The Essays of Montaigne, Complete

M >> Michel de Montaigne >> The Essays of Montaigne, Complete


"Credo ch 'el reste di quel verno, cose
Facesse degne di tener ne conto;
Ma fur fin' a quel tempo si nascose,
Che non a colpa mia s' hor 'non le conto
Perche Orlando a far l'opre virtuose
Piu ch'a narrar le poi sempre era pronto;
Ne mai fu alcun' de'suoi fatti espresso,
Se non quando ebbe i testimonii appresso."

["The rest of the winter, I believe, was spent in actions worthy of
narration, but they were done so secretly that if I do not tell them
I am not to blame, for Orlando was more bent to do great acts than
to boast of them, so that no deeds of his were ever known but those
that had witnesses."--Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xi. 81.]

A man must go to the war upon the account of duty, and expect the
recompense that never fails brave and worthy actions, how private soever,
or even virtuous thoughts-the satisfaction that a well-disposed
conscience receives in itself in doing well. A man must be valiant for
himself, and upon account of the advantage it is to him to have his
courage seated in a firm and secure place against the assaults of
fortune:

"Virtus, repulsaa nescia sordidx
Intaminatis fulget honoribus
Nec sumit, aut ponit secures
Arbitrio popularis aura."

["Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless
honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the
vulgar."--Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]

It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for
ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends
us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us
against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when
opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war:

"Non emolumento aliquo, sed ipsius honestatis decore."

["Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself."
--Cicero, De Finib., i. 10.]

This profit is of much greater advantage, and more worthy to be coveted
and hoped for, than, honour and glory, which are no other than a
favourable judgment given of us.

A dozen men must be called out of a whole nation to judge about an acre
of land; and the judgment of our inclinations and actions, the most
difficult and most important matter that is, we refer to the voice and
determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance, injustice, and
inconstancy. Is it reasonable that the life of a wise man should
depend upon the judgment of fools?

"An quidquam stultius, quam, quos singulos contemnas,
eos aliquid putare esse universes?"

["Can anything be more foolish than to think that those you despise
singly, can be anything else in general."
--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 36.]

He that makes it his business to please them, will have enough to do and
never have done; 'tis a mark that can never be aimed at or hit:

"Nil tam inaestimabile est, quam animi multitudinis."

["Nothing is to be so little understood as the minds of the
multitude."--Livy, xxxi. 34.]

Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no
more account of that which came from above than of that which came from
below. He [Cicero] says more:

"Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."

["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
--Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]

No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
can be chosen. Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
an end; let us follow constantly after reason; let the public approbation
follow us there, if it will; and as it wholly depends upon fortune, we
have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that. Even
though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should,
however, follow it as having experimentally found that, at the end of
the reckoning, 'tis commonly the most happy and of greatest utility.

"Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus,
ut honesta magis juvarent."

["This gift Providence has given to men, that honest things should
be the most agreeable."--Quintilian, Inst. Orat., i. 12.]

The mariner of old said thus to Neptune, in a great tempest: "O God, thou
wilt save me if thou wilt, and if thou choosest, thou wilt destroy me;
but, however, I will hold my rudder straight."--[Seneca, Ep., 85.]--
I have seen in my time a thousand men supple, halfbred, ambiguous, whom
no one doubted to be more worldly-wise than I, lose themselves, where I
have saved myself:

"Risi successus posse carere dolos."

["I have laughed to see cunning fail of success."
--Ovid, Heroid, i. 18.]

Paulus AEmilius, going on the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above all
things charged the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his
absence. Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great
affairs! forasmuch as every one has not the firmness of Fabius against
common, adverse, and injurious tongues, who rather suffered his authority
to be dissected by the vain fancies of men, than to do less well in his
charge with a favourable reputation and the popular applause.

There is I know not what natural sweetness in hearing one's self
commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it:

"Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est
Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso
Euge tuum, et belle."

