Page:Essays, Vol 2 (Ives, 1925).pdf/15

The Essay opens with a recognition of the universal usefulness of the judgement, and Montaigne says that in the essays — the tests — he here makes of it (he does not allude to his writings in the modern sense of essays) he avails himself of every opportunity; and he goes on to describe the assistance it gives him; and, still further, his manner of composing, and the advantages of it to a man of not more assured and powerful mind than himself.

But his avoidance of going to the bottom of things does not (he implies) conceal from the reader the manner of man he is; “every motion reveals us"; and in fact, perhaps, the soul is best seen “when she is jogging quietly along.”

In its higher planes of existence it is more carried on the winds of passions, and is more engrossed by each separate thing to which it gives itself. This train of thought leads to a passage — “Things by themselves . . .” etc. — where the extreme use of figures (not at all common with Montaigne) makes the clear understanding of the thought somewhat difficult.^[1]

Returning from this thought, that it is our opinion of a thing and not the thing itself which affects us (one of the dominant doctrines of the Stoic philosophy), Montaigne recurs to the thought that every chord of our mind may be touched and sounded by commonplace conditions, bringing forward in illustration the game of chess — “that foolish and puerile game,” as he thinks it: “I dislike it and shun it because it is not play enough.” And he again insists that “every occupation of a man betrays and reveals him equally with any other.”

Originally Democritus and Heraclitus came on the stage before now: this long philosophy was inserted in 1595; but it is of little consequence when they appear, as they have but small parts to play. They are introduced only as figure-heads of two different ways of judging of this poor human creature who cannot disguise himself and whose state may be considered either as ridiculous or sorrowful. Montaigne thinks man is fit only to be laughed at, that he is worthy neither of compassion nor of hatred: “It seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve.”

It is not often that we find Montaigne in so bitter a mood.

1. ↑ When I say this style is not frequent with Montaigne, I mean the extreme and confusing use of figurative language. Never was there a writer who made such incessant and illuminating use of figurative expressions of a kind that interpret themselves with the utmost plainness. It is what gives his style its constant beauty of colour.