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regret and desire for me, I know at least this, that I have not greatly wished to do so.

Mene huic confidere monstro!

Mene salis placidi vultum fluctusque quietos
Ignorare.1

CHAPTER XI

OF CRIPPLES

IN the preceding Essay, Montaigne has said how much the reform in the calendar (which, in France, went into effect in 1582, when they passed at once from the 9th to the 20th of December) bothered him. Here he recurs to it, to contemplate it from his familiar point of view, the uncertainty of human "reason."

The thought on the next page, that men, with regard to the facts set before them, occupy themselves more readily in seeking the reason than the truth of them, is the opening of the most definite argument for doubt that occurs in the Essays. Elsewhere we have seen Montaigne apparently curiously credulous; here the scales decidedly dip on the other side; and, as Voltaire said: "The man who would learn to doubt should read this Essay." He will learn here how to doubt wisely, intelligently, calmly, contentedly, with no touch of the spirit of the scoffer. He will learn the reasonable sources of doubt its rightful causes rived from the conditions of human nature.

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as deM. Villey has well stated Montaigne's own attitude: "When he comes forth from doubt, and he comes forth very resolutely, it is alone the authority of the fact that obliges his reason to accept it. Whenever he can clearly mark the meaning of facts, he comes to a decision; and he remains in doubt in all cases where the facts do not seem to him to dictate an answer. The Essay 'Of Cripples' has much significance from this point of view."

The passage beginning “I myself” is a convincing proof of the slight dependence to be put on human testimony, on the expressions of opinion. It is questionable whether Montaigne is not lacking in sound judgement in what he says on the next page: "For my part what I should not believe when asserted by one man, I should not believe if asserted by a hundred." Cumulative testimony is surely different, not merely in degree but in kind, from a solitary testimony. Like a composite photograph, it proves the facts that the independent assertions testify to.

1 That I should trust this monster! That I should be unaware of the treachery of this placid sea and the tranquil waves! - Virgil, Eneid, V, 849, 848. Montaigne has inverted the order of the lines, and omitted jubes after ignorare.

This Essay indicates, as can be constantly observed in Montaigne's pages, how much interested he was by "miracles," by the inexplicable; he tells countless stories of "such matters," for the truth of which he vouches as little as he seeks for the cause. His verdict was: "The Court understands nothing of this"; but it is evident that the pleadings entertained him. And it may have been, it seems to me, because he in some measure foresaw, as Bacon foresaw, that some of these wonders would be explained, not denied, by the clear-sightedness of coming science.

A propos, ou hors de propos, of this question of beliefs, of opinions,of their grounds, — he comes to beliefs about cripples, and from this paragraph the Essay received its irrelevant name.

T is two or three years since in France the year was shortened by ten days. How many changes must follow this reform! It was really to move heaven and earth at once; nevertheless, nothing is thrown out of place: my neighbours find the time for sowing, for reaping, opportuneness for their business, and lucky and unlucky days, at exactly the same dates which had been assigned to them from time immemorial; nor had error been perceptible in our habits, nor is there now perceptible improvement in them, so much uncertainty is there everywhere, so stupid and dull is our perception. It is said that this adjustment might have been managed in a less inconvenient way by following the example of Augustus and dropping for some years the bissextile day,' which in one way and another is a day of embarrassment and confusion, until what was lacking had been supplied; 2 which has not been done even by this correction, for we remain still several days in arrears; indeed, by this same means we could provide for the future, decreeing that after the lapse of such or such a number of years this extra day should disappear forever; our miscalculation could not thereafter exceed twenty-four hours. We have no other count of time than by years; for many centuries the world has made use of this; nevertheless it is a measurement of which we have not yet decided the extent;3 and it is of such nature that we daily question what forms other nations have diversely given to it and what custom about it has been. Suppose that, as some say, the heavens,

1 The extra day in leap year.

2 Jusques à ce qu'on fust arrivé à satisfaire exactement ce debte. 3 Que nous n'avons encore achevé d'arrester.

as they grow old, are drawn nearer to us and throw us into uncertainty even of the hours and the days; and consider what Plutarch says about the months that even in his time astrology1 had not yet learned how to determine the movements of the moon. Well fitted are we to know the dates of past things!

I was pondering just now, as I often do, on the thought, what a free and roving agent the human reason is. I see that commonly men more readily occupy themselves in seeking the causes of facts laid before them than in seeking whether they be true. They disregard the antecedents, but carefully examine the consequences. (c) Ridiculous chatterers! The knowledge of causes concerns only him who has the guidance of things, not us who have only passive receptivity of them, and who have the perfectly full and complete use of them according to our need, without penetrating into their origin and essence; wine is none the more agreeable to him who knows its primal properties. On the contrary, both the body and the soul interrupt and modify the right that they possess to the use of the world and of themselves by mingling therewith the idea of knowledge; the results concern us, but the means not at all; to pronounce authoritatively and to apportion belong to mastership and authority, as it is the part of deference and ignorance to accept this.

