Shakespeare's Montaigne by Michel de Montaigne
Now, if there be diverse worlds, as Democritus, Epicurus, and well-near all philosophy hath thought, what know we whether the principles and the rules of this one concern or touch likewise the others? Happily, [64] they have another semblance and another policy. Epicurus imagineth them either like or unlike. We see an infinite difference and variety in this world, only by the distance of places. There is neither corn, nor wine, no nor any of our beasts seen in that new corner of the world which our fathers have lately discovered. All things differ from ours. And in the old time, mark but in how many parts of the world they had never knowledge nor of Bacchus nor of Ceres. [65]
If any credit may be given unto Pliny or to Herodotus, there is in some places a kind of men that have very little or no resemblance at all with ours. And there be mongrel and ambiguous shapes between a human and brutish nature. Some countries there are where men are born headless, with eyes and mouths in their breasts; [66] where all are Hermaphrodites; where they creep on all four; where they have but one eye in their forehead, and heads more like unto a dog than ours; where from the navel downward they are half fish and live in the water; where women are brought a bed at five years of age [67] and live but eight; where their heads and the skin of their brows are so hard that no iron can pierce them but will rather turn edge; where men never have beards. Other nations there are that never have use of fire; others whose sperm is of a black colour.
What shall we speak of them, who naturally change themselves into wolves, into colts, and then into men again? And if it be (as Plutarch sayeth) that in some part of the Indies, there are men without mouths and who live only by the smell of certain sweet odors, how many of our descriptions be then false? He is no more risible, nor perhaps capable of reason and society, the direction and cause of our inward frame should for the most part be to no purpose. [68]
Moreover, how many things are there in our knowledge that oppugn these goodly rules which we have allotted and prescribed unto nature? And we undertake to join GOD himself unto her. How many things do we name miraculous and against nature? Each man and every nation doth it according to the measure of his ignorance. How many hidden proprieties and quintessences [69] do we daily discover? For us to go according to nature is but to follow according to our understanding, as far as it can follow and as much as we can perceive in it. Whatsoever is beyond it is monstrous and disordered.
By this account all shall then be monstrous to the wisest and most sufficient; for even to such, human reason hath persuaded that she had neither ground nor footing, no not so much as to warrant snow to be white: And Anaxagoras said it was black. Whether there be anything or nothing; whether there be knowledge or ignorance; (which Metrodorus Chius denied that any man might say). Or whether we live, as Euripides seemeth to doubt and call in question, whether the life we live be a life or no, or whether that which we call death be a life.
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I have ever thought this manner of speech in a Christian is full of indiscretion and irreverence: “God cannot die, God cannot gainsay himself, God cannot do this or that.” I cannot allow a man should so bound God’s heavenly power under the laws of our word. [70] And that appearance, which in these propositions offers itself unto us, ought to be represented more reverently and more religiously.
Our speech hath his infirmities and defects, as all things else have. Most of the occasions of this worlds troubles are grammatical. Our suits and processes proceed but from the canvassing and debating the interpretation of the laws, and most of our wars from the want of knowledge in state-counsellors that could not clearly distinguish and fully express the covenants and conditions of accords between Prince and Prince. How many weighty strifes and important quarrels hath the doubt of this one syllable, hoc, brought forth in the world? [71]
Examine the plainest sentence that Logic itself can present unto us. If you say, “It is fair weather,” and in so saying, say true, it is fair weather then. Is not this a certain forme of speech? Yet will it deceive us. That it is so, let us follow the example: If you say, “I lie,” and in that you should say true, you lie then. [72] The art, the reason, the force of the conclusion of this last are like unto the other; notwithstanding we are entangled.
I see the Pyrrhonian philosophers, who can by no manner of speech express their general conceit; for they had need of a new language. Ours [73] is altogether composed of affirmative propositions which are directly against them [the Pyrrhonists]. So that, when they say “I doubt,” you have them fast by the sleeve to make them avow that at least you are assured and know that they doubt. So have they been compelled to save themselves by this comparison of physic, [74] without which their conceit [75] woud be inexplicable and intricate. When they pronounce “I know not, or doubt,” they say that this proposition transports itself together with the rest, even as the rhubarb doth, which scoureth ill humours away and therewith is carried away himself. This conceit is more certainly conceived by an interrogation: What can I tell [Que sçay-je?]? As I bear it in an impresa [76] of a pair of balances.
Note how some prevail with this kind of unreverent and unhallowed speech. In the disputations that are nowadays in our religion, if you overmuch urge the adversaries, they will roundly tell you that it lieth not in the power of GOD to make his body, at once to be in paradise and on earth and in many other places together. And how that ancient scoffer [77] made profitable use of it. At least (sayeth he) it is no small comfort unto man to see that GOD cannot do all things: for he cannot kill himself if he would, which is the greatest benefit we have in our condition; he cannot make mortal men immortal, nor raise the dead to life again, nor make him that hath lived never to have lived, and him who hath had honors not to have had them, having no other right over what is past but of forgetfulness. And, that this society between God and man may also be combined with some pleasant examples, he cannot make twice ten to be but twenty.
