Before I jump into the essay, I want to take issue with M.E. Screech’s English translation. I don’t do this often, but I believe he screwed up one of Montaigne’s best quotes and should be held accountable.
The modern French translation of the quote is:
Tout mouvement nous fait connaitre.
This is a simple phrase to translate: “every movement defines us.” Donald Frame translates it as “every movement reveals us.” Fine. But Screech translates it as:
Anything we do reveals us.
Ugh, so much less colorful, and missing Montaigne’s hint at embodied consciousness. And this generalization weakens the final sentence of the paragraph, where Montaigne says:
You judge a horse not only by seeing its paces on a race-track but by seeing it walk–indeed, by seeing it in its stable.
The next paragraph is all about embodied consciousness as well, so Screech misses an opportunity to properly set it up. I’m annoyed with Screech at the moment, so I’ll use Frame:
Among the functions of the soul there are some lowly ones; he who does not see that side of her also does not fully know her. And perhaps she is best observed when she goes at her simple pace. The winds of passion seize her more strongly on her lofty flights. Moreover, she gives all her being to each matter, and concentrates all her strength on it, and never treats more than one at a time. And she treats a matter not according to itself, but accord to herself.
This is a very interesting thought that circles back to that earlier discussion I had about living a life tuned to your passions. Montaigne argues here that it’s only when we become in-our-heads about our lives, when passions mix with thoughts, that feelings become overwhelming. Left to themselves, observed without critique or category, the body can handle what comes before it one at a time.
From that point, let me jump ahead a bit to Montaigne’s discussion of his project and how he decides what to write about. I’m going to stick with the Frame translations now that I’ve begun using it. And I agree completely with what Montaigne is saying here — often I write when I need to figure out what I really think about something:
If it is a subject I do not understand at all, even on that I essay my judgment, sounding the ford from a good distance; and then, finding it too deep for my height, I stick to the bank. And this acknowledgment that I cannot cross over is a token of its action, indeed one of those it is most proud of. Sometimes in a vain and nonexistent subject I try to see if it will find the wherewithal to give it body, prop it up, and support it. Sometimes I lead it to a noble and well-worn subject in which it has nothing original to discover, the road being so beaten that it can walk only in others’ footsteps.
That free soul Montaigne described above that is not guided by the aspirations of the ego, but moves purely by whim, is also what guides his choice of subject:
I take the first subject that chance offers. They are all equally good to me. And I never plan to develop them completely. For I do not see the whole of anything; nor do those who promise to show it to us. Of a hundred members and faces that each thing has, I take one, sometimes only to lick it, sometimes to brush the surface, sometimes to pinch it to the bone. I give it a stab, not as wide but as deep as I know how. And most often I like to take them from some unaccustomed point of view. I would venture to treat some matter thoroughly, if I knew myself less well.
I highlighted two lines that I find particularly interesting. He never plans to develop any subject completely. Perhaps part of that is a desire to stay in the shallow pool, not get involved in issues where the experts might take notice and challenge him. But also, Montaigne’s Pyrrhonism plays into it—he doesn’t expect to reach the end of any subject. All he can do is suggest a course and play around with it a bit.
That last part is amusing to me as well, because I ventured into Montaigne not because I had some kind of fundamental study in mind, but because I wanted to capture him part by part as quickly as possible and move on. But just as Montaigne frees my mind from too great an attachment, he also becomes an obsession whenever I return. If I knew myself less well, I might think I could casually return to his text without becoming deeply engaged in it again.
This leads Montaigne to a very important idea he will build upon later—and something that stands in sharp contrast to all of his recent takes on the role of Fortune in life:
Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, and their opposites—all are stripped on entry and receive from the soul new clothing, and the coloring that she chooses—brown, green, bright, dark, bitter, sweet, deep, superficial—and which each individual soul chooses; for they have not agreed together on their styles, rules, and forms; each one is queen in her realm. Wherefore let us no longer make the external qualities of things our excuse; it is up to us to reckon them as we will. Our good and our ill depend on ourselves alone. Let us offer our offerings and vows to ourselves, not to Fortune; she has no power over our character; on the contrary, it drags her in its train and molds her in its own form.
If this sounds like a return to Montaigne’s previous thoughts on Fortune, that’s intentional. Perhaps we have an ability to take command of our own lives and to shape events in our favor. But it’s the definition of folly to look beyond this personal power and see it in the world at large. Once we see in the world a reflection of ourselves, the vanity Montaigne describes above enters full bloom.
From here, Montaigne goes into a rant about how much he hates chess, which reminds me of how much I hate golf. And then he finally gets around to Democritus and Heraclitus. He mentions how Democritus always had a mocking, laughing face when he went out in public, while Heraclitus was always sad. Montaigne had a clear favorite:
I prefer the first humor; not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful, and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless.
This was certainly what I took away from a number of years working in government—The West Wing is a fairy tale, Veep is a documentary. Most of the truly mind boggling choices people make in public life are due to stupidity and incompetence, not evil. What any of this has to do with the beginning of the essay, I’m unsure. But as Montaigne says, he’s not trying to give us a definitive opinion of anything, just something to consider.
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