Let us consider again our custom. (b) Usually people begin thus: "How is it that this has happened?" They should say: "But has it happened?" Our imagination is capable of filling out a hundred other worlds and discovering their origins and contexture. It has need neither of substance nor of foundation; if it has its way, it builds as well on vacuity as on plenitude,3 and with nothingness as with substance, — Dare corpus idonea fumo.*

I find that almost everywhere it is needful to say, "There is nothing in this"; and I should often employ this refutation;

1 That is, astronomy. See Plutarch, Roman Questions.

2 Subjection et apprentissage.

* Able to give weight to smoke.

pondus instead of corpus.

Il n'en est rien.

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3 Sur le vuide que sur le plain.

Persius V, 20.

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but I dare not, for they cry out that it is an evasion resulting from weakness of understanding and ignorance; and I must needs commonly play tricks for company's sake in dealing with trivial matters and tales that I entirely disbelieve; besides that, in truth, it is a little churlish and captious to deny curtly a statement of fact; and few persons fail - notably as to a matter difficult of belief- to affirm that they saw it, or to allege witnesses whose authority checks our contradiction. In conformity with this custom, we know the foundations and the conditions of a thousand things that never existed, and the world bickers over a thousand questions of which both sides are equally false. (c) Ita finitima sunt falsa veris ut in præcipitem locum non debeat se sapiens committere.1

(b) Truth and falsehood have like aspects: similar bearing, style, and proceedings; we regard them in the same way. I find not only that we are remiss in defending ourselves from deception, but that we seek and desire to fall into its power; we like, as conformable to our being, to confuse our minds with what is of no value.

I have seen the birth of many miracles in my day. Although they are smothered as soon as born, we do not fail to have a vision of the course they would have run if they had lived to maturity; for if only the end of the thread is found, you can wind off as much as you choose; and it is further from nothing to the smallest thing in the world than it is from that to the greatest. Now the first who are imbued with this beginning of strange things,2 when they come to scatter abroad their story, find, from the opposition they encounter, where the difficulty of persuasion lies and proceed to stop up that crack with some false patch; (c) besides that, insita hominibus libidine alendi de industria rumores, we naturally make it a matter of conscience not to give back what has been lent us without some interest and some addition from our store. The private error first creates the

1 The false is so near the true that a wise man ought not to venture on a precipitous spot. - Cicero, Academica, II, 21.

2 That is, with miracles.

Men having a natural desire diligently to spread rumours. Livy, XXVIII, 24.

public error, and in its turn the public error afterward creates the private error. (b) Thus the whole structure goes on being built up and shaped from hand to hand, so that the most distant witness knows more fully about it than the nearest, and the last informed is more fully persuaded than the first. It is a natural progression; for whosoever believes a thing thinks it a charitable deed to persuade another of its truth, and, to do this, he does not hesitate to add as much of his own invention to his story as he sees to be necessary to make up for the opposition and deficiency which he thinks exist in other men's conceptions. I myself, who am peculiarly scrupulous about lying, and who care but little to give credibility and authority to what I say, none the less perceive about the gossip I take in hand that, being heated (c) either by the opposition of another or by the very warmth of my narration, (b) I magnify and inflate my theme by voice and gestures, by energy and force of language, and also by extension and amplification, not without detriment to the simple truth; but yet I do so on these terms, that for the first man who brings me to myself and asks from me the bare and plain truth I immediately abandon my overstraining, and give it to him without exaggeration, without emphasis and amplification. (c) An eager and vehement way of talking, as mine is commonly, is easily carried into hyperbole.

(b) There is nothing upon which men are more usually bent than to make way for their opinions; where ordinary means fail us, we add to them command, force, fire, and sword. It is unfortunate to be at such a pass that the best test of truth is the multitude of believers in a crowd in which fools so largely outnumber wise men. (c) Quasi vero quidquam sit tam valde quam nil sapere vulgare. Sanitatis patrocinium est insanientium turba. (b) It is difficult to 1 See Seneca, Epistle 81.29.

2 Cf. Book I, chap. 9 (Vol. I, p. 44): "In truth, lying is an accursed vice"; and Book II, chap. 17 (Vol. III, p. 57): "My soul, by its nature, shuns falsehood, and hates even to think a falsehood."

3 As if any thing were so exceedingly common as folly. — Cicero, De Divin., II, 39.

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4 The multitude of the insane is the safeguard of the wise. — St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, VI, 10.

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