See what he sayeth, and which a Christian ought to abhor that ever such and so profane words should pass his mouth. Whereas, on the contrary part, it seemeth that fond men endeavour to find out this foolish-boldness of speech that so they may turn and wind God almighty according to their measure.
——cras vel atra
Nube polum pater occupato,
Vel sole puro, non tamen irritum
Quodcumque retro est efficiet, neque
Diffinget effectumque reddet
Quod fugiens semel hora vexit.
Tomorrow let our father fill the sky,
With dark clouds, or with clear sun, he thereby
Shall not make void what once is overpast:
Nor shall he undo, or in new mold cast,
What time hath once caught, that flies hence so fast. [78]
When we say that the infinity of ages, as well past as to come, is but one instant with God, that his wisdom, goodness, and power are one self-same thing with his essence—our tongue speaks it, but our understanding can no wit apprehend it. Yet will our self-overweening sift his divinity through our searce. [79] Whence are engendered all the vanities and errors wherewith this world is so full-fraught, reducing and weighing with his uncertain balance a thing so far from his reach and so distant from his weight. Mirum quo procedat improbitas cordis humani, parvulo aliquo invitata successu. It is a wonder, whether the perverse wickedness of man’s heart will proceed if it be but called on with any little success. [80]
How insolently do the Stoics charge Epicurus because he holds that to be perfectly good and absolutely happy belongs but only unto God, and that the wise man hath but a shadow and similitude thereof? How rashly have they joined God unto destiny (which, at my request, let none that beareth the surname of a Christian do at this day), and Thales, Plato, and Pythagoras have subjected him unto necessity.
This over-boldness, or rather bold-fierceness, to seek to discover God by and with our eyes hath been the cause that a notable man of our times [81] hath attributed a corporal form unto divinity and is the cause of that which daily happeneth unto us, which i
As if it were all one to that king, either to remove an empire or a leaf of a tree; and if his providence were otherwise exercised, inclining or regarding no more the success of a battle than the skip of a flea. The hand of his government affords itself to all things after a like tenure, fashion, and order; our interest addeth nothing unto it; our motions and our measures concern him nothing and move him no whit. Deus ita artifex magnus in magnis, ut minor non sit in parvis. God is so great a workman in great things, as he is no less in small things. [83]
Our arrogance setteth ever before us this blasphemous equality. Because our occupations charge us, Strato hath presented the gods with all immunity of offices, as are their priests. He maketh nature to produce and preserve all things, and by her weights and motions to compact all parts of the world, discharging human nature from the fear of divine judgements. [84] Quod beatum æternumque sit, id nec habere, negotii quicquam, nec exhibere alteri. That which is blessed and eternal, nor is troubled itself nor troubleth others. [85] Nature willeth that in all things alike there be also like relation. [86] Then the infinite number of mortal men concludeth a like number of immortal. The infinite things that kill and destroy presuppose as many that preserve and profit. As the souls of the Gods, sans tongues, sans eyes, and sans ears, [87] have each one in themselves a feeling of that which the other feel, and judge of our thoughts; so men’s souls, when they are free and severed from the body, either by sleep or any distraction, divine, prognosticate, and see things which, being conjoined to their bodies, they could not see.
Men (sayeth Saint Paul), when they professed themselves to be wise, they became fools, for they turned the glory of the incorruptible God to the similitude of the image of a corruptible man. [88]
Mark, I pray you, a little the juggling [89] of ancient deifications. After the great, solemn, and proud pomp of funerals, when the fire began to burn the top of the pyramid and to take hold of the bed or hearse wherein the dead corpse lay, even at that instant they let fly an eagle, which taking her flight aloft upward, signified that the soul went directly to paradise. We have yet a thousand medals and monuments, namely, of that honest woman Faustina, wherein that eagle is represented, carrying a cock-horse [90] up towards heaven those deified souls. It is pity we should so deceive our selves with our own foolish devices and apish inventions—
Quod finxere timent.
Of that they stand in fear,
Which they in fancy bear. [91]
—as children will be afeard of their fellow’s visage which themselves have besmeared and blacked. Quasi quicquam infælicius sit homine, cui sua figmenta dominantur. As though anything were more wretched than man over whom his own imaginations bear sway and domineere. [92]
To honour him whom we have made is far from honouring him that hath made us. Augustus had as many temples as Jupiter and served with as much religion and opinion of miracles. The Thasians, in requital of the benefits they had received of Agesilaus, came to tell him how they had canonized him. “Hath your nation” (said he), “the power to make those whom it pleaseth gods? Then first (for example sake) make one of yourselves, and when I shall have seen what good he shall have thereby, I will then thank you for your offer.”
Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm and yet will make gods by dozens.
