The Complete Essays (9 page)

Explanation of the Symbols

[A] or ’80: all that follows is (ignoring minor variations) what Montaigne published in 1580 (the first edition).

[A1]: all that follows was added subsequently, mainly in 1582 and in any case before [B].

[B] or ’88: all that follows shows matter added or altered in 1588, the first major, indeed massive, revision of the
Essays
, which now includes a completely new Third Book.

[C]: all that follows represents an edited version of Montaigne’s final edition being prepared for the press when he died. The new material derives mainly from Montaigne’s own copy, smothered with additions and changes in his own hand and now in the Bibliothèque Municipale of Bordeaux.

’95: the first posthumous edition prepared for the press by Montaigne’s widow and by Marie de Gournay. It gives substantially the text of [C] but with important variants. (The editions of 1598 and 1617 have also been consulted, especially the latter, which contains most useful marginal notes as well as French translations, also by Marie de Gournay, of most of Montaigne’s quotations in Classical or foreign languages.)

[A] and ’80: the text of 1580

[A1] the text of 1582 (plus)

[B] and ’88: the text of 1588

[C] the text of the edition being prepared by Montaigne when he died, 1592

’95: text of the 1595 posthumous printed edition

In the notes there is given a selection of variant readings, including most abandoned in 1588 and many from the printed posthumous edition of 1595.

By far the most scholarly account of the text is that given in R. A. Sayce,
The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration
, 1972, Chapter 2, ‘The Text of the
Essays’
.

Appendices

Montaigne’s dedication of his translation of Raymond Sebond’s
Natural Theology
to his father
.

TO MY LORD, MY LORD OF MONTAIGNE

My Lord, following the task you gave me last year at Montaigne, I have tailored and dressed with my hand a garment in the French style for Raymond Sebond, the great Spanish Theologian and Philosopher, divesting him (in so far as in me lay) of his uncouth bearing and of that barbarous stance that you were the first to perceive: so that, in my opinion, he now has sufficient style and polish to present himself in good company.

It may well be that delicate and discriminating people may notice here some Gascon usages or turns of phrase: that should make them all the more ashamed at having neglectfully allowed a march to be stolen on them by a man who is an apprentice and quite unsuited to the task.

It is, my Lord, right that it should appear and grow in credit beneath your name, since it is to you that it owes whatever amendment or reformation it now enjoys.

And yet I believe that if you would be pleased to reckon accounts with him, it will be you who will owe him more: in exchange for his excellent and most religious arguments, for his conceptions lofty and as though divine, you, for your part, have brought only words and language – a merchandise so base and vile that who has most is perhaps worth least.

My Lord, I beg God that he may grant you a most long and a most happy life.

From Paris: this 18th of June, 1568.
Your most humble and obedient son,
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
.

Montaigne’s translation and adaptation of the Prologus of Raymond Sebond
.

Book of the Creatures of Raymond Sebond.

Translated from the Latin into French.

Preface of the Author.

To the praise and glory of the most high and glorious Trinity, of the Virgin Mary, and of all the heavenly Court: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the profit of all Christians, there follows the doctrine of the Book of the Creatures (or, Book of Nature): a doctrine of Man, proper to Man insofar as he is Man: a doctrine suitable, natural and useful to every man, by which he is enlightened into knowing himself, his Creator, and almost everything to which he is bound as Man: a doctrine containing the rule of Nature, by which also each Man is instructed in what he is naturally bound towards God and his neighbour: and not only instructed but moved and incited to do this, of himself, by love and a joyful will.

In addition this science teaches every one to see clearly, without difficulty or toil, truth insofar as it is possible for natural reason, concerning knowledge of God and of himself and of what he has need for his salvation and to reach life eternal; it affords him access to understanding what is prescribed and commanded in Holy Scripture, and delivers the human spirit from many doubts, making it consent firmly to what Scripture contains concerning knowledge of God and of oneself.

In this book the ancient errors of the pagans and the unbelieving philosophers are revealed and by its doctrine the Catholic Faith is defended and made known: every sect which opposes it is uncovered and condemned as false and lying.

That is why, in this decline and last days of the World it is necessary that Christians should stiffen themselves, arm themselves and assure themselves within that Faith so as to confront those who fight against it, to protect themselves from being seduced and, if needs be, joyfully to die for it.

Moreover this doctrine opens up to all a way of understanding the holy Doctors [of the Church]; indeed, it is incorporated in their books (even though it is not evident in them) as an Alphabet is incorporated in all writings. For it is the Alphabet of the Doctors: as such it should be learned first. For which reason, to make your way towards the Holy Scriptures you will do well to acquire this science as the rudiments of all sciences; in order the better to reach conclusions, learn it before everything else, otherwise you will hardly manage to struggle through to the perfection of the higher sciences: for this is the root, the origin and the tiny foundations of the doctrine proper to Man and his salvation.

Whoever possesses salvation through hope must first have the root of salvation within him and, consequently, must furnish himself with this science, which is a fountain of saving Truth.

And there is no need that anyone should refrain from reading it or learning it from lack of other learning: it presupposes no knowledge of Grammar, Logic, nor any other deliberative art or science, nor of Physics nor of Metaphysics, seeing that it is this doctrine which comes first, this doctrine which ranges, accommodates and prepares the others for so holy an End – for the Truth which is both true and profitable to us, because it teaches Man to know himself, to know why he has been created and by Whom; to know his good, his evil and his duty; by what and to Whom he is bound.

What good are the other sciences to a man who is ignorant of such things? They are but vanity, seeing that men can only use them badly to their harm, since they know not where they are, whither they are going nor whence they came. That is why they are taught here to understand the corruption and defects of Man, his condemnation and whence it came upon him; to know the state in which he is now: the state in which he originally was: from what he has fallen and how far he is from his first perfection; how he can be reformed and those things which are necessary to bring this about.

And therefore this doctrine is common to the laity, the clergy and all manner of people: and yet it can be grasped in less than a month, without toil and without learning anything off by heart; no books are required, for once it has been perceived it cannot be forgotten. It makes a man happy, humble, gracious, obedient, the enemy of vice and sin, the lover of virtue – all without puffing him up or making him proud because of his accomplishments.

It uses no obscure arguments requiring deep or lengthy discourse: for it argues from things which are evident and known to all from experience – from the creatures and the nature of Man; by which, and from what he knows of himself, it proves what it seeks to prove, mainly from what each man has assayed of himself. And there is no need of any other witness but Man.

It may, meanwhile, at first appear contemptible, a thing of nothing, especially since its beginnings are common to all and very lowly: but that does not stop it from bearing great and worthwhile fruit, namely the knowledge of God and of Man. And the lower its starting-point, the higher it climbs, rising to matters high and celestial.

Wherefore, whosoever wishes to taste of its fruit, let him first familiarize himself with the minor principles of this science, without despising them: for otherwise he will never have that taste, no more than a child ever learns to read without a knowledge of the alphabet and of each individual letter. And, finally, let him not complain about this labour by which, in a few months, he becomes learned and familiar with many things, to know which it would be proper to spend long periods reading many books.

It alleges no authority – not even the Bible – for its end is to confirm what is written in Holy Scripture – and to lay the foundations on which we can build what is obscurely deduced from them. And so, in our case, it precedes the Old and New Testaments.

God has given us two books: the Book of the Universal Order of Things (or, of Nature) and the Book of the Bible. The former was given to us first, from the origin of the world: for each creature is like a letter traced by the hand of God: this Book had to be composed of a great multitude of creatures (which are as so many ‘letters’); within them is found Man. He is the main, the capital letter.

Now, just as letters and words composed from letters constitute a science by amply marshalling different sentences and meanings, so too the creatures, joined and coupled together, form various clauses and sentences, containing the science that is, before all, requisite for us.

The second Book – Holy Scripture – was subsequently given in default of the first, in which, blinded as he was, he could make out nothing, notwithstanding that the first is common to all whereas the second is not: to read the second book one must be a clerk. Moreover, the Book of Nature cannot be corrupted nor effaced nor falsely interpreted. Therefore the heretics cannot interpret it falsely: from this Book no one becomes an heretic.

With the Bible, things go differently. Nevertheless both Books derive from the same Author: God created his creatures just as he established his Scriptures. That is why they accord so well together, with no tendency to contradict each other, despite the first one’s symbolizing most closely with our nature and the second one’s being so far above it.

Since Man, at his Birth, did not find himself furnished with any science (despite his rationality and capacity for knowledge) and since no science can be acquired without books in which it is written down, it was more than reasonable (so that our capacity for learning should not have been given us in vain) that the Divine Intelligence should provide us with the means of instructing ourselves in the doctrine which alone is requisite, without a schoolmaster, naturally, by ourselves.

That is why that Intelligence made this visible world and gave it to us like a proper, familiar and infallible Book, written by his hand, in which the creatures are ranged like letters – not in accordance to our desires but according to the holy judgement of God, so as to teach us the wisdom and science of our salvation. Yet no one can [now] see and read that great Book by himself (even though it is ever open and present to our eyes) unless he is enlightened by God and cleansed of original sin. And therefore not one of the pagan philosophers of Antiquity could read this science, because they were all blinded concerning the sovereign good; even though they drew all their other sciences and all their knowledge from it, they could never perceive nor discover the wisdom which is enclosed within it nor that true and solid doctrine which guides us to eternal life.

Now, in anyone capable of discernment, there is engendered a true understanding from a combining together of the creatures like a well-ordered tissue of words. So the method of treating this subject in this treatise is to classify the creatures and to establish their relationships one with the other, taking into consideration their weightiness and what they signify and, after having drawn forth the divine wisdom which they contain, fixing it and impressing it deeply in our hearts and souls.

Now, since the Most Holy Church of Rome is the Mother of all faithful Christians, the Mother of Grace, the Rule of Faith and Truth, I submit to her correction all that is said and contained in this my work.