The Complete Essays (225 page)

38
. Aristotle insists at the outset in his
Metaphysics
that an ‘art’ (such as medicine) is not based on experience (or experiment) as such, but on reflection on experience, by which general rules are established.

39
. Renaissance medicine was, in the orthodox schools, still dominated by Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna.

40
. Marguerite d’Aure de Gramont, an intimate of Marguerite de Valois.

41
. ’80: which made him,
said Tacitus
, more concerned…
Tacitus,
Annals
, VI, xlvi.

42
. Pliny,
Hist. nat.
, XXIX, xlvi.
’80: Gramonts.)
Our own doctors are bolder still: for they
have a third way…

43
. Plutarch,
Life of Pericles
.

44
. ’80: violent illness,
which will have disturbed the seat of my understanding and my reason
. My judgement…

45
. Neither of whom could afford doctors’ fees and so went without doctors.

46
. ’80: humours and
thoughts
coincide.
And perhaps
there has never been two identical opinions any more than two identical
faces
. Their most universal characteristic is diversity
and discordance…
     In [C],
hairs or seeds
replace
faces
under the influence of Cicero,
Academica
, II (Lucullus), xxvi, 85, where a case is marshalled against the assertion made here, which is presented as a Stoic one. With this phrase Montaigne discreetly emphasizes the Stoic savour of his argument.

1
. Terence,
Heautontimorumenos
, III, v, 8 (adapted).

2
. Tacitus,
Annals
, II, lxxxiii.

3
. Lucretius, II, 1–2.

4
. Perhaps an allusion to the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day.

5
. Plato permitted the magistrates or governor to lie ‘as a medicine’ in the interests of the State and morality. Cf.
Republic
, 389 b; 459c.

6
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment on pourra discerner le flatteur d’avec l’amy
, 51 A.

7
. A tale told by John Calvin in his
Traité des Reliques;
then, Cornelius Nepos,
Life of Atticus
.

8
. Livy, XXXI, xxi; then, Herodotus, VII, clxiii (for Gelon).

9
. As Chancellor of France he showed, despite his bishopric, an understanding for the Protestants.

10
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la curiosité
, 64 F.

11
. Aesop,
Fables
, 293; then Cicero,
De officiis
, I, xxi, 113.

12
. Cicero,
De officiis
, III, xvii, 769.

13
. Plutarch,
Life of Alexander
, then Seneca,
Epist moral.
, XCV, 30.

14
. Tacitus,
Annals
, II, lxv-Ixvii.

15
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment on pourra discerner le flatteur d’avec l’amy
, 49 D–E; then,
Les dicts notables des anciens Roys
, 189 C and Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, V,
Aegyptii
, XXXIII.

16
. The doctor wrote to Fabricius offering to poison Pyrrhus, to whom Fabricius forwarded the letter, telling him to choose his friends better.

17
. Jean Hubert-Fulstin,
Hist. des Roys, et Princes de Pologne
, 1573. Then, Plutarch,
Life of Eumenes
.

18
. From the
Epitome
of Florus, often printed before Livy, XXVII.

19
. Jacques Laverdin,
Scanderbeg
. Then, for Clovis, Du Haillant,
Histoire des Roys de France
.

20
. Tacitus,
Annals
, V, ix; then, Nicolas Chalcocondylas,
De la decadence de l’Empire Grec
.

21
. Cicero,
De officiis
, III, xxix, 106.

22
. Cf. I, 38, ‘How we weep and laugh at the same thing’.

23
. Cicero,
De officiis
, III, xxii, 87. (In the next sentence I follow the reading of ’95, etc.:
changement
(change of mind), not
jugement.
)

24
. Cicero,
De officiis
. III, xxx, 110.

25
. Cf. II, 36, ‘On the most excellent of men’.

26
. Montaigne’s veneration of Epaminondas is shared by Plutarch (his principal source of the details given) throughout his
Oeuvres Morales:
cf. Amyot’s index s.v.
Epaminondas
.

27
. Plutarch, lives of
Caesar
and of
Marius
.

28
. Before battle the Spartans (the enemy of Epaminondas) tamed their wrath by listening to flute music: Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Comment il faut refrener la colere
, 59F; cf. 51 G-H.

29
. Livy, XXV, xviii; then Ovid,
Ex ponto
, I, vii, 37–8, and Cicero,
De officiis
, III, xxiii, 90.

30
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, VII, 321–3 (a poet much read because of his subject during the French Civil Wars of Religion).

31
. Tacitus,
Hist.
, III, 1; and III, li; then, Propertius, III, ix, 7.

32
. That is, individual priests and monks are required to be celibate, despite the acknowledged prime usefulness of marriage. Both Plato and Aristotle ranked marriage among the most useful institutions; Stobaeus
(Sermo
LXV) has a long eulogy on the subject from Hierocles’ book
On Marriage
.