Listen to Trismegistus [93] when he praiseth our sufficiency: “For man to find out divine nature, and to make it, hath surmounted the admiration of all admirable things.” [94]
Lo, here arguments out of philosophy’s schools itself:
Noscere cui Divos et cœli numina soli,
Aut soli nescire datum.
Only to whom heaven’s deities to know,
Only to whom is giv’n them not to know. [95]
If God be, he is a living creature; if he be a living creature, he hath sense; [96] and if he have sense, he is subject to corruption. If he be without a body, he is without a soul and consequently without action; and if he have a body, he is corruptible. Is not this brave? [97]
We are incapable to have made the world, then is there some more excellent nature that hath set her helping hand unto it. Were it not a sottish [98] arrogance that we should think ourselves to be the perfectest thing of this universe? Then sure there is some better thing. And that is God. When you see a rich and stately mansion-house, although you know not who is owner of it, yet will you not say that it was built for rats. And this more-than-human frame and divine composition which we see of heaven’s palace, must we not deem it to be the mansion of some lord greater than ourselves? Is not the highest ever the most worthy? And we are seated in the lowest place.
Nothing that is without a soul and void of reason is able to bring forth a living soul capable of reason. The world doth bring us forth, then the world hath both soul and reason. Each part of us is less than ourselves. We are part of the world, then the world is stored with wisdom and with reason, and that more plenteously than we are.
It is a goodly thing to have a great government. Then the world’s government belongeth to some blessed and happy nature. The stars annoy us not, then the stars are full of goodness. We have need of nourishment, then so have the gods and feed themselves with the vapours arising here below. Worldly goods are not goods unto God, then are not they goods unto us. To offend and to be offended are equal witnesses of imbecility, then it is folly to fear God. God is good by his own nature, man by his industry. Which is more? Divine wisdom and man’s wisdom have no other distinction but that the first is eternal. Now lastingness is not an accession unto wisdom. Therefore are we fellows. We have life, reason, and liberty, we esteem goodness, charity, and justice; these qualities are then in him.
In conclusion, the building and destroying the conditions of divinity are forged by man according to the relation to himself. Oh, what a pattern and what a model! Let us raise and let us amplify human qualities as much as we please. Puff-up thyself, poor man—yea, swell and swell again.
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There is nothing wherein the world differeth so much as in customs and laws. Some things are here accounted abominable which in another place are esteemed commendable: as in Lacedemonia, [99] the slight and subtlety in stealing. Marriages in proximity of blood are amongst us forbidden as capital; elsewhere they are allowed and esteemed:
——gentes esse feruntur,
In quibus et nato genitrix, et nata parenti
Iungitur, et pietas geminato crescit amore.
There are some people, where the mother weddeth
Her son, the daughter her own father beddeth;
And so by doubling love, their kindness spreddeth. [100]
The murdering of children and of parents; the communication with women; [101] traffic of robbing and stealing; free licence to all manner of sensuality: to conclude, there is nothing so extreme and horrible but is found to be received and allowed by the custom of some nation.
It is credible that there be natural laws, as may be seen in other creatures. But in us they are lost; this goodly human reason engrafting itself among all men, to sway and command, confounding and topsy-turvying the visage of all things, according to her inconstant vanity and vain inconstancy. Nihil itaque amplius nostrum est, quod nostrum dico, artis est. Therefore nothing more is ours: all that I call ours belongs to art. [102]
Subjects have diverse lustres, and several considerations, whence the diversity of opinion is chiefly engendered. One nation vieweth a subject with one visage, and thereon it stays; another with another. Nothing can be imagined so horrible as for one to e
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I have heard it reported of a judge, who when he met with any sharp conflict betweene Bartolus and Baldus [104] or with any case admitting contrariety, was wont to write in the margin of his book, A question for a friend—which is to say, that the truth was so entangled and disputable that in such a case he might favour which party he should think good. There was no want but of spirit and sufficiency if he set not everywhere through his books, A question for a friend.
The advocates and judges of our time find in all cases biases too-too-many to fit them where they think good. To so infinite a science, depending on the authority of so many opinions, and of so arbitrary a subject, it cannot be but that an exceeding confusion of judgements must arise. There are very few processes so clear but the lawyers’ advises [105] upon them will be found to differ. What one company hath judged, another will adjudge the contrary, and the very same will another time change opinion. Whereof we see ordinary examples by this licence, which wonderfully blemisheth the authority and luster of our law, never to stay upon one sentence but to run from one to another judge to decide one same case.
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This discourse hath drawn me to the consideration of the senses, wherein consisteth the greatest foundation and trial of our ignorance. Whatsoever is known is without peradventure [106] known by the faculty of the knower. For, since the judgement cometh from the operation of him that judgeth, reason requireth that he perform and act this operation by his means and will and not by others’ compulsion. As it would follow if we knew things by the force and according to the law of their essence. Now all knowledge is addressed into us by the senses; they are our masters: