{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3585/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3585","id":"gutenberg_3585","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3585","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","French essays -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE\n\nTranslated by Charles Cotton\n\nEdited by William Carew Hazilitt\n\n1877\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 5.\n\nXXV.      Of the education of children.\nXXVI.     That it is folly to measure truth and error by our own\n          capacity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nOF THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN\n\nTO MADAME DIANE DE FOIX, Comtesse de Gurson\n\nI never yet saw that father, but let his son be never so decrepit or\ndeformed, would not, notwithstanding, own him: not, nevertheless, if he\nwere not totally besotted, and blinded with his paternal affection, that\nhe did not well enough discern his defects; but that with all defaults he\nwas still his.  Just so, I see better than any other, that all I write\nhere are but the idle reveries of a man that has only nibbled upon the\noutward crust of sciences in his nonage, and only retained a general and\nformless image of them; who has got a little snatch of everything and\nnothing of the whole, 'a la Francoise'.  For I know, in general, that\nthere is such a thing as physic, as jurisprudence: four parts in\nmathematics, and, roughly, what all these aim and point at; and,\nperadventure, I yet know farther, what sciences in general pretend unto,\nin order to the service of our life: but to dive farther than that, and\nto have cudgelled my brains in the study of Aristotle, the monarch of all\nmodern learning, or particularly addicted myself to any one science,\nI have never done it; neither is there any one art of which I am able to\ndraw the first lineaments and dead colour; insomuch that there is not a\nboy of the lowest form in a school, that may not pretend to be wiser than\nI, who am not able to examine him in his first lesson, which, if I am at\nany time forced upon, I am necessitated in my own defence, to ask him,\nunaptly enough, some universal questions, such as may serve to try his\nnatural understanding; a lesson as strange and unknown to him, as his is\nto me.\n\nI never seriously settled myself to the reading any book of solid\nlearning but Plutarch and Seneca; and there, like the Danaides, I\neternally fill, and it as constantly runs out; something of which drops\nupon this paper, but little or nothing stays with me. History is my\nparticular game as to matter of reading, or else poetry, for which I have\nparticular kindness and esteem: for, as Cleanthes said, as the voice,\nforced through the narrow passage of a trumpet, comes out more forcible\nand shrill: so, methinks, a sentence pressed within the harmony of verse\ndarts out more briskly upon the understanding, and strikes my ear and\napprehension with a smarter and more pleasing effect.  As to the natural\nparts I have, of which this is the essay, I find them to bow under the\nburden; my fancy and judgment do but grope in the dark, tripping and\nstumbling in the way; and when I have gone as far as I can, I am in no\ndegree satisfied; I discover still a new and greater extent of land\nbefore me, with a troubled and imperfect sight and wrapped up in clouds,\nthat I am not able to penetrate.  And taking upon me to write\nindifferently of whatever comes into my head, and therein making use of\nnothing but my own proper and natural means, if it befall me, as\noft-times it does, accidentally to meet in any good author, the same heads\nand commonplaces upon which I have attempted to write (as I did but just\nnow in Plutarch's \"Discourse of the Force of Imagination\"), to see myself\nso weak and so forlorn, so heavy and so flat, in comparison of those\nbetter writers, I at once pity or despise myself.  Yet do I please myself\nwith this, that my opinions have often the honour and good fortune to\njump with theirs, and that I go in the same path, though at a very great\ndistance, and can say, \"Ah, that is so.\"  I am farther satisfied to find\nthat I have a quality, which every one is not blessed withal, which is,\nto discern the vast difference between them and me; and notwithstanding\nall that, suffer my own inventions, low and feeble as they are, to run on\nin their career, without mending or plastering up the defects that this\ncomparison has laid open to my own view.  And, in plain truth, a man had\nneed of a good strong back to keep pace with these people.  The\nindiscreet scribblers of our times, who, amongst their laborious\nnothings, insert whole sections and pages out of ancient authors, with a\ndesign, by that means, to illustrate their own writings, do quite\ncontrary; for this infinite dissimilitude of ornaments renders the\ncomplexion of their own compositions so sallow and deformed, that they\nlose much more than they get.\n\nThe philosophers, Chrysippus and Epicurus, were in this of two quite\ncontrary humours: the first not only in his books mixed passages and\nsayings of other authors, but entire pieces, and, in one, the whole Medea\nof Euripides; which gave Apollodorus occasion to say, that should a man\npick out of his writings all that was none of his, he would leave him\nnothing but blank paper: whereas the latter, quite on the contrary, in\nthree hundred volumes that he left behind him, has not so much as one\nquotation.--[Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Chyysippus, vii. 181, and\nEpicurus, x. 26.]\n\nI happened the other day upon this piece of fortune; I was reading a\nFrench book, where after I had a long time run dreaming over a great many\nwords, so dull, so insipid, so void of all wit or common sense, that\nindeed they were only French words: after a long and tedious travel, I\ncame at last to meet with a piece that was lofty, rich, and elevated to\nthe very clouds; of which, had I found either the declivity easy or the\nascent gradual, there had been some excuse; but it was so perpendicular\na precipice, and so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, that by the\nfirst six words, I found myself flying into the other world, and thence\ndiscovered the vale whence I came so deep and low, that I have never had\nsince the heart to descend into it any more.  If I should set out one of\nmy discourses with such rich spoils as these, it would but too evidently\nmanifest the imperfection of my own writing.  To reprehend the fault in\nothers that I am guilty of myself, appears to me no more unreasonable,\nthan to condemn, as I often do, those of others in myself: they are to be\neverywhere reproved, and ought to have no sanctuary allowed them.  I know\nvery well how audaciously I myself, at every turn, attempt to equal\nmyself to my thefts, and to make my style go hand in hand with them, not\nwithout a temerarious hope of deceiving the eyes of my reader from\ndiscerning the difference; but withal it is as much by the benefit of my\napplication, that I hope to do it, as by that of my invention or any\nforce of my own.  Besides, I do not offer to contend with the whole body\nof these champions, nor hand to hand with anyone of them: 'tis only by\nflights and little light attempts that I engage them; I do not grapple\nwith them, but try their strength only, and never engage so far as I make\na show to do.  If I could hold them in play, I were a brave fellow; for I\nnever attack them; but where they are most sinewy and strong.  To cover a\nman's self (as I have seen some do) with another man's armour, so as not\nto discover so much as his fingers' ends; to carry on a design (as it is\nnot hard for a man that has anything of a scholar in him, in an ordinary\nsubject to do) under old inventions patched up here and there with his\nown trumpery, and then to endeavour to conceal the theft, and to make it\npass for his own, is first injustice and meanness of spirit in those who\ndo it, who having nothing in them of their own fit to procure them a\nreputation, endeavour to do it by attempting to impose things upon the\nworld in their own name, which they have no manner of title to; and next,\na ridiculous folly to content themselves with acquiring the ignorant\napprobation of the vulgar by such a pitiful cheat, at the price at the\nsame time of degrading themselves in the eyes of men of understanding,\nwho turn up their noses at all this borrowed incrustation, yet whose\npraise alone is worth the having.  For my own part, there is nothing I\nwould not sooner do than that, neither have I said so much of others, but\nto get a better opportunity to explain myself.  Nor in this do I glance\nat the composers of centos, who declare themselves for such; of which\nsort of writers I have in my time known many very ingenious, and\nparticularly one under the name of Capilupus, besides the ancients.\nThese are really men of wit, and that make it appear they are so, both by\nthat and other ways of writing; as for example, Lipsius, in that learned\nand laborious contexture of his Politics.\n\nBut, be it how it will, and how inconsiderable soever these ineptitudes\nmay be, I will say I never intended to conceal them, no more than my old\nbald grizzled likeness before them, where the painter has presented you\nnot with a perfect face, but with mine.  For these are my own particular\nopinions and fancies, and I deliver them as only what I myself believe,\nand not for what is to be believed by others.  I have no other end in\nthis writing, but only to discover myself, who, also shall, peradventure,\nbe another thing to-morrow, if I chance to meet any new instruction to\nchange me.  I have no authority to be believed, neither do I desire it,\nbeing too conscious of my own inerudition to be able to instruct others.\n\nSome one, then, having seen the preceding chapter, the other day told me\nat my house, that I should a little farther have extended my discourse on\nthe education of children.--[\"Which, how fit I am to do, let my friends\nflatter me if they please, I have in the meantime no such opinion of my\nown talent, as to promise myself any very good success from my\nendeavour.\"  This passage would appear to be an interpolation by Cotton.\nAt all events, I do not find it in the original editions before me, or in\nCoste.]--\n\nNow, madam, if I had any sufficiency in this subject, I could not\npossibly better employ it, than to present my best instructions to the\nlittle man that threatens you shortly with a happy birth (for you are too\ngenerous to begin otherwise than with a male); for, having had so great a\nhand in the treaty of your marriage, I have a certain particular right\nand interest in the greatness and prosperity of the issue that shall\nspring from it; beside that, your having had the best of my services so\nlong in possession, sufficiently obliges me to desire the honour and\nadvantage of all wherein you shall be concerned.  But, in truth, all I\nunderstand as to that particular is only this, that the greatest and most\nimportant difficulty of human science is the education of children.  For\nas in agriculture, the husbandry that is to precede planting, as also\nplanting itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which\nis planted comes to life, there is a great deal more to be done, more art\nto be used, more care to be taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate\nand bring it to perfection so it is with men; it is no hard matter to get\nchildren; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude,\nand care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.  The symptoms of\ntheir inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so\nuncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid\njudgment or conjecture upon them.  Look at Cimon, for example, and\nThemistocles, and a thousand others, who very much deceived the\nexpectation men had of them.  Cubs of bears and puppies readily discover\ntheir natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are grownup,\napplying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in certain\nopinions, and conforming themselves to particular laws and customs,\neasily alter, or at least disguise, their true and real disposition; and\nyet it is hard to force the propension of nature.  Whence it comes to\npass, that for not having chosen the right course, we often take very\ngreat pains, and consume a good part of our time in training up children\nto things, for which, by their natural constitution, they are totally\nunfit.  In this difficulty, nevertheless, I am clearly of opinion, that\nthey ought to be elemented in the best and most advantageous studies,\nwithout taking too much notice of, or being too superstitious in those\nlight prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years, and to\nwhich Plato, in his Republic, gives, methinks, too much authority.\n\nMadam, science is a very great ornament, and a thing of marvellous use,\nespecially in persons raised to that degree of fortune in which you are.\nAnd, in truth, in persons of mean and low condition, it cannot perform\nits true and genuine office, being naturally more prompt to assist in the\nconduct of war, in the government of peoples, in negotiating the leagues\nand friendships of princes and foreign nations, than in forming a\nsyllogism in logic, in pleading a process in law, or in prescribing a\ndose of pills in physic.  Wherefore, madam, believing you will not omit\nthis so necessary feature in the education of your children, who yourself\nhave tasted its sweetness, and are of a learned extraction (for we yet\nhave the writings of the ancient Counts of Foix, from whom my lord, your\nhusband, and yourself, are both of you descended, and Monsieur de\nCandale, your uncle, every day obliges the world with others, which will\nextend the knowledge of this quality in your family for so many\nsucceeding ages), I will, upon this occasion, presume to acquaint your\nladyship with one particular fancy of my own, contrary to the common\nmethod, which is all I am able to contribute to your service in this\naffair.