ber is so infinite that, in truth, it would be a better bargain for me to count up those who have feared it. This only will I note: Pyrrho the philosopher, being one day in a tempest at sea, pointed out to those about him whom he saw to be most frightened, a pig on board in no wise disturbed by this storm, and encouraged them by this example.[1]
Shall we venture then to say that this privilege of the power of reasoning, about which we so flatter ourselves, and because of which we regard ourselves as the masters and monarchs of the rest of creation, was given us for our torment? What profits the knowledge of things,[2] if we lose the tranquillity and repose in which we should be without it, and if it puts us in worse case than Pyrrho’s pig? The intelligence that has been given us for our greater welfare — shall we employ it for our destruction, combatting the purpose of Nature and the universal order of things, which ordains that every one use his tools and resources for his own pleasure?[3]
“Very good,” you will answer me, “your precept is well enough for death; but what will you say of poverty which (c) Aristippus, Hieronymus, and (a) most wise men considered the worst of evils?”[4] And they who denied it in words confessed it by their acts. Posidonius being in great suffering from a sharp and painful malady, Pompey went to see him and apologised for having come at so inopportune a time to hear him discourse on philosophy. “God forbid,” said Posidonius, “that pain should so prevail over me as to prevent me from discoursing and talking of that!” and he threw himself into this very subject of contempt of pain. But meanwhile pain played its part and tormented him incessantly, whereupon he exclaimed: “Do what you will, pain: I still will not say that you are an evil thing!”[5] This
- ↑ See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Pyrrho.
- ↑ Si nous en devenons plus lasches. This phrase, added in 1595, does not appear in the Édition Municipale.
- ↑ In 1588: pour sa commodité et avantage? In a letter written to M. de Mesmes (1570) Montaigne said: Tous ce qui est sous le ciel employe les moyens et les outils que nature luy a mis en main … pour l’agencement et commodité de son estre.
- ↑ See Cicero, Tusc. Disp., II, 6.
- ↑ See Idid., 25.
