Chapter XIII: Montaigne. 1533-1592

The modern Plutarch and the first of essayists deserves his place in this work, if not so much for express and explicit denunciation, _totidem verbis_, of the barbarism of the Slaughter-House, at least for a sort of argument which logically and necessarily arrives at the same conclusion. In truth, if he had not “seen and approved the better way” (even though, with too many others, he may not have had the courage of his convictions), he would be no true disciple of the great humanitarian. It is necessary to remember that the “perfect day” was not yet come; that a few rays only here and there enlightened the thick darkness of barbarism; that, in fine, not even yet, with the light of truth shining full upon us, have reason and conscience triumphed, as regards the mass of the community, either in this country or elsewhere.

Michel de Montaigne descended from an old and influential house in Périgord (modern Périgeaux, in the department of the Dordogne). His youth was carefully trained, and his early inclination to learning fostered under his father’s diligent superintendence. He became a member of the provincial parliament, and, by the universal suffrage of his fellow-citizens, was elected chief magistrate of Bordeaux, from the official routine of whose duties he soon retired to the more congenial atmosphere of study and philosophic reflection. In his château, at Montaigne, his studious tranquillity was violently interrupted by the savage contests then raging between the opposing factions of Catholics and Huguenots, from both of whom he received ill-treatment and loss. To add to his troubles, the plague, which appeared in Guienne in 1586, broke up his household and compelled him, with his family, to abandon his home. Together they wandered through the country, exposed to the various dangers of a civil war; and he afterwards for some time settled in Paris. He had also travelled in Italy. Montaigne returned to his home when the disturbances and atrocities had somewhat subsided, and there he died with the philosophic calmness with which he had lived.

The _Essais_--that book of “good faith,” “without study and artifice,” as its author justly calls it--appeared in the year 1580. It is a book unique in modern literature, and the only other production to which it may be compared is the _Moralia_ of Plutarch. “It is not a book we are reading, but a conversation to which we are listening.” “It is,” as another French critic observes, “less a book than a journal divided into chapters, which follow one another without connexion, which bear each a title without much regard to the fulfilment of their promise.”

Montaigne treats of almost every phase of human thought and action; and upon every subject he has something original and worth saying. Living in a savagely sectarian and persecuting age, he kept himself aloof and independent of either of the two contending theological sections, and contents himself with the _rôle_ of a sceptical spectator. It must be admitted that he is not always satisfactory in this character, since he sometimes seems to give forth an “uncertain sound.” Considering the age, however, his assertion of the proper authority of Reason deserves our respectful admiration, and is in pleasing contrast with the attitude of most of his contemporaries. A few, like his friend De Thou, or the Italian Giordano Bruno--the latter of whom, indeed, had more of the martyr-spirit than Montaigne--contributed to keep alight the torch of Truth and Reason. But we have only to recollect that it was the age _par excellence_ of Diabolism in Catholic and Protestant theology alike, and of all the horrible superstitions and frightful tortures, both bodily and mental, of which the universal belief in the Devil’s actual reign on earth was the fruitful cause. About the very time of the appearance of the _Essais_, one of the most learned men of the period, the lawyer Jean Bodin published a work which he called the _Démonomanie des Sorciers_ (the “Diabolic Inspiration of Witches”), in which he protested his unwavering faith in the most monstrous beliefs of the creed, and vehemently called upon the judges, ecclesiastical and civil, to punish the reputed criminals (accused of an _impossible_ crime) with the severest tortures. We have only to recognise this fact alone (the most astounding of all the astounding facts and phases in the history of Superstition) to do full justice to the reason and courage of this small band of protesters.