\n\nThe charge of the tutor you shall provide for your son, upon the choice\nof whom depends the whole success of his education, has several other\ngreat and considerable parts and duties required in so important a trust,\nbesides that of which I am about to speak: these, however, I shall not\nmention, as being unable to add anything of moment to the common rules:\nand in this, wherein I take upon me to advise, he may follow it so far\nonly as it shall appear advisable.\n\nFor a, boy of quality then, who pretends to letters not upon the account\nof profit (for so mean an object is unworthy of the grace and favour\nof the Muses, and moreover, in it a man directs his service to and\ndepends upon others), nor so much for outward ornament, as for his own\nproper and peculiar use, and to furnish and enrich himself within, having\nrather a desire to come out an accomplished cavalier than a mere scholar\nor learned man; for such a one, I say, I would, also, have his friends\nsolicitous to find him out a tutor, who has rather a well-made than a\nwell-filled head;--[\"'Tete bien faite', an expression created by\nMontaigne, and which has remained a part of our language.\"--Servan.]--\nseeking, indeed, both the one and the other, but rather of the two to\nprefer manners and judgment to mere learning, and that this man should\nexercise his charge after a new method.\n\n'Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thundering in their pupil's\nears, as they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the business of the\npupil is only to repeat what the others have said: now I would have a\ntutor to correct this error, and, that at the very first, he should\naccording to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test,\npermitting his pupil himself to taste things, and of himself to discern\nand choose them, sometimes opening the way to him, and sometimes leaving\nhim to open it for himself; that is, I would not have him alone to invent\nand speak, but that he should also hear his pupil speak in turn.\nSocrates, and since him Arcesilaus, made first their scholars speak, and\nthen they spoke to them--[Diogenes Laertius, iv. 36.]\n\n               \"Obest plerumque iis, qui discere volunt,\n               auctoritas eorum, qui docent.\"\n\n     [\"The authority of those who teach, is very often an impediment to\n     those who desire to learn.\"--Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 5.]\n\nIt is good to make him, like a young horse, trot before him, that he may\njudge of his going, and how much he is to abate of his own speed, to\naccommodate himself to the vigour and capacity of the other.  For want of\nwhich due proportion we spoil all; which also to know how to adjust, and\nto keep within an exact and due measure, is one of the hardest things I\nknow, and 'tis the effect of a high and well-tempered soul, to know how\nto condescend to such puerile motions and to govern and direct them.\nI walk firmer and more secure up hill than down.\n\nSuch as, according to our common way of teaching, undertake, with one and\nthe same lesson, and the same measure of direction, to instruct several\nboys of differing and unequal capacities, are infinitely mistaken; and\n'tis no wonder, if in a whole multitude of scholars, there are not found\nabove two or three who bring away any good account of their time and\ndiscipline.  Let the master not only examine him about the grammatical\nconstruction of the bare words of his lesson, but about the sense and let\nhim judge of the profit he has made, not by the testimony of his memory,\nbut by that of his life.  Let him make him put what he has learned into a\nhundred several forms, and accommodate it to so many several subjects, to\nsee if he yet rightly comprehends it, and has made it his own, taking\ninstruction of his progress by the pedagogic institutions of Plato.  'Tis\na sign of crudity and indigestion to disgorge what we eat in the same\ncondition it was swallowed; the stomach has not performed its office\nunless it have altered the form and condition of what was committed to it\nto concoct.  Our minds work only upon trust, when bound and compelled to\nfollow the appetite of another's fancy, enslaved and captivated under the\nauthority of another's instruction; we have been so subjected to the\ntrammel, that we have no free, nor natural pace of our own; our own\nvigour and liberty are extinct and gone:\n\n                    \"Nunquam tutelae suae fiunt.\"\n\n          [\"They are ever in wardship.\"--Seneca, Ep., 33.]\n\nI was privately carried at Pisa to see a very honest man, but so great an\nAristotelian, that his most usual thesis was: \"That the touchstone and\nsquare of all solid imagination, and of all truth, was an absolute\nconformity to Aristotle's doctrine; and that all besides was nothing but\ninanity and chimera; for that he had seen all, and said all.\" A position,\nthat for having been a little too injuriously and broadly interpreted,\nbrought him once and long kept him in great danger of the Inquisition at\nRome.\n\nLet him make him examine and thoroughly sift everything he reads, and\nlodge nothing in his fancy upon simple authority and upon trust.\nAristotle's principles will then be no more principles to him, than those\nof Epicurus and the Stoics: let this diversity of opinions be propounded\nto, and laid before him; he will himself choose, if he be able; if not,\nhe will remain in doubt.\n\n               \"Che non men the saver, dubbiar m' aggrata.\"\n\n     [\"I love to doubt, as well as to know.\"--Dante, Inferno, xi. 93]\n\nfor, if he embrace the opinions of Xenophon and Plato, by his own reason,\nthey will no more be theirs, but become his own.  Who follows another,\nfollows nothing, finds nothing, nay, is inquisitive after nothing.\n\n          \"Non sumus sub rege; sibi quisque se vindicet.\"\n\n          [\"We are under no king; let each vindicate himself.\"\n          --Seneca, Ep.,33]\n\nLet him, at least, know that he knows.  It will be necessary that he\nimbibe their knowledge, not that he be corrupted with their precepts;\nand no matter if he forget where he had his learning, provided he know\nhow to apply it to his own use.  Truth and reason are common to every\none, and are no more his who spake them first, than his who speaks them\nafter: 'tis no more according to Plato, than according to me, since both\nhe and I equally see and understand them.  Bees cull their several sweets\nfrom this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them,\nbut themselves afterwards make the honey, which is all and purely their\nown, and no more thyme and marjoram: so the several fragments he borrows\nfrom others, he will transform and shuffle together to compile a work\nthat shall be absolutely his own; that is to say, his judgment:\nhis instruction, labour and study, tend to nothing else but to form that.\nHe is not obliged to discover whence he got the materials that have\nassisted him, but only to produce what he has himself done with them.\nMen that live upon pillage and borrowing, expose their purchases and\nbuildings to every one's view: but do not proclaim how they came by the\nmoney.  We do not see the fees and perquisites of a gentleman of the long\nrobe; but we see the alliances wherewith he fortifies himself and his\nfamily, and the titles and honours he has obtained for him and his.  No\nman divulges his revenue; or, at least, which way it comes in but every\none publishes his acquisitions.  The advantages of our study are to\nbecome better and more wise.  'Tis, says Epicharmus, the understanding\nthat sees and hears, 'tis the understanding that improves everything,\nthat orders everything, and that acts, rules, and reigns: all other\nfaculties are blind, and deaf, and without soul.  And certainly we render\nit timorous and servile, in not allowing it the liberty and privilege to\ndo anything of itself.  Whoever asked his pupil what he thought of\ngrammar and rhetoric, or of such and such a sentence of Cicero?  Our\nmasters stick them, full feathered, in our memories, and there establish\nthem like oracles, of which the letters and syllables are of the\nsubstance of the thing.  To know by rote, is no knowledge, and signifies\nno more but only to retain what one has intrusted to our memory.  That\nwhich a man rightly knows and understands, he is the free disposer of at\nhis own full liberty, without any regard to the author from whence he had\nit, or fumbling over the leaves of his book.  A mere bookish learning is\na poor, paltry learning; it may serve for ornament, but there is yet no\nfoundation for any superstructure to be built upon it, according to the\nopinion of Plato, who says, that constancy, faith, and sincerity, are the\ntrue philosophy, and the other sciences, that are directed to other ends;\nmere adulterate paint.  I could wish that Paluel or Pompey, those two\nnoted dancers of my time, could have taught us to cut capers, by only\nseeing them do it, without stirring from our places, as these men pretend\nto inform the understanding without ever setting it to work, or that we\ncould learn to ride, handle a pike, touch a lute, or sing without the\ntrouble of practice, as these attempt to make us judge and speak well,\nwithout exercising us in judging or speaking.  Now in this initiation of\nour studies in their progress, whatsoever presents itself before us is\nbook sufficient; a roguish trick of a page, a sottish mistake of a\nservant, a jest at the table, are so many new subjects.\n\nAnd for this reason, conversation with men is of very great use and\ntravel into foreign countries; not to bring back (as most of our young\nmonsieurs do) an account only of how many paces Santa Rotonda--[The\nPantheon of Agrippa.]--is in circuit; or of the richness of Signora\nLivia's petticoats; or, as some others, how much Nero's face, in a statue\nin such an old ruin, is longer and broader than that made for him on some\nmedal; but to be able chiefly to give an account of the humours, manners,\ncustoms, and laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may\nwhet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others.  I\nwould that a boy should be sent abroad very young, and first, so as to\nkill two birds with one stone, into those neighbouring nations whose\nlanguage is most differing from our own, and to which, if it be not\nformed betimes, the tongue will grow too stiff to bend.\n\nAnd also 'tis the general opinion of all, that a child should not be\nbrought up in his mother's lap.  Mothers are too tender, and their\nnatural affection is apt to make the most discreet of them all so\noverfond, that they can neither find in their hearts to give them due\ncorrection for the faults they may commit, nor suffer them to be inured\nto hardships and hazards, as they ought to be.  They will not endure to\nsee them return all dust and sweat from their exercise, to drink cold\ndrink when they are hot, nor see them mount an unruly horse, nor take a\nfoil in hand against a rude fencer, or so much as to discharge a carbine.\nAnd yet there is no remedy; whoever will breed a boy to be good for\nanything when he comes to be a man, must by no means spare him when\nyoung, and must very often transgress the rules of physic:\n\n              \"Vitamque sub dio, et trepidis agat\n               In rebus.\"\n\n     [\"Let him live in open air, and ever in movement about something.\"\n     --Horace, Od. ii., 3, 5.]\n\nIt is not enough to fortify his soul; you are also to make his sinews\nstrong; for the soul will be oppressed if not assisted by the members,\nand would have too hard a task to discharge two offices alone.  I know\nvery well to my cost, how much mine groans under the burden, from being\naccommodated with a body so tender and indisposed, as eternally leans and\npresses upon her; and often in my reading perceive that our masters, in\ntheir writings, make examples pass for magnanimity and fortitude of mind,\nwhich really are rather toughness of skin and hardness of bones; for I\nhave seen men, women, and children, naturally born of so hard and\ninsensible a constitution of body, that a sound cudgelling has been less\nto them than a flirt with a finger would have been to me, and that would\nneither cry out, wince, nor shrink, for a good swinging beating; and when\nwrestlers counterfeit the philosophers in patience, 'tis rather strength\nof nerves than stoutness of heart.  Now to be inured to undergo labour,\nis to be accustomed to endure pain:\n\n                    \"Labor callum obducit dolori.\"\n\n     [\"Labour hardens us against pain.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 15.]\n\nA boy is to be broken in to the toil and roughness of exercise, so as to\nbe trained up to the pain and suffering of dislocations, cholics,\ncauteries, and even imprisonment and the rack itself; for he may come by\nmisfortune to be reduced to the worst of these, which (as this world\ngoes) is sometimes inflicted on the good as well as the bad.  As for\nproof, in our present civil war whoever draws his sword against the laws,\nthreatens the honestest men with the whip and the halter.\n\nAnd, moreover, by living at home, the authority of this governor, which\nought to be sovereign over the boy he has received into his charge, is\noften checked and hindered by the presence of parents; to which may also\nbe added, that the respect the whole family pay him, as their master's\nson, and the knowledge he has of the estate and greatness he is heir to,\nare, in my opinion, no small inconveniences in these tender years.