy of Beasts which presently began to flock about them How differing are the fancies of Men The Neorites a Nation subjected by Alexander threw the bodies of their dead in the deepest and least frequented part of their Woods on purpose to have them there eaten the only Sepulture reputed happy amongst them Some who were yet in health digg'd their own Graves and others laid them down in them whilst alive and a Labourer of mine in dying with his Hands and Feet pull'd the Earth upon him Was not this to nustle and settle himself to sleep at greater ease A bravery in some sort like that of the Roman Souldiers who after the Battel of Cannae were found with their Heads thrust into holes in the Earth which they had made and in suffocating themselves with their own hands pull'd the Earth about their Ears In short a whole Nation by usance was brought to a Discipline nothing inferiour in undauntedness to the most studied and premeditated Resolution Most instructions of Sciences to encourage us have in them more of shew than of force and of Ornament than effect We have abandon'd Nature and will teach her what to do her who did so happily and so securely conduct us And in the mean time from the foot-steps of her Instruction and that little which by the benefit of ignorance remains of her Image imprinted in the life of this rustick rout of unpolish'd men Science is constrain'd every day to borrow thence to make a pattern for her Disciples of Constancy Tranquility Innocence 'T is pretty to see that these complain of so much fine Knowledge being to imitate this foolish simplicity and that in the most principal acts of Virtue And that our Wisdom must learn even from Beasts the most profitable instructions in the greatest and most necessary Concerns of humane life As how we are to live and dye mannage our Fortunes love and bring up our Children and to maintain Justice A singular testimony of humane Infirmity and that this Reason we so handle at our Pleasure finding evermore some diversity and novelty leaves with us no apparent trace of Nature And they make men as Perfumers mix their Oyls they have sophisticated it with so many Argumentations and far-fetch'd Discourses that it is become variable and particular to every one of them and has lost its proper constant and universal face And we must seek testimony from Beasts not subject to favour corruption nor diversity of Opinions For it is indeed true that even they themselves do not always go exactly in the Path of Nature but wherein they do swerve 't is so little that you may always see the track As Horses that are lead make several bounds and curvets but 't is always at the length of the Collar and they still follow him that leads them and as a Hawk takes his flight but still under the restraint of his Cranes Exilia Tormenta Bella Morbos Naufragia meditare ut nullo sis malo tyro Meditate upon Banishments Tortures Wars Diseases and Shipwracks that thou may'st not be to seek in any disaster What good will this Curiosity do us to preoccupate all the Inconveniencies of humane Nature and to prepare our selves with so much trouble against things which peradventure will never befall us parem passis tristitiam facit pati posse It troubles men as much that they may possibly suffer as if they really did Not only the blow but the wind of the blow strikes us Or like Phrenetick People for certainly 't is a Phrensie to go immediately and whip your self because it may so fall out that Fortune may one day make you undergo it and to put on your Furr'd-gown at Midsummer because you will stand in need of it at Christmas Throw your selves say they into the experience of all the evils the most extream evils that can possibly befall you assure your selves there On the contrary the most easie and most natural way would be to banish even the thoughts of them They will not come soon enough their true Being will not continue with us long enough we must lengthen and extend them we must incorporate them in us before hand and there entertain them as if they would not otherwise sufficiently press upon our Senses We shall find them heavy enough when they come says one of our Masters of none of the tender but the most severe Sects in the mean time favour thy self believe what pleases thee best What good will it do thee to prevent thy ill Fortune to lose the present for fear of the future and to make thy self immediately miserable because thou art to be so in time These are his Words Science indeed does us one good Office in instructing as exactly in the dimensions of Evils Curis acuens mortalia corda 'T were pity that any part of their Grandeur should escape our Sense and Knowledge 'T is certain that for the most part the preparation for Death has administred more Torment than the thing it self It was of old truly said and by a very judicious Author Minus afficit sensus fatigatio quam cogitatio Suffering it self does less afflict the Senses than the apprehension of suffering The Sentiment of present death does sometimes of it self animate us with a prompt Resolution no more to avoid a thing that is utterly inevitable Several Gladiators have been seen who after having fought timorously and ill have courageously entertain'd Death offering their Throats to the Enemies Sword and bidding them dispatch The remote sight of future Death requires a Constancy that is slow and lazy and consequently hard to be got If you know not how to dye never trouble your self Nature will fully and sufficiently instruct you upon the place she will exactly do that business for you take you no care Incertam frustra mortales funeris horam Quaeritis qua sit mors aditura via Poenâ— minor certam subito perferre ruinam Quod timeas gravius sustinuisse diu Mortals in vain 's your Curiosity To know the Hour and Death that you must dye Better your fate strike with a sudden blow Than that you long should what you fear foreknow We trouble Life by the care of Death and Death by the care of Life The one torments the other frights us 'T is not against Death that we prepare that is too momentary a thing a quarter of an hours suffering without consequence and without nuisance does not deserve particular Precepts To say the truth we prepare our selves against the Preparations of Death Philosophy ordains that we should always have Death before our Eyes to fore-see and consider it before the time and after gives us Rules and Precautions to provide that this