Montaigne talks firstly about how study can be a kind of death. Then he shares his feelings about sex. He ends with with a contemplation on man's fear of death
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| 'it is a pleasure more favourable, soft, and natural, than the other forms of pleasure that we prefer to call pleasure' |
Cicero says that studying philosophy serves no purpose other
than to prepare one’s self for death. The reason for this is that study and
contemplation, in some sense, withdraw us from our souls, and employ the soul
separately from the body. This is a kind of ‘apprenticeship’ and a resemblance
of death in this process. Another reason is that the point of all wisdom and
reasoning is to teach us not to fear death.
Now, either our reason mocks us, or it has no aim other
than contentment. ‘All the opinions of the world’ agree that pleasure is our
aim, even if we all have different ways of attaining it. Any other route would
be rejected straightaway, for who would go down a path that led to misery and
affliction? All disputes on this point are trivial, and merely verbal. They
arise out of a stubbornness and opposition that should not be present in great
thinkers.
No matter what they say, even in virtue, our ultimate aim in
life is bliss (Montaigne here uses the word ‘volupté’, referring to an
intense pleasure that is both sensual and spiritual). I’d like to punch the
ears of those who find this word sickening. If the word signifies a supreme
pleasure or excessive contentment, then this is due to the assistance of virtue
and nothing else. This bliss, if it is joyous, strong and virile, becomes all
the more seriously blissful. And so we should allow this bliss to be called
pleasure; it is a pleasure more favourable, soft, and natural, than the other
forms of pleasure that we prefer to call pleasure. Those other pleasures are
lower forms of bliss. If they even deserve to be called pleasure, this should
be a matter of agreement and not privilege.
A few words on this bliss
- I find it to be less free from inconvenience and pitfall than
virtue.
- The enjoyment is more momentary, fluid, and frail than some
other pleasures. Nonetheless, it has its periods of vigils and fasting, also
periods of hard work, sweat and blood.
- It comes with so many different kinds of sharp and wounding
passions, and the satiety that attends it can be so dull and heavy that it sometimes equates to a punishment.
- If one imagines that these hurdles actually spur us to pursue
it, that they are no more than a seasoning to its sweetness, they are mistaken.
- When circumstances render it inaccessible (such as a coming to
virtue, or some kind of difficulty), the pleasure of this joyous bliss is sharpened and heightened once it comes.
- He who measures its cost against its fruit renders himself
unworthy of it, for he does not understand its graces nor uses.
- What do they mean, those who preach that the quest for it is
difficult, complicated, and painful and the resultant orgasmic joyousness (in
French, jouissance) pleasant? Is it ever unpleasant? What would human beings not
do to arrive at this pleasure? The most perfect have been happy to just aspire
to this pleasure, to approach it without ever possessing it. Those that warn of
the quest are therefore wrong, because even the pursuit of this bliss is
pleasurable, because the attempt contains the essence of what it pursues.
Now, one of the greatest benefits that virtue confers upon us is
a contempt of death. This contempt allows us a soft and easy tranquility in
life, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of living, without which all other
pleasure would be extinct. All the rules centre around and agree with this
contempt. And although they also teach us to despise pain, poverty, and other
accidents to which human life is subject, we do not do so with the same level
of concern. These accidents are, after all, not necessarily going to strike us.
Many pass through life without knowing what poverty is, and the musician
Xenophilius lived to a hundred and six without falling ill. But death is
inevitable. And it can strike at any time, cutting short and putting an end to
all other inconveniences.
Hor., in the Odyssey, said; ‘We are all bound one voyage; the
lot of all, sooner or later, is to come out of the urn. All must to eternal
exile sail away.’
So if death were to frighten us, it would be a perpetual
torment, for which there would be no consolation. Sometimes people on their way
to execution are granted special favours just before their death. But, at this
time, ‘Sicilian dainties will not tickle their palates, nor the melody of birds
and harps bring back sleep.’ (Hor. Od.) They cannot relish these types of
entertainment when they know they are at the fatal end of their journey. The
end of our race is death, it is the necessary object of our aim. It this
frightened us, how would it be possible to advance one step without a fit of
panic?
The remedy that the vulgar use is not to think about it, but
from what brutish stupidity can they derive such a blatant blindness? They
probably ride their donkeys backwards. They scare people with the very mention
of death, and many cross themselves when they hear the word, as if it were the
name of the devil. And they refuse to write up their wills, because that would be a
reference to dying. They will not pick up a pen until the physician has told
them in no uncertain terms that they are in their last moments, and even then,
they will do so in a state of terror. God knows how, in this state, they are
fit enough in understanding to do so.
The Romans, feeling that the word death sounded too ominous to
their ears, found a way to soften and spin it, and instead of saying someone is
dead, they will say, ‘he has lives’ or ‘he has ceased to live’ (Plutarch, Life
of Cicero). The mention of life in the phrase, eventhough it has passed, offers
a kind of consolation. It is from them that we have borrowed the phrase, ‘The
last Mr. such-and-such’.
I was born between eleven and twelve in the afternoon on the
last day of February 1533. The year, that used to commence at Easter, had been
changed by order of Charles IX to commence from then on on January 1st. I turned thirty-nine
fifteen days ago. I hope to live at least as many more years. In the meantime,
to trouble myself with something that will happen after so long seems foolish.
But so what? Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life
otherwise than as if he had just entered it. No man is so old and decrepit that
he does not imagine he has twenty good years left in him. Fool that thou art!
Who has assured upon thee the term of life? You depend on your physicians but
instead, consult effects and experiences. According to the average life-span,
you have lives by extraordinary favour. Think of people you know, how many more
have died before they arrived at your age than have survived? And as for those
who have made themselves famous in their lifetimes, I bet you will find more
that have before before than after thirty-five years of age. Jesus Christ
himself died at thirty-three and the greatest man that was no more than a man,
Alexander, died at around the same age. Death can surprise us in many ways. Who
would have guessed that the duke of Brittany, for instance, would be crushed to
death in a crowd of people? King Henry II was killed in a sword tournament and
his ancestor Philip died whilst fighting with a hog. Aeschylus, who was very
circumspect in avoiding danger, was hit on the head by a tortoise that fell out
of the talons of an eagle flying overhead. Another choked on a grape-stone. An
emperor was killed with the scratch of a comb while he was combing his hair,
and Aemilius Lepidus stumpled on the steps of his own front door. Another died
between the thighs of a woman, and another – my brother Captain St. Martin –
was playing tennis when he received a little blow with the ball just above his
right ear. He took no notice of it at the time, but six or seven hours later,
he had died.
With such frequent and common examples passing before us
everyday, how is it possible to disengage ourselves from thoughts of death and
not live in constant fear of it? You may say that it doesn’t matter how it
comes about, provided we do not terrify ourselves with expectation. I, for one,
would crawl under the skin of a calf if by that means I could avoid death. I am
not ashamed of this. All I aim for is to pass my time at my ease, doing what
will most contribute to that ease. I must quote this glorious little exemplary:
‘I had rather seem mad and a sluggard, so that my defects are
agreeable to myself, or that I am not painfully conscious of them, than be wise
and chaptious’ (Hor. Ep.).
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