\n\nAnd yet, even in this conversing with men I spoke of but now, I have\nobserved this vice, that instead of gathering observations from others,\nwe make it our whole business to lay ourselves open to them, and are more\nconcerned how to expose and set out our own commodities, than how to\nincrease our stock by acquiring new.  Silence, therefore, and modesty are\nvery advantageous qualities in conversation.  One should, therefore,\ntrain up this boy to be sparing and an husband of his knowledge when he\nhas acquired it; and to forbear taking exceptions at or reproving every\nidle saying or ridiculous story that is said or told in his presence; for\nit is a very unbecoming rudeness to carp at everything that is not\nagreeable to our own palate.  Let him be satisfied with correcting\nhimself, and not seem to condemn everything in another he would not do\nhimself, nor dispute it as against common customs.\n\n               \"Licet sapere sine pompa, sine invidia.\"\n\n          [\"Let us be wise without ostentation, without envy.\"\n          --Seneca, Ep., 103.]\n\nLet him avoid these vain and uncivil images of authority, this childish\nambition of coveting to appear better bred and more accomplished, than he\nreally will, by such carriage, discover himself to be.  And, as if\nopportunities of interrupting and reprehending were not to be omitted, to\ndesire thence to derive the reputation of something more than ordinary.\nFor as it becomes none but great poets to make use of the poetical\nlicence, so it is intolerable for any but men of great and illustrious\nsouls to assume privilege above the authority of custom:\n\n     \"Si quid Socrates ant Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem\n     fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur licere: magnis enim illi et\n     divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur.\"\n\n     [\"If Socrates and Aristippus have committed any act against manners\n     and custom, let him not think that he is allowed to do the same; for\n     it was by great and divine benefits that they obtained this\n     privilege.\"--Cicero, De Offic., i. 41.]\n\nLet him be instructed not to engage in discourse or dispute but with a\nchampion worthy of him, and, even there, not to make use of all the\nlittle subtleties that may seem pat for his purpose, but only such\narguments as may best serve him.  Let him be taught to be curious in the\nelection and choice of his reasons, to abominate impertinence, and\nconsequently, to affect brevity; but, above all, let him be lessoned to\nacquiesce and submit to truth so soon as ever he shall discover it,\nwhether in his opponent's argument, or upon better consideration of his\nown; for he shall never be preferred to the chair for a mere clatter of\nwords and syllogisms, and is no further engaged to any argument whatever,\nthan as he shall in his own judgment approve it: nor yet is arguing a\ntrade, where the liberty of recantation and getting off upon better\nthoughts, are to be sold for ready money:\n\n          \"Neque, ut omnia, qux praescripta et imperata sint,\n          defendat, necessitate ulla cogitur.\"\n\n     [\"Neither is their any necessity upon him, that he should defend\n     all things that are prescribed and enjoined him.\"\n     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 3.]\n\nIf his governor be of my humour, he will form his will to be a very good\nand loyal subject to his prince, very affectionate to his person, and\nvery stout in his quarrel; but withal he will cool in him the desire of\nhaving any other tie to his service than public duty.  Besides several\nother inconveniences that are inconsistent with the liberty every honest\nman ought to have, a man's judgment, being bribed and prepossessed by\nthese particular obligations, is either blinded and less free to exercise\nits function, or is blemished with ingratitude and indiscretion.  A man\nthat is purely a courtier, can neither have power nor will to speak or\nthink otherwise than favourably and well of a master, who, amongst so\nmany millions of other subjects, has picked out him with his own hand to\nnourish and advance; this favour, and the profit flowing from it, must\nneeds, and not without some show of reason, corrupt his freedom and\ndazzle him; and we commonly see these people speak in another kind of\nphrase than is ordinarily spoken by others of the same nation, though\nwhat they say in that courtly language is not much to be believed.\n\nLet his conscience and virtue be eminently manifest in his speaking, and\nhave only reason for their guide.  Make him understand, that to\nacknowledge the error he shall discover in his own argument, though only\nfound out by himself, is an effect of judgment and sincerity, which are\nthe principal things he is to seek after; that obstinacy and contention\nare common qualities, most appearing in mean souls; that to revise and\ncorrect himself, to forsake an unjust argument in the height and heat of\ndispute, are rare, great, and philosophical qualities.\n\nLet him be advised, being in company, to have his eye and ear in every\ncorner; for I find that the places of greatest honour are commonly seized\nupon by men that have least in them, and that the greatest fortunes are\nseldom accompanied with the ablest parts.  I have been present when,\nwhilst they at the upper end of the chamber have been only commenting the\nbeauty of the arras, or the flavour of the wine, many things that have\nbeen very finely said at the lower end of the table have been lost and\nthrown away.  Let him examine every man's talent; a peasant, a\nbricklayer, a passenger: one may learn something from every one of these\nin their several capacities, and something will be picked out of their\ndiscourse whereof some use may be made at one time or another; nay, even\nthe folly and impertinence of others will contribute to his instruction.\nBy observing the graces and manners of all he sees, he will create to\nhimself an emulation of the good, and a contempt of the bad.\n\nLet an honest curiosity be suggested to his fancy of being inquisitive\nafter everything; whatever there is singular and rare near the place\nwhere he is, let him go and see it; a fine house, a noble fountain, an\neminent man, the place where a battle has been anciently fought, the\npassages of Caesar and Charlemagne:\n\n              \"Qux tellus sit lenta gelu, quae putris ab aestu,\n               Ventus in Italiam quis bene vela ferat.\"\n\n     [\"What country is bound in frost, what land is friable with heat,\n     what wind serves fairest for Italy.\"--Propertius, iv. 3, 39.]\n\nLet him inquire into the manners, revenues, and alliances of princes,\nthings in themselves very pleasant to learn, and very useful to know.\n\nIn this conversing with men, I mean also, and principally, those who only\nlive in the records of history; he shall, by reading those books,\nconverse with the great and heroic souls of the best ages.  'Tis an idle\nand vain study to those who make it so by doing it after a negligent\nmanner, but to those who do it with care and observation, 'tis a study of\ninestimable fruit and value; and the only study, as Plato reports, that\nthe Lacedaemonians reserved to themselves.  What profit shall he not reap\nas to the business of men, by reading the Lives of Plutarch?  But,\nwithal, let my governor remember to what end his instructions are\nprincipally directed, and that he do not so much imprint in his pupil's\nmemory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and\nScipio; nor so much where Marcellus died, as why it was unworthy of his\nduty that he died there.  Let him not teach him so much the narrative\nparts of history as to judge them; the reading of them, in my opinion,\nis a thing that of all others we apply ourselves unto with the most\ndiffering measure.  I have read a hundred things in Livy that another has\nnot, or not taken notice of at least; and Plutarch has read a hundred\nmore there than ever I could find, or than, peradventure, that author\never wrote; to some it is merely a grammar study, to others the very\nanatomy of philosophy, by which the most abstruse parts of our human\nnature penetrate.  There are in Plutarch many long discourses very worthy\nto be carefully read and observed, for he is, in my opinion, of all\nothers the greatest master in that kind of writing; but there are a\nthousand others which he has only touched and glanced upon, where he only\npoints with his finger to direct us which way we may go if we will, and\ncontents himself sometimes with giving only one brisk hit in the nicest\narticle of the question, whence we are to grope out the rest.  As, for\nexample, where he says'--[In the Essay on False Shame.]--that the\ninhabitants of Asia came to be vassals to one only, for not having been\nable to pronounce one syllable, which is No.  Which saying of his gave\nperhaps matter and occasion to La Boetie to write his \"Voluntary\nServitude.\"  Only to see him pick out a light action in a man's life, or\na mere word that does not seem to amount even to that, is itself a whole\ndiscourse.  'Tis to our prejudice that men of understanding should so\nimmoderately affect brevity; no doubt their reputation is the better by\nit, but in the meantime we are the worse.  Plutarch had rather we should\napplaud his judgment than commend his knowledge, and had rather leave us\nwith an appetite to read more, than glutted with that we have already\nread.  He knew very well, that a man may say too much even upon the best\nsubjects, and that Alexandridas justly reproached him who made very good.\nbut too long speeches to the Ephori, when he said: \"O stranger!  thou\nspeakest the things thou shouldst speak, but not as thou shouldst speak\nthem.\"--[Plutarch, Apothegms of the Lacedamonians.]--Such as have lean\nand spare bodies stuff themselves out with clothes; so they who are\ndefective in matter endeavour to make amends with words.\n\nHuman understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation\nwith men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves,\nand have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.  One asking\nSocrates of what country he was, he did not make answer, of Athens, but\nof the world;--[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 37; Plutarch, On Exile, c. 4.]--\nhe whose imagination was fuller and wider, embraced the whole world for\nhis country, and extended his society and friendship to all mankind;\nnot as we do, who look no further than our feet.  When the vines of my\nvillage are nipped with the frost, my parish priest presently concludes,\nthat the indignation of God has gone out against all the human race, and\nthat the cannibals have already got the pip.  Who is it that, seeing the\nhavoc of these civil wars of ours, does not cry out, that the machine of\nthe world is near dissolution, and that the day of judgment is at hand;\nwithout considering, that many worse things have been seen, and that in\nthe meantime, people are very merry in a thousand other parts of the\nearth for all this?  For my part, considering the licence and impunity\nthat always attend such commotions, I wonder they are so moderate, and\nthat there is no more mischief done.  To him who feels the hailstones\npatter about his ears, the whole hemisphere appears to be in storm and\ntempest; like the ridiculous Savoyard, who said very gravely, that if\nthat simple king of France could have managed his fortune as he should\nhave done, he might in time have come to have been steward of the\nhousehold to the duke his master: the fellow could not, in his shallow\nimagination, conceive that there could be anything greater than a Duke of\nSavoy.  And, in truth, we are all of us, insensibly, in this error, an\nerror of a very great weight and very pernicious consequence.  But\nwhoever shall represent to his fancy, as in a picture, that great image\nof our mother nature, in her full majesty and lustre, whoever in her face\nshall read so general and so constant a variety, whoever shall observe\nhimself in that figure, and not himself but a whole kingdom, no bigger\nthan the least touch or prick of a pencil in comparison of the whole,\nthat man alone is able to value things according to their true estimate\nand grandeur.\n\nThis great world which some do yet multiply as several species under one\ngenus, is the mirror wherein we are to behold ourselves, to be able to\nknow ourselves as we ought to do in the true bias.  In short, I would\nhave this to be the book my young gentleman should study with the most\nattention.  So many humours, so many sects, so many judgments, opinions,\nlaws, and customs, teach us to judge aright of our own, and inform our\nunderstanding to discover its imperfection and natural infirmity, which\nis no trivial speculation.  So many mutations of states and kingdoms, and\nso many turns and revolutions of public fortune, will make us wise enough\nto make no great wonder of our own.  So many great names, so many famous\nvictories and conquests drowned and swallowed in oblivion, render our\nhopes ridiculous of eternising our names by the taking of half-a-score of\nlight horse, or a henroost, which only derives its memory from its ruin.\nThe pride and arrogance of so many foreign pomps, the inflated majesty of\nso many courts and grandeurs, accustom and fortify our sight without\nclosing our eyes to behold the lustre of our own; so many trillions of\nmen, buried before us, encourage us not to fear to go seek such good\ncompany in the other world: and so of the rest Pythagoras was want to\nsay,--[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v.  3.]--that our life resembles the great\nand populous assembly of the Olympic games, wherein some exercise the\nbody, that they may carry away the glory of the prize: others bring\nmerchandise to sell for profit: there are also some (and those none of\nthe worst sort) who pursue no other advantage than only to look on, and\nconsider how and why everything is done, and to be spectators of the\nlives of other men, thereby the better to judge of and regulate their\nown.