very much astonished to see him leave and give up his advantage. Another time, relying upon I know not what truce, newly published in the army, I took a journey through a very fickle country. I had not rid far, but I was discovered, and two or three parties of horse, from several places, were sent out to take me; one of them the third day overtook me, where I was charged by fifteen or twenty gentlemen in vizors, followed at a distance by a band of harquebusiers. Here I was surrounded and taken, withdrawn into the thick of a neighbouring forest, dismounted, robbed, my trunks rifled, my cash-box taken, and my horses and equipage divided amongst new masters. We had in this copse a very long contest about my ransom, which they set so high, that it very well appeared I was not known to them. They were moreover in a very great debate about my life; and, in truth, there were several circumstances that threatened me in the danger I was in : Tunc animis opus, Enea, tunc pectore firmo.1 "Then, then, Æneas, was there need, Of an undaunted heart indeed." I still insisted upon the truce, being willing they should only have the gain of what they had already taken from me, which was not to be despised, without promise of any other ransom. After two or three hours that we had been in this place, and that they had mounted me on a pitiful jade that was not likely to run from them, and committed me to the guard of fifteen or twenty harquebusiers, and dispersed my servants to others, having given order that they should carry us away prisoners different ways, and being already got some two or three musket-shots from the place,— Jam prece Pollucis, jam Castoris implorata: 2 "Whilst I implor'd Castor and Pollux' aid: " behold a sudden and unexpected alteration among them. I 2 Catullus, Carm. lxvi. 65 1 Eneid, vi. 261. saw their chief return to me with gentler language, making search amongst the troopers for my dispersed goods, and causing as many as could be recovered to be restored to me, even to my casket; but the best present they made me was my liberty; for the rest did not much concern me in those days. The true cause of so sudden a change, and of this reconsideration, without any apparent impulse, and of so miraculous a repentance, in such a time, in a complotted and deliberate enterprise, and become just by custom (for at the first dash, I plainly confessed to them of what party I was, and whither I was going), was what I really do not yet rightly apprehend. The most eminent amongst them, who pulled off his vizor, and told me his name, then several times told me, over and over again, that I was obliged for my deliverance to my countenance, and the freedom and firmness of my words, that rendered me unworthy of such a mischance, and demanded assurance from me of the like courtesy. 'Tis probable that the divine bounty would make use of this vain instrument of my preservation, and moreover defended me the next day from other and worse ambushes, which these themselves gave me warning of. The last of these two gentlemen is yet living, to give an account of the story; the first was killed not long ago. The simplicity of which was visible his language, freedom in dis resented. If my face did not answer for me, if men did not read in my eyes and voice the innocence of my intentions, I had not lived so long without quarrels, his intention, and without giving offence, considering the in- in his eyes, and discreet liberty I take, right or wrong, to say prevented his whatever comes at my tongue's end, and to course from being judge so rashly of things. This way may with reason appear uncivil and ill adapted to our customs; but I have never met with any who have judged it outrageous or malicious, or that took offence at my liberty, if he had it from my own mouth; words repeated have another kind of sound and sense. Neither do I hate any person; and I am so slow to offend, that I cannot do it, even upon the account Aristotle re merciful. of reason itself; and when occasion has called upon me to sentence criminals, I have rather chosen to fail in point of justice than to do it: Ut magis peccari nolim quam satis animi ad vindicanda peccata habeam.1 "I had rather men should not offend, but I have not the heart to condemn them." Aristotle, 'tis said, was reproached for having proached for being been too merciful to a wicked man: "I was, indeed," said he,2 "merciful to the man, but not to his wickedness." Ordinary judgments exasperate themselves to punishment, from horror of the fact; 'tis just this that cools mine; the horror of the first murder makes me fear the second, and the deformity of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation of it. That may be applied to me, who am but a knave of clubs, which was said of Charillus, king of Sparta: "He cannot be good, because he is not evil to the wicked: or thus, for Plutarch delivers it both these ways, as he does a thousand other things, variously and contrary to one another: "He must needs be good, because he is so even to the wicked." Even as in lawful actions, I do not care to employ myself, when for such as are displeased at it; so to say the truth, in unlawful things, I do not make conscience enough of employing myself, when for such as are willing. CHAPTER XIII. Why experience is OF EXPERIENCE. No desire in us is more natural than that not a sure means of knowledge. We try all ways that can lead to inform us of the truth of things. 1 Livy, xxix. 21. to it; where reason is wanting, we therein employ experience, 2 Laertius, in Vità, v. 17. 8 Plutarch, On the Difference between a Flatterer and a Friend, and On Envy and Hatred. + Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, c. 4. Per varios usus artem experientia fecit, 66 By several proofs experience art has made, which is a means much more weak and low; but truth is so great a thing, that we ought not to disdain any mediation that will lead us to it. Reason has so many forms that we know not which to take; experience has no fewer; the consequence we would draw from the conference of events is unsure, by reason they are always unlike. There is no quality so universal, in this image of things, as diversity and variety. Both the Greeks and Latins, and we, for the most express example of similitude, have pitched upon that of eggs; and yet there have been men, particularly one at Delphos, who could distinguish marks of difference amongst eggs so well, that he never mistook one for another; and, having many hens, could tell which had laid a particular egg! 2 Dissimilitude intrudes itself of itself in our works; no art can arrive at a perfect similitude; neither Perrozet, nor any other cardmaker, can so carefully polish and blank the back of his cards, that some gamesters will not distinguish them by only seeing them shuffled by another. Resemblance does not so much make them one, as difference makes them another. Nature has obliged herself to make nothing other, that is not unlike. And yet I am not much pleased with his opinion, who thought by the multitude of laws to curb the Montaigne's opinauthority of judges, in cutting them out their ion as to a multiparcels ; he was not aware that there is as much plicity of laws liberty and stretch in the interpretation of laws, as in their fashion; and they but fool themselves who think to lessen and stop our debates, by summoning us to the express words of the Bible, forasmuch as human wit does not find the field less spacious wherein to controvert the sense of another, than to deliver his own, and, as if there were less animosity and tartness in the glossing than in the invention. We see how 2 Cicero, Acad. ii. 18. 1 Manil. i. 59. much he was deceived; for we have more laws in France than in all the rest of the world besides; and more thar. would be necessary for the government of all the worlds of Epicurus Ut olim flagitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus :1 "So that as formerly we suffered from wickedness, so now we suffer from the laws:" and yet we have left so much to the opinion and decision of our judges, that there never was so full and uncontrolled a liberty. What have our legislators got by culling out a hundred thousand particular cases, and annexing to these a hundred thousand laws? This number holds no manner of proportion with the infinite diversity of human actions; the multiplication of our inventions will never arrive at the variety of examples; add to them a hundred times as many more; it will not, nevertheless, ever happen that, of events to come, there shall any one fall out that, in this great number of thousands of events so chosen and recorded, shall find any one, to which it can be so exactly coupled and compared, that there will not remain some circumstance and diversity which will require a variety of judgment. There is little relation betwixt our actions, that are in perpetual mutation, and fixed and immobile laws; the most to be desired, are those that are the most rare, the most simple and general; and I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have none at all, than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have. Nature always gives them better than those are which we make ourselves; witness the picture of the golden age of the poets, and the state wherein we see nations live who have no other. Some there are who, for their only judge, take the first passer-by that travels over their mountains to determine Passengers made use of for judges. their cause; 2 and others who on their marketday choose out some one amongst them upon the spot, to de The laws of nature better than our own. 1 Tacitus, Annal. iii. 25. 2 Montaigne probably refers to the little republic of San Marino, in the papal states. In the thirteenth century it was almost universal throughout Lombardy to intrust the administration of justice to foreigners. |