CHAPTER XXIII
OF CUSTOM,[1] AND THE INADVISABILITY OF CHANGING AN ESTABLISHED LAW
The examples by which, in opening this Essay, Montaigne attempts to show the power of habit are neither very interesting nor very credible. We must remember that he disclaims responsibility for the facts that he relates, and we find here an odd pell-mell of the true and the false.
We are entertained by little personalities about his “perfumed doublet” and the tower in which he lived and the bell that he heard every day. And, later, the excellent remarks on the education of children are a prelude to those that follow in a subsequent Essay, and include a delightful testimony to the effect of education on Montaigne himself. The last sentence deserves to be written in letters of gold: “In every thing and everywhere my eyes are enough to keep me straight; there are no others which watch me so closely, or which I more respect.”
This is a part of a long passage inserted in 1595, which breaks in upon illustrations, not exactly of the force of habit, but of the power of training; and the essayist then passes on to examples of the odd customs of diverse nations — slipping here from one signification of the word coûtume — custom, habit — to another.
We may, with little loss, skip here several pages, and we then find ourselves at one of the most interesting passages we have yet come to in the Essays: “The laws of the conscience.” But this passage, like many others, is made difficult and confused by being written at different periods, and the parts never properly fused together: it is three overlapping “formations.” The first sentence is of 1595, the next of 1588, the next three of 1580. And the next (whole) page of 1595. It is therefore almost impossible, without long, and one may say imaginative, study of such passages, to follow closely Montaigne’s train of thought; but even a hasty, if not a careless, reading may discover something of the largeness, the freedom, the vitality of his thought, and its force of subtle observation.
From these graver matters Montaigne passes to the consideration of the fantasticalness of custom in dress; but he soon swings back into matters of state, considering the question whether it is of use to change laws that have been established by long custom. The passage is of interest, not only in itself (as a discussion of political principles), but historically, as Montaigne’s view of his own time and its conditions of government.
The last pages of the Essay contain Montaigne’s recognition that in cases of extreme necessity the old laws should give way to new regulations; and he quotes Plutarch’s praise of Philopœmen.
- ↑ La Coûtume here stands for both personal habits and national customs.
