Michel de Montaigne

“ Is there any opinion so fantastical, or conceit so extravagant (I omit to speake of the grosse imposture of religions, wherewith so many great nations and so many worthy and sufficient men have beene besotted, and drunken: For, being a thing beyond the compasse of our humane reason, it is more excusable if a man that is not extraordinarily illuminated thereunto by divine favour, doe lose and miscarrie himselfe therein) , or of other opinions, is there any so strange, that custome hath not planted and established by lawes in what regions soever it hath thought good? ”

“ Publike society hath nought to do with our thoughts; but for other things, as our actions, our travel, our fortune, and our life, that must be accomodated and left to its service and common opinions: as that good and great Socrates, who refused to save his life by disobeying the magistrate, yea a magistrate most wicked and unjust. For that is the rule of rules, and generall law of lawes, for every man to observe those of the place wherein he liveth. ”

“ Whereupon it followeth, that whatsoever is beyond the compasse of custome, wee deeme likewise to bee beyond the compasse of reason, God knowes how for the most part, unreasonably. If as we, who study ourselves, have learned to doe, every man that heareth a just sentence, would presently consider, how it may in any sort belonging unto his private state, each man should finde that this is not so much a good word as a good blow to the ordinary sottishnesse of his judgment. But men receive the admonitions of truth and her precepts, as directed to the vulgar, and never to themselves ”

“ Seeming most impious to me, to goe about to subject publike constitutions and unmoveable observances, to the instabilitie of a private fantasie (private reason is but a private jurisdiction) and to undertake that on divine lawes, which no policie would tolerate in civill law. Wherein although man's reason have much more commerce, yet are they soveraignly judges of their judges: and their extreme sufficiencie serveth to expound custome and extend the use that of them is received, and not to divert and innovate the same. ”

“ But the chiefest effect of her power is to seize upon us, and so to entangle us, that it shall hardly lie in us to free ourselves from her hold-fast, and come into our wits againe, to discourse and reason of her ordinances; verily, because we sucke them with the milke of our birth , and forasmuch as the worlds visage presents itselfe in that estate unto our first view, it seemeth we are borne with a condition to follow that course. And the common imaginations we finde in credit about us, and by our fathers seed infused in our soule, seeme to be the generall and naturall. ”

“ For we know all nations, where death is not only condemned, but cherished: where children of seven years of age, without changing of countenance, or showing any signe of dismay, endured to be whipped to death ”

“ Where ten or twelve men be all in one bed with all their wives; where such women as lose their hushands , by any violent death, may marrie againe, others not: where the condition of women is so detested that they kill all the maiden children as soon as they are borne, and to supply their naturall need, they buy women of their neighbours. Where men may at their pleasure, without alleaging any cause, put away their wives, but they (what just reason soever they have) may never put away their husbands. Where husbands may lawfully sell their wives, if they be barren. ”

“ Lawes of the native place, To follow, is a grace. Loe here some of another kind. There riseth a great doubt whether any so evident profit may be found in the change of a received law, of what nature soever, as there is hurt in removing the same; forsomuch as a well-setled policie may be compared to a frame or building of divers parts joyned together with such a ligament as it is impossible to stirre or displace one, but the whole body must needes be shaken, and shew a feeling of it. ”

“ Where every man makes himself a God of what be pleaseth: the hunter of a Lion or a Fox; the fisher, of a certaine kinde of Fish; and frame themselves Idols of every humane action or passion: the Sunne, the Moone, and the earth are their chiefest Gods: the forme of swearing is, to touch the ground, looking upon the Sunne, and where they eat both flesh and fish raw. ”

“ Where both men and women are equally circumcised, and alike baptised. Where the souldier, that in one or divers combats hath presented his King with seven enemies heads, is made noble. Where some live under that so rare and unsociable opinion of the mortalitie of soules. Where women are brought abed without paine or griefe. Where women on both their legs weare greaves of Copper: and if a louse bite them, they are bound by duty of magnanimitie to bite it againe: and no maid dare marrie, except she have first made offer of her Virginitie to the King. ”

“ I saw another, being a Child, that with the bending of his feet (because he had no hands) would brandish a two-hand-sword and manage a Hol-bard, as nimbly as any man could doe with his hands: he would cast them in the aire, then receive them againe, he would throw a Dagger, and make a whip to yarke and lash, as cunningly as any Carter in France. But her effects are much better discovered in the strange impressions which it worketh in our mindes where it meetes not so much resistance. What cannot she bring to passe in our judgements and in our conceits? ”

“ But if the inventors are more damageable, the imitators are more vicious, to cast themselves into examples, of which they have both felt and punished the horror and mischiefe. And if there be any degree of hon our, even in ill doing, these are indebted to others for the glory of the invention and courage of the first attempt. ”

“ Peradventure better to shrug the shoulders, stoope the head, and somewhat yeeld to the stroke, than beyond possibilitie to make head and resist, and be nothing the better, and give violence occasion to trample all underfoot: and better were it to force the lawes to desire but what they may, since they may not what they would. ”

“ It is not long since in mine owne house, I saw a little man, who at Nantes was borne without armes, and hath so well fashioned his feet to those services his hands should have done him, that in truth they have almost forgotten their naturall office. In all his discourses he nameth them his hands: he carveth any meat, he chargeth and shoots off a pistole, be threads a needle, he soweth, he writeth, puts off his cap, combeth his head, plaieth at cards and dice ”

“ And when a man resisteth the increase of an innovation, brought in by v iolence, to keepe himselfe each-where and altogether in rule and bridle against those that have the keyes of fields, to whom all things are lawfull, that may in any sort advance their desseigne, that have not law, nor order, but to follow their advantage, it is a dangerous obligation and prejudiciall inequalitie. ”

