The World's Greatest Books - Volume 14 Part 6

The use of words being to stand as outward marks of our internal ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular things, if every particular idea that we take in should have a distinct name, names must be endless.

To prevent this, the mind makes the particular ideas received from particular objects to become general, which is done by considering them as they are in the mind, and such appearances separate from all other existences, and from the circ.u.mstances of real existence, as time, place, or any other concomitant ideas. This is called Abstraction, whereby ideas taken from particular being become general representatives of all of the same kind. Thus, the same colour being observed to-day in chalk or snow which the mind yesterday received from milk, it considers that that appearance alone makes it a representative of all of that kind; and having given it the name "whiteness," it by that sound signifies the same quality wheresoever imagined or met with; and thus universals, whether ideas or terms, are made.

As the mind is wholly pa.s.sive in the reception of all its simple ideas, so it exerts several acts of its own, whereby, out of its simple ideas, as the materials and foundations of the rest the others are framed. And I believe we shall find, if we observe the originals of our notions, that even the most abstruse ideas, how remote soever they may seem from sense, or from any operation of our minds, are yet only such as the understanding frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas that it had either from objects of sense or from its own operations about them; so that even those large and abstract ideas are derived from sensation or reflection, being no other than what the mind may and does attain by the ordinary use of its own faculties.

_IV.--Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things_

It is the actual receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know that something does exist at that time without us which causes that idea in us, though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does it. And this, though not so certain as our own intuitive knowledge, or as the deductions of our reason employed about the clear abstract ideas of our own minds, yet deserves the name of knowledge.

It is plain that those perceptions are produced by exterior causes affecting our senses for the following reasons.

Because those that want the organs of any sense never can have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in their minds.

Because sometimes I find I cannot avoid having those ideas produced in my mind; for as when my eyes are shut, or the windows fast, I can at pleasure recall to my mind the ideas of light or the sun which former sensations have lodged in my memory; so I can at pleasure lay by that idea and take into my view that of a rose or taste of sugar. But if I turn my eyes at noon towards the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the light or sun produces in me. There is n.o.body who does not perceive the difference in himself contemplating the sun as he has an idea of it in his memory and actually looking upon it; and, therefore, he has certain knowledge that they are not both memory or the actions of his mind and fancies only within him, but that actual seeing has a cause without.

Add to this that many of those ideas are produced with pain, which afterwards we remember without the least offence.

Lastly, our senses bear witness to the truth of each other's report concerning the existence of sensible things without us.

MONTAIGNE

Essays

Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, one of the greatest masters of the essay in all literature, was born at his family's ancestral chateau near Bordeaux, in France, Feb. 28, 1533, and died on September 13, 1592. His life was one of much suffering from hereditary disease, which, however, he endured so philosophically that little trace of his trials is apparent in his writings. His father, who is said to have been of English descent, took special pains with his early education, having had him taught Latin by a German tutor before he learnt French, so that before he "left his nurse's arms" he was a master of the ancient tongue and knew not a word of his own. The first two of the three books of his celebrated "Essays" were published in 1581 and the third in 1588. In 1582 he visited Italy and was made a Roman citizen, and the next year he was chosen Mayor of Bordeaux. Always a lover of books and a student of men, his writings are a rich mine of scholarly wit and worldly wisdom, consummate in the naturalness that conceals literary art.

Like most works of the time, they contain pa.s.sages which modern taste does not approve, but, taken as a whole, they are among the most interesting of books of the kind.

_I.--Of Death, and How It Findeth a Man_

I was born between eleven of the clock and noon, the last of February, 1533, according to our computation, the year beginning on January 1. It is but a fortnight since I was thirty-nine years old. I want at least as much more of life. If in the meantime I should trouble my thoughts with a matter so far from me as death, it were but folly. Of those renowned in life I will lay a wager I will find more that have died before they came to five-and-thirty years than after.

How many means and ways has death to surprise us! Who would ever have imagined that a Duke of Brittany should have become stifled to death in a throng of people, as whilom was a neighbour of mine at Lyons when Pope Clement made his entrance there? Hast thou not seen one of our late kings slain in the midst of his sports? and one of his ancestors die miserably by the throw of a hog? aeschylus, fore-threatened by the fall of a house, when he was most on his guard, was struck dead by the fall of a tortoise-sh.e.l.l from the talons of a flying eagle. Another was choked by a grape-pip. An emperor died from the scratch of a comb, aemilius Lepidus from hitting his foot against a door-sill, Anfidius from stumbling against the door as he was entering the council chamber. Caius Julius, a physician, while anointing a patient's eyes had his own closed by death. And if among these examples I may add one of a brother of mine, Captain St. Martin, playing at tennis, received a blow with a ball a little above the right ear, and without any appearance of bruise or hurt, never sitting or resting, died within six hours afterwards of an apoplexy. These so frequent and ordinary examples being ever before our eyes, why should it not continually seem to us that death is ever at hand ready to take us by the throat?

What matter is it, will you say unto me, how and in what manner it is, so long as a man do not trouble and vex himself therewith? It sufficeth me to live at my ease, and the best recreation I can have that do I ever take. It is uncertain where death looks for us: let us look for her everywhere. The premeditation of death is a fore-thinking of liberty. He who has learned to die has unlearned to serve. There is no evil in life for him who has well conceived that the privation of life is no evil. I am now, by the mercy of G.o.d, in such a taking that, without regret or grieving at any worldly matter, I am prepared to dislodge whensoever He shall please to call me. No man did ever prepare himself to quit the world more simply and fully. The deadest deaths are the best.

Were I a composer of books I would keep a register of divers deaths, which, in teaching me to die, should afterwards teach them to live.

My father in his household order had this, which I can commend, though I in no way follow. Besides the day-book of household affairs, wherein are registered at least expenses, payments, gifts, bargains, and sales that require not a notary's hand to them--of which book a receiver had the keeping--he appointed another journal-book to one of his servants, who was his clerk, wherein he should orderly set down all occurences worthy of the noting, and day by day register the memories of the history of his house--a thing very pleasant to read when time began to wear out the remembrance of them, and fit for us to pa.s.s the time withal, and to resolve some doubts: when such and such a work was begun, when ended; what way or course was taken, what accidents happened, how long it continued; all our voyages and journeys, where, and how long we were away from home; our marriages; who died, and when; the receiving of good or bad tidings; who came, who went; changing or removing of household officers, taking of new or discharging of old servants, and such matters. An ancient custom, and a sound one, which I would have all men use and bring into fashion again.

_II.--In My Library_

Intercourse with books comforts me in age and solaces me in solitariness, eases me of weariness and rids me of tedious company. To divert importunate thoughts there is no better way than recourse to books. And though they perceive I on occasion forsake them, they never mutiny or murmur, but welcome me always with the self-same visage.

I never travel, whether in peace or in war, without books. It is wonderful what repose I find in the knowledge that they are at my elbow to delight me when time shall serve. In this human peregrination this is the best munition I have found.

At home I betake me somewhat oftener to my library. It is in the chief approach to my house, so that under my eyes are my garden, my base-court, my yard, and even the best rooms of my house. There, without order or method, I can turn over and ransack now one book and now another. Sometimes I muse, sometimes save; and walking up and down I indite and register these my humours, these my conceits. It is placed in a third storey of a tower. The lowermost is my chapel, the second a chamber, where I often lie when I would be alone. Above is a clothes-room. In this library, formerly the least useful room in all my house, I pa.s.s the greatest part of my life's days, and most hours of the day--I am never there of nights. Next it is a handsome, neat study, large enough to have a fire in winter, and very pleasantly windowed.

If I feared not trouble more than cost I might easily join a convenient gallery of a hundred paces long and twelve broad on each side of this room, and upon the same floor, the walls being already of a convenient height. Each retired place requireth a walk. If I sit long my thoughts are p.r.o.ne to sleep. My mind goes not alone as if legs moved it. Those who study without books are all in the same case.

My library is circular in shape, with no flat side save that in which stand my table and chair. Thus around me at one look it offers the full sight of all my books, set round about upon shelves, five ranks, one above another. It has three bay windows, of a far-extending, rich, and un.o.bstructed prospect. The room is sixteen paces across.

In winter I am less constantly there, for my house being on a hill, no part is more subject to all weathers than this. But this pleases me only the more, both for the benefit of the exercise--which is a matter to be taken into account--and because, being remote and of troublesome access, it enables me the better to seclude myself from company that would encroach upon my time. There is my seat, that is my throne.

My rule therein I endeavour to make absolute, that I may sequester that only corner from all, whether wife, children, or acquaintances. For elsewhere I have but a verbal and qualified authority, and miserable to my mind is he who in his own home has nowhere to be to himself.

_III.--Of Inequality_

Plutarch somewhere says that he finds no such great difference between beast and beast as between man and man. He speaks of the mind and internal qualities. I could find in my heart to say there is more difference between one man and another than between such a man and such a beast; and that there are as many degrees of spirits as steps between earth and heaven.

But concerning the estimation of men, it is marvellous that we ourselves are the only things not esteemed for their proper qualities. We commend a horse for his strength and speed, not for his trappings; a greyhound for his swiftness, not his collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her bells. Why do we not likewise esteem a man for that which is his own? He has a goodly train of followers, a stately palace, so much rent coming in, so much credit among men. Alas, all that is about him, not in him.

If you buy a horse you see him bare of saddle and cloths. When you judge of a man, why consider his wrappings only? In a sword it is the quality of the blade, not the value of the scabbard, to which you give heed. A man should be judged by what he is himself, not by his appurtenances.

Let him lay aside his riches and external honours and show himself in his shirt. Has he a sound body? What mind has he? Is it fair, capable, and unpolluted, and happily equipped in all its parts? Is it a mind to be settled, equable, contented, and courageous in any circ.u.mstances? Is he--

A wise man, of himself commander high, Whom want, nor death, nor bands can terrify, Resolved t'affront desires, honours to scorn, All in himself, close, round, and neatly borne, Against whose front externals idly play, And even fortune makes a lame essay?

Such a man is five hundred degrees beyond kingdoms and princ.i.p.alities; himself is a kingdom unto himself. Compare with him the vulgar troop--stupid, base, servile, warring, floating on the sea of pa.s.sions, depending wholly on others. There is more difference than between heaven and earth, yet in a blindness of custom we take little or no account of it. Whereas, if we consider a cottage and a king, a n.o.ble and a workman, a rich man and a poor, we at once recognise disparity, although, as one might say, they differ in nothing but their clothes.

An emperor, whose pomp so dazzles us in public, view him behind the curtain is but an ordinary man, and peradventure viler and sillier than the least of his subjects! Cowardice, irresolution, ambition, spite, anger, envy, move and work in him as in another man. Fear, care, and suspicion haunt him even in the midst of his armed troops. Does the ague, the headache, or the gout spare him more than us? When age seizes on his shoulders, can the tall yeoman of his guard rid him of it? His bedstead encased with gold and pearls cannot allay the pinching pangs of colic!

The flatterers of Alexander the Great a.s.sured him he was the son of Jupiter, but being hurt one day, and the blood gushing from the wound, "What think you of this?" said he to them. "Is not this blood of a lively red hue, and merely human?" If a king have the ague or the gout what avail his t.i.tles of majesty? But if he be a man of worth, royalty and glorious t.i.tles will add but little to good fortune.

Truly, to see our princes all alone, sitting at their meat, though beleaguered with talkers, whisperers, and gazing beholders, I have often rather pitied than envied them. The honour we receive from those who fear and stand in awe of us is no true honour. "Service holds few, though many hold service."

Every man's manners and his mind His fortune for him frame and find.

_IV.--Of the Use of Apparel_

I was devising in this chill-cold season whether the fashion of these late-discovered nations to go naked be a custom forced by the hot temperature of the air, as we say of the Indians and Moors, or whether it be an original manner of mankind. My opinion is, that even as all plants, trees, living creatures, are naturally furnished with protection against all weathers, even so were we. But like those who by artificial light quench the brightness of day, so we have spoilt our proper covering by what we have borrowed. Nations under the same heaven and climate as our own, or even colder, have no knowledge of clothes.

Moreover, the tenderest parts of us are ever bare and naked--our eyes, face, mouth, nose, ears; and our country swains, like their forefathers, go bare-breasted to their middles.

Had we been born needing petticoats and breeches nature would have armed that which she has left to the battery of the seasons with some thicker skin or hide, as she has our finger ends and the soles of our feet.

"How many men in Turkey go naked for devotion's sake?" a certain man demanded of one of our loitering rogues whom in the depth of winter he saw wandering up and down with nothing but his shirt about him, yet as blithe and l.u.s.ty as another that keeps himself m.u.f.fled up to the ears in furs. "And have not you, good sir," answered he, "your fate all bare?

Imagine I am all face."

The Italians say that when the Duke of Florence asked his fool how, being so ill-clad, he could endure the cold, he replied, "Master, use but my receipt, and put all the clothes you have on you, as I do all mine, and you shall feel no more cold than I do."

King Ma.s.sinissa, were it never so sharp weather, always went bareheaded.

So did the Emperor Severus. In the battle of the Egyptians and Persians, Herodotus noticed that of those slain the Egyptians had skulls much harder than the Persians, by reason that these go ever with their heads covered with coifs and turbans, while those are from infancy shaven and bareheaded. King Agesilaus wore his clothes alike winter and summer.

Suetonius says Caesar always marched at the head of his troops, and most commonly bareheaded and on foot, whether the sun shone or whether it rained. The like is reported of Hannibal.