The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

  [A1] Why do women now cover up those beauties – right down below their heels – which every woman wants to display and every man wants to see? Why do they clothe with so many obstacles, layer upon layer, those parts which are the principal seat of our desires – and of theirs? And what use are those defence-works with which our women have started to arm their thighs, if not to entrap our desires and to attract us by keeping us at a distance?

  Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri;

  [She flees into the willow trees – but wants you to see her first;]

  [B] Interdum tunica duxit operta moram.

  [Sometimes she delays me by letting her dress get in the way.]20

  [A1] What is the purpose of that artful maidenly modesty, that poised coldness, that severe countenance, that professed ignorance of things which they know better than we do who are teaching them to them, if not to increase our desire to vanquish, overcome and bend to our passion all those conventional obstacles? For there is not only pleasure in making that sweet gentleness and that girlish modesty go mad with sensual desire but glory as well in reducing a proud and imperious gravity to the mercy of our ardour.

  There is glory, they say, in triumphing over coldness, modesty, chastity and moderation, and those who counsel ladies against such qualities betray both the ladies and themselves. We need to believe that their minds are quivering with fear; that the sound of our words offends the purity of their ears; that they hate us for it and yield to our insolence with an enforced fortitude.

  Beauty, however powerful it may be, has no way of making itself savoured without such preliminaries. See how in Italy – where there are more beautiful women on sale, and finer ones too21 – Beauty still has to seek extraneous means and other artifices to make herself attractive: and yet, in truth, being public and buyable she remains weak and languishing: [A] just as in virtue, even out of two similar actions, we hold the one to be more beautiful and more highly prized in which there are more difficulties and hazards to be faced.

  It is an act of God’s Providence to allow his Holy Church to be, as we can see she now is, shaken by so many disturbances and tempests, in order by this opposition to awaken the souls of the pious and to bring them back from the idleness and torpor in which so long a period of calm had immersed them. If we weigh the loss we have suffered by the numbers of those who have been led into error against the gain which accrues to us from our having been brought back into fighting trim, with our zeal and our strength restored to new life for the battle, I am not sure whether the benefit does not outweigh the loss.

  We thought we were tying our marriage-knots more tightly by removing all means of undoing them;22 but the tighter we pulled the knot of constraint the looser and slacker became the knot of our will and affection. In Rome, on the contrary, what made marriages honoured and secure for so long a period was freedom to break them at will. Men loved their wives more because they could lose them; and during a period when anyone was quite free to divorce, more than five hundred years went by before a single one did so:

  Quod licet, ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit.

  [What is allowed has no charm: what is not allowed, we burn to do.]23

  There is an opinion of an Ancient philosopher which we could add on this subject: punishments sharpen our vices rather than blunt them;24 [B] they do not engender a concern to do good (which is the result of reason and self-discipline) but only a concern not to be found out doing wrong:

  Latius excisæ pestis contagia serpunt.

  [The contagious sore is cut out; the infection spreads imperceptibly wider.]25

  [A] I do not know whether that opinion is true, but this I do know from experience: no polity has ever been reformed by such means. To bring order and rule to our morals we must depend on some other method.

  [C] The Greek histories mention some neighbours of the Scythians, the Argippaei, who do not even have sticks or clubs for weapons; not only does no one ever set out to attack them but because of their virtuous holy lives, any man who seeks refuge with them is quite safe: no one would dare to come and lay hands on him. Recourse is had to them to settle any disputes which arise among men elsewhere.26

  [B] And there is a nation where the gardens and fields which they want to protect are bounded by cotton-thread: it proves more secure and reliable than our hedges and ditches.27 [C] ‘Furem signata sollicitant… Aperta effractarius præterit.’ [Locked houses invite the thief: the burglar passes them by when they are wide open.]28

