The Essays, vol 18 | 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 18.
X. Of Managing the Will. XI. Of Cripples. XII. Of Physiognomy.

CHAPTER X
OF MANAGING THE WILL
Few things, in comparison of what commonly affect other men, move,
or, to say better, possess me: for 'tis but reason they should concern a
man, provided they do not possess him. I am very solicitous, both by
study and argument, to enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which is
in me naturally raised to a pretty degree, so that consequently I espouse
and am very much moved with very few things. I have a clear sight
enough, but I fix it upon very few objects; I have a sense delicate and
tender enough; but an apprehension and application hard and negligent.
I am very unwilling to engage myself; as much as in me lies, I employ
myself wholly on myself, and even in that subject should rather choose
to curb and restrain my affection from plunging itself over head and
ears into it, it being a subject that I possess at the mercy of others, and
over which fortune has more right than I; so that even as to health,
which I so much value, 'tis all the more necessary for me not so
passionately to covet and heed it, than to find diseases so insupportable.
A man ought to moderate himself betwixt the hatred of pain and the
love of pleasure: and Plato sets down a middle path of life betwixt the
two. But against such affections as wholly carry me away from myself
and fix me elsewhere, against those, I say, I oppose myself with my
utmost power. 'Tis my opinion that a man should lend himself to others,
and only give himself to himself. Were my will easy to lend itself out
and to be swayed, I should not stick there; I am too tender both by
nature and use:

"Fugax rerum, securaque in otia natus."
["Avoiding affairs and born to secure ease." --Ovid, De Trist., iii. 2, 9.]
Hot and obstinate disputes, wherein my adversary would at last have
the better, the issue that would render my heat and obstinacy
disgraceful would peradventure vex me to the last degree. Should I set
myself to it at the rate that others do, my soul would never have the
force to bear the emotion and alarms of those who grasp at so much; it
would immediately be disordered by this inward agitation. If,
sometimes, I have been put upon the management of other men's affairs,
I have promised to take them in hand, but not into my lungs and liver;
to take them upon me, not to incorporate them; to take pains, yes: to be
impassioned about it, by no means; I have a care of them, but I will not
sit upon them. I have enough to do to order and govern the domestic
throng of those that I have in my own veins and bowels, without
introducing a crowd of other men's affairs; and am sufficiently
concerned about my own proper and natural business, without
meddling with the concerns of others. Such as know how much they
owe to themselves, and how many offices they are bound to of their
own, find that nature has cut them out work enough of their own to
keep them from being idle. "Thou hast business enough at home: look
to that."
Men let themselves out to hire; their faculties are not for themselves,
but for those to whom they have enslaved themselves; 'tis their tenants
occupy them, not themselves. This common humour pleases not me.
We must be thrifty of the liberty of our souls, and never let it out but
upon just occasions, which are very few, if we judge aright. Do but
observe such as have accustomed themselves to be at every one's call:
they do it indifferently upon all, as well little as great, occasions; in that
which nothing concerns them; as much as in what imports them most.
They thrust themselves in indifferently wherever there is work to do
and obligation, and are without life when not in tumultuous bustle:
"In negotiis sunt, negotii cause,"
["They are in business for business' sake."--Seneca, Ep., 22.]

It is not so much that they will go, as it is that they cannot stand still:
like a rolling stone that cannot stop till it can go no further. Occupation,
with a certain sort of men, is a mark of understanding and dignity: their
souls seek repose in agitation, as children do by being rocked in a
cradle; they may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends,
as they are troublesome to