The Complete Essays (219 page)

402
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata, Aristippus
V and I.

403
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, III, 539.

404
. Diogenes Laertius,
Lives
, Solon, I, lxiii, 53; Erasmus,
Apophthegmata: Socratica LIII
.
’88 (in place of [C]):
From this diversity of aspects there arises the fact that judgements are variously applied to the choice of objects
.

405
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, III, xxiv, 200–203.

406
. Juvenal,
Sat.
, XV, 36.

407
. Plutarch, tr. Amyot,
Les Regies et preceptes de Santd
, 295 DE (condemning all vicious sexuality).

408
. Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, V, xxxiii, 94;
De fin.
, III, xx, 68; Seneca,
Epist
. CXXIII, 15 (condemning Stoic indiscretions); Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, IV, xxxiv, 71. Dicaearchus reproached Plato for his
Symposium
and
Phaedrus;
Montaigne takes all these quotations as allusions to irregular
affaires;
Marie de Gournay translates
amores sanctos
by
amours illicites
(‘illicit
love-affaires’
) which is, I think, the sense.
‘95 ‘98, etc.: for
Dicaearchus
, ‘Diogarchus’.

409
. ’88: rejected.
Everyone had heard tell of the shameless way of life of the Cynic philosophers
. Chrysippus…

410
. Cf. Plutarch, tr. Amyot,
Contredicts des philosophes Stoïques
, 569 B (‘In the VII
^th
Book of his
Offices
he goes further, saying he will do a somersault three times, provided he be given a talent.’).
’88 (in place of [C]): breeches off.
And that ‘honesty’ and ‘reverence’, as we call them, which make us hasten to hide some of our natural and rightful actions, not to dare to call things by their name or to fear to mention things we are allowed to do, could they not be said to be a guileful wantonness, invented in Venus’ own chambers so as to give more value and stimulus to her games? Is it not an allurement, a bait and a stimulus to voluptuousness? For usage makes us evidently feel that ceremony, modesty and difficulties are means of sharpening and inflaming such fevers as those
. That is why some say…

411
. Herodotus, VI, cxxix; Aelian,
Var. hist.
, XII, 24.

412
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Crates Thebananus Cynicus
, XVII.

413
. Martial, III, lxx.

414
. Martial, I, lxxiv, cited Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XVI, II.

415
. Source unknown.
’88: planting
cabbages. Solon is said to have been the first to give women freedom in his Laws to profit publicly from their bodies. And the philosophical school which most honoured Virtue did not in short impose any bridle on the practising of lust of all sorts
except moderation… (Transferred by Montaigne to III, 5, ‘On some lines of Virgil’.)

416
. St Augustine,
City of God
, XIV, 20 (defending the notion that shame is natural); Diogenes Laertius,
Lives
, Diogenes, VI, lxix and lviii (cf. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, III,
Diogenes Cynicus
, XLVII) and
Lives
, Hipparchia, VI, cxvi. The same associations, with additional material, are found in Tiraquellus,
De legibus connubialibus
, XV, 159.

417
. Cf. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xxix, 210–11; xxxii, 218; Cicero,
Acad.: Lucullus
, II, vi, 79. (The refraction of a ‘bent oar’ was a major argument for sceptics.) Cf. I, 14, note 71.

418
. Cf. Rabelais,
Gargantua
, TLF, Prologue, 87 f.
’88 (in place of [C]): like.
Homer is as great as you wish, but it is not possible that he intended to represent as many ideas as people attribute to him. Law-givers have divined in him instructions without number for their own concerns; so have military men; so have those who treat of the arts
. Anyone on the…

419
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xxx, 213–14. What follows is from Cicero,
Acad.: Lucullus
, II, xxiv, 76; xlvi, 142.

420
. Plato, cited Cicero (note 419), and
Theaetetus
, 186: knowledge is not in sensation but in reasoning upon sensation. Truth is ‘perceived’, not apprehended; it is not attainable from ‘opinion’.

421
. Lucretius, V, 102 (Lambin, p. 382).

422
. Lucretius, IV, 478, 482 (Lambin, pp. 308–11). This section of Lucretius is aimed at anyone who dares to think that ‘nothing is known’
(nil sciri);
Lucretius, 469 ff. This fact lends piquancy to what follows: Montaigne, like Carneades, is about to use his opponent’s weapons against him.

423
. Cicero,
Acad.: Lucullus
, II, xxvii, 87 and Plutarch,
Contredicts des philosophes Stoïques
, 562H–563A.

424
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 96–7. The whole of this section (36–163) forms the background to these pages.

425
. Lucretius, IV, 486, 490.

426
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 95–6.

427
. These’qualities were classified as ‘sympathies’ and ‘antipathies’ within nature and were fundamental to Renaissance science; cf. G. Fracastoro,
De sympathia et antipathia rerum
, 1554. For the magnet, cf. Rabelais,
Quart Livre
, TLF, LXII; for animals recognizing medical simples,
ibid.
, LXII (drawing on Plutarch and Celio Calcagnini).

428
. Seneca,
Epist.
, CXXI, 19.

429
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xxix, 210–11.

430
. Lucretius, V, 577 (of the Moon, not the Sun; but the section starts (564) ‘Nec
nimio solis major rota’
[The wheel of the Sun cannot be much larger than as perceived by our senses]). Lambin (p. 410) classes as ‘the most stolid and silly of the opinions of Epicurus that the Sun, Moon and Stars have the size they appear to have.’ He cites Cicero,
Acad.: Lucullus
, II, xxxix, 124 (cf. Introduction, p. xli and Cicero, ibid., xxvi, 82).

