Hefiod corrects "follows clofe at the heels of fin; for he fays, it is born at the fame instant with fin. Whofoever expects punishment, al Plato's affertion that " Punishment Punishment connate with ready fuffers it; and whofoever has deferved it, expects itt. Wickedness contrives tortures for itself: Malum confilium confultori peffimum: He that gives bad counsel suffers most by it. As the wafp ftings and hurts another, but most of all itfelf; for it thereby lofes its fting and its ftrength for ever : Vitafque in vulnere ponunt §: And in the wound which they inflict, expire. The Spanish fly, or cantharides, has in itself some particle which, by the contrariety of its nature, serves as an antidote to its own poifon. In like manner, at the fame inftant that a man feels a pleasure in vice, there is a fting at the tail of it in the confcience, which tortures us fleeping and waking with many racking thoughts: Quippe ubi fe multi per fomnia fæpe loquentes, The guilty feldom their own counsel keep, Crimes which they long had labour'd to conceal. Apollodorus dreamed that he faw himself flea'd by the Scythians, and then boiled in a cauldron; and that his • This reflection is taken from Plutarch's treatise, "Why the di"vine justice fometimes defers the punishment of crimes," chap. 9. + Senec. Epift, 105.. Aul. Gell. lib. iv. cap. 5. Virg. Georg. lib. iv. ver. 238. Montaigne afferts this more pofitively than Plutarch, the author from whom he took it, ch. 9. of Plutarch's tract above mentioned. Lucret. lib. v. ver. 1157, &c. heart heart muttered thefe words: "I am the caufe of all "thefe evils." Epicurus faid, "No lurking-hole could "hide the wicked, because they could not affure them"felves of being concealed, whilft their confciences dif"covered them to themselves." -Prima eft hæc ultio, quod fe 'Tis the firft, conftant punishment of fin, That no bad man abfolves himfelf within. The confidence refulting from a As an evil confcience poffeffes us with fear, a good one gives us affurance and confidence. And I can truly fay, I have faced several good confcience. dangers with the more boldnefs, in confideration of the fecret knowledge I had of my own will, and of the innocency of my intentions: The confident innocency of Scipio. Confcia mens ut cuique fua eft, ita concipit intra Pellora pro facto, Spemque metumque fuo. Defpotic confcience rules our hopes and fears. Of this there are a thousand examples, of which it may fuffice to produce three of one and the fame perfon. Scipio having a heavy accufation laid against him one day before the people of Rome, instead of excufing himself, or foothing his judges, It will well become you, "faid he to them, to fit in judgment upon the man from "whom you derive the power you have to judge all the "world §." And, another time, all the answer he gave to fome impeachments brought againft him by a tribune of the people, inftead of pleading his caufe: "Let us go, faid he, my fellow-citizens, and give "thanks to the gods for the victory which they "granted me over the Carthaginians, as on this day [].” This is alfo taken from Plutarch's beforementioned treatife of the delay of the divine juftice, chap 9. This Apollodorus, who reigned like a true tyrant, was king of Cassandria, in Macedonia. † Juv. Sat. xiii. ver. 2, 3. Plutarch, in his treatife, intitled, "praife himself, &c." chap. 5. Ovid. Faft. lib. i. ver. 25, 26. "How far a man is allowed to Valer. Maxim. lib. iii. cap. 7. in Romanis. And, And, advancing first towards the temple himself, the whole affembly, not excepting his accufer, followed in his train. And, Petilius having been inftigated by Cato to demand an account of the money which had paffed through his hands in the province of Antioch, Scipio, who come to the fenate for this purpofe, produced a book from under his robe, wherein, he told them, was an exact account of his receipts and difburfements; but being required to deliver it to the regif ter, he refufed it, faying, he would not fo far difgrace himself; and tore the book to pieces with his own hands in the prefence of the fenate. I cannot fuppofe that the most feared confcience could have counter feited fuch an affurance. "He had naturally too high "a fpirit, fays Livy †, and was accustomed to too great "fortune to know how to be criminal, and to defcend to "the meannefs of defending his own innocence." The inconveni encies of the The rack is a pernicious invention, and feems to be rather a proof of a man's patience than of the truth; which indeed is concealed. both by him who can bear it, and by him rack. who cannot. For why should pain fooner make me confess what is the real truth, than force me to fay what is not? And, on the contrary, if he who is not guilty of that whereof he is accused, has the patience to undergo those torments, why fhould not he who is guilty have as much, when fo fair a reward as his life is fet before him? I imagine that this invention owes its rife to the confideration of the power of confcience, which feems to be affifting to the rack to make the guilty perfon confefs his fault, and to weaken his refolution; while, on the other hand, it fortifies the innocent against the torture. To fay the truth, it is a remedy full of uncertainty and danger. What will not a man fay, what will he not do, rather than suffer such a painful torture? Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor ‡: • Tit. Liv. lib. xxxviii. cap. 54, $5. Ex Mimis Publianis. VOL. II. E + Lib. xxxviii. cap. 52. Pain Pains compels even the innocent to lye. From hence it comes to pafs, that he whom the judge has put to the rack, with a view that he may not die innocent, makes him die both innocent and racked. Thoufands have burthened their confciences by it with false confeffions; in the number of whom I place Philotas *, confidering the circumftances of the process that Alexander commenced against him, and the progrefs of his torture. But fo it is (fay they), that it is the leaft evil human weaknefs could have invented; yet, in my opinion, the invention was very inhuman, and to very little purpose. Several nations, not fo barbarous in this refpect as the Greeks and Romaus, by whom they The use of the rack condemned were called Barbarians, think it horrible by several na. and cruel to torment and pull a man tions, and why. to pieces for a fault of which you are as yet in doubt. Is he to blame for your ignorance? Are net you unjust, that, because you would not kill him without a caufe, you do worse than kill him? And, that this is the cafe, do but obferve how often men chufe to die without reafon, rather than pafs through this inquifition more painful than execution, and fo acute that it often difpatches them before it. I know not where I had this ftory +, but it is an exact reprefentation of the confcience of our juftice: a country woman accused a foldier to the general of the army (who was a grand jufticiary, and therefore determined all civil and criminal caufes in his precinct) of having taken from her children the little boiled meat he had left to keep them from ftarving, the Q. Curtius, lib. vi. cap. 7. to the end of the book. The story is in Froiffart, and there, no doubt, Montaigne had read it; though, when he wrote this chapter, he feems to have forgot his authority for it. Bajazet I. whom Froiffart calls Amorabaquin. I was lately given to understand, by the ingenious commentator on Rabelais, tom. v. p. 217, that Bajazet was fo called, because he was the fon of Amurath; which I obferve for the fake of thofe who might be as ignorant of this particular as I was, before I happened to caft my eye upon the page where it is mentioned, in Bordelius's Rabelais, printed at Amfterdam in 1741. army army having pillaged every thing they could find. There was no proof of this fact; therefore the general cautioned the woman to take good heed of what the faid, forafmuch as fhe would incur the guilt of her own accufation, if fhe was found in a lye; but the perfifting in her charge, he caufed the foldier's belly to be ripped open, in order to be fure of the truth of the fact; and it appeared that the woman was in the right. An inftructive fentence this! I CHA P. VI. Habit makes Things familiar to us. Reason and in Atruction, with out practice,can not make us vir tuous. T is hardly to be expected that reafon and inftruction fhould be powerful enough to lead us on to action, if we do not exercife and form our minds by experience to the course which we are defirous they should take; or elfe, when the effects are in their power, they will undoubtedly be embarraffed. This is the reason why thofe of the philofophers, who have aimed at the attainment of any fuperior excellency, did not indulge themselves in eafe and security, and indolently wait for the cruelties of fortune to attack them in their retirement; but, for fear fhe fhould furprise them in the state of unexperienced and raw foldiers, undifciplined for the battle, they fallied out to meet her, and put themselves purposely upon the proof of hardships. Some abandoned their riches, to exercife themselves in a voluntary poverty; others fought for labour; and the aufterity of a painful life, to The whole story is at large, and well attefted, in Froiffart's Hiftory, vol. iv. cap. 87. If he had been convicted of a falfe accufation, the general would have been in the fame cafe as the judge who caufed a man to be hanged, after the rack had extorted a confeffion from him of a crime, of which it appeared afterwards he was altogether innocent. |