Michel de Montaigne

“ It is no great wonder, that such accidents doe often happen, for if imagination have power in such things, it is so continually annexed, and so forcibly fastened to this subject, that lest she should so often fall into the relaps of the same thought, and sharpnesse of desire, it is better one time for all to incorporate this virile part unto wenches. Some will not sticke to ascribe the scarres of King Dagobert, or the cicatrices of Saint Francis unto the power of Imagination. Othersome will say, that by the force of it, bodies are sometimes removed from their places. ”

“ Our thought being unable so to free it selfe, but some strange meanes will proceed from some abstruse learning: There inanitie gives them weight and credit. To conclude, it is most certaine, my Characters proved more venerian than solare, more in action than in prohibition. It was a ready and curious humour drew me to this effect, farre from my nature. I am an enemie to craftie and fained actions, and hate all suttletie in my hands, not only recreative, but also profitable. If the action be not vicious, the course to it is faultie. ”

“ There was lately seene a cat about my owne house, so earnestly eyeing a bird, sitting upon a tree, that heseeing the cat, they both so wistly fixed th eir looks one upon another, so long, that at last the bird fell downe as dead in the cat's pawes, either drunken by his owne strong imagination, or drawne by some attractive power of the cat. Those that love hawking, have haply heard the Falkner tale, who earnestly fixing his sight upon a kite in the aire, laid a wager that with the only force of his looke, he would make it come stooping downe to the ground, and as some report did it many times. ”

“ Gallus Vibius did so well enure his minde to comprehend the essence and motions of folly, that he so transported his judgement from out his seat, as he could never afterwards bring it to his right place againe; and might rightly boast to have become a foole through wisdome. Some there are, that through feare anticipate the hang-mans hand; as he did, whose friends having obtained his pardon, and putting away the cloth wherewith he was hoodwinkt, that he might heare it read, was found starke dead upon the scaffold, wounded only by the stroke of imagination. ”

“ For I know by experience, that some one, for whom I may as well answer as for my selfe, and in whom no manner of suspition either of weaknesse or enchantment might fall, hearing a companion of his make report of an extraordinary faint sowning, wherein he was fallen, at such a time as he least looked for it and wrought him no small shame, whereupon the horrour of his report did so strongly strike his imagination, as he ranne the same fortune, and fell into a like drooping. ”

“ For I referre to your thought, whether there be any one particular part of our body that doth not sometimes refuse her particular operation to our will and wish, and that doth not often exercise and practise against our will. ”

“ We cannot command our haire to stand on end, nor our skinne to startle for desire or feare. Our hands are often carried where we direct them not. Our tongue and voice are sometimes to seeke of their faculties, the one loseth her speech, the other her nimblenesse. ”

“ Some perswade mee to write the affaires of my time, imagining I can see them with a sight lesse blinded with passion, than other men, and perhaps neerer, by reason of the accesse which fortune hath given me to the chiefest of divers factions. But they will not say, how for the glory of Salust, I would not take the paines; as one that am a vowed enemy of observance, to assiduitie, and to constancie, and that there is nothing so contrarie to my style as a continued narration. I doe so often for want of breath breake off and interrupt my selfe. ”

“ I remember upon a time comming by chance to visit a rich old man that dwelt in Tholouse, and who was troubled with the cough of the lungs, who discoursing with the said Simon Thomas of the meanes of his recoverie, he told him, that one of the best was, to give me occasion to be delighted in his companie, and that fixing his eyes upon the liveliness and freshness of my face and setting his thoughts upon the jolitie and vigor, wherewith my youthful age did then flourish, and filling all his senses with my flourishing estate, his habitude might thereby be amended, and his health recovered. ”

“ Which the woman perceiving and imagining she had cast the same, was presently eased of her paine. I have knowne a gentleman, who having feasted a company of very honest gentlemen and gentlewomen, in his owne house, by way of sport, and in jest, boasted two or three daies after (for there was no such thing) that he had made them eat of a baked cat; where the gentlewoman of the companie apprehended such horror, that falling into a violent ague and distemper of her stomacke, she could by no meane s he recovered. Even brute beasts, as well as we, are seene to be subject to the power of imagination ”

“ Wee sweat, we shake, we grow pale, and we blush at the motions of our imaginations; and wallowing in our beds we feele our bodies agitated and turmoiled at their apprehensions, yea in such manner as sometimes we are ready to yeeld up the spirit. ”

“ Should I take any man for a guide, measure might differ from his. For, my libertie being so farre, I might haply publish judgements, agreeing with me, and consonant to reason, yet unlawfull and punishable. Plutarke would peradventure tell us of that which he had written, that it is the workes of others, that his examples are in all and everie where true, that they are profitable to posteritie, and presented with a lustre, that lights and directs us unto vertue, and that is his worke. ”

“ And when at his choice, he hath had law and power (his thought being cleered and unmasked, his body finding it selfe in his right due place) to make the same to be felt, seized upon, and apprehended by others knowledge: he hath fully and perfectly recovered himselfe. If a man have once beene capable, he cannot afterward be incapable, except by a just and absolute weaknesse. Such a mischief is not to be feared, but in the enterprises where our minde is beyond all measure bent with desire and respect ”

“ Seeing my selfe know one so skittish and mutinous, that these fortie yeares keepes his master in such awe, that, will he or nill be, he will with a continuall breath, constant and unintermitted custome breake winde at his pleasure, and so brings him to his grave. ”