\n\nTo examples may fitly be applied all the profitable discourses of\nphilosophy, to which all human actions, as to their best rule, ought to\nbe especially directed: a scholar shall be taught to know--\n\n                    \"Quid fas optare: quid asper\n          Utile nummus habet: patrix carisque propinquis\n          Quantum elargiri deceat: quern te Deus esse\n          Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re;\n          Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur.\"\n\n     [\"Learn what it is right to wish; what is the true use of coined\n     money; how much it becomes us to give in liberality to our country\n     and our dear relations; whom and what the Deity commanded thee to\n     be; and in what part of the human system thou art placed; what we\n     are ant to what purpose engendered.\"--Persius, iii. 69]\n\nwhat it is to know, and what to be ignorant; what ought to be the end and\ndesign of study; what valour, temperance, and justice are; the difference\nbetwixt ambition and avarice, servitude and subjection, licence and\nliberty; by what token a man may know true and solid contentment; how far\ndeath, affliction, and disgrace are to be apprehended;\n\n          \"Et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem.\"\n\n          [\"And how you may shun or sustain every hardship.\"\n          --Virgil, AEneid, iii. 459.]\n\nby what secret springs we move, and the reason of our various agitations\nand irresolutions: for, methinks the first doctrine with which one should\nseason his understanding, ought to be that which regulates his manners\nand his sense; that teaches him to know himself, and how both well to dig\nand well to live.  Amongst the liberal sciences, let us begin with that\nwhich makes us free; not that they do not all serve in some measure to\nthe instruction and use of life, as all other things in some sort also\ndo; but let us make choice of that which directly and professedly serves\nto that end.  If we are once able to restrain the offices of human life\nwithin their just and natural limits, we shall find that most of the\nsciences in use are of no great use to us, and even in those that are,\nthat there are many very unnecessary cavities and dilatations which we\nhad better let alone, and, following Socrates' direction, limit the\ncourse of our studies to those things only where is a true and real\nutility:\n\n                              \"Sapere aude;\n               Incipe;  Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam,\n               Rusticus exspectat, dum defluat amnis; at ille\n               Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis oevum.\"\n\n     [\"Dare to be wise; begin! he who defers the hour of living well is\n     like the clown, waiting till the river shall have flowed out: but\n     the river still flows, and will run on, with constant course, to\n     ages without end.\"--Horace, Ep., i. 2.]\n\n'Tis a great foolery to teach our children:\n\n              \"Quid moveant Pisces, animosaque signa Leonis,\n               Lotus et Hesperia quid Capricornus aqua,\"\n\n     [\"What influence Pisces have, or the sign of angry Leo, or\n     Capricorn, washed by the Hesperian wave.\"--Propertius, iv. I, 89.]\n\nthe knowledge of the stars and the motion of the eighth sphere before\ntheir own:\n\n     [\"What care I about the Pleiades or the stars of Taurus?\"\n     --Anacreon, Ode, xvii. 10.]\n\nAnaximenes writing to Pythagoras, \"To what purpose,\" said he, \"should I\ntrouble myself in searching out the secrets of the stars, having death or\nslavery continually before my eyes?\" for the kings of Persia were at that\ntime preparing to invade his country.  Every one ought to say thus,\n\"Being assaulted, as I am by ambition, avarice, temerity, superstition,\nand having within so many other enemies of life, shall I go ponder over\nthe world's changes?\"\n\nAfter having taught him what will make him more wise and good, you may\nthen entertain him with the elements of logic, physics, geometry,\nrhetoric, and the science which he shall then himself most incline to,\nhis judgment being beforehand formed and fit to choose, he will quickly\nmake his own.  The way of instructing him ought to be sometimes by\ndiscourse, and sometimes by reading; sometimes his governor shall put the\nauthor himself, which he shall think most proper for him, into his hands,\nand sometimes only the marrow and substance of it; and if himself be not\nconversant enough in books to turn to all the fine discourses the books\ncontain for his purpose, there may some man of learning be joined to him,\nthat upon every occasion shall supply him with what he stands in need of,\nto furnish it to his pupil.  And who can doubt but that this way of\nteaching is much more easy and natural than that of Gaza,--[Theodore\nGaza, rector of the Academy of Ferrara.]--in which the precepts are so\nintricate, and so harsh, and the words so vain, lean; and insignificant,\nthat there is no hold to be taken of them, nothing that quickens and\nelevates the wit and fancy, whereas here the mind has what to feed upon\nand to digest.  This fruit, therefore, is not only without comparison,\nmuch more fair and beautiful; but will also be much more early ripe.\n\n'Tis a thousand pities that matters should be at such a pass in this age\nof ours, that philosophy, even with men of understanding, should be,\nlooked upon as a vain and fantastic name, a thing of no use, no value,\neither in opinion or effect, of which I think those ergotisms and petty\nsophistries, by prepossessing the avenues to it, are the cause.  And\npeople are much to blame to represent it to children for a thing of so\ndifficult access, and with such a frowning, grim, and formidable aspect.\nWho is it that has disguised it thus, with this false, pale, and ghostly\ncountenance?  There is nothing more airy, more gay, more frolic, and I\nhad like to have said, more wanton.  She preaches nothing but feasting\nand jollity; a melancholic anxious look shows that she does not inhabit\nthere.  Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot\nof philosophers set chatting together, said to them,--[Plutarch, Treatise\non Oracles which have ceased]--\"Either I am much deceived, or by your\ncheerful and pleasant countenances, you are engaged in no, very deep\ndiscourse.\"  To which one of them, Heracleon the Megarean, replied:\n\"Tis for such as are puzzled about inquiring whether the future tense of\nthe verb ------ is spelt with a double A, or that hunt after the\nderivation of the comparatives ----- and -----, and the superlatives ----\nand ------, to knit their brows whilst discoursing of their science: but\nas to philosophical discourses, they always divert and cheer up those\nthat entertain them, and never deject them or make them sad.\"\n\n              \"Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in aegro\n               Corpore; deprendas et gaudia; sumit utrumque\n               Inde habitum facies.\"\n\n     [\"You may discern the torments of mind lurking in a sick body; you\n     may discern its joys: either expression the face assumes from the\n     mind.\"--Juvenal, ix. 18]\n\nThe soul that lodges philosophy, ought to be of such a constitution of\nhealth, as to render the body in like manner healthful too; she ought to\nmake her tranquillity and satisfaction shine so as to appear without, and\nher contentment ought to fashion the outward behaviour to her own mould,\nand consequently to fortify it with a graceful confidence, an active and\njoyous carriage, and a serene and contented countenance.  The most\nmanifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like\nthat of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.\n'Tis Baroco and Baralipton--[Two terms of the ancient scholastic\nlogic.]--that render their disciples so dirty and ill-favoured, and not\nshe; they do not so much as know her but by hearsay.  What!  It is she\nthat calms and appeases the storms and tempests of the soul, and who\nteaches famine and fevers to laugh and sing; and that, not by certain\nimaginary epicycles, but by natural and manifest reasons.  She has virtue\nfor her end, which is not, as the schoolmen say, situate upon the summit\nof a perpendicular, rugged, inaccessible precipice: such as have\napproached her find her, quite on the contrary, to be seated in a fair,\nfruitful, and flourishing plain, whence she easily discovers all things\nbelow; to which place any one may, however, arrive, if he know but the\nway, through shady, green, and sweetly-flourishing avenues, by a\npleasant, easy, and smooth descent, like that of the celestial vault.\n'Tis for not having frequented this supreme, this beautiful, triumphant,\nand amiable, this equally delicious and courageous virtue, this so\nprofessed and implacable enemy to anxiety, sorrow, fear, and constraint,\nwho, having nature for her guide, has fortune and pleasure for her\ncompanions, that they have gone, according to their own weak imagination,\nand created this ridiculous, this sorrowful, querulous, despiteful,\nthreatening, terrible image of it to themselves and others, and placed it\nupon a rock apart, amongst thorns and brambles, and made of it a\nhobgoblin to affright people.\n\nBut the governor that I would have, that is such a one as knows it to be\nhis duty to possess his pupil with as much or more affection than\nreverence to virtue, will be able to inform him, that the poets have\nevermore accommodated themselves to the public humour, and make him\nsensible, that the gods have planted more toil and sweat in the avenues\nof the cabinets of Venus than in those of Minerva.  And when he shall\nonce find him begin to apprehend, and shall represent to him a Bradamante\nor an Angelica--[Heroines of Ariosto.]--for a mistress, a natural,\nactive, generous, and not a viragoish, but a manly beauty, in comparison\nof a soft, delicate, artificial simpering, and affected form; the one in\nthe habit of a heroic youth, wearing a glittering helmet, the other\ntricked up in curls and ribbons like a wanton minx; he will then look\nupon his own affection as brave and masculine, when he shall choose quite\ncontrary to that effeminate shepherd of Phrygia.\n\nSuch a tutor will make a pupil digest this new lesson, that the height\nand value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure\nof its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and\nthe innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own; it is by\norder, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.  Socrates, her first\nminion, is so averse to all manner of violence, as totally to throw it\naside, to slip into the more natural facility of her own progress; 'tis\nthe nursing mother of all human pleasures, who in rendering them just,\nrenders them also pure and permanent; in moderating them, keeps them in\nbreath and appetite; in interdicting those which she herself refuses,\nwhets our desire to those that she allows; and, like a kind and liberal\nmother, abundantly allows all that nature requires, even to satiety, if\nnot to lassitude: unless we mean to say that the regimen which stops the\ntoper before he has drunk himself drunk, the glutton before he has eaten\nto a surfeit, and the lecher before he has got the pox, is an enemy to\npleasure.  If the ordinary fortune fail, she does without it, and forms\nanother, wholly her own, not so fickle and unsteady as the other.  She\ncan be rich, be potent and wise, and knows how to lie upon soft perfumed\nbeds: she loves life, beauty, glory, and health; but her proper and\npeculiar office is to know how to regulate the use of all these good\nthings, and how to lose them without concern: an office much more noble\nthan troublesome, and without which the whole course of life is\nunnatural, turbulent, and deformed, and there it is indeed, that men may\njustly represent those monsters upon rocks and precipices.\n\nIf this pupil shall happen to be of so contrary a disposition, that he\nhad rather hear a tale of a tub than the true narrative of some noble\nexpedition or some wise and learned discourse; who at the beat of drum,\nthat excites the youthful ardour of his companions, leaves that to follow\nanother that calls to a morris or the bears; who would not wish, and find\nit more delightful and more excellent, to return all dust and sweat\nvictorious from a battle, than from tennis or from a ball, with the prize\nof those exercises; I see no other remedy, but that he be bound prentice\nin some good town to learn to make minced pies, though he were the son of\na duke; according to Plato's precept, that children are to be placed out\nand disposed of, not according to the wealth, qualities, or condition of\nthe father, but according to the faculties and the capacity of their own\nsouls.\n\nSince philosophy is that which instructs us to live, and that infancy has\nthere its lessons as well as other ages, why is it not communicated to\nchildren betimes?\n\n         \"Udum et molle lutum est; nunc, nunc properandus, et acri\n          Fingendus sine fine rota.\"\n\n     [\"The clay is moist and soft: now, now make haste, and form the\n     pitcher on the rapid wheel.\"--Persius, iii. 23.]\n\nThey begin to teach us to live when we have almost done living.\nA hundred students have got the pox before they have come to read\nAristotle's lecture on temperance.  Cicero said, that though he should\nlive two men's ages, he should never find leisure to study the lyric\npoets; and I find these sophisters yet more deplorably unprofitable.\nThe boy we would breed has a great deal less time to spare; he owes but\nthe first fifteen or sixteen years of his life to education; the\nremainder is due to action.  Let us, therefore, employ that short time in\nnecessary instruction.  Away with the thorny subtleties of dialectics;\nthey are abuses, things by which our lives can never be amended: take the\nplain philosophical discourses, learn how rightly to choose, and then\nrightly to apply them; they are more easy to be understood than one of\nBoccaccio's novels; a child from nurse is much more capable of them, than\nof learning to read or to write.  Philosophy has discourses proper for\nchildhood, as well as for the decrepit age of men.\n\nI am of Plutarch's mind, that Aristotle did not so much trouble his great\ndisciple with the knack of forming syllogisms, or with the elements of\ngeometry; as with infusing into him good precepts concerning valour,\nprowess, magnanimity, temperance, and the contempt of fear; and with this\nammunition, sent him, whilst yet a boy, with no more than thirty thousand\nfoot, four thousand horse, and but forty-two thousand crowns, to\nsubjugate the empire of the whole earth.  For the other acts and\nsciences, he says, Alexander highly indeed commended their excellence and\ncharm, and had them in very great honour and esteem, but not ravished\nwith them to that degree as to be tempted to affect the practice of them\nIn his own person:\n\n              \"Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque,\n              Finem ammo certum, miserisque viatica canis.\"\n\n     [\"Young men and old men, derive hence a certain end to the mind,\n     and stores for miserable grey hairs.\"--Persius, v. 64.]\n\nEpicurus, in the beginning of his letter to Meniceus,--[Diogenes\nLaertius, x. 122.]--says, \"That neither the youngest should refuse to\nphilosophise, nor the oldest grow weary of it.\"  Who does otherwise,\nseems tacitly to imply, that either the time of living happily is\nnot yet come, or that it is already past.  And yet, a for all that, I\nwould not have this pupil of ours imprisoned and made a slave to his\nbook; nor would I have him given up to the morosity and melancholic\nhumour of a sour ill-natured pedant.\n\nI would not have his spirit cowed and subdued, by applying him to the\nrack, and tormenting him, as some do, fourteen or fifteen hours a day,\nand so make a pack-horse of him.  Neither should I think it good, when,\nby reason of a solitary and melancholic complexion, he is discovered to\nbe overmuch addicted to his book, to nourish that humour in him; for that\nrenders him unfit for civil conversation, and diverts him from better\nemployments.  And how many have I seen in my time totally brutified by an\nimmoderate thirst after knowledge?  Carneades was so besotted with it,\nthat he would not find time so much as to comb his head or to pare his\nnails.  Neither would I have his generous manners spoiled and corrupted\nby the incivility and barbarism of those of another.  The French wisdom\nwas anciently turned into proverb: \"Early, but of no continuance.\"  And,\nin truth, we yet see, that nothing can be more ingenious and pleasing\nthan the children of France; but they ordinarily deceive the hope and\nexpectation that have been conceived of them; and grown up to be men,\nhave nothing extraordinary or worth taking notice of: I have heard men of\ngood understanding say, these colleges of ours to which we send our young\npeople (and of which we have but too many) make them such animals as they\nare.--[Hobbes said that if he Had been at college as long as other people\nhe should have been as great a blockhead as they. W.C.H.] [And Bacon\nbefore Hobbe's time had discussed the \"futility\" of university teaching.\nD.W.]\n\nBut to our little monsieur, a closet, a garden, the table, his bed,\nsolitude, and company, morning and evening, all hours shall be the same,\nand all places to him a study; for philosophy, who, as the formatrix of\njudgment and manners, shall be his principal lesson, has that privilege\nto have a hand in everything.  The orator Isocrates, being at a feast\nentreated to speak of his art, all the company were satisfied with and\ncommended his answer:  \"It is not now a time,\" said he, \"to do what I can\ndo; and that which it is now time to do, I cannot do.\"--[Plutarch,\nSymp., i. I.]--For to make orations and rhetorical disputes in a company\nmet together to laugh and make good cheer, had been very unreasonable and\nimproper, and as much might have been said of all the other sciences.\nBut as to what concerns philosophy, that part of it at least that treats\nof man, and of his offices and duties, it has been the common opinion of\nall wise men, that, out of respect to the sweetness of her conversation,\nshe is ever to be admitted in all sports and entertainments.  And Plato,\nhaving invited her to his feast, we see after how gentle and obliging a\nmanner, accommodated both to time and place, she entertained the company,\nthough in a discourse of the highest and most important nature:\n\n              \"Aeque pauperibus prodest, locupletibus aeque;\n               Et, neglecta, aeque pueris senibusque nocebit.\"\n\n     [\"It profits poor and rich alike, but, neglected, equally hurts old\n     and young.\"--Horace, Ep., i. 25.]\n\nBy this method of instruction, my young pupil will be much more and\nbetter employed than his fellows of the college are.  But as the steps we\ntake in walking to and fro in a gallery, though three times as many, do\nnot tire a man so much as those we employ in a formal journey, so our\nlesson, as it were accidentally occurring, without any set obligation of\ntime or place, and falling naturally into every action, will insensibly\ninsinuate itself.  By which means our very exercises and recreations,\nrunning, wrestling, music, dancing, hunting, riding, and fencing, will\nprove to be a good part of our study.  I would have his outward fashion\nand mien, and the disposition of his limbs, formed at the same time with\nhis mind.  'Tis not a soul, 'tis not a body that we are training up, but\na man, and we ought not to divide him.  And, as Plato says, we are not to\nfashion one without the other, but make them draw together like two\nhorses harnessed to a coach.  By which saying of his, does he not seem to\nallow more time for, and to take more care of exercises for the body, and\nto hold that the mind, in a good proportion, does her business at the\nsame time too?\n\nAs to the rest, this method of education ought to be carried on with a\nsevere sweetness, quite contrary to the practice of our pedants, who,\ninstead of tempting and alluring children to letters by apt and gentle\nways, do in truth present nothing before them but rods and ferules,\nhorror and cruelty.  Away with this violence!  away with this compulsion!\nthan which, I certainly believe nothing more dulls and degenerates a\nwell-descended nature.  If you would have him apprehend shame and\nchastisement, do not harden him to them: inure him to heat and cold, to\nwind and sun, and to dangers that he ought to despise; wean him from all\neffeminacy and delicacy in clothes and lodging, eating and drinking;\naccustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris,\na carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.  I have\never from a child to the age wherein I now am, been of this opinion, and\nam still constant to it.  But amongst other things, the strict\ngovernment of most of our colleges has evermore displeased me;\nperadventure, they might have erred less perniciously on the indulgent\nside.  'Tis a real house of correction of imprisoned youth.  They are\nmade debauched by being punished before they are so.  Do but come in\nwhen they are about their lesson, and you shall hear nothing but the\noutcries of boys under execution, with the thundering noise of their\npedagogues drunk with fury. A very pretty way this, to tempt these\ntender and timorous souls to love their book, with a furious\ncountenance, and a rod in hand!  A cursed and pernicious way of\nproceeding!  Besides what Quintilian has very well observed, that this\nimperious authority is often attended by very dangerous consequences,\nand particularly our way of chastising.  How much more decent would it\nbe to see their classes strewed with green leaves and fine flowers, than\nwith the bloody stumps of birch and willows?  Were it left to my\nordering.  I should paint the school with the pictures of joy and\ngladness; Flora and the Graces, as the philosopher Speusippus did his.\nWhere their profit is, let them there have their pleasure too. Such\nviands as are proper and wholesome for children, should be sweetened\nwith sugar, and such as are dangerous to them, embittered with gall.\n'Tis marvellous to see how solicitous Plato is in his Laws concerning\nthe gaiety and diversion of the youth of his city, and how much and\noften he enlarges upon the races, sports, songs, leaps, and dances: of\nwhich, he says, that antiquity has given the ordering and patronage\nparticularly to the gods themselves, to Apollo, Minerva, and the Muses. \nHe insists long upon, and is very particular in, giving innumerable\nprecepts for exercises; but as to the lettered sciences, says very\nlittle, and only seems particularly to recommend poetry upon the account\nof music.\n\nAll singularity in our manners and conditions is to be avoided, as\ninconsistent with civil society.  Who would not be astonished at so\nstrange a constitution as that of Demophoon, steward to Alexander the\nGreat, who sweated in the shade and shivered in the sun?  I have seen\nthose who have run from the smell of a mellow apple with greater\nprecipitation than from a harquebuss-shot; others afraid of a mouse;\nothers vomit at the sight of cream; others ready to swoon at the making\nof a feather bed; Germanicus could neither endure the sight nor the\ncrowing of a cock.  I will not deny, but that there may, peradventure,\nbe some occult cause and natural aversion in these cases; but, in my\nopinion, a man might conquer it, if he took it in time.  Precept has in\nthis wrought so effectually upon me, though not without some pains on my\npart, I confess, that beer excepted, my appetite accommodates itself\nindifferently to all sorts of diet.  Young bodies are supple; one should,\ntherefore, in that age bend and ply them to all fashions and customs: and\nprovided a man can contain the appetite and the will within their due\nlimits, let a young man, in God's name, be rendered fit for all nations\nand all companies, even to debauchery and excess, if need be; that is,\nwhere he shall do it out of complacency to the customs of the place.\nLet him be able to do everything, but love to do nothing but what is\ngood.  The philosophers themselves do not justify Callisthenes for\nforfeiting the favour of his master Alexander the Great, by refusing to\npledge him a cup of wine.  Let him laugh, play, wench with his prince:\nnay, I would have him, even in his debauches, too hard for the rest of\nthe company, and to excel his companions in ability and vigour, and that\nhe may not give over doing it, either through defect of power or\nknowledge how to do it, but for want of will.\n\n     \"Multum interest, utrum peccare ali quis nolit, an nesciat.\"\n\n     [\"There is a vast difference betwixt forbearing to sin, and not\n     knowing how to sin.\"--Seneca, Ep., 90]\n\nI thought I passed a compliment upon a lord, as free from those excesses\nas any man in France, by asking him before a great deal of very good\ncompany, how many times in his life he had been drunk in Germany, in the\ntime of his being there about his Majesty's affairs; which he also took\nas it was intended, and made answer, \"Three times\"; and withal told us\nthe whole story of his debauches.  I know some who, for want of this\nfaculty, have found a great inconvenience in negotiating with that\nnation.  I have often with great admiration reflected upon the wonderful\nconstitution of Alcibiades, who so easily could transform himself to so\nvarious fashions without any prejudice to his health; one while outdoing\nthe Persian pomp and luxury, and another, the Lacedaemonian austerity and\nfrugality; as reformed in Sparta, as voluptuous in Ionia:\n\n          \"Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res.\"\n\n     [\"Every complexion of life, and station, and circumstance became\n     Aristippus.\"--Horace, Ep., xvii. 23.]\n\nI would have my pupil to be such an one,\n\n                    \"Quem duplici panno patentia velat,\n               Mirabor, vitae via si conversa decebit,\n               Personamque feret non inconcinnus utramque.\"\n\n     [\"I should admire him who with patience bearing a patched garment,\n     bears well a changed fortune, acting both parts equally well.\"\n     --Horace Ep., xvii. 25.]\n\nThese are my lessons, and he who puts them in practice shall reap more\nadvantage than he who has had them read to him only, and so only knows\nthem.  If you see him, you hear him; if you hear him, you see him.  God\nforbid, says one in Plato, that to philosophise were only to read a great\nmany books, and to learn the arts.\n\n          \"Hanc amplissimam omnium artium bene vivendi disciplinam,\n          vita magis quam literis, persequuti sunt.\"\n\n     [\"They have proceeded to this discipline of living well, which of\n     all arts is the greatest, by their lives, rather than by their\n     reading.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 3.]\n\nLeo, prince of the Phliasians, asking Heraclides Ponticus--[It was not\nHeraclides of Pontus who made this answer, but Pythagoras.]--of what art\nor science he made profession: \"I know,\" said he, \"neither art nor\nscience, but I am a philosopher.\"  One reproaching Diogenes that, being\nignorant, he should pretend to philosophy; \"I therefore,\" answered he,\n\"pretend to it with so much the more reason.\"  Hegesias entreated that he\nwould read a certain book to him: \"You are pleasant,\" said he; \"you\nchoose those figs that are true and natural, and not those that are\npainted; why do you not also choose exercises which are naturally true,\nrather than those written?\"\n\nThe lad will not so much get his lesson by heart as he will practise it:\nhe will repeat it in his actions.  We shall discover if there be prudence\nin his exercises, if there be sincerity and justice in his deportment, if\nthere be grace and judgment in his speaking; if there be constancy in his\nsickness; if there be modesty in his mirth, temperance in his pleasures,\norder in his domestic economy, indifference in palate, whether what he\neats or drinks be flesh or fish, wine or water:\n\n     \"Qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae\n     putet: quique obtemperet ipse sibi, et decretis pareat.\"\n\n     [\"Who considers his own discipline, not as a vain ostentation of\n     science, but as a law and rule of life; and who obeys his own\n     decrees, and the laws he has prescribed for himself.\"\n     --Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., ii. 4.]\n\nThe conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.  Zeuxidamus,\nto one who asked him, why the Lacedaemonians did not commit their\nconstitutions of chivalry to writing, and deliver them to their young men\nto read, made answer, that it was because they would inure them to\naction, and not amuse them with words.  With such a one, after fifteen or\nsixteen years' study, compare one of our college Latinists, who has\nthrown away so much time in nothing but learning to speak.  The world is\nnothing but babble; and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather\nprate too much, than speak too little.  And yet half of our age is\nembezzled this way: we are kept four or five years to learn words only,\nand to tack them together into clauses; as many more to form them into a\nlong discourse, divided into four or five parts; and other five years, at\nleast, to learn succinctly to mix and interweave them after a subtle and\nintricate manner let us leave all this to those who make a profession of\nit.\n\nGoing one day to Orleans, I met in that plain on this side Clery, two\npedants who were travelling towards Bordeaux, about fifty paces distant\nfrom one another; and, a good way further behind them, I discovered a\ntroop of horse, with a gentleman at the head of them, who was the late\nMonsieur le Comte de la Rochefoucauld.  One of my people inquired of the\nforemost of these masters of arts, who that gentleman was that came after\nhim; he, having not seen the train that followed after, and thinking his\ncompanion was meant, pleasantly answered, \"He is not a gentleman; he is a\ngrammarian; and I am a logician.\"  Now we who, quite contrary, do not\nhere pretend to breed a grammarian or a logician, but a gentleman, let us\nleave them to abuse their leisure; our business lies elsewhere.  Let but\nour pupil be well furnished with things, words will follow but too fast;\nhe will pull them after him if they do not voluntarily follow.  I have\nobserved some to make excuses, that they cannot express themselves, and\npretend to have their fancies full of a great many very fine things,\nwhich yet, for want of eloquence, they cannot utter; 'tis a mere shift,\nand nothing else.  Will you know what I think of it?  I think they are\nnothing but shadows of some imperfect images and conceptions that they\nknow not what to make of within, nor consequently bring out; they do not\nyet themselves understand what they would be at, and if you but observe\nhow they haggle and stammer upon the point of parturition, you will soon\nconclude, that their labour is not to delivery, but about conception, and\nthat they are but licking their formless embryo.  For my part, I hold,\nand Socrates commands it, that whoever has in his mind a sprightly and\nclear imagination, he will express it well enough in one kind of tongue\nor another, and, if he be dumb, by signs--\n\n               \"Verbaque praevisam rem non invita sequentur;\"\n\n     [\"Once a thing is conceived in the mind, the words to express it\n     soon present themselves.\" (\"The words will not reluctantly follow the\n     thing preconceived.\")--Horace, De Arte Poetica. v. 311]\n\nAnd as another as poetically says in his prose:\n\n          \"Quum res animum occupavere, verbs ambiunt,\"\n\n     [\"When things are once in the mind, the words offer themselves\n     readily.\"  (\"When things have taken possession of the mind, the\n     words trip.\")--Seneca, Controvers., iii.  proem.]\n\nand this other.\n\n                    \"Ipsae res verbs rapiunt.\"\n\n     [\"The things themselves force the words to express them.\"\n     --Cicero, De Finib., iii.  5.]\n\nHe knows nothing of ablative, conjunctive, substantive, or grammar, no\nmore than his lackey, or a fishwife of the Petit Pont; and yet these will\ngive you a bellyful of talk, if you will hear them, and peradventure\nshall trip as little in their language as the best masters of art in\nFrance.  He knows no rhetoric, nor how in a preface to bribe the\nbenevolence of the courteous reader; neither does he care to know it.\nIndeed all this fine decoration of painting is easily effaced by the\nlustre of a simple and blunt truth; these fine flourishes serve only to\namuse the vulgar, of themselves incapable of more solid and nutritive\ndiet, as Aper very evidently demonstrates in Tacitus.  The ambassadors\nof Samos, prepared with a long and elegant oration, came to Cleomenes,\nking of Sparta, to incite him to a war against the tyrant Polycrates;\nwho, after he had heard their harangue with great gravity and patience,\ngave them this answer: \"As to the exordium, I remember it not, nor\nconsequently the middle of your speech; and for what concerns your\nconclusion, I will not do what you desire:\"--[Plutarch, Apothegms of the\nLacedaemonians.]--a very pretty answer this, methinks, and a pack of\nlearned orators most sweetly gravelled.  And what did the other man say?\nThe Athenians were to choose one of two architects for a very great\nbuilding they had designed; of these, the first, a pert affected fellow,\noffered his service in a long premeditated discourse upon the subject of\nthe work in hand, and by his oratory inclined the voices of the people in\nhis favour; but the other in three words: \"O Athenians, what this man\nsays, I will do.\"--[Plutarch, Instructions to Statesmen, c. 4.]--\nWhen Cicero was in the height and heat of an eloquent harangue, many were\nstruck with admiration; but Cato only laughed, saying, \"We have a\npleasant (mirth-making) consul.\"  Let it go before, or come after, a good\nsentence or a thing well said, is always in season; if it neither suit\nwell with what went before, nor has much coherence with what follows\nafter, it is good in itself.  I am none of those who think that good\nrhyme makes a good poem.  Let him make short long, and long short if he\nwill, 'tis no great matter; if there be invention, and that the wit and\njudgment have well performed their offices, I will say, here's a good\npoet, but an ill rhymer.\n\n               \"Emunctae naris, durus componere versus.\"\n\n          [\"Of delicate humour, but of rugged versification.\"\n          --Horace, Sat, iv. 8.]\n\nLet a man, says Horace, divest his work of all method and measure,\n\n         \"Tempora certa modosque, et, quod prius ordine verbum est,\n          Posterius facias, praeponens ultima primis\n          Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetae.\"\n\n     [\"Take away certain rhythms and measures, and make the word which\n     was first in order come later, putting that which should be last\n     first, you will still find the scattered remains of the poet.\"\n     --Horace, Sat., i. 4, 58.]\n\nhe will never the more lose himself for that; the very pieces will be\nfine by themselves.  Menander's answer had this meaning, who being\nreproved by a friend, the time drawing on at which he had promised a\ncomedy, that he had not yet fallen in hand with it; \"It is made, and\nready,\" said he, \"all but the verses.\"--[Plutarch, Whether the Athenians\nmore excelled in Arms or in Letters.]--Having contrived the subject, and\ndisposed the scenes in his fancy, he took little care for the rest.\nSince Ronsard and Du Bellay have given reputation to our French poesy,\nevery little dabbler, for aught I see, swells his words as high, and\nmakes his cadences very near as harmonious as they:\n\n                    \"Plus sonat, quam valet.\"\n\n               [\"More sound than sense\"--Seneca, Ep., 40.]\n\nFor the vulgar, there were never so many poetasters as now; but though\nthey find it no hard matter to imitate their rhyme, they yet fall\ninfinitely short of imitating the rich descriptions of the one, and the\ndelicate invention of the other of these masters.\n\nBut what will become of our young gentleman, if he be attacked with the\nsophistic subtlety of some syllogism?  \"A Westfalia ham makes a man\ndrink; drink quenches thirst: ergo a Westfalia ham quenches thirst.\"\nWhy, let him laugh at it; it will be more discretion to do so, than to go\nabout to answer it; or let him borrow this pleasant evasion from\nAristippus:  \"Why should I trouble myself to untie that, which bound as\nit is, gives me so much trouble?\"--[Diogenes Laertius, ii. 70.]--\nOne offering at this dialectic juggling against Cleanthes, Chrysippus\ntook him short, saying, \"Reserve these baubles to play with children,\nand do not by such fooleries divert the serious thoughts of a man of\nyears.\"  If these ridiculous subtleties,\n\n               \"Contorta et aculeata sophismata,\"\n\nas Cicero calls them, are designed to possess him with an untruth, they\nare dangerous; but if they signify no more than only to make him laugh,\nI do not see why a man need to be fortified against them.  There are some\nso ridiculous, as to go a mile out of their way to hook in a fine word:\n\n          \"Aut qui non verba rebus aptant, sed res extrinsecus\n          arcessunt, quibus verba conveniant.\"\n\n     [\"Who do not fit words to the subject, but seek out for things\n     quite from the purpose to fit the words.\"--Quintilian, viii. 3.]\n\nAnd as another says,\n\n          \"Qui, alicujus verbi decore placentis, vocentur ad id,\n          quod non proposuerant scribere.\"\n\n     [\"Who by their fondness of some fine sounding word, are tempted to\n     something they had no intention to treat of.\"--Seneca, Ep., 59.]\n\nI for my part rather bring in a fine sentence by head and shoulders to\nfit my purpose, than divert my designs to hunt after a sentence.  On the\ncontrary, words are to serve, and to follow a man's purpose; and let\nGascon come in play where French will not do.  I would have things so\nexcelling, and so wholly possessing the imagination of him that hears,\nthat he should have something else to do, than to think of words.  The\nway of speaking that I love, is natural and plain, the same in writing as\nin speaking, and a sinewy and muscular way of expressing a man's self,\nshort and pithy, not so elegant and artificial as prompt and vehement;\n\n               \"Haec demum sapiet dictio, qux feriet;\"\n\n     [\"That has most weight and wisdom which pierces the ear.\" (\"That\n     utterance indeed will have a taste which shall strike the ear.\")\n     --Epitaph on Lucan, in Fabricius, Biblioth.  Lat., ii. 10.]\n\nrather hard than wearisome; free from affectation; irregular,\nincontinuous, and bold; where every piece makes up an entire body; not\nlike a pedant, a preacher, or a pleader, but rather a soldier-like style,\nas Suetonius calls that of Julius Caesar; and yet I see no reason why he\nshould call it so.  I have ever been ready to imitate the negligent garb,\nwhich is yet observable amongst the young men of our time, to wear my\ncloak on one shoulder, my cap on one side, a stocking in disorder, which\nseems to express a kind of haughty disdain of these exotic ornaments, and\na contempt of the artificial; but I find this negligence of much better\nuse in the form of speaking.  All affectation, particularly in the French\ngaiety and freedom, is ungraceful in a courtier, and in a monarchy every\ngentleman ought to be fashioned according to the court model; for which\nreason, an easy and natural negligence does well.  I no more like a web\nwhere the knots and seams are to be seen, than a fine figure, so\ndelicate, that a man may tell all the bones and veins:\n\n     \"Quae veritati operam dat oratio, incomposita sit et simplex.\"\n\n     [\"Let the language that is dedicated to truth be plain and\n     unaffected.--Seneca, Ep. 40.]\n\n          \"Quis accurat loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui?\"\n\n     [\"For who studies to speak accurately, that does not at the same\n     time wish to perplex his auditory?\"--Idem, Ep., 75.]\n\nThat eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance, that wholly\nattracts us to itself.  And as in our outward habit, 'tis a ridiculous\neffeminacy to distinguish ourselves by a particular and unusual garb or\nfashion; so in language, to study new phrases, and to affect words that\nare not of current use, proceeds from a puerile and scholastic ambition.\nMay I be bound to speak no other language than what is spoken in the\nmarket-places of Paris!  Aristophanes the grammarian was quite out, when\nhe reprehended Epicurus for his plain way of delivering himself, and the\ndesign of his oratory, which was only perspicuity of speech.\nThe imitation of words, by its own facility, immediately disperses itself\nthrough a whole people; but the imitation of inventing and fitly applying\nthose words is of a slower progress.  The generality of readers, for\nhaving found a like robe, very mistakingly imagine they have the same\nbody and inside too, whereas force and sinews are never to be borrowed;\nthe gloss, and outward ornament, that is, words and elocution, may.  Most\nof those I converse with, speak the same language I here write; but\nwhether they think the same thoughts I cannot say.  