  Perhaps it is ease of access, among other things, which serves to protect my dwelling from the violence of our civil wars. Defences attract offensives; defiance, attacks. I have weakened any designs which the soldiers may have on it by removing from such an exploit all the dangers and occasions for military glory which usually provide them with a pretext and an excuse. At times when justice is dead, anything done courageously is always done honourably: I make the taking of my house something cowardly and treacherous. It is closed to no one who knocks. My entire protection consists of an old-fashioned courteous porter who serves not so much to protect my door as to welcome anyone to it with becoming grace. I have no guard, no watch, save that which the heavenly bodies provide for me. A gentleman is wrong to give the appearance of being defended unless his defences are complete. Whoever is exposed on the flank is exposed overall. Our fathers had no thought of building defensive manor-houses. The means of storming and surprising our houses – I mean even without cannons and armies – increase every day, exceeding our means of safeguarding them. Good minds are working that way all the time; invading a house touches all men: protecting it, only the rich.

  My own house was a stronghold for the time it was built. In that respect I have added nothing to it, fearing that its strength could be turned against me. Peaceful times moreover will require us to unfortify our houses again. There is also the risk that we would never be able to retake them; yet it is hard to render them safe, for, where civil wars are concerned, your manservant may be on the side you go in fear of. And once religion serves as pretext, you cannot even trust such kinsmen as may veil themselves behind a pretence of justice.

  Our home-garrisons are not paid for out of the public exchequer, which would be exhausted by doing so. We ourselves have not the means of paying for them without ruining ourselves or (more inappropriately and unjustly) without ruining our people. And my position will be no worse if I do lose my house; for if you lose it when defended, even those who love you will spend less time on sympathy than on criticisms of your lack of vigilance and foresight, of your ignorance and neglect of the duties of a soldier.

  The fact that so many protected houses have been lost while this house of mine goes on makes me suspect that they were lost precisely because they were protected: protective-works provide an attacker with both the desire and the excuse. All kinds of protection look belligerent. If God so wills it, let any man burst into my home: all the same, I shall never invite him to do so. It is my place of retreat, to rest from the wars. I assay to steal this corner from the public storms, as I do for another corner in my soul. Our war can change its patterns, multiply and diversify into new factions; but to no avail: as for me, I do not budge.

  In the midst of so many fortified houses, I, alone of my rank in the whole of France as far as I know, have, entrusted mine entirely to the protection of Heaven. I have never removed from it either silver spoon or title-deed. I will never fear for myself, nor save myself, by halves. If God’s favour is acquired by a complete confidence in it, it will endure unto the end for me; if not I have myself already endured long enough to render that length of time remarkable and worth recording. What! It has been thirty years or more!29

  16. On glory

  [This chapter shows how Montaigne’s moral interests were based more on experience than on books. A Classical concern with ‘honour’ – a good reputation after death – was widely adopted in the Renaissance. By his own experience in the civil wars and by his own reflections on vi
rtue in both men and women, Montaigne is led to a Christian insistence on the primacy of conscience over reputation, as well as in [C] to a jaundiced view of even Socrates and Plato who evoked special revelation when at a loss for argument.

  The opening lines, with their sharp distinction between words and the reality which they signify is a current Renaissance distinction (not accepted by most Platonists) which derives from Aristotle. We are reminded that the Civil Wars of Religion had as great an effect on the minds of men in Montaigne’s day as two world wars have had in our own time on those who were caught up in them.

  Some of the ideas in this chapter are derived from the Théologie naturelle of Raymond Sebond.]

