Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 62

They wished to consider all, to balance every thing, and found that an employment well suited to our natural curiosity. Some things they wrote for the benefit of public society, as their religions; and for that consideration it was but reasonable that they should not examine public opinions to the quick, that they might not disturb the common obedience to the laws and customs of their country.

Plato treats of this mystery with a raillery manifest enough; for where he writes according to his own method he gives no certain rule. When he plays the legislator he borrows a magisterial and positive style, and boldly there foists in his most fantastic inventions, as fit to persuade the vulgar, as impossible to be believed by himself; knowing very well how fit we are to receive all sorts of impressions, especially the most immoderate and preposterous; and yet, in his _Laws_, he takes singular care that nothing be sung in public but poetry, of which the fiction and fabulous relations tend to some advantageous end; it being so easy to imprint all sorts of phantasms in human minds, that it were injustice not to feed them rather with profitable untruths than with untruths that are unprofitable and hurtful. He says very roundly, in his _Republic,_ "That it is often necessary, for the benefit of men, to deceive them."

It is very easy to distinguish that some of the sects have more followed truth, and the others utility, by which the last have gained their reputation. 'Tis the misery of our condition that often that which presents itself to our imagination for the truest does not appear the most useful to life. The boldest sects, as the Epicurean, Pyrrhonian, and the new Academic, are yet constrained to submit to the civil law at the end of the account.

There are other subjects that they have tumbled and tossed about, some to the right and others to the left, every one endeavouring, right or wrong, to give them some kind of colour; for, having found nothing so abstruse that they would not venture to speak of, they are very often forced to forge weak and ridiculous conjectures; not that they themselves looked upon them as any foundation, or establishing any certain truth, but merely for exercise. _Non tam id sensisse quod dicerent, quam exercere ingenia materio difficultate videntur voluisse._ "They seem not so much themselves to have believed what they said, as to have had a mind to exercise their wits in the difficulty of the matter." And if we did not take it thus, how should we palliate so great inconstancy, variety, and vanity of opinions, as we see have been produced by those excellent and admirable men? As, for example, what can be more vain than to imagine, to guess at G.o.d, by our a.n.a.logies and conjectures? To direct and govern him and the world by our capacities and our laws? And to serve ourselves, at the expense of the divinity, with what small portion of capacity he has been pleased to impart to our natural condition; and because we cannot extend our sight to his glorious throne, to have brought him down to our corruption and our miseries?

Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged G.o.d as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever--

Jupiter omnipotens, rerum, regumque, deumque, Progenitor, genitrixque.

"Jove, the almighty, author of all things, The father, mother, of both G.o.ds and kings."

This zeal has universally been looked upon from heaven with a gracious eye. All governments have reaped fruit from their devotion; impious men and actions have everywhere had suitable events. Pagan histories acknowledge dignity, order, justice, prodigies, and oracles, employed for their profit and instruction in their fabulous religions; G.o.d, through his mercy, vouchsafing, by these temporal benefits, to cherish the tender principles of a kind of brutish knowledge that natural reason gave them of him, through the deceiving images of their dreams. Not only deceiving and false, but impious also and injurious, are those that man has forged from his own invention: and of all the religions that St.

Paul found in repute at Athens, that which they had dedicated "to the unknown G.o.d" seemed to him the most to be excused.

Pythagoras shadowed the truth a little more closely, judging that the knowledge of this first cause and being of beings ought to be indefinite, without limitation, without declaration; that it was nothing else than the extreme effort of our imagination towards perfection, every one amplifying the idea according to the talent of his capacity.

But if Numa attempted to conform the devotion of his people to this project; to attach them to a religion purely mental, without any prefixed object and material mixture, he undertook a thing of no use; the human mind could never support itself floating in such an infinity of inform thoughts; there is required some certain image to be presented according to its own model. The divine majesty has thus, in some sort, suffered himself to be circ.u.mscribed in corporal limits for our advantage. His supernatural and celestial sacraments have signs of our earthly condition; his adoration is by sensible offices and words; for 'tis man that believes and prays. I shall omit the other arguments upon this subject; but a man would have much ado to make me believe that the sight of our crucifixes, that the picture of our Saviour's pa.s.sion, that the ornaments and ceremonious motions of our churches, that the voices accommodated to the devotion of our thoughts, and that emotion of the senses, do not warm the souls of the people with a religious pa.s.sion of very advantageous effect.