431
. Lucretius, IV, 379;386. (Lambin, pp. 300–2, explains: ‘Lucretius says that, if we are deceived in our seeing things, that is a defect of our minds, not of our eyes… For Epicurus wished the senses to be certain and true; see Cicero [
Acad
.]
Lucullus
, II [142 f.]; later we add material from Lucretius himself.’)

432
. Cicero,
Acad., Lucullus
, II, xxv, 79–80; for the importance of the contention, cf. Aristotle,
Metaph.
, XI, vi, 7 (1063a), a criticism of ‘Man as measure’ which, if accepted, would imply the truth of the notions for which Lucretius is to be cited – with disapproval.

433
. Lucretius, IV, 499 (Lambin, pp. 300–2).

434
. Cicero,
Acad.: Lucullus
, II, xxxii, 101.

435
. Lucretius, IV, 397; 389; 421 (Lambin, pp. 300–2; but in 390 reading
praeter as propter);
‘defects of the mind are not defects of the senses’.

436
. ’88: of
religious
reverence…

437
. Erasmus,
Apophthegmata
, VII,
Zeno
, XXIV.

438
. Attributed by Diogenes Laertius to Arcesilas
(Lives
, IV, xxxvi, 270).

439
. Ovid,
Remedia amoris
, 343. (‘From the ocean’: that is, from pulverized sea–shells, used as face ‘powder’.)

440
. Ovid,
Metam
, III, 424; X, 256.

441
. Livy, XLIV, 6.

442
. Democritus (whom Montaigne already mentions in I, 14: ‘That the taste of good and evil things depends in large part on the opinion we have of them’, and I, 39: ‘On solitude’). Cf. Aulus Gellius,
Attic Nights
, X, xvii; Cicero,
De fin.
, V, xxix, 87 (hesitating to believe it).

443
. Plutarch, tr. Amyot,
Comment il fault oh
, 24H–25A.

444
. Cicero,
De divinat
, XXXVI, 80.

445
. Plutarch, tr. Amyot,
Comment il fault refrener la colere
, 57H–58A.

446
. Virgil,
Aeneid
, IV, 470.

447
. Lucretius, IV, 1155 (Lambin, pp. 358–9).

448
. Lucretius, IV, 811 (Lambin, pp. 331–3, citing Cicero,
Tusc. disput.
, in support).

449
. Cf. Rabelais,
Quart Livre
, TLF, LXIV, derived from Celio Calcagnini.

450
. Lucretius, IV, 636 (Lambin, p. 619)

451
. Pliny,
Hist. Nat…
, XXXII, I.

452
. Lucretius, IV, 333 (Lambin, pp. 296–7).

453
. Medical deformation of
hyposphagma;
cited after Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 45. The following is from ibid., 45–7.

454
. Lucretius, IV, 450 (Lambin, pp. 305–7, who alludes to Aristotle,
Problemata
, 3, for the explanation); Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, 47; Plato,
Theatetus
, 153b–154a.

455
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 50–1.

456
. Lucretius, IV, 74 (Lambin, pp. 278–81) reading
volitare
for
fluitare
.

457
. Cf. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 78–9; 106.

458
. Ibid., I, xiii, 33–34.
’88: acute.
Sick people lend a bitter taste to sweet things; from which it transpires that we do not receive things as they are but
, like this or that… (From Aristotle,
Metaph.
, IV, v, 27 – dropped as a repetition).

459
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiii, 91–2.

460
. Ibid., I, xiv, 48–9; Seneca,
Quaest. Nat.
, I, xvi.

461
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 33; Lucretius, III, 703 (Lambin, pp. 237–8).

462
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 100–4.
’88: Waking man:
Since that particular state, by endowing objects with a being different from the one they have, and since a jaundiced humour changes everything to yellow
, is it not likely… (Then, for
rightful
state,
ordinary
state.)

463
. Ibid., xiv, 102.

464
. Lucretius, IV, 513 (Lambin, pp. 309–11).

465
. Both sides in the religious wars claim to be the one true Church, so no Christian anywhere can remain impartial.

466
. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xiv, 104–6.

467
. Ibid., 115–17.

468
. Ibid., II, vii, 89.

469
. Ibid., II, vii, 72–5. A similar argument appealed to St Augustine (
Contra academicos
, II, 7); cf. also Sextus Empiricus,
Against the Mathematicians
, II, 58–9.

470
. Ibid., II, ix, 88–9: the climax to Sextus’ denial that appearances can be judged as probable, let alone true. It rules out dialectic as a means of telling truth from error (ibid., 94) and continues suspension of judgement (95).

471
. This Platonic assertion forces man to go beyond the transient flux of things and to seek the unchanging Reality lying behind it. From now to the last paragraph Montaigne transcribes, with minor adaptations, a very large borrowing from Amyot’s translation of Plutarch:
Que signifioit ce mot E’i
(456H-357E); this is indicated here by continuous quotation marks: in the original no indication of any kind shows that this is a borrowing. (Even Marie de Gournay did not recognize it as such.) Departures from the original version by Amyot are indicated below. (Amyot’s French version differs markedly from modern interpretations of the original Greek of Plutarch.)

472
. Plutarch, 356H: with
true
Being…

473
. Plato,
Theaetetus
, 180E.

474
. Not
Pythagoras
but
Protagoras:
cf. Sextus Empiricus,
Hypotyposes
, I, xxxii, 217.