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ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE

him. How many men could use his proud words: “In every thing and everywhere my eyes are enough to keep me straight; there are no others which watch me so closely or which I more respect.” This may really be considered the motto of his life.

I have wandered far from his views of miracles — apparently, not really, far; for every thing that Montaigne says is so illuminated by what he was, that his opinions are of double force when one has become familiar with his personality and hears his very voice as he utters them. It is very entertaining when one also hears, as one often may, Lord Bacon’s voice talking with him, answering or enforcing his opinions. Here, for instance, where Montaigne says, “We must judge things with more reverence for this infinite power of nature,” Bacon answers (having also in his thought Montaigne’s expression about des enchantements, des sorcelleries), “Neither am I of opinion in this history of marvels, that superstitious narratives of sorceries, witchcrafts, charms, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear evidence of the fact, should be altogether excluded. For it is not yet known in what cases, and how far, effects attributed to superstition participate of natural causes.”

It will be felt in this Essay, as so often, how modern are the tone of Montaigne’s thought and the objects of his interest.

IT is not perchance without reason that we attribute to simple-mindedness and ignorance the readiness to believe and to be convinced; for it seems to me that I once learned that belief was, as it were, an impression that was made on our minds, and that, the softer and less resistant the mind, the easier it was to imprint something upon it. (c) Ut necesse est lancem in libra ponderibus impositis deprimi, sic animum perspicuis cedere.[1] The more empty and without counterpoise the mind is, the more readily the scale sinks under the weight of the first argument. (a) That is why children, the common people, women, and sick persons are more subject to be led by the ears. But also, on the other hand, it is an absurd assumption to scorn and condemn as false what seems to us not probable: which is a common fault of those who think that they have more intelligence than the vulgar.[2] I used to be so minded myself, and if I heard some one talk of spirits

  1. ↑ As of necessity the scale of the balance must sink when weights are placed upon it, so the mind must yield to clear proof. — Cicero, Academica, II, 12.
  2. ↑ Quelque suffisance outre la commune.
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