["I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;
but I deny that 'excellent--admirably done,' are the terms and
final aim of virtue."--Persius, i. 47.]

I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in
my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing. Strangers see
nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face
on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not
see my heart, they see but my countenance. One is right in decrying the
hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to
shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no
more heart than a chicken? There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a
man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before
we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves
in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that
time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business,
though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic
ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward
towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide
themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed
in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold.

"Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret
Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?"

["False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty
and the sick."--Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]

Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external
appearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is
no so certain testimony as every one is to himself. In these, how many
soldiers' boys are companions of our glory? he who stands firm in an
open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open
to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day
pay, do before him?

"Non quicquid turbida Roma
Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa
Castiges trutina: nec to quaesiveris extra."

["Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct
a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself."
--Persius, Sat., i. 5.]

The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making
them more great; we will have them there well received, and that this
increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in
this design. But the excess of this disease proceeds so far that many
covet to have a name, be it what it will. Trogus Pompeius says of
Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, that they were more
ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one. This is very common;
we are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and it
is enough for us that our names are often mentioned, be it after what
manner it will. It should seem that to be known, is in some sort to have
a man's life and its duration in others' keeping. I, for my part, hold
that I am not, but in myself; and of that other life of mine which lies
in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in
itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment
from it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and when I shall be
dead, I shall be still and much less sensible of it; and shall, withal,
absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes
accidentally follow it.

I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation, neither
shall it have any whereby to take hold of or to cleave to me; for to
expect that my name should be advanced by it, in the first place, I have
no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all
my race, and indeed to others also; there are two families at Paris and
Montpellier, whose surname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and one in
Xaintonge, De La Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable only would
suffice so to ravel our affairs, that I shall share in their glory, and
they peradventure will partake of my discredit; and, moreover, my
ancestors have formerly been surnamed, Eyquem,--[Eyquem was the
patronymic.]--a name wherein a family well known in England is at this
day concerned. As to my other name, every one may take it that will, and
so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead. And besides, though
I had a particular distinction by myself, what can it distinguish, when I
am no more? Can it point out and favour inanity?

"Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa?
Laudat posteritas! Nunc non e manibus illis,
Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla,
Nascentur violae?"

["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones? Do comrades
praise? Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes
will violets grow."--Persius, Sat., i. 37.]

but of this I have spoken elsewhere. As to what remains, in a great
battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen
who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some
consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that
signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great
captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self
bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of
us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are
things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there
must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable
effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it:

"Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam
Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo."

["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the
midst of Fortune's heap."--Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]

Of so many thousands of valiant men who have died within these fifteen
hundred years in France with their swords in their hands, not a hundred
have come to our knowledge. The memory, not of the commanders only, but
of battles and victories, is buried and gone; the fortunes of above half
of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish
without duration. If I had unknown events in my possession, I should
think with great ease to out-do those that are recorded, in all sorts of
examples. Is it not strange that even of the Greeks and Romans, with so
many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few
are arrived at our knowledge:

"Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura."

["An obscure rumour scarce is hither come."--AEneid, vii. 646.]

It will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in general
that in our times there were civil wars in France. The Lacedaemonians,
entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their
actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine
and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could
give them life and memory. Do we expect that at every musket-shot we
receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to
record it? and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose
commentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the
sight of any one. We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings;
'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life, according to her
favour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we have be not the
worst, not having seen the rest. Men do not write histories of things of
so little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an
empire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty set battles, and
always the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten thousand brave fellows
and many great captains lost their lives valiantly in his service, whose
names lasted no longer than their wives and children lived:

"Quos fama obscura recondit."

["Whom an obscure reputation conceals."--AEneid, v. 302.]

Even those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three
years after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they
had never been. Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,
of what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains itself
in the records of history, will find that there are very few actions and
very few persons of our times who can there pretend any right. How many
worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen
and suffered the honour and glory most justly acquired in their youth,
extinguished in their own presence? And for three years of this
fantastic and imaginary life we must go and throw away our true and
essential life, and engage ourselves in a perpetual death! The sages
propose to themselves a nobler and more just end in so important an
enterprise:

"Recte facti, fecisse merces est: officii fructus,
ipsum officium est."

