Hefiod corrects Plato's Affertion that Paniment fašlows clofe at the Heels of Sin; for, he fays, it is Punishment born at the fame Inftant with Sin. Whofo- connate with ever expects Punishment already fuffers it; and whofoever has deferved it expects it. Wickedness contrives Tortures for itself:

Malum confilium confultori peffimum ».

i. e.

He that gives bad Counsel suffers most by it.

Sin

As the Wafp ftings and hurts another, but most of all itfelf; for it thereby lofes its Sting and its Strength for

ever :

Vitafque in vulnere ponunt1:

i. e.

And do their own Lives stake
In the fmall Wound they make.

* The Spanish Fly, or Cantharides, has in itself some Particle which, by the Contrariety of its Nature, ferves as an Antidote to its own Poifon. In like Manner, at the same Inftant that a Man feels a Pleasure in Vice, there is a Sting 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, Aut morbo delirantes, procrease ferantur, Et celata diù in medium peccata dediffe'.

i. e.

The Guