The Essays, vol 16 | Page 4

to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
Translated by Charles Cotton
Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 16.
VI. Of Coaches. VII. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. VIII. Of the
Art of Conference.

CHAPTER VI
OF COACHES
It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes,
not only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also of
those they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some
beauty and invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be
ingeniously. We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and
therefore crowd a great many together, to see if it may not accidentally
be amongst them:
"Namque unam dicere causam Non satis est, verum plures, unde una
tamen sit."
[Lucretius, vi. 704.--The sense is in the preceding passage.]
Do you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who
sneeze? We break wind three several ways; that which sallies from
below is too filthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it
some reproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it
proceeds from the head and is without offence, we give it this civil
reception: do not laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's.
I think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is he
who has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), his
giving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are at sea,

that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason by
which he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who am very
subject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it,
not by argument, but by necessary experience. Without instancing what
has been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts,
especially hogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an
acquaintance of mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it,
the disposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being
very afraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient:
"Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;"
["I was too ill to think of danger." (Or the reverse:) "I was too
frightened to be ill."--Seneca, Ep., 53. 2]
I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I
have had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be
one), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment. Fear springs
sometimes as much from want of judgment as from want of courage.
All the dangers I have been in I have looked upon without winking,
with an open, sound, and entire sight; and, indeed, a man must have
courage to fear. It formerly served me better than other help, so to order
and regulate my retreat, that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless
without affright and astonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not
amazed or stupefied. Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us
flights, not only steady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us make
a relation of that which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in
arms: "I found him," says he, "after the rout of our army, him and
Lachez, last among those who fled, and considered him at my leisure
and in security, for I was mounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as
he had fought. I took notice, in the first place, how much judgment and
resolution he showed, in comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of
his march, nothing different from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and
regular, considering and judging what passed about him, looking one
while upon those, and then upon others, friends and enemies, after such
a manner as encouraged those, and signified to the others that he would
sell his life dear to any one who should attempt to take it from him, and

so they came off; for people are not willing to attack such kind of men,
but pursue those they see are in a fright." That is the testimony of this
great captain, which teaches us, what we every day experience, that
nothing so much throws us into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness
of getting ourselves clear of them:
"Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est."
["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least danger."--Livy,
xxii. 5.]
Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death,
when they would express that he thinks of