Of those to whom they have given a body, as necessity required in that universal blindness, I should, I fancy, most incline to those who adored the sun:--

La Lumiere commune, L'oil du monde; et si Dieu au chef porte des yeux, Les rayons du soleil sont ses yeulx radieux, Qui donnent vie a touts, nous maintiennent et gardent, Et les faictsdes humains en ce monde regardent: Ce beau, ce grand soleil qui nous faict les saisons, Selon qu'il entre ou sort de ses douze maisons; Qui remplit l'univers de ses vertus cognues; Qui d'un traict de ses yeulx nous dissipe les nues; L'esprit, l'ame du monde, ardent et flamboyant, En la course d'un jour tout le Ciel tournoyant; Plein d'immense grandeur, rond, vagabond, et ferme; Lequel tient des...o...b.. luy tout le monde pour terme: En repos, sans repos; oysif, et sans sejour; Fils aisne de nature, et le pere du jour:

"The common light that equal shines on all, Diffused around the whole terrestrial ball; And, if the almighty Ruler of the skies Has eyes, the sunbeams are his radiant eyes, That life and safety give to young and old, And all men's actions upon earth behold.

This great, this beautiful, the glorious sun, Who makes their course the varied seasons run; That with his virtues fills the universe, And with one glance can sullen clouds disperse; Earth's life and soul, that, flaming in his sphere, Surrounds the heavens in one day's career; Immensely great, moving yet firm and round, Who the whole world below has made his bound; At rest, without rest, idle without stay, Nature's first son, and father of the day:"

forasmuch as, beside this grandeur and beauty of his, 'tis the only piece of this machine that we discover at the remotest distance from us; and by that means so little known that they were pardonable for entering into so great admiration and reverence of it.

Thales, who first inquired into this sort of matter, believed G.o.d to be a Spirit that made all things of water; Anaximander, that the G.o.ds were always dying and entering into life again; and that there were an infinite number of worlds; Anaximines, that the air was G.o.d, that he was procreate and immense, always moving. Anaxagoras the first, was of opinion that the description and manner of all things were conducted by the power and reason of an infinite spirit. Alcmaeon gave divinity to the sun, moon, and stars, and to the soul. Pythagoras made G.o.d a spirit, spread over the nature of all things, whence our souls are extracted; Parmenides, a circle surrounding the heaven, and supporting the world by the ardour of light. Empedocles p.r.o.nounced the four elements, of which all things are composed, to be G.o.ds; Protagoras had nothing to say, whether they were or were not, or what they were; Democritus was one while of opinion that the images and their circuitions were G.o.ds; another while, the nature that darts out those images; and then, our science and intelligence. Plato divides his belief into several opinions; he says, in his _Timaeus_, that the Father of the World cannot be named; in his Laws, that men are not to inquire into his being; and elsewhere, in the very same books, he makes the world, the heavens, the stars, the earth, and our souls, G.o.ds; admitting, moreover, those which have been received by ancient inst.i.tution in every republic.

Xenophon reports a like perplexity in Socrates's doctrine; one while that men are not to inquire into the form of G.o.d, and presently makes him maintain that the sun is G.o.d, and the soul G.o.d; that there is but one G.o.d, and then that there are many. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, makes G.o.d a certain power governing all things, and that he has a soul.

Aristotle one while says it is the spirit, and another the world; one while he gives the world another master, and another while makes G.o.d the heat of heaven. Zenocrates makes eight, five named amongst the planets; the sixth composed of all the fixed stars, as of so many members; the seventh and eighth, the sun and moon. Heraclides Ponticus does nothing but float in his opinion, and finally deprives G.o.d of sense, and makes him shift from one form to another, and at last says that it is heaven and earth. Theophrastus wanders in the same irresolution amongst his fancies, attributing the superintendency of the world one while to the understanding, another while to heaven, and then to the stars. Strato says that 'tis nature, she having the power of generation, augmentation, and diminution, without form and sentiment Zeno says 'tis the law of nature, commanding good and prohibiting evil; which law is an animal; and takes away the accustomed G.o.ds, Jupiter, Juno, and Vesta. Diogenes Apolloniates, that 'tis air. Zenophanes makes G.o.d round, seeing and hearing, not breathing, and having nothing in common with human nature.

Aristo thinks the form of G.o.d to be incomprehensible, deprives him of sense, and knows not whether he be an animal or something else; Cleanthes, one while supposes it to be reason, another while the world, another the soul of nature, and then the supreme heat rolling about, and environing all. Perseus, Zeno's disciple, was of opinion that men have given the t.i.tle of G.o.ds to such as have been useful, and have added any notable advantage to human life, and even to profitable things themselves. Chrysippus made a confused heap of all the preceding theories, and reckons, amongst a thousand forms of G.o.ds that he makes, the men also that have been deified. Diagoras and Theodoras flatly denied that there were any G.o.ds at all. Epicurus makes the G.o.ds shining, transparent, and perflable, lodged as betwixt two forts, betwixt two worlds, secure from blows, clothed in a human figure, and with such members as we have; which members are to them of no use:--

Ego Deum genus esse semper duxi, et dicam colitum; Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanum genus.

"I ever thought that G.o.ds above there were, But do not think they care what men do here."

Trust to your philosophy, my masters; and brag that you have found the bean in the cake when you see what a rattle is here with so many philosophical heads! The perplexity of so many worldly forms has gained this over me, that manners and opinions contrary to mine do not so much displease as instruct me; nor so much make me proud as they humble me, in comparing them. And all other choice than what comes from the express and immediate hand of G.o.d seems to me a choice of very little privilege.

The policies of the world are no less opposite upon this subject than the schools, by which we may understand that fortune itself is not more variable and inconstant, nor more blind and inconsiderate, than our reason. The things that are most unknown are most proper to be deified; wherefore to make G.o.ds of ourselves, as the ancients did, exceeds the extremest weakness of understanding. I would much rather have gone along with those who adored the serpent, the dog, or the ox; forasmuch as their nature and being is less known to us, and that we have more room to imagine what we please of those beasts, and to attribute to them extraordinary faculties. But to have made G.o.ds of our own condition, of whom we ought to know the imperfections; and to have attributed to them desire, anger, revenge, marriages, generation, alliances, love, jealousy, our members and bones, our fevers and pleasures, our death and obsequies; this must needs have proceeded from a marvellous inebriety of the human understanding;

Quae procul usque adeo divino ab numine distant, Inque Deum numero quae sint indigna videri;

"From divine natures these so distant are, They are unworthy of that character."

_Formo, otates, vest.i.tus, omatus noti sunt; genera, conjugia, cognationes, omniaque traducta ad similitudinem imbellitar tis humano: nam et perturbatis animis induc.u.n.tur; accipimus enim deorurn cupiditates, cegritudines, iracundias_; "Their forms, ages, clothes, and ornaments are known: their descents, marriages, and kindred, and all adapted to the similitude of human weakness; for they are represented to us with anxious minds, and we read of the l.u.s.ts, sickness, and anger of the G.o.ds;" as having attributed divinity not only to faith, virtue, honour, concord, liberty, victory, and piety; but also to voluptuousness, fraud, death, envy, old age, misery; to fear, fever, ill fortune, and other injuries of our frail and transitory life:--

Quid juvat hoc, templis nostros inducere mores?

O curvae in terris animae et colestium inanes!

"O earth-born souls! by earth-born pa.s.sions led, To every spark of heav'nly influence dead!

Think ye that what man values will inspire In minds celestial the same base desire?"

The Egyptians, with an impudent prudence, interdicted, upon pain of hanging, that any one should say that their G.o.ds, Serapis and Isis, had formerly been men; and yet no one was ignorant that they had been such; and their effigies, represented with the finger upon the mouth, signified, says Varro, that mysterious decree to their priests, to conceal their mortal original, as it must by necessary consequence cancel all the veneration paid to them. Seeing that man so much desired to equal himself to G.o.d, he had done better, says Cicero, to have attracted those divine conditions to himself, and drawn them down hither below, than to send his corruption and misery up on high; but, to take it right, he has several ways done both the one and the other, with like vanity of opinion.

When philosophers search narrowly into the hierarchy of their G.o.ds, and make a great bustle about distinguishing their alliances, offices, and power, I cannot believe they speak as they think. When Plato describes Pluto's orchard to us, and the bodily conveniences or pains that attend us after the ruin and annihilation of our bodies, and accommodates them to the feeling we have in this life:--

Secreti celant calles, et myrtea circ.u.m Sylva tegit; curae non ipsa in morte relinquunt;

"In secret vales and myrtle groves they lie, Nor do cares leave them even when they die."

when Mahomet promises his followers a Paradise hung with tapestry, gilded and enamelled with gold and precious stones, furnished with wenches of excelling beauty, rare wines, and delicate dishes; it is easily discerned that these are deceivers that accommodate their promises to our sensuality, to attract and allure us by hopes and opinions suitable to our mortal appet.i.tes. And yet some amongst us are fallen into the like error, promising to themselves after the resurrection a terrestrial and temporal life, accompanied with all sorts of worldly conveniences and pleasures. Can we believe that Plato, he who had such heavenly conceptions, and was so well acquainted with the Divinity as thence to derive the name of the Divine Plato, ever thought that the poor creature, man, had any thing in him applicable to that incomprehensible power? and that he believed that the weak holds we are able to take were capable, or the force of our understanding sufficient, to partic.i.p.ate of beat.i.tude or eternal pains? We should then tell him from human reason: "If the pleasures thou dost promise us in the other life are of the same kind that I have enjoyed here below, this has nothing in common with infinity; though all my five natural senses should be even loaded with pleasure, and my soul full of all the contentment it could hope or desire, we know what all this amounts to, all this would be nothing; if there be any thing of mine there, there is nothing divine; if this be no more than what may belong to our present condition, it cannot be of any value. All contentment of mortals is mortal. Even the knowledge of our parents, children, and friends, if that can affect and delight us in the other world, if that still continues a satisfaction to us there, we still remain in earthly and finite conveniences. We cannot as we ought conceive the greatness of these high and divine promises, if we could in any sort conceive them; to have a worthy imagination of them we must imagine them unimaginable, inexplicable, and incomprehensible, and absolutely another thing than those of our miserable experience." "Eye hath not seen," saith St. Paul, "nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things that G.o.d hath prepared for them that love him." And if, to render us capable, our being were reformed and changed (as thou, Plato, sayest, by thy purifications), it ought to be so extreme and total a change, that by physical doctrine it be no more us;--

Hector erat tunc c.u.m bello certabat; at ille Tractus ab aemonio non erat Hector eqao;

He Hector was whilst he could fight, but when Dragg'd by Achilles' steeds, no Hector then;

it must be something else that must receive these recompenses:--

Quod mutatur... dissolvitur; interit ergo; Trajiciuntur enim partes, atque ordine migrant.

"Things changed dissolved are, and therefore die; Their parts are mix'd, and from their order fly."

For in Pythagoras's metempsychosis, and the change of habitation that he imagined in souls, can we believe that the lion, in whom the soul of Caesar is enclosed, does espouse Caesar's pa.s.sions, or that the lion is he? For if it was still Caesar, they would be in the right who, controverting this opinion with Plato, reproach him that the son might be seen to ride his mother transformed into a mule, and the like absurdities. And can we believe that in the mutations that are made of the bodies of animals into others of the same kind, the new comers are not other than their predecessors? From the ashes of a phoenix, a worm, they say, is engendered, and from that another phoenix; who can imagine that this second phoenix is no other than the first? We see our silk-worms, as it were, die and wither; and from this withered body a b.u.t.terfly is produced; and from that another worm; how ridiculous would it be to imagine that this was still the first! That which once has ceased to be is no more:--

Nec, si materiam nostram collegerit aetas Post obitum, rursumque redegerit, ut sita nunc est, Atque iterum n.o.bis fuerint data lumina vitae, Pertineat quidquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum, Interrupta semel c.u.m sit repetentia nostra.

"Neither tho' time should gather and restore Our matter to the form it was before, And give again new light to see withal, Would that new figure us concern at all; Or we again ever the same be seen, Our being having interrupted been."

And, Plato, when thou sayest in another place that it shall be the spiritual part of man that will be concerned in the fruition of the recompense of another life, thou tellest us a thing wherein there is as little appearance of truth:--