MONTAIGNE, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, The Essays, Apology

Montaigne: The Essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 208 – 293

1/6 SURVIVE INFANCY
The Biographical note - Michel de Montaigne records:
…and bestowed some pains on the education of his daughter, Léonore, the only one of six children to survive infancy.


Learning is, in truth a very useful and a very considerable quality, such as despise it, merely discover their own folly…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 208

GIFT OF A BOOK

…Repter Munel, a man of great reputation for knowledge in his time, … he presented him, at his departure, with a book intituled Theologia naturalis sive Liber creaturarum magistri Rimondi de Sebonde; and knowing that the Italian and Spanish tongues were familiar to my father, and this book being written in Spanish worked up with Latin termination, he hoped that with little help he might be able to make it turn to account, and therefore recommend it to him as a very useful piece and proper… which was when the novel doctrines of Martin Luther began to be in vogue…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 208

FOUND BOOK YEARS LATER

Now, my father, a little before his death, having accidentally found this book under a heap of other neglected papers, commanded me to translated it for him into French. It is all very well to translate such authors as this, where is little but the matter itself to express, but those wherein ornament of language and elegance of style are a main endeavour, are dangerous to attempt, especially when a man is to turn them into a weaker idiom…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 208

NOT ABLE TO RESIST COMMAND OF THE BEST FATHER THAT EVER WAS

It was a strange and new occupation for me, but having by chance, at the time, little else to do, and not being able to resist the command of the best father that ever was, I did it as well as I could, and he was so well pleased with it as to order it to be printed, which after his death, was done.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 208


I found the imaginations of this author exceedingly fine, the contexture of his work well followed up, and his design full of piety. And because many people take a delight in reading it, and particularly the ladies, to whim we owe the most service, I have often been called upon to assist them to clear the book of two principal objections.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 208

WHO KNEW ALL THINGS

I inquired of Adrian Turnebus, who knew all things, what he thought of the book.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 209


…human accidents would not have the power to shake us as they do; our fortress would not surrender to so weak a battery; the love of novelty, the constraint of princes, the success of one party, the rash and fortuitous change of our opinions would not have the power to stagger and alter our belief. We should not then leave it to the mercy of every novel argument, nor abandon it to the persuasions of all the rhetoric in the world; we should withstand the fury of these waves with an unmoved and unyielding constancy.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 209


Let us confess the truth whoever should draw out from the army, aye, from that raised by the king’s authority, those who take up arms out of pure zeal and affection to religion, and also those who only do it to protect he laws of their country, or for the service of their prince, would hardly be able, out of all these put together, to must one complete company. Whence does it proceed that there are so few to be found who have maintained the same will and the same progress in our public movements…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 210

WHAT ABOUT THE CHANGE?

…there is no hostility so admirable as the Christian,; our zeal performs wonders when it seconds our inclinations to hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion; but moved against the hair toward goodness, benignity, moderation… our religion is intended to extirpate vices; whereas it screens, nourishes, incites them. We must not mock God
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 210


If we did believe in Him, I do not say by faith, but with a simple belief, that is to say (and I speak it to our great shame), if we did believe Him, or knew Him as any other history, or as one of our companions, we should love Him above all other things, for the infinite goodness and beauty that shine in Him, at least He would go equal in our affections with riches, pleasures, glory, and our friends. The best of us is not so much afraid to offend him, as he is afraid to offend his neighbor, his kinsman, his master.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 211


We are Christians by the same title that we are Perigordins or Germans. And what Plato says, that there are few men so obstinate in their atheism whom a pressing danger will not reduce to an acknowledgment of the divine power, does not concern a true Christian…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 211


Si melius quid habes, arcesse; vel imperium fer. (If you have anything better to say, say it; otherwise, yield – Horace, Epist., i. 5,6.) Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 212

CLOSED MINDS

Men willingly wrest the saying of others to favour their own prejudicated opinions; to an atheist all writings tend to atheism; he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom. These have their judgments so prepossessed that they cannot relish Sebonde’s reasons.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 213



The means that I use, and that I think most proper, to subdue this frenzy, is to crush and spurn under foot pride and human arrogance; to make them sensible of the inanity, vanity, and nothingness of man; to west 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.
‘Tis to this alone that knowledge and wisdom appertain;
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 213

LANGUAGE – COMMUNICATION – NEEDS NO WORDS - UNDERSTANDING

By one kind of barking the horse knows a dog is angry… Even in the very beasts that have no voice at all, we easily conclude, form the social offices we observe amongst them, some other sort of communication…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 215