The Athenians, says\nPlato, study fulness and elegancy of speaking; the Lacedaemonians affect\nbrevity, and those of Crete to aim more at the fecundity of conception\nthan the fertility of speech; and these are the best.  Zeno used to say\nthat he had two sorts of disciples, one that he called cy-----ous,\ncurious to learn things, and these were his favourites; the other,\naoy---ous, that cared for nothing but words.  Not that fine speaking is\nnot a very good and commendable quality; but not so excellent and so\nnecessary as some would make it; and I am scandalised that our whole life\nshould be spent in nothing else.  I would first understand my own\nlanguage, and that of my neighbours, with whom most of my business and\nconversation lies.\n\nNo doubt but Greek and Latin are very great ornaments, and of very great\nuse, but we buy them too dear.  I will here discover one way, which has\nbeen experimented in my own person, by which they are to be had better\ncheap, and such may make use of it as will.  My late father having made\nthe most precise inquiry that any man could possibly make amongst men of\nthe greatest learning and judgment, of an exact method of education, was\nby them cautioned of this inconvenience then in use, and made to believe,\nthat the tedious time we applied to the learning of the tongues of them\nwho had them for nothing, was the sole cause we could not arrive to the\ngrandeur of soul and perfection of knowledge, of the ancient Greeks and\nRomans.  I do not, however, believe that to be the only cause.  So it is,\nthat the expedient my father found out for this was, that in my infancy,\nand before I began to speak, he committed me to the care of a German, who\nsince died a famous physician in France, totally ignorant of our\nlanguage, and very fluent and a great critic in Latin.  This man, whom he\nhad fetched out of his own country, and whom he entertained with a great\nsalary for this only one end, had me continually with him; he had with\nhim also joined two others, of inferior learning, to attend me, and to\nrelieve him; these spoke to me in no other language but Latin.  As to the\nrest of his household, it was an inviolable rule, that neither himself,\nnor my mother, nor valet, nor chambermaid, should speak anything in my\ncompany, but such Latin words as each one had learned to gabble with me.\n--[These passages are, the basis of a small volume by the Abbe Mangin:\n\"Education de Montaigne; ou, L'Art d'enseigner le Latin a l'instar des\nmeres latines.\"]--It is not to be imagined how great an advantage this\nproved to the whole family; my father and my mother by this means learned\nLatin enough to understand it perfectly well, and to speak it to such a\ndegree as was sufficient for any necessary use; as also those of the\nservants did who were most frequently with me.  In short, we Latined it\nat such a rate, that it overflowed to all the neighbouring villages,\nwhere there yet remain, that have established themselves by custom,\nseveral Latin appellations of artisans and their tools.  As for what\nconcerns myself, I was above six years of age before I understood either\nFrench or Perigordin, any more than Arabic; and without art, book,\ngrammar, or precept, whipping, or the expense of a tear, I had, by that\ntime, learned to speak as pure Latin as my master himself, for I had no\nmeans of mixing it up with any other.  If, for example, they were to give\nme a theme after the college fashion, they gave it to others in French;\nbut to me they were to give it in bad Latin, to turn it into that which\nwas good.  And Nicolas Grouchy, who wrote a book De Comitiis Romanorum;\nGuillaume Guerente, who wrote a comment upon Aristotle: George Buchanan,\nthat great Scottish poet: and Marc Antoine Muret (whom both France and\nItaly have acknowledged for the best orator of his time), my domestic\ntutors, have all of them often told me that I had in my infancy that\nlanguage so very fluent and ready, that they were afraid to enter into\ndiscourse with me.  And particularly Buchanan, whom I since saw attending\nthe late Mareschal de Brissac, then told me, that he was about to write a\ntreatise of education, the example of which he intended to take from\nmine; for he was then tutor to that Comte de Brissac who afterward proved\nso valiant and so brave a gentleman.\n\nAs to Greek, of which I have but a mere smattering, my father also\ndesigned to have it taught me by a device, but a new one, and by way of\nsport; tossing our declensions to and fro, after the manner of those who,\nby certain games of tables, learn geometry and arithmetic.  For he,\namongst other rules, had been advised to make me relish science and duty\nby an unforced will, and of my own voluntary motion, and to educate my\nsoul in all liberty and delight, without any severity or constraint;\nwhich he was an observer of to such a degree, even of superstition, if I\nmay say so, that some being of opinion that it troubles and disturbs the\nbrains of children suddenly to wake them in the morning, and to snatch\nthem violently--and over-hastily from sleep (wherein they are much more\nprofoundly involved than we), he caused me to be wakened by the sound of\nsome musical instrument, and was never unprovided of a musician for that\npurpose.  By this example you may judge of the rest, this alone being\nsufficient to recommend both the prudence and the affection of so good a\nfather, who is not to be blamed if he did not reap fruits answerable to\nso exquisite a culture.  Of this, two things were the cause: first, a\nsterile and improper soil; for, though I was of a strong and healthful\nconstitution, and of a disposition tolerably sweet and tractable, yet I\nwas, withal, so heavy, idle, and indisposed, that they could not rouse me\nfrom my sloth, not even to get me out to play.  What I saw, I saw clearly\nenough, and under this heavy complexion nourished a bold imagination and\nopinions above my age.  I had a slow wit that would go no faster than it\nwas led; a tardy understanding, a languishing invention, and above all,\nincredible defect of memory; so that, it is no wonder, if from all these\nnothing considerable could be extracted.  Secondly, like those who,\nimpatient of along and steady cure, submit to all sorts of prescriptions\nand recipes, the good man being extremely timorous of any way failing in\na thing he had so wholly set his heart upon, suffered himself at last to\nbe overruled by the common opinions, which always follow their leader as\na flight of cranes, and complying with the method of the time, having no\nmore those persons he had brought out of Italy, and who had given him the\nfirst model of education, about him, he sent me at six years of age to\nthe College of Guienne, at that time the best and most flourishing in\nFrance.  And there it was not possible to add anything to the care he had\nto provide me the most able tutors, with all other circumstances of\neducation, reserving also several particular rules contrary to the\ncollege practice; but so it was, that with all these precautions, it was\na college still.  My Latin immediately grew corrupt, of which also by\ndiscontinuance I have since lost all manner of use; so that this new way\nof education served me to no other end, than only at my first coming to\nprefer me to the first forms; for at thirteen years old, that I came out\nof the college, I had run through my whole course (as they call it), and,\nin truth, without any manner of advantage, that I can honestly brag of,\nin all this time.\n\nThe first taste which I had for books came to me from the pleasure in\nreading the fables of Ovid's Metamorphoses; for, being about seven or\neight years old, I gave up all other diversions to read them, both by\nreason that this was my own natural language, the easiest book that I was\nacquainted with, and for the subject, the most accommodated to the\ncapacity of my age: for as for the Lancelot of the Lake, the Amadis of\nGaul, the Huon of Bordeaux, and such farragos, by which children are most\ndelighted with, I had never so much as heard their names, no more than I\nyet know what they contain; so exact was the discipline wherein I was\nbrought up.  But this was enough to make me neglect the other lessons\nthat were prescribed me; and here it was infinitely to my advantage,\nto have to do with an understanding tutor, who very well knew discreetly\nto connive at this and other truantries of the same nature; for by this\nmeans I ran through Virgil's AEneid, and then Terence, and then Plautus,\nand then some Italian comedies, allured by the sweetness of the subject;\nwhereas had he been so foolish as to have taken me off this diversion,\nI do really believe, I had brought away nothing from the college but a\nhatred of books, as almost all our young gentlemen do.  But he carried\nhimself very discreetly in that business, seeming to take no notice, and\nallowing me only such time as I could steal from my other regular\nstudies, which whetted my appetite to devour those books.  For the chief\nthings my father expected from their endeavours to whom he had delivered\nme for education, were affability and good-humour; and, to say the truth,\nmy manners had no other vice but sloth and want of metal.  The fear was\nnot that I should do ill, but that I should do nothing; nobody\nprognosticated that I should be wicked, but only useless; they foresaw\nidleness, but no malice; and I find it falls out accordingly:\nThe complaints I hear of myself are these: \"He is idle, cold in the\noffices of friendship and relation, and in those of the public, too\nparticular, too disdainful.\"  But the most injurious do not say, \"Why has\nhe taken such a thing?  Why has he not paid such an one?\"  but, \"Why does\nhe part with nothing?  Why does he not give?\"  And I should take it for a\nfavour that men would expect from me no greater effects of supererogation\nthan these.  But they are unjust to exact from me what I do not owe, far\nmore rigorously than they require from others that which they do owe.\nIn condemning me to it, they efface the gratification of the action, and\ndeprive me of the gratitude that would be my due for it; whereas the\nactive well-doing ought to be of so much the greater value from my hands,\nby how much I have never been passive that way at all.  I can the more\nfreely dispose of my fortune the more it is mine, and of myself the more\nI am my own.  Nevertheless, if I were good at setting out my own actions,\nI could, peradventure, very well repel these reproaches, and could give\nsome to understand, that they are not so much offended, that I do not\nenough, as that I am able to do a great deal more than I do.\n\nYet for all this heavy disposition of mine, my mind, when retired into\nitself, was not altogether without strong movements, solid and clear\njudgments about those objects it could comprehend, and could also,\nwithout any helps, digest them; but, amongst other things, I do really\nbelieve, it had been totally impossible to have made it to submit by\nviolence and force.  Shall I here acquaint you with one faculty of my\nyouth?  I had great assurance of countenance, and flexibility of voice\nand gesture, in applying myself to any part I undertook to act: for\nbefore--\n\n          \"Alter ab undecimo tum me vix ceperat annus,\"\n\n     [\"I had just entered my twelfth year.\"--Virgil, Bucol., 39.]\n\nI played the chief parts in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente,\nand Muret, that were presented in our College of Guienne with great\ndignity: now Andreas Goveanus, our principal, as in all other parts of\nhis charge, was, without comparison, the best of that employment in\nFrance; and I was looked upon as one of the best actors.  'Tis an\nexercise that I do not disapprove in young people of condition; and I\nhave since seen our princes, after the example of some of the ancients,\nin person handsomely and commendably perform these exercises; it was even\nallowed to persons of quality to make a profession of it in Greece.\n\n          \"Aristoni tragico actori rem aperit: huic et genus et\n          fortuna honesta erant: nec ars, quia nihil tale apud\n          Graecos pudori est, ea deformabat.\"\n\n     [\"He imparted this matter to Aristo the tragedian; a man of good\n     family and fortune, which neither of them receive any blemish by\n     that profession; nothing of this kind being reputed a disparagement\n     in Greece.\"--Livy, xxiv. 24.]\n\nNay, I have always taxed those with impertinence who condemn these\nentertainments, and with injustice those who refuse to admit such\ncomedians as are worth seeing into our good towns, and grudge the people\nthat public diversion.  Well-governed corporations take care to assemble\ntheir citizens, not only to the solemn duties of devotion, but also to\nsports and spectacles.  They find society and friendship augmented by it;\nand besides, can there possibly be allowed a more orderly and regular\ndiversion than what is performed m the sight of every one, and very often\nin the presence of the supreme magistrate himself?  And I, for my part,\nshould think it reasonable, that the prince should sometimes gratify his\npeople at his own expense, out of paternal goodness and affection; and\nthat in populous cities there should be theatres erected for such\nentertainments, if but to divert them from worse and private actions.\n\nTo return to my subject, there is nothing like alluring the appetite and\naffections; otherwise you make nothing but so many asses laden with\nbooks; by dint of the lash, you give them their pocketful of learning to\nkeep; whereas, to do well you should not only lodge it with them, but\nmake them espouse it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nTHAT IT IS FOLLY TO MEASURE TRUTH AND ERROR BY OUR OWN CAPACITY\n\n'Tis not, perhaps, without reason, that we attribute facility of belief\nand easiness of persuasion to simplicity and ignorance: for I fancy I\nhave heard belief compared to the impression of a seal upon the soul,\nwhich by how much softer and of less resistance it is, is the more easy\nto be impressed upon.