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ing; others add to this a test of their understanding, giving them some case to pass judgement upon. These latter seem to me to have much the better method; and while both these qualities are necessary, and it is essential that both should exist, yet in truth that of learning is less valuable than that of judgement; the last can get along without the first, but not the first without the last. For, as that Greek verse says, —

Ὡς οὐδέν ἡ μάθησις ἤν μὴ νοὺς παρῆ,^[1] —

Of what use is learning, if understanding is lacking? Would God that for the good of our judicature those companies were found as well supplied with understanding and conscience as they are even now with learning. (c) Non vitæ sed scholæ discimus.^[2] (a) Now we must not fasten learning to the mind, but incorporate it therewith;^[3] with it we must not sprinkle the mind — we must colour it;^[4] and if it does not change the mind and improve its imperfect state, surely it is much better to leave it alone; it is a dangerous weapon, which impedes and injures its master if it is in a feeble hand which does not know how to use it, (c) ut fuerit melius non didicisse.^[5] (a) Perchance this is the reason that neither we nor the church demand much learning of women, and that Francis, Duke of Brittany, son of Jean the Fifth, when they suggested to him his marriage to Isabeau of Scotland, and added that she had been brought up simply and without any instruction in letters, replied that he liked her the better for that, and that a woman knew enough when she knew how to distinguish between the shirt and the doublet of her husband.^[6]

1. Stobæus, Sermon 3. Montaigne translates the verse after quoting it.
2. We learn, not about life, but about matters of discussion. — Seneca, Epistle 106. Montaigne took the sentence from the Politics of Justus Lipsius.
3. See Seneca, Epistles 71 (near the end) and 110.
4. See Idem., Epistle 36.3.
5. So that it had been better not to have learned at all. — Cicero, Tusc. Disp., II, 4.
6. See G. Corrozet: Les divers propos memorables des nobles et illustres hommes de la chrestienté.