["The reward of a thing well done is to have done it; the fruit
of a good service is the service itself."--Seneca, Ep., 8.]

It were, peradventure, excusable in a painter or other artisan, or in a
rhetorician or a grammarian, to endeavour to raise himself a name by his
works; but the actions of virtue are too noble in themselves to seek any
other reward than from their own value, and especially to seek it in the
vanity of human judgments.

If this false opinion, nevertheless, be of such use to the public as to
keep men in their duty; if the people are thereby stirred up to virtue;
if princes are touched to see the world bless the memory of Trajan, and
abominate that of Nero; if it moves them to see the name of that great
beast, once so terrible and feared, so freely cursed and reviled by every
schoolboy, let it by all means increase, and be as much as possible
nursed up and cherished amongst us; and Plato, bending his whole
endeavour to make his citizens virtuous, also advises them not to despise
the good repute and esteem of the people; and says it falls out, by a
certain Divine inspiration, that even the wicked themselves oft-times, as
well by word as opinion, can rightly distinguish the virtuous from the
wicked. This person and his tutor are both marvellous and bold
artificers everywhere to add divine operations and revelations where
human force is wanting:

"Ut tragici poetae confugiunt ad deum,
cum explicare argumenti exitum non possunt:"

["As tragic poets fly to some god when they cannot explain
the issue of their argument."--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 20.]

and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him,
called him the great forger of miracles. Seeing that men, by their
insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let
the counterfeit be superadded. 'Tis a way that has been practised by all
the legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture
either of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb
to keep the people in their duty. 'Tis for this that most of them have
their originals and beginnings fabulous, and enriched with supernatural
mysteries; 'tis this that has given credit to bastard religions, and
caused them to be countenanced by men of understanding; and for this,
that Numa and Sertorius, to possess their men with a better opinion of
them, fed them with this foppery; one, that the nymph Egeria, the other
that his white hind, brought them all their counsels from the gods.
And the authority that Numa gave to his laws, under the title of the
patronage of this goddess, Zoroaster, legislator of the Bactrians and
Persians, gave to his under the name of the God Oromazis: Trismegistus,
legislator of the Egyptians, under that of Mercury; Xamolxis, legislator
of the Scythians, under that of Vesta; Charondas, legislator of the
Chalcidians, under that of Saturn; Minos, legislator of the Candiots,
under that of Jupiter; Lycurgus, legislator of the Lacedaemonians, under
that of Apollo; and Draco and Solon, legislators of the Athenians, under
that of Minerva. And every government has a god at the head of it;
the others falsely, that truly, which Moses set over the Jews at their
departure out of Egypt. The religion of the Bedouins, as the Sire de
Joinville reports, amongst other things, enjoined a belief that the soul
of him amongst them who died for his prince, went into another body more
happy, more beautiful, and more robust than the former; by which means
they much more willingly ventured their lives:

"In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces
Mortis, et ignavum est rediturae parcere vitae."

["Men's minds are prone to the sword, and their souls able to bear
death; and it is base to spare a life that will be renewed."
--Lucan, i. 461.]

This is a very comfortable belief, however erroneous. Every nation has
many such examples of its own; but this subject would require a treatise
by itself.

To add one word more to my former discourse, I would advise the ladies no
longer to call that honour which is but their duty:

"Ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur
honestum, quod est populari fama gloriosum;"

["As custom puts it, that only is called honest which is
glorious by the public voice."--Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 15.]

their duty is the mark, their honour but the outward rind. Neither would
I advise them to give this excuse for payment of their denial: for I
presuppose that their intentions, their desire, and will, which are
things wherein their honour is not at all concerned, forasmuch as nothing
thereof appears without, are much better regulated than the effects:

"Qux quia non liceat, non facit, illa facit:"

["She who only refuses, because 'tis forbidden, consents."
--Ovid, Amor., ii. 4, 4.]

The offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as great to
desire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private and secret
of themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the knowledge of
others, wherein the honour consists, if they had not another respect to
their duty, and the affection they bear to chastity, for itself. Every
woman of honour will much rather choose to lose her honour than to hurt
her conscience.




CHAPTER XVII

OF PRESUMPTION

There is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion
of our own worth. 'Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter
ourselves, and that represents us to ourselves other than we truly are:
like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the object,
and makes those who are caught by it, with a depraved and corrupt
judgment, consider the thing which they love other and more perfect than
it is.

I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on this side, that a man
should not know himself aright, or think himself less than he is; the
judgment ought in all things to maintain its rights; 'tis all the reason
in the world he should discern in himself, as well as in others, what
truth sets before him; if it be Caesar, let him boldly think himself the
greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony: ceremony
carries us away, and we leave the substance of things: we hold by the
branches, and quit the trunk and the body; we have taught the ladies to
blush when they hear that but named which they are not at all afraid to
do: we dare not call our members by their right names, yet are not afraid
to employ them in all sorts of debauchery: ceremony forbids us to express
by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it: reason
forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it. I find
myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a
man to speak well of himself, nor ill: we will leave her there for this
time.

They whom fortune (call it good or ill) has made to, pass their lives in
some eminent degree, may by their public actions manifest what they are;
but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will
say a word unless they speak themselves, are to be excused if they take
the boldness to speak of themselves to such as are interested to know
them; by the example of Lucilius:

"Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris, neque si male cesserat, usquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene: quo fit, ut omnis,
Votiva pateat veluri descripta tabella
Vita senis;"

["He formerly confided his secret thoughts to his books, as to tried
friends, and for good and evil, resorted not elsewhere: hence it
came to pass, that the old man's life is there all seen as on a
votive tablet."--Horace, Sat., ii. I, 30.]

he always committed to paper his actions and thoughts, and there
portrayed himself such as he found himself to be:

"Nec id Rutilio et Scauro citra fidem; aut obtrectationi fuit."

["Nor was this considered a breach of good faith or a disparagement
to Rutilius or Scaurus."--Tacitus, Agricola, c. I.]

I remember, then, that from my infancy there was observed in me I know
not what kind of carriage and behaviour, that seemed to relish of pride
and arrogance. I will say this, by the way, that it is not unreasonable
to suppose that we have qualities and inclinations so much our own, and
so incorporate in us, that we have not the means to feel and recognise
them: and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain
bent, without our knowledge or consent. It was an affectation
conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one
side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head
with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome
thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a
sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly
happen in us. There are other artificial ones which I meddle not with,
as salutations and congees, by which men acquire, for the most part
unjustly, the reputation of being humble and courteous: one may be humble
out of pride. I am prodigal enough of my hat, especially in summer, and
never am so saluted but that I pay it again from persons of what quality
soever, unless they be in my own service. I should make it my request to
some princes whom I know, that they would be more sparing of that
ceremony, and bestow that courtesy where it is more due; for being so
indiscreetly and indifferently conferred on all, it is thrown away to no
purpose; if it be without respect of persons, it loses its effect.
Amongst irregular deportment, let us not forget that haughty one of the
Emperor Constantius, who always in public held his head upright and
stiff, without bending or turning on either side, not so much as to look
upon those who saluted him on one side, planting his body in a rigid
immovable posture, without suffering it to yield to the motion of his
coach, not daring so much as to spit, blow his nose, or wipe his face
before people. I know not whether the gestures that were observed in me
were of this first quality, and whether I had really any occult proneness
to this vice, as it might well be; and I cannot be responsible for the
motions of the body; but as to the motions of the soul, I must here
confess what I think of the matter.