The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne

This selected and arranged collection of autobiographical writing of Montaigne captures the life and character of the great essayist. I’ve put off reading Montaigne’s essays (three volumes). Now with his personality vividly captured in this compilation, I’m anxious to read the essays. Montaigne was a soldier and regional politician and sometimes courtier who was the lord of an estate and the recipient of a fortune that left him free to read, write and think. However, this “autobiography,” brutally honest, paints a picture of a man who called himself lazy. He was courted by the leading philosophers, politicians and royalty of his era. He wrote in the late 1500s, a time of dire, tragic civil wars in France which raged throughout his life. What struck me most  was his ability to rise above the hatred of his times, fueled by the hateful religious dogma centered around Protestants and Catholics.

He reached the conclusion that truth, religious belief and faith are all based on guesses. They are the guesses of an individual, or they are enshrined in custom or habit. For the society of his time, beliefs were truth and truth must be made to prevail— routinely by fire and sword. Entire nations were laid to waste to save the world for religious Truth.

If men could abide by religious tolerance, the adage Live and let Live and respect for life could prevail, but there are people who propose to gag others in order to make them speak as they believe they ought. There are people who would kill men, women and children to teach them how to live. Others would destroy a nation to turn it into a paradise. Science and philosophic reason were yet to overcome dangerous religious dogma, which fueled centuries of violence, terror and burnings at the stake.

Montaigne represented sanity in the midst of insanity. How far have we come?

Far. But not far enough.