“ The discourses are mine, and hold together by the proofe of reason, not of experiences: each man may adde his example to them: and who hath none, considering the number and varietie of accidentes let him not leave to think, there are store of them. ”

“ Married men because time is at their command, and they may go to it when they list, ought never to presse or importune their enterprise, unlesse they be readie. And it is better undecently to faile in hanseling the nuptiall bed, full of agitation and fits, by waiting for some or other fitter occasion, and more private opportunitie, less sudden an d alarmed, than to fall into a perpetual miserie, by apprehending an astonishment and desperation of the first refusall. ”

“ All of them have their proper passions, which without any leave of ours doe either awaken or lull them asleepe. How often doe the forced motions and changes of our faces witnesse the secretest and most lurking thoughts we have, and bewray them to by-standers? ”

“ The minde of the assailant molested with sundry different alarums, is easily dismaid. And he whom imagination hath once made to suffer this shame (and she hath caused the same to be felt but in the first acquaintances; because they are then burning and violent, and in the first acquaintance and comming together, or triall a man gives of himselfe, he is much more afraid and qu aint to misse the marke he shoots at) having begun ill he fals into an ague or spite of this accident, which afterward continueth in succeeding occasions. ”

“ It is very likely that the principall credit of visions, of enchantments, and such extraordinary effects, proceedeth from the power of imaginations, working especially in the mindes of the vulgar sort, as the weakest and seeliest, whose conceit and beleefe is so seized upon, that they imagine to see what they see not. ”

“ Even when we have nothin g to feed upon, we would willingly forbid it: the appetites to eat, or list to drinke, doe not leave to move the parts subject to them, even as this other appetite, and so, though it be out of season, forsaketh us, when he thinks good. ”

“ But our will, by whose privilege we advance this reproch, how much more likely, and consonant to trueth may we tax it of rebellion, and accuse it of sedition, by reason of its unrulinesse and disobedience. Will shee at all times doe that which we would have her willingly to doe? Is shee not often willing to effect that which we forbid her to desire? ”

“ Some man peradventure, by the effects of imagination leaveth the pox or kings evill heere, which hi s companion carrieth into Spaine againe: loe heere why in such cases men are accustomed to require a prepared minde, wherefore doe physitians labour and practise before hand the conceit and credence of their patients, with so many false promises of their recovery and health, unlesse it be that the effect of imagination may supple and prepare the imposture of one of their decoction? ”

“ He saith, that upon a time, leaping, and straining himselfe to overleape another, he wot not how, but where before he was a woman, he suddenly felt the instrument of a man to come out of him: and to this day the maidens of that towne and countrie have a song in use, by which they warne one another, when they are leaping, not to straine themselves overmuch, or open thir legs too wide, for feare they should bee turned to boies, as Marie Germane was. ”

“ Antiquitie hath held, that certaine women of Scithia, being provoked and vexed against some men, had the power to kill them only with their looke. The tortoises and the estriges hatch their egges with their looks only, a signe that they have some ejaculative vertue. And concerning witches they are said to have offensive and harme-working eies. ”

“ It is another thing that imagination doth sometime s worke, not only against her own body, but also against that of others. And even as one body ejecteth a disease to his neighhour, as doth evidently appeare by the plague, pox, or sore eies, that goe from one to another:
Dum spectant oculi læsos, læduntur et ipsi: Multaque corporibus transitione nocent.-- OVID. Am. 1. ii. 219. Eies become sore, while they looke on sore eies: By passage many ills our limmes surprise. Likewise the imagination moved and tossed by some vehemence, doth cast some darts, that may offend a strange object. ”

“ Before possession taken, a patient ought by sallies, and divers times, lightly assay and offer himselfe without vexing or opiniating himselfe, definitively to convince himselfe. Such as know their members docile and tractable by nature, let them only endevour to countercosin their fantasia. Men have reason to checke the indocile libe rtie of this member, for so importunately insinuating himselfe when we have no need of him, and so importunately, or as I may say impertinently failing, at what time we have most need of him ”

“ Saint Augustine speaketh of another, who if hee but heard any lamentable and wailefull cries, would suddenly fall into a swone, and bee so forcibly carried from himselfe, that did any chide and braule never so loud, pinch and thumpe him never so much, be could not be made to stirre, untill hee came to himselfe againe. ”

“ There is no meanes for a man to recover himselfe from his trouble; I know some, who have found to come unto it with their bodies as it were halfe glutted elsewhere, thereby to stupifie or allay the heat of that furie, and who through age, finde themselves lesse unable, by how much more they be lesse able: And another, w ho hath also found good, in that a friend of his assured him to bee provided with a counter-battery of forcible enchantments, to preserve him in any such conflict: It is not amisse I relate how it was. ”

“ Doth she suffer herselfe to be directed by the conclusions of our reason? To conclude, I would urge in defence of my client, that it would please the judges to consider , that concerning this matter, his cause being inseparably conjoyned to a comfort, and indistinctly; yet will not a man addresse himselfe but to him, both by the arguments and charges, which call no way appertaine to his said consort. ”

“ Of the actions of divers members, acted in their presence, they would refuse to beare witness of them, if by a judge they were put to their corporall oath. And there is no man so familiarly knowne to them, of whose inward intention they would undertake to answer at full. ”

“ Now they wrong us to receive and admit us with their wanton, squeamish, quarellous countenances, which setting us afire, extinguish us. Pythagoras his neece was wont to say, that a woman which lies with a man ought, together with her petiecoate, leave off all bashfulnesse, and with her petiecoate, take the same againe. ”