There is not a motion that dose not speak, and in an intelligible language without discipline, and a public language that every one understands…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 216

LANGUAGE – HOW WOULD WE EXPRESS OURSELVES IF IN SOLITUDE?
JUNGLE BOOK

…I believe that a child who had been brought up in absolute solitude, remote from all society of men…would have some kind of speech to express his meaning…
…But it is yet to be known what language this child would speak…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 218


As to what concerns strength, there is no creature in the world exposed to so many injuries as man; we need not a whale, an elephant or a crocodile, nor any such animals, of which one alone is sufficient to defeat a great number of men, to do our business: lice are sufficient to vacate Sulla’s dictatorship; and the heart and life of a great and triumphant emperor is the breakfast of a little worm.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 220

TRAINED ELEPHANTS PRACTICE ON THEIR OWN

In the spectacles of Rome, there were ordinarily seen elephants taught to move and dance to the sound of the voice, dances wherein were several changes and steps, and cadences, very hard to learn. And some have been seen, in private, so intent upon their lesson as to practice it by themselves, that they might not be chidden nor beaten by their masters.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 220

PREJUDICE

We more adore and value the things that are unusual and strange than those of ordinary observation.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 222

JUDGING OTHERS STUPID BECAUSE OF NATIONALITY

I have formerly seen men brought hither by sea, from very distant countries, whose language not being understood by us and more over their mien, countenance, and dress, being quite different from our, which of us did not refute them savages and brutes? Who did not attribute it to stupidity and want of common sense, to see them mute, ignorant of the French tongue, ignorant of our salutations…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 222


All that seem strange to us, and what we do not understand, we condemn.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 222

THE LION & THE SLAVE

… I found retired and almost inaccessible cave, and went into it. Soon after there came in to me this lion with one foot wounded and bloody, complaining and groaning with the pain he endured… I then drew out a great splinter he had… finding himself something better and much eased of his pain, lay down… From that time forward, he and I lived together in this cave three whole years. …I escape from thence and the third day was taken by the soldier who brought me from Africa to this city…condemned… to die… exposed to the wild beasts. Now, by what I see, this lion was also taken soon after…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 228

HIDING WHAT WE PERCEIVE AS UNATTRACTIVE

It is not modesty so much as cunning and prudence that makes our ladies so circumspect in refusing us admittance to their closets, before they are painted and tricked up for public view:
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 231


STRESS MAKES YOU ILL

Beasts sufficiently show us how much the agitation of the soul bring infirmities and diseases upon us. That which is told us of the people of Brazil that they never die but of old age, is attributed to the serenity and tranquillity of the air they live in; but I attribute it to the serenity and tranquillity of their soul, free from all passion, thought, or employments, continuous or unpleasing, as people that pass over their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorant, without letters, without law, without king, or any manner of religion.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 235


MEMORIES - FORGET YOUR TROUBLES, COME ON GET HAPPY

Levationes aegritudinum in avoeatione a cogitanda molestia, et revocatione ad contemplandas voluptates pont. [The way to dissipate present grief is to recall to contemplation past pleasures. -–Cicero, Tursc, Quaes, vi.]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236


Che ricordarsi il ben dopyia la noja [The remembrance of pleasure doubles the sense of present pain. - Cf. Dante, Inferno, v 121]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236


Of the same stamp is the other counsel that philosophy gives, only to remember past happiness and to forget the troubles we have undergone; as if we had the science of oblivion in our power; ‘tis a counsel for which we are never a straw the better.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236



Suavis laborum ext praeteritorum memoria [The memory of past evils is sweet. -Euripides, in Cicero, De Finib, ii, 32.]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236


For the memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases, nay, there is nothing that so much imprints anything in our memory as a desire to forget it; This is false: Est situm in nobis, ut et adversa quasi perpetua oblivione obruamus, et secunda jucunde et suaviter meminerimus [And it is in our power to bury, as it were, in a perpetual oblivion all adverse accidents, and to retain a pleasant and delightful memory of our successes. – Cicero, De Finib, I, 17]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236


Memini etiam quae nolo; oblivisci non possum quae volo.[I also remember what I would not, but I cannot forget what I would – Cicero, De Finib, i. 32]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236

IGNORANCE NOT AN EXCUSE

Iners malorum remedium ignorantia est. [Ignorance is but a dull remedy for evil. – Seneca, Cedip. , iii 7]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 236


IGNORANCE IS BLISS

And Ecclesiastes, “In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 237


IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN IT ALL

… the greatest part of what we know is the least of what we do not know, that is to say that even what we think we know, is but a piece, and a very little one of our ignorance. We know things in dreams, Says Plato, and are ignorant of them in reality.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 240