1
. Propertius, II, i, 69. (For the theme, cf. Erasmus,
Opera
, 1703–6, V, 488F–461E. Montaigne’s theme of the perennial flux of all things is Heracleitan.)

2
. Plutarch,
Life of Demosthenes
.

3
. Aristotle’s opinion was normative: all human beings have the same form (soul), the form of Man. What distinguishes each individual person is the union of one particular example of that form with one particular body.

4
. In the ‘chain of being’, Man comes between the beasts and the angels.

5
. ‘Lawful’ by the law of the Church.

6
. Socrates and his fellows. Cf. II, 12, ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’ (beginning); then [C], from Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LXXXI, 22.

7
. Image and development from Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la tranquillité de l’ame
, 75 G.

8
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XXXIX, 6.

9
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, II, lxiii; then,
De nat. deorum
, III, xxxv.

10
. Horace,
Odes
, IV, x, 7–8.

11
. Cf. the adage attributed variously to Socrates and to Diogenes:
‘Aedibus in nostris quae prava aut recta geruntur”
(It is in our own home that good or evil are done): Erasmus,
Adages
, I, VI, LXXXV.

12
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Le banquet des sept sages
, 155 E (Bias), and
Instruction pour ceulx qui manient affaires d’Estat
, 162 G (Julius Caesar); then,
Life of Agesilas
.

13
. Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; John 4:44.

14
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, X, vii, 10 (1179 a).

15
. Lucan,
Pharsalia
, 237–42.

16
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, XCIV, 42.

17
. Angels have souls higher than men’s in the chain-of-being: Cato had a soul higher than Montaigne’s within the human scale.

18
. That is, even ordinate actions and reactions are relative insofar as they must be judged ‘according to’ one’s capacities and judgements.

19
. Each man is, in God’s sight, sinful (Romans 3:23; 5:12), and God is the
scrutator cordium
, ‘He who searches all hearts’ (I Chronicles 28:9); ‘He who searcheth the heart and knoweth the mind’ (Romans 8:27); ‘He that searcheth the reins and the heart’ (Revelations 2:23).

20
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Dicts notables des anciens Roys
…, 197 E.

21
. For the Stoics, causation was absolute: everything is fated and unalterable.

22
. Sophocles, criticized by Epicurus: Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
Que l’on ne sçauroit vivre heureusement selon la doctrine d’Epicurus
, 283 DE; Quintilian, V, xii.

23
. Plutarch,
Life of Antisthenes;
Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Antisthenes
, XIV.

24
. I Samuel 10: 26, ‘whose hearts God hath touched’. Adapted for the motto of her emblematic picture
FRUSTRA
(‘in Vain’) by the Protestant author Georgette de Montenay in her
Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes
(Lyons, 1571).

25
. Temperance is Aristotle’s
sōphrosyne
(the Mean between two vices, one of excess and one of defect) (
Nicomachaean Ethics
, II, vi, 3). This Classical virtue, as well as the four Cardinal virtues, were held to apply to Christians, though all needed completing by the three theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity). St Paul in Philippians 4:5 counselled, ‘Let your moderation be known to all men.’

1
. Livy, XXXIX, xl.

2
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, LVI, 9 (adapted).

3
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, V, XXXVIII, 113 (of the learned and erudite).

4
. Aristotle,
Nicomachaean Ethics
, X, viii, 1178 b (referring to
theōrētikē
, contemplation, intellectual activity).

5
. Cited by Xenophon
(Memorabilia
, I, iii, 3). In the Latin form
‘secundum quod potes’
it lends force to Montaigne’s conviction that all is not simple but
secundum quid
.

6
. Plutarch (tr. Amyot),
De la pluralité des amis
, 103 B–C, stressing that great friendships come in pairs, not in groups.

7
. The most famous prudential maxim was, ‘So have a friend that he may be your enemy.’ Aristotle attributes it to Bias, one of the Seven Sages of Greece. In I, 28, Montaigne attributes it to Chilon.

8
. Plato,
Laws
, VI, 778 A (of slaves, not servants).

9
. Horace,
Odes
, III, xix, 3–8.

10
. Cf. III, 1, ‘On the useful and the honourable’, note 28.

11
. Juvenal,
Satires
, VI, 189–91 (adapted).

12
. Seneca,
Epist. moral.
, CXV, 2, condemning the affected style of clothes and speech of dandies.

13
. Much the same reading as Montaigne likes himself (II, 10, ‘On books’), though doubtless presupposing that the books are in French not Latin.

14
. Plutarch,
Life of Dion;
Hippomachas was a teacher of athletics.

15
. Cicero,
Paradoxa Stoicorum
, V, 38 (the wise can appreciate objects of artistic beauty but should not be enslaved by them).

16
. Ovid,
Tristia
, I, i, 83–4.

17
. Tacitus,
Annals
, XIII, xlv; then, Plato,
Phaedrus
, 227 B–228 C.