As for the influence of Montaigne on the modes of thought of after times, and especially of his countrymen, it can scarcely be over estimated. He is the literary progenitor of the most famous French writers of the humanitarian eighteenth century. The most eminent of them, Voltaire, perhaps, most resembles him, but naturally the style of the eighteenth century philosopher is more concise and incisive, and his opinions are more pronounced. “Both,” says a French critic, “laugh at the human species; but the laughter of Voltaire is more bitter; his railleries are more terrible. Both, nevertheless, breathe the love of humanity. That of Voltaire is more ardent, more courageous, more unwearied. The hatred of both of them for charlatanism and hypocrisy is well known. Their morality has for its first principle benevolence towards others, without distinction of country, of manners, or of religious beliefs; warning us not to think that we alone hold the deposit of justice and of truth. It transports our soul, by contempt of mortal things and by enthusiasm for great truths.” It is to be lamented that the countrymen of Montaigne and of Voltaire have not profited to a larger extent by their humanitarian teaching and tendencies. In reference to the almost incredible atrocities of war, and especially of civil war, Montaigne protests:--

“Scarcely could I persuade myself, before I had seen it with
my own eyes, that there could be souls so ferocious as for the
simple pleasure of murder to be ready to perpetrate it; to hack
and dismember the limbs of others; to ransack their invention to
discover unheard-of tortures and new kinds of deaths--and that
without the incentive of enmity or of profit--with the mere view of
enjoying the pleasant spectacle of pitiable actions and movements,
of groans and lamentations, of a man dying in agony. For this is
the climax to which cruelty can attain--‘for a man without anger,
without fear, to kill another merely to witness his sufferings.’

“For my part I have never been able to see, without displeasure, an
innocent and defenceless animal, from whom we receive no offence
or harm, pursued and slaughtered. And when a deer, as commonly
happens, finding herself without breath and strength, without other
resource, throws herself down and surrenders, as it were, to her
pursuers, begging for mercy by her tears,

‘Questuque cruentus
Atque imploranti similis.’[110]

This has always appeared to me a very displeasing spectacle. I
seldom, or never, take an animal alive whom I do not restore to the
fields. Pythagoras was in the habit of buying their victims from
the fowlers and fishermen for the same purpose.

‘Primâque a cæde ferarum
Incaluisse puto maculatum sanguine ferrum.’[111]

“Dispositions sanguinary in regard to other animals testify a
natural inclination to cruelty towards their own kind. After they
had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacle of the murders
[_meurtres_] of other animals, they proceeded to those of men and
gladiators. Nature has, I fear, herself attached some instinct
of inhumanity to man’s disposition. No one derives any amusement
from seeing other animals enjoy themselves and caressing one
another; and no one fails to take pleasure in seeing them torn in
pieces and dismembered. That I may not [he is cautious enough to
add] be ridiculed for this sympathy which I have for them, even
theology enjoins some respect for them,[112] and considering that
one and the same Master has lodged us in this palatial world for
his service, and that they are, as we, members of His family, it
is right that it should enjoin some respect and affection towards
them.”

Quoting instances of the extreme respect in which some of the non-human races were held by people in Antiquity,[113] and Plutarch’s interpretation of the meaning of the divine honours sometimes paid to them--that they adored certain qualities in them as types of divine faculties--Montaigne declares for himself that:--

“When I meet, amongst the more moderate opinions, arguments which
go to prove our close resemblance to other animals, and how much
they share in our greatest privileges, and with how much of
probability they are compared to us, of a truth I abate much from
our common presumption, and willingly abdicate that _imaginary_
royalty which they assign us over other beings.”

Wiser than the majority in later times, Montaigne well rebukes the arrogant presumption of the human animal who affects to hold all other life to be brought into being for his sole use and pleasure:--

“Let him shew me, by the most skilful argument, upon what
foundations he has built these excessive prerogatives which he
supposes himself to have over other existences. Who has persuaded
him that that admirable impulse of the celestial vault, the eternal
brightness of those Lights rolling so majestically over our heads,
the tremendous motions of that infinite sea of Globes, were
established and have continued so many ages for his advantage and
for his service. Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous
as that this pitiful [_chétive_], miserable creature, who is not
even master of himself, exposed to injuries of every kind, should
call itself master and lord of the universe, of which, so far from
being lord of it, he knows but the smallest part?... Who has given
him this sealed charter? Let him shew us the ‘letters patent’ of
this grand commission. Have they been issued [_octroyées_] in
favour of the wise only? They affect but the few in that case. The
fools and the wicked--are they worthy of so extraordinary a favour,
and being the worst part of the world [_le pire pièce du monde_],
do they deserve to be preferred to all the rest? Shall we believe
all this?