Omnes pene veteres, nihil congosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt; angustos sensus, imbecilles animos, brevia curricula vitae. [Almost all the ancients have declared that there is nothing can be known, nothing can be understood: the senses are too weak; men’s minds too weak, and the course of life too short. – Cicero, De Divin., ii, 3.]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 240

PREJUDICE

A soul clear from prejudice has a marvelous advance towards tranquillity and repose. Men who judge and control their judges never duly submit to them. How much more docile and easy to be governed, both in the laws of religion and civil polity, are simple and incurious minds than those over-vigilant and pedagoguish wits that will still be prating of divine and human causes?
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 242

PRIORITIES – WELL SPENT TIME – EDUCATIONAL PURSUITS

Cicero reprehends some of his friends for giving more of their time to the study of astrology, law, logic, and geometry, than they were worth, saying that they were by theses diverted from the duties of life, more profitable and more worthy studies…
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 243


Zeno in the Book of Commonwealth, declared all the liberal arts of no use, Chrysippus said that what Plato and Aristotle had written concerning logic, they had only done in sport and by way of exercise, and could not believe that they spoke in earnest of so vain a thing; Plutarch says the same of metaphysics and Epicurus would have said as much of rhetoric, grammar, poesy, mathematics, and natural philosophy excepted, of all the sciences, and Socrates of them all, excepting that of manners and of life; whatever any one required to be instructed in by him, he would ever, in the first place, demand an account of the conditions of his life present and past, which examined and judge, esteeming all other learning subordinate and supernumerary to that.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 243 - 244

DISCOVERING FOR SELF – EDUCATION

Democritus having eaten figs at his table that tasted of honey, fell presently to consider within himself whence they should derive this unusual sweetness, and to be satisfied in it, was about to rise form the table to see the place whence the figs had been gathered, which his maid observing, and having understood the cause, she smilingly told him that he need not trouble himself about that, for she had put them into a vessel in which there had been honey. He was vexed that she had thus deprived him of the occasion of this inquisition and robbed his curiosity of matter to work upon. “Go thy way,” said he, ‘though has done me wrong; but for all that I will seek out the cause, as if it were natural”; and would willingly have found out some true reason for a false and imaginary effect. This story of a famous and great philosopher very clearly represent to us the studious passion, that puts us upon the pursuit of things of the acquisition of which we despair. Plutarch gives a like example of one who would not be satisfied in that whereof he was in doubt, that he might not lose the pleasure of inquiring into it;
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 244 - 245



Satus est supervacua descere, quam nihil. [‘This better to learn more than is necessary than nothing at all. – Seneca, Epist, 88.]
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 245


WHAT DO WE EXPECT IN HEAVEN?

When Mohammed promises his followers a paradise hung with tapestry, adorned with gold and precious stones, furnished with wenches of excelling beauty, rare wines and delicate dishes, I easily discern that these are mockers who accommodate their promises to our stupidity, to attract and allure us by hopes and opinions suitable to our mortal appetite. And yet some amongst us are fallen into the like error, promising to themselves, after the resurrection, a terrestrial and temporal life, accompanies with all the sorts of worldly conveniences and pleasures.
Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde pg. 248


VOCABULARY - The Essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

From: (Biographical note - Michel de Montaigne, 1533 – 1592)
Jurisprudence, pg. v The science or philosophy of law; a system of laws; a branch of law

From: (Essays II, Ch 12, Apology for Raimond de Sebonde)
Avarice, pg. 210 too much desire to get and keep money; greed, cupidity

Extirpate, pg. 210 to pull up by the roots, to destroy completely, abolish

licentious, pg. 212, pg. 226 disregarding accepted rules and standards; morally unrestrained; lascivious, libertine

inanity, pg. 213 being inane (lacking sense, empty, foolish); specific emptiness, stillness, something inane, silly act, remark

fettered, pg. 218 a shackle or chain for the feet; anything that holds in check, restraint; to bind with fetters, shackles or chains; to hold in check, restrain, confine.

Mien, pg. 222 the face, mind, image; look air, manner, external appearance

Pedagoguish, pg. 242
pedagogue – n. a teacher of children; one whose occupation is the instruction of children; a school master. v. to teach with the air of a pedagogue, to teach superciliously. (superciliously – lofty with pride, haughty, dictatorial, overbearing, manifesting haughtiness, or proceeding from it, dogmatic, with an air of contempt, overbearing temper or manner.