\n\n         \"Ut necesse est, lancem in Libra, ponderibus impositis,\n          deprimi, sic animum perspicuis cedere.\"\n\n     [\"As the scale of the balance must give way to the weight that\n     presses it down, so the mind yields to demonstration.\"\n     --Cicero, Acad., ii. 12.]\n\nBy how much the soul is more empty and without counterpoise, with so much\ngreater facility it yields under the weight of the first persuasion.  And\nthis is the reason that children, the common people, women, and sick\nfolks, are most apt to be led by the ears.  But then, on the other hand,\n'tis a foolish presumption to slight and condemn all things for false\nthat do not appear to us probable; which is the ordinary vice of such as\nfancy themselves wiser than their neighbours.  I was myself once one of\nthose; and if I heard talk of dead folks walking, of prophecies,\nenchantments, witchcrafts, or any other story I had no mind to believe:\n\n              \"Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,\n               Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala,\"\n\n     [\"Dreams, magic terrors, marvels, sorceries, Thessalian prodigies.\"\n     --Horace.  Ep. ii. 3, 208.]\n\nI presently pitied the poor people that were abused by these follies.\nWhereas I now find, that I myself was to be pitied as much, at least,\nas they; not that experience has taught me anything to alter my former\nopinions, though my curiosity has endeavoured that way; but reason has\ninstructed me, that thus resolutely to condemn anything for false and\nimpossible, is arrogantly and impiously to circumscribe and limit the\nwill of God, and the power of our mother nature, within the bounds of my\nown capacity, than which no folly can be greater.  If we give the names\nof monster and miracle to everything our reason cannot comprehend, how\nmany are continually presented before our eyes?  Let us but consider\nthrough what clouds, and as it were groping in the dark, our teachers\nlead us to the knowledge of most of the things about us; assuredly we\nshall find that it is rather custom than knowledge that takes away their\nstrangeness--\n\n                    \"Jam nemo, fessus saturusque videndi,\n               Suspicere in coeli dignatur lucida templa;\"\n\n     [\"Weary of the sight, now no one deigns to look up to heaven's lucid\n     temples.\"--Lucretius, ii.  1037.  The text has 'statiate videnai']\n\nand that if those things were now newly presented to us, we should think\nthem as incredible, if not more, than any others.\n\n              \"Si nunc primum mortalibus adsint\n               Ex improviso, si sint objecta repente,\n               Nil magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici,\n               Aute minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes.\"\n\n     [Lucretius, ii. 1032.  The sense of the passage is in the preceding\n     sentence.]\n\nHe that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the\nsea; and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge, we\nconclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind.\n\n              \"Scilicet et fluvius qui non est maximus, ei'st\n               Qui non ante aliquem majorem vidit; et ingens\n               Arbor, homoque videtur, et omnia de genere omni\n               Maxima quae vidit quisque, haec ingentia fingit.\"\n\n     [\"A little river seems to him, who has never seen a larger river, a\n     mighty stream; and so with other things--a tree, a man--anything\n     appears greatest to him that never knew a greater.\"--Idem, vi. 674.]\n\n         \"Consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi, neque admirantur,\n          neque requirunt rationes earum rerum, quas semper vident.\"\n\n     [\"Things grow familiar to men's minds by being often seen; so that\n     they neither admire nor are they inquisitive about things they daily\n     see.\"--Cicero, De Natura Deor., lib. ii. 38.]\n\nThe novelty, rather than the greatness of things, tempts us to inquire\ninto their causes.  We are to judge with more reverence, and with greater\nacknowledgment of our own ignorance and infirmity, of the infinite power\nof nature.  How many unlikely things are there testified by people worthy\nof faith, which, if we cannot persuade ourselves absolutely to believe,\nwe ought at least to leave them in suspense; for, to condemn them as\nimpossible, is by a temerarious presumption to pretend to know the utmost\nbounds of possibility.  Did we rightly understand the difference betwixt\nthe impossible and the unusual, and betwixt that which is contrary to the\norder and course of nature and contrary to the common opinion of men, in\nnot believing rashly, and on the other hand, in not being too\nincredulous, we should observe the rule of 'Ne quid nimis' enjoined by\nChilo.\n\nWhen we find in Froissart, that the Comte de Foix  knew in Bearn the\ndefeat of John, king of Castile, at Jubera the next day after it\nhappened, and the means by which he tells us he came to do so, we may be\nallowed to be a little merry at it, as also at what our annals report,\nthat Pope Honorius, the same day that King Philip Augustus died at\nMantes, performed his public obsequies at Rome, and commanded the like\nthroughout Italy, the testimony of these authors not being, perhaps, of\nauthority enough to restrain us.  But what if Plutarch, besides several\nexamples that he produces out of antiquity, tells us, he knows of certain\nknowledge, that in the time of Domitian, the news of the battle lost by\nAntony in Germany was published at Rome, many days' journey from thence,\nand dispersed throughout the whole world, the same day it was fought;\nand if Caesar was of opinion, that it has often happened, that the report\nhas preceded the incident, shall we not say, that these simple people\nhave suffered themselves to be deceived with the vulgar, for not having\nbeen so clear-sighted as we?  Is there anything more delicate, more\nclear, more sprightly; than Pliny's judgment, when he is pleased to set\nit to work?  Anything more remote from vanity?  Setting aside his\nlearning, of which I make less account, in which of these excellences do\nany of us excel him?  And yet there is scarce a young schoolboy that does\nnot convict him of untruth, and that pretends not to instruct him in the\nprogress of the works of nature.  When we read in Bouchet the miracles of\nSt. Hilary's relics, away with them: his authority is not sufficient to\ndeprive us of the liberty of contradicting him; but generally and offhand\nto condemn all suchlike stories, seems to me a singular impudence.  That\ngreat St. Augustin' testifies to have seen a blind child recover sight\nupon the relics of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius at Milan; a woman at\nCarthage cured of a cancer, by the sign of the cross made upon her by a\nwoman newly baptized; Hesperius, a familiar friend of his, to have driven\naway the spirits that haunted his house, with a little earth of the\nsepulchre of our Lord; which earth, being also transported thence into\nthe church, a paralytic to have there been suddenly cured by it; a woman\nin a procession, having touched St. Stephen's shrine with a nosegay, and\nrubbing her eyes with it, to have recovered her sight, lost many years\nbefore; with several other miracles of which he professes himself to have\nbeen an eyewitness: of what shall we excuse him and the two holy bishops,\nAurelius and Maximinus, both of whom he attests to the truth of these\nthings?  Shall it be of ignorance, simplicity, and facility; or of malice\nand imposture?  Is any man now living so impudent as to think himself\ncomparable to them in virtue, piety, learning, judgment, or any kind of\nperfection?\n\n              \"Qui, ut rationem nullam afferrent,\n               ipsa auctoritate me frangerent.\"\n\n\n     [\"Who, though they should adduce no reason, would convince me with\n     their authority alone.\"--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes, i. 21.]\n\n'Tis a presumption of great danger and consequence, besides the absurd\ntemerity it draws after it, to contemn what we do not comprehend.  For\nafter, according to your fine understanding, you have established the\nlimits of truth and error, and that, afterwards, there appears a\nnecessity upon you of believing stranger things than those you have\ncontradicted, you are already obliged to quit your limits.  Now, that\nwhich seems to me so much to disorder our consciences in the commotions\nwe are now in concerning religion, is the Catholics dispensing so much\nwith their belief.  They fancy they appear moderate, and wise, when they\ngrant to their opponents some of the articles in question; but, besides\nthat they do not discern what advantage it is to those with whom we\ncontend, to begin to give ground and to retire, and how much this\nanimates our enemy to follow his blow: these articles which they select\nas things indifferent, are sometimes of very great importance.  We are\neither wholly and absolutely to submit ourselves to the authority of our\necclesiastical polity, or totally throw off all obedience to it: 'tis not\nfor us to determine what and how much obedience we owe to it.  And this I\ncan say, as having myself made trial of it, that having formerly taken\nthe liberty of my own swing and fancy, and omitted or neglected certain\nrules of the discipline of our Church, which seemed to me vain and\nstrange coming afterwards to discourse of it with learned men, I have\nfound those same things to be built upon very good and solid ground and\nstrong foundation; and that nothing but stupidity and ignorance makes us\nreceive them with less reverence than the rest.  Why do we not consider\nwhat contradictions we find in our own judgments; how many things were\nyesterday articles of our faith, that to-day appear no other than fables?\nGlory and curiosity are the scourges of the soul; the last prompts us to\nthrust our noses into everything, the other forbids us to leave anything\ndoubtful and undecided.\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A child should not be brought up in his mother's lap\n     Acquiesce and submit to truth\n     Affect words that are not of current use\n     Anything appears greatest to him that never knew a greater\n     Appetite to read more, than glutted with that we have\n     Applaud his judgment than commend his knowledge\n     Attribute facility of belief to simplicity and ignorance\n     Away with this violence!  away with this compulsion!\n     Bears well a changed fortune, acting both parts equally well\n     Belief compared to the impression of a seal upon the soul\n     cloak on one shoulder, my cap on one side, a stocking disordered\n     College: a real house of correction of imprisoned youth\n     Disgorge what we eat in the same condition it was swallowed\n     Education ought to be carried on with a severe sweetness\n     Eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance\n     Fear was not that I should do ill, but that I should do nothing\n     Glory and curiosity are the scourges of the soul\n     Hobbes said that if he had been at college as long as others--\n     Inquisitive after everything\n     Insert whole sections and pages out of ancient authors\n     It is no hard matter to get children\n     Learn what it is right to wish\n     Least touch or prick of a pencil in comparison of the whole\n     Let him be satisfied with correcting himself\n     Let him examine every man's talent\n     Light prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years\n     Living well, which of all arts is the greatest\n     Lodge nothing in his fancy upon simple authority and upon trust\n     Man may say too much even upon the best subjects\n     Miracle: everything our reason cannot comprehend\n     Morosity and melancholic humour of a sour ill-natured pedant\n     Mothers are too tender\n     Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men\n     Nobody prognosticated that I should be wicked, but only useless\n     Not having been able to pronounce one syllable, which is No!\n     O Athenians, what this man says, I will do\n     Obstinacy and contention are common qualities\n     Occasion to La Boetie to write his \"Voluntary Servitude\"\n     Philosophy has discourses proper for childhood\n     Philosophy is that which instructs us to live\n     Philosophy looked upon as a vain and fantastic name\n     Preface to bribe the benevolence of the courteous reader\n     Reading those books, converse with the great and heroic souls\n     Silence, therefore, and modesty are very advantageous qualities\n     So many trillions of men, buried before us\n     Sparing and an husband of his knowledge\n     The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine\n     The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness\n     Their labour is not to delivery, but about conception\n     There is nothing like alluring the appetite and affections\n     They begin to teach us to live when we have almost done living\n     Things grow familiar to men's minds by being often seen\n     To condemn them as impossible, is by a temerarious presumption\n     To contemn what we do not comprehend\n     To go a mile out of their way to hook in a fine word\n     To know by rote, is no knowledge\n     Tongue will grow too stiff to bend\n     Totally brutified by an immoderate thirst after knowledge\n     Unbecoming rudeness to carp at everything\n     Unjust to exact from me what I do not owe\n     Where their profit is, let them there have their pleasure too\n     Who by their fondness of some fine sounding word","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 05","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":18978}