“ If at any time divine providence hath gone beyond the rules to which it hath necessary constrained us, it is not to give us a dispensation from them. They are blowes of her divine hand, which we ought not imitate, but admire: as extraordinarie examples, markes of an expresse and particular avowing of the severall kinds of wonders, which for a testimonie of her ominpotencie it offereth us, beyond our orders and forces, which it is follie and impietie to goe abont to represent, and which we onght not follow but contemplate with admiration, and meditate with astonishment. ”

“ Where they cause dead bodies first to be boyled, and then to be brayed in a morter, so long till it come to a kind of pap, which afterward they mingle with their wine, and so drinke it. Where the most desired sepulcher that some wish for, is to bee devoured of dogges, and in some places of birds. ”

“ But let us returne to customes soveraignty: such as are brought up to libertie, and to command themselves, esteeme all other forme of policie as monstrous and against nature. Those that are enured to, Monarchie doe the like. And what facilitie soever fortune affoordeth them to change, even when with great difficultie they have shaken off the importunitie of a tutor, they run to plant a new one with semblable difficulties because they cannot resolve themselves to hate tutorship. It is by the meditation of custome that every man is contented with the place where nature hath setled him ”

“ Those considerations do neverthelesse never distract a man of understanding from following the common guise. Rather, on the contrary, mee seemeth that all severall, strange, and particular fashions proceed rather of follie or ambitious affectation than of true reason: and that a wise man ought inwardly to retire his minde from the common presse, and hold the same liberty and power to judge freely of all things, but for outward matters he ought absolutely to follow the fashions and forme customarily received. ”

“ Plato did once chide a child for playing with nuts, who answered him, 'Thou chidest me for a small matter.' 'Custome,' replied Plato, 'is no small matter.' I finde that our greatest vices make their first habit in us from our infancie, and that our chiefe government and education lieth in our nurses hands. Some mothers thinke it good sport to see a childe wring off a chickens necke, and strive to beat a dog or cat. ”

“ Where women are circumcised: where they eat all manner of herbes, without other distinction but to refuse those that have ill savour: where all things are open, and how faire and rich soever their houses be, they have neither doors nor windowes, nor any chests to locke: yet are all theeves much more severely punished there than anywhere else; where, as monkies do, they kill lice with their teeth, and thinke it a horrible matter to see them crusht between their nailes ”

“ Others there are where publike brothel-houses of men are kept, and where open mart of marriages are ever to be had: where women goe to the warres with their hushands, and have place, not onely in fight, but also in command, where they doe not onely weare jewels at their noses, in their lip and cheekes, and in their toes, but also big wedges of gold through their paps and buttocks, where when they eat they wipe their fingers on their thighs, on the bladder of their genitories, and the soles of their feet ”

“ Where to order the communitie of goods, which amongst them is religiously observed, certaine Soveraigne Magistrats have the generall charge of husbandry and tilling of the lands, and of the distribution of the fruits, according to every mans need: where they howle and weepe at their childrens deaths, and joy and feast at their old mens decease. ”

“ Where some thinke that blessed soules live in all liberty, in certaine pleasant fields stored with al commodities, and that from them proceeds that Eccho which we heare. Where they fight in the water, and shoot execeeding true with their bowes as they are swimming. Where in signe of subjection men must raise their shoulders and stoope with their heads, and put off their shoes when they enter their Kings houses. Where Eunuchs that have religious women in keeping, because they shall not be loved, have also their noses and lips cut off. ”

“ For truly Custome is a violent and deceiving schoole-mistris. She by little and little, and as it were by stealth, establisheth the foot of her authoritie in us; by which mild and gentle beginning, if once by the aid of time it have setled and planted the same in us, it will soone discover a furious and tyrannicall countenance unto us; against which we have no more the libertie to lift so much as our eies; wee may plainly see her upon every occasion to force the rules of Nature: Vsus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister: (PLIN. Epist. xx) Use is the most effectuall master of all things. ”

“ Miracles are according to the ignorance wherein we are by nature, and not according to natures essence; use brings the sight of our judgement asleepe. The barbarous heathen are nothing more strange to us than we are to them: nor with more occasion, as every man would avow, if after he had travelled through these farre-fetcht examples, hee could stay himselfe upon the discourses and soundly conferre them. ”

“ And in another country, if a Merchant chance to marrie, all other Merchants that are bidden to the wedding are bound to lie with the bride before her husband, and the more they are in number, the more honour and commendation is hers for constancie and capacitie ”

“ Where women pisse standing, and men cowring. Where in signe of true friendship they send one another some of their owne bloud, and offer incense to men which they intend to honour, as they doe to their Gods: where not only kindred and consanguinitie in the fourth degree, but in any furthest off, can by no means be tolerated in marriages: where children sucke till they be four, and sometimes twelve years old, in which place they deeme it a dismal thing to give a childe sucke the first day of his birth. ”

“ Nothing at first so wondrous is, so great, But all, t'admire, by little slake their heat. Having other times gone about to endeare and make some one of our observations to be of force, and which was with resolute auctoritie received in most parts about us, and not desiring, as most men doe, onely to establish the same by the force of lawes and examples, but having ever bin from her beginning, I found the foundation of it so weake that myselfe, who was to confirme it in others, had much adoe to keepe my countenance. ”

“ My opinion is that hee conceived aright of the force of custome that first invented this tale; how a country woman having enured herselfe to cherish and beare a young calfe in her armes, which continuing, shee got such a custome, that when he grew to be a great oxe, shee carried him still in her armes. ”