The Essays by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

First published:Essais, books 1-2, 1580; books 1-2, revised, 1582; books 1-3, 1588; books 1-3, revised, 1595 (English translation, 1603)

Type of work: Essays

The Work:

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne began his essays as a stoical humanist, continued them as a skeptic, and concluded them as someone concerned with the condition of human beings. This evolution, one substantially agreed upon by Montaigne scholars, is apparent in The Essays. The three volumes include writings such as “To Philosophize Is to Learn to Die,” in which Montaigne considers how human beings should face pain and die; writings such as the famous “Apology for Raimond Sebond,” in which the skeptical attack on dogmatism in philosophy and religion is most evident; and writings such as “The Education of Children,” in which Montaigne makes a constructive effort to encourage humans to know themselves and to act naturally for the good of all.

Montaigne retired to his property when he was thirty-eight. Public life had not satisfied him, and he was wealthy enough to live withdrawn from active life and give himself to contemplation and the writing of essays. He did spend some time in travel a few years later, and he was made mayor of Bordeaux, but most of his effort went into the writing and revision of his writings, the attempt to essay, or test, his ideas.

An important essay in the first volume, “That the Taste for Good and Evil Depends in Good Part upon the Opinion We Have of Them,” begins with a paraphrase of a quotation from Epictetus to the effect that humans are bothered more by opinions than by things. The belief that all human judgment is, after all, more a function of the person than of the things judged suggested to Montaigne that by a change of attitude human beings could alter the values of things. Even death can be valued, provided those who are about to die are of the proper disposition. Poverty and pain can also be good, provided a person of courageous temperament develops a taste for that. Montaigne concludes that “things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so. To judge of great and high matters requires a suitable soul.”

This stoical relativity is further endorsed in the essay “To Philosophize Is to Learn to Die.” Montaigne’s preoccupation with the problem of facing pain and death was caused by the death of his best friend, Étienne de La Boétie, who died in 1563 at the age of thirty-three, and by the deaths of his father, his brother, and several of his children. Montaigne was also deeply disturbed by the Saint Bartholomew Day massacres. As a humanist, he was well educated in the literature and philosophy of the ancients, and from them he drew support of the stoical philosophy suggested to him by the courageous death of his friend La Boétie.

The title of the essay is a paraphrase of Cicero’s remark “that to study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die.” For some reason, perhaps because it did not suit his philosophic temperament at the time, perhaps because he had forgotten it, Montaigne does not allude to a similar expression attributed by Plato to Socrates, the point there being that the philosopher is interested in the eternal, the unchanging, and that life is a preoccupation with the temporal and the variable. For Montaigne, however, the remark means either that the soul in contemplation removes itself from the body, or that philosophy is concerned to teach individuals how to face death. It is the second interpretation that interests him.

Asserting that all human beings strive for pleasure, even in virtue, Montaigne argues that the thought of death is naturally disturbing. He refers to the death of his brother, Captain St. Martin, who was killed when he was twenty-three by being struck behind the ear by a tennis ball. Other instances enforce his claim that death often comes unexpectedly to the young, for which reason the problem is urgent. With these examples, he writes, how can people “avoid fancying that death has us, every moment, by the throat?” The solution he recommends is to face death and fight it by becoming so familiar with the idea of death that individuals are no longer fearful. “The utility of living,” he writes, “consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time.” Death is natural, and what is important is not to waste life in the apprehension of death.

In the essay “Of Judging the Death of Another,” Montaigne argues that people reveal their true character when they show how they face a death they know is coming. A “studied and digested” death may bring a kind of delight to a person of the proper spirit. Montaigne cites Socrates and Cato as examples of men who knew how to die.

Montaigne’s most famous essay is his “Apology for Raimond Sebond,” generally considered to be the most complete and effective of his skeptical essays. What Montaigne is skeptical of here is not religion, as many critics have asserted, but the pretensions of reason and dogmatic philosophers and theologians. When Montaigne asks, “Que sais-je?” (What do I know?), the expression becomes the motto of his skepticism, not because he thinks that people should give up the use of the intellect and imagination but because he thinks it wise to recognize the limits of these powers.

