Montaigne: Selected Essays

Things that come easy to us, even if they are acts of goodness, are not virtuous. Virtue involves a struggle against one’s nature to arrive at the good act. When we are sorely tested and emerge triumphant, that is the virtuous path.

If so, then what of Socrates, whom Montaigne sees as the most virtuous of all, whose virtue comes to him so effortlessly that there is no struggle? Easier to understand is Cato the Younger, who battles against Julius Caesar and, losing, pulls out and slices up his own entrails to guarantee his death and avoid the shame of being pardoned by a man he regards as evil. Montaigne states he “cannot be satisfied simply to believe that his soul then was totally free from fear and anxiety” (129).Hence, Cato’s actions clearly are virtuous.

Montaigne imagines that Socrates, contemplating his own death sentence, must also have experienced some difficult moments, yet both men seem imbued with the highest sort of goodness, “to have so trained oneself in virtue that the very seeds of vice have been eradicated” (131). Second most virtuous, then, are those who struggle against their natures to achieve noble ends; third are those who do good because it is easy.

Some noble acts are easy for ignoble reasons: “[E]ndurance of misfortune may come, and are often found, in men who lack sound judgment […] Thus a lack of understanding, and stupidity, at times may imitate the acts of virtue” (131). Montaigne believes he is called wise when he is merely lucky, and lauded for courage when he is simply being practical. As for mature virtue, “I am so far from achieving this highest, most perfect degree of excellence, where virtue has become a habit, that I have scarcely given any evidence of even the second highest” (132). He has always had a horror of vices, so that his behavior is naturally less wayward than his thinking: “[M]y appetites are less depraved than my reason” (133).

Of all the vices, Montaigne hates cruelty the most: “As for me, anything that goes beyond simple death, even in justice, seems to me to be pure cruelty” (137). A soldier, condemned to death and fearing it will involve torture, tries to kill himself, but his rescuers inform him that he will merely have his head chopped off, and he is much relieved: “He took some wine, which he had refused, and thanked his judges for the unhoped-for mildness of his sentence” (137).

For Montaigne, this is a sign of the cruelty of the times: “I would recommend that these examples of severity by means of which they want to make people obey the law be exercised upon the corpses of criminals” (137). He laments how the recent civil strife has generated people “so monstrous they would commit murder for the mere pleasure of it, hacking and chopping others’ limbs off, sharpening their wits to invent unusual tortures and new ways of killing” (138).

Montaigne even hates the cruelty of the hunt: “I hardly ever take an animal alive without setting it free” (139). Ancient beliefs hold that human souls reappear in the bodies of animals, so that cruel people are reborn as bears; “if cowardly, in that of a stag or a hare; if guileful, in that of a fox, and so on” (140), until finally being reborn as a person. Other societies worship animals. Montaigne doesn’t hold with these beliefs but agrees that animals have much in common with humans, and as such ought to be treated with respect.

Montaigne writes that “[t]here are two sides to this vanity: to wit, rating oneself too highly and not rating others highly enough” (145). Montaigne looks into the sources of conceit, using himself as a prime example.

He says that “from my earliest childhood people noted in me a certain physical carriage and gestures revealing some vain, foolish pride” (144). Yet he feels no such superiority: “it seems to me it would be quite difficult for anyone else to think less of himself, or even for anyone else to think less of me, than I do” (146).

The height of presumptuousness, to Montaigne, is to be a bad poet yet think oneself good at it. He cites Dionysius the Elder, a tyrant who forced his bad poetry on the public and for his vanity was killed by the gods. Montaigne is poor at poetry, and finds his writing overall to be coarse: “[M]y language has nothing easy or polished; it is harsh and disdainful, with a tendency toward the free and the disordered” (150). 

As style affects writing, the body affects the mind, and the good life involves training and nurturing both. Outcomes often depend on the body: a tall man is better at arms but worse as a courtier. A man may be handsome, but poor stature erases that advantage. Montaigne is short and stocky, which hamper his duties of command.

In athletics and the physical arts, he is generally incompetent, “aside from that I am a fine scholar” (154). He has little patience for activities that hold no interest, and instead indulges his pursuits as he sees fit: “That has made me soft and of no use to anyone else, and good for myself alone” (155). He avoids mundane chores and expenses, and merely hopes his servants will not cheat him too much.

Montaigne prefers to adapt to life as it happens, instead of trying to control it: “The most unpleasant posture for me is to be caught up in urgent matters and wavering between hope and fear” (156). He would much rather be cautious and passive than go to the trouble of wanting more. There are, though, advantages to being passive: “It is good to be born into a very depraved world, for in comparison with others you are deemed virtuous cheaply” (159). 

Montaigne also deplores the vogue for social pretense: “A noble heart must not disown its thoughts; it wishes to be seen to the core. Either everything is good there, or at least it is human” (160). He is puzzled that some men brag that they never reveal their true intentions, since they thereby “give a warning to those who have to deal with them that what they say is nothing but deception and lies” (160).

His memory is poor: “I could not take on any responsibility without notes” (162)—and balky: “It serves me, not when I want, but when it does” (162). This balkiness applies in other parts of him, especially when he is under pressure: “What I do easily and naturally, I can no longer do if I tell myself by express, prescribed orders to do it” (162). He fears that eventually his memory will fail altogether: “I so excel at forgetting, that I forget my own writings and compositions” (164).

Though he manages an agricultural estate and trading business, Montaigne does not “even know what to call the primary tools in my household, or understand even the basic principles of agriculture, which mere children know, much less in the mechanical arts, in the trading and knowledge of merchandise” (165).

Montaigne knows his confessions make him look bad: “But whatever I reveal about myself, as long as I show myself as I am, I achieve my aim” (165).

Further, he has trouble making up his mind, “a shortcoming that is highly inconvenient in dealings with the world of business” (166). He notes, however, that most choices are evenly balanced, and that decisions are chancy: “Human reason is a dangerous, double-edged sword” (167). For example, in politics, “there is no state of affairs, provided it has lasted and is stable, so bad that it is not better than change and tumult” (168).

He claims common sense: “I think I have good, sound ideas; but who does not believe that of his own?” (170). This is a universal presumption: “We have no problem recognizing greater courage, physical strength, experience, agility, and beauty in others, but we do not admit greater judgment in anyone” (169).

With respect to his own conceits, Montaigne suggests it may lie in his high opinion of his own “regularity” and “the order, consistency, and tranquility of my opinions and behavior” (171). As to the trait of undervaluing others, Montaigne looks about and finds that “[he] know[s] of nothing worthy of great admiration” (171). Even the learned are afflicted with vanity. Montaigne will extol the virtues of his friends and offers the same to his enemies. In either case, though, he “cannot lend them the qualities that are not there” (171). The only man he has known who rises to the top is Étienne de la Boétie: “His was truly a complete soul, whose beauty shone forth in every direction” (172).

Montaigne puts some of the blame on the education system, “which has aimed to make us learned, rather than good and wise” (172). The lower classes seem worthier: “I generally find the behavior and speech of peasants more orderly” (174).

Several recent military leaders and warriors do receive Montaigne’s praise for valor, and his adopted daughter and future publisher, Marie de Gournay, he commends for intelligence and friendship, a friendship that approaches the one Montaigne has with La Boétie.