“Presumption is our natural and original disease. The most
calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet the most
arrogant.[114] It is through the vanity of this same imagination
that he equals himself to a god, that he attributes to himself
divine conditions, that he picks himself out and separates himself
from the crowd of other creatures, curtails the just shares of
other animals his brethren [_confrères_] and companions, and
assigns to them such portions of faculties and forces as seems to
him good. How does he know, by the effort of his intelligence, the
interior and secret movements and impulses of other animals? By
what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity
[_la bétise_] which he attributes to them?”

Montaigne quotes the example of his master, the just and benevolent Plutarch, who made it a matter of justice and conscience not to sell or send to the slaughter-house (according to the common selfish ingratitude) a Cow who had served him faithfully and profitably for so many years. With Plutarch and Porphyry he never wearies of denouncing the unreasoning opinions, or rather prejudices, prevalent amongst men as to the mental qualities of many of the non-human races, and, as we have already seen, insists that the difference between them and us is of _degree_ and not of _kind_:--

“Plato, in his picture of the ‘Golden Age,’ reckons amongst the
chief advantages of the men of that time the communication they had
with other animals, by investigating and instructing themselves in
whose nature they learned their true qualities and the differences
between them, by which they acquired a very perfect knowledge and
intelligence, and thus made their lives more happy than we can make
ours. Is a better test needed by which to judge of human folly in
regard to other species?

“I have said all this in order to bring us back and reunite
ourselves to the crowd [_presse_]. We are [in the accidents of
mortality] neither above nor below the rest. ‘All who are under
the sky,’ says the Jewish sage, ‘experience a like law and fate.’
There is some difference, _there are orders and degrees_, but
they are under the aspect of one and the same nature. Man must be
constrained and ranged within the barriers of this police [_Il
faut contraindre l’homme, et le ranger dans les barrières de cette
police_]. The wretch has no right to encroach [_d’enjamber_]
beyond these; he is fettered, entangled, he is subjected to like
necessities with other creatures of his order, and in a very
mean condition without any true and essential prerogative and
pre-excellence. That which he confers upon himself by his own
opinion and fancy has neither sense nor substance; and if it be
conceded to him that he alone of all animals has that freedom of
imagination and that irregularity of thought representing to him
what he is, what he is not, and what he wants, the false and the
true, it is an advantage which has been very dearly sold to him,
and of which he has very little to boast, for from that springs the
principal source of the evils which oppress him--crime, disease,
irresolution, trouble, despair.”

Rejecting the still received prejudice which will not allow our humble fellow-beings the privilege of reason, but invents an imaginary faculty called “instinct,” he repeats that--

“There is no ground for supposing that other beings do by
_natural and necessary inclination_ the same things that we do
by choice, and while we are bound to infer from like effects
like faculties--nay, from greater effects, greater faculties--we
are forced to confess, consequently, that that same reason, that
same method which we employ in action are also employed by the
lower animals, or else that they have some still better reason
or method. Why do we fancy in them that natural necessity or
impulse [_contrainte_]--_we_ who have no experience of that sort
ourselves.[115]

“As for use in eating, it is with us as with them, natural
and without instruction. Who doubts that a child, arrived at
the necessary strength for feeding itself, could find its own
nourishment? The earth produces and offers to him enough for his
needs without artificial labour, and if not for all seasons,
neither does she for the other races--witness the provisions
which we observe the ants and others collecting for the sterile
seasons of the year. Those nations whom we have lately discovered
[the peoples of Hindustan and of parts of America], so abundantly
furnished with natural meat and drink without care and without
labour, have just instructed us that bread is not our sole food,
and that without toil our mother Nature has furnished us with every
plant we need, to shew us, as it seems, how superior she is to all
our _artificiality_; while the extravagance of our appetite outruns
all the inventions by which we seek to satisfy it.”[116]