The essay is ostensibly in defense of the book titled Theologia naturalis: sive Liber creaturarum magistri Raimondi de Sebonde, the work of a philosopher and theologian of Toulouse, who wrote the book about 1430. Montaigne considers two principal objections to the book: the first, that Sebond is mistaken in the effort to support Christian belief on human reason; the second, that Sebond’s arguments in support of Christian belief are so weak that they are easily confuted. Montaigne agrees that the truth of God can be known only through faith and with God’s assistance, but he argues that Sebond is to be commended for his noble effort to use reason in the service of God. If one considers Sebond’s arguments as an aid to faith, they may be viewed as useful guides. Montaigne’s response to the second objection takes up most of the essay, and since the work is, in some editions, more than two hundred pages long, the length alone may be considered to reflect the intensity of Montaigne’s conviction. Montaigne argues against those philosophers who suppose that by reason alone human beings can find truth and happiness. The rationalists who attack Sebond do not so much damage the theologian as show their own false faith in the value of reason. Montaigne considers “a man alone, without foreign assistance, armed only with his own proper arms, and unfurnished of the divine grace and wisdom,” and he sets out to show that such a man is not only miserable and ridiculous but grievously mistaken in his presumption. Philosophers who attempt to reason without divine assistance gain nothing from their efforts except knowledge of their own weakness. That knowledge, however, has some value, for ignorance is then not absolute ignorance. Nor is it any solution for the philosopher to adopt the stoical attitude and try to rise above humanity, as Seneca suggests; the only way to rise is by abandoning human means and by suffering and causing oneself to be elevated by Christian faith.

In the essay “Of the Education of Children,” Montaigne writes that the only objective he had in writing the essays was to discover himself. In his opinions, Montaigne shows how studying himself led him from the idea of philosophy as a study of what is “grim and formidable” to the idea of philosophy as the path to the health and cheerfulness of mind and body. He claims that the “most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness,” and that “the height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise.” Philosophy is “that which instructs us to live.” The aim of education is to lead children so that they will come to love nothing but the good, and the way to this objective is an education that takes advantage of youth’s appetites and affections. Though his love of books led Montaigne to live in such a manner that he was accused of slothfulness and “want of mettle,” he justifies his education by pointing out that this is the worst men can say of him.

Not all of Montaigne’s essays reflect the major stages of his transformation from stoic and skeptic to a man of good will. Like Ernest Bacon, he found satisfaction in working out his ideas about the basic experiences of life. Thus he wrote of sadness, constancy, fear, friendship (with particular reference to La Boétie), moderation, solitude, sleep, names, and books. These essays are lively, imaginative, and informed with the knowledge of a gentleman well trained in the classics. He is most eloquent when he writes of pain and death, as when he refers to his own long struggle with kidney stones and to the deaths of those he loved, and when he writes of his need for faith and of the human need for self-knowledge. In such essays, the great stylist, educated thinker, and struggling human being are one. It was in the essaying of himself that Montaigne became a great essayist.

Bibliography

Cave, Terence. How to Read Montaigne. London: Granta, 2007. Argues that The Essays are not expressions of Montaigne’s philosophy but are “mappings of the mental landscape.” Examines the importance of literary technique, including metaphor and sentence length, in these works.

Fontana, Biancamaria. Montaigne’s Politics: Authority and Governance in “The Essais.” Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008. Examines the political philosophy expressed in The Essays within the context of Montaigne’s life and times. Describes his participation and interest in politics. Argues that The Essays were the first major critique of the ancien régime and a precursor of Enlightenment thought.

Frame, Donald Murdoch. Montaigne in France, 1812-1852. New York: Octagon Books, 1976. A book that sets the tone for all further criticism of Montaigne by one of the foremost English-speaking critics of the author and one of the best translators of his works. Examines nineteenth century criticism of Montaigne after his popularity had declined in previous centuries.

Langer, Ullrich, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Collection of essays, including discussions of Montaigne’s political and religious context, his legacy, his skepticism, and his moral philosophy.

Regosin, Richard L. The Matter of My Book: Montaigne’s “Essais” as the Book of the Self. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. A lucid work that analyzes the sense of self developed by Montaigne in The Essays by examining his reading, his friendships, and other external influences.

Sayce, R. A. The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972. An examination of the text and form of The Essays, with special attention to Montaigne’s views on the human condition, movement and change, religion and skepticism, and politics and government. Considers his place in the history of Renaissance thought.

Starobinski, Jean. Montaigne in Motion. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Examines the impact on The Essays of Montaigne’s travels, his friendships, and his interaction with the turbulent politics of his day. Shows the “honest dissimulation” that he practiced in order to protect and develop his true views.

Tetel, Marcel. Montaigne. New York: Twayne, 1974. One of the best books with which to begin a study of Montaigne. Examines briefly his life, sources, and influences, as well as the process by which he rendered those influences into The Essays. Contains a useful bibliography for further reading.