  [A] There are names and there are things. A name is a spoken sound which designates a thing and acts as a sign for it. The name is not part of that thing nor part of its substance: it is a foreign body attached to that thing; it is quite outside it.1 God, who is the plenitude and ultimate of all perfection, cannot himself either increase or grow: but his name can increase and grow through the praises and thanksgivings which we bestow on His works, which are external to him.2 Now those praises cannot be incorporated into the substance of God, in whom there can be no increase of good, so we attribute them to his Name, which is the external quality which is nearest to him. That is why it is to God alone that belong all honour and glory3 and why there is nothing so remotely unreasonable as to go seeking them for ourselves; for since we are wanting and necessitous within (our essence being imperfect and having a continual need of improvement) we should be attending to that. We are all hollow and empty: it is not with wind and spoken sounds that we have to fill ourselves: to restore ourselves we need a substance more solid. A starving man would be a simpleton if he went in search of fine clothes rather than a good meal: we must run to our most pressing needs. As our common prayers put it: ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus.’ [Glory to God in the highest: and in earth, peace to men.]4 We are wanting in beauty, health, wisdom, virtue and other qualities of our essence: external ornaments we shall seek for only after we have provided for our necessities.

  Theology treats this subject fully and more pertinently than I do, but I am not well versed in it.

  Chrysippus and Diogenes were the first and most decisive authorities to hold that glory is to be disdained;5 they said that of all the pleasures none was more dangerous nor more to be fled than the pleasure which comes to us from other men’s approval. And, truly, experience shows us that its deceptions can often be very harmful.

  Nothing poisons monarchs more than flattery: nothing, either, by which bad men can more easily gain credit in their courts; nor is there any pimping more common nor more apt for corrupting the chastity of women than feeding them and entertaining them with their praises. [B] The first enchantment which the Sirens used to deceive Ulysses was of such a nature:

  Deça vers nous, deça, ô treslouable Ulisse,

  Et le plus grand honneur dont la Grece fleurisse.

  [Come hither to us, come hither, O Ulysses, most worthy of praise and the greatest in that honour which flourishes in Greece.]6

  [A] Those philosophers I mentioned said that all the glory in the world was not worth that a man of discretion should merely stretch out a finger to acquire it –7

  [B] Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?

  [Make glory as great as you will, yet what is it but glory?]8 –

  [A] I mean, to acquire it for its own sake; for it does bring in its train several advantages which can make it desirable. Glory brings us good-will; it makes us less exposed to insult and injury than other men; and so on.

  That was also one of the principal doctrines of Epicurus: for that precept of his School, Conceal thy life (which enjoins men not to lumber themselves with business and affairs) also necessarily presupposes a contempt for glory, which is the world’s approbation of such of our actions as we make public.9 That philosopher who orders us to conceal ourselves and to care for no one but ourselves and who wishes us to remain unknown to others, wants us even less to be held in honour and glory by them. He also advised Idomeneus in no wise to govern his actions by reputation or by common opinion, except to avoid such incidental disadvantages as the contempt of men might bring him.10 Those words are infinitely true, in my opinion, and are reasonable. Yet within ourselves we are somehow double creatures, with the result that what we believe we do not believe, what we condemn we cannot rid ourselves of. Look at the last words of Epicurus, said when he was dying: they are great words, worthy of such a philosopher: nevertheless they bear some sign of a concern for his reputation and of the very humour which he had denounced in his precepts.

  Here is a letter which he dictated just before he breathed his last:

  EPICURUS TO HERMACHUS: Greetings:

  ‘I wrote this while I was spending the happiest day of my life, which is also my last, accompanied however by such pain in the bladder and the intestines that nothing additional could make it greater. But it is outweighed by the pleasure brought to my soul by the remembrance of my solutions and arguments. You now should welcome the task of looking after the children of Metrodorus, as required by the love you have from your childhood felt for me and for philosophy.’11

  That is his letter.

  What leads me to conclude that the pleasure which he says that he feels in his soul from his solutions is in some way connected with the reputation he hoped to acquire after death is a clause in his will requiring his heirs, Aminomachus and Timocrates, to furnish every January on his birthday such monies as Hermachus should require to celebrate it, and also such expenses which were incurred in entertaining his philosopher-friends who would assemble on the twentieth day of each moon to honour the memory of Metrodorus and himself.12

  Carneades was the leader of the opposing School13 and maintained that glory was desirable for itself, in the same way that we are attached for their own sake to those who come after us even though we enjoy no knowledge of them. That opinion has not failed to be widely accepted, as opinions which are most adapted to our inclinations readily are. [C] Aristotle gives glory the first rank among external goods: ‘Avoid, as two vicious extremes, immoderately seeking glory or fleeing it.’14 [A] I believe that if we had the books which Cicero wrote on the subject he would have spun us some good ones! For that fellow was so raging mad with a passion for glory that, if he had dared, he would readily have fallen into the extreme which others fell into: that even Virtue herself is only desirable for the honour which ever attends her.

  Paulum sepultæ distat inertiæ

  Celata virtus:

  [Little does concealed virtue differ from slumbering idleness:]15

  which is an opinion so false that it irks me that it could ever have entered the mind of a man who who bore the honoured name of philosopher. If that were true, we ought to be virtuous only in public; and as for those workings of our soul (which is the true seat of virtue) we would never need to keep them in due order under control except when they would come to the notice of others.

  [C] Is it only a matter, then, of being sly and subtle about our failings? ‘If,’ says Carneades, ‘you know that a snake is hidden in a place where a man who is unaware of it and by whose death you hope to profit is about to sit down, and you do not warn him of it, you act wickedly.’16 All the more so if your deed could be known only to yourself. Unless we draw the rules of right-conduct from within ourselves and if to us justice means not being punished, how many kinds of wicked deeds must we daily abandon ourselves to! What Sextus Peducaeus did when he faithfully returned what Gaius Plotius had entrusted to him, he alone knowing it – something I often do – I do not so much find laudable as I should find any failure to do so execrable.17 And I consider it good and useful to recall the case of Publius Sextilius Rufus, whom Cicero condemns for having accepted an inheritance despite what he knew to be right, although he acted not merely without illegality but through the law.18 Then there were Marcus Crassus and Quintus Hortensius who
had been invited by a foreigner to accept certain inheritances from the provisions of a false will, so that by means of their power and authority he could be sure of his own share; they were quite happy to play no part in the forgery yet did not refuse to profit by it; they felt safe enough if they could be protected from prosecutors, witnesses and law-suits.19‘Meminerint Deum se habere testem, id est [ut ego arbitror] mentem suam.’ [Let them remember that there is a witness, God: that is (as I understand it), their own minds.]20

  [A] Virtue is a vain and frivolous thing if she draws her commendation from glory: then, for nothing should we undertake to make her hold her rank apart and detach her from Fortune: for what is there more fortuitous than reputation? [C] ‘Profecto fortuna in omni re dominatur: ea res cunctas ex libidine magis quam ex vero celebrat obscuratque.’ [Indeed Fortune dominates over all things: she makes all things celebrated or obscure by her own whim not by truth.]21 [A] To make deeds seen and known is purely the work of Fortune.

  [C] Chance it is which bestows glory on us according to her fickle will: I have often seen it marching ahead of merit, and often outstripping merit by a long chalk. The man who first recognized the resemblance between shadow and glory did better than he intended.22 Both are things exceedingly vain. Sometimes the shadow is thrown ahead of its body; and sometimes it greatly exceeds it in length.

  [A] Those who teach noblemen to seek only honour from valour, [C] ‘quasi non sit honestum quod nobilitatum non sit’ [as if no deed is distinguished unless it receive some distinction],23 [A] what do they achieve by it except teaching them never to hazard themselves if nobody is looking, and to take care to see that there are witnesses who can bring back news of their valour, whereas there are hundreds of occasions for acting well without anyone ever noticing us for it? How many beautiful individual deeds are buried in the throng of a battle? Whoever spends time noting down what another is doing in such an engagement cannot have much to do himself, and so the testimony he renders to the achievements of his comrades is produced against himself. [C] ‘Vera et sapiens animi magnitudo honestum illud quod maxime naturam sequitur, in factis positum, non in gloria, judicat.’ [A truly great and wise mind judges that honour – which is its nature’s greatest aim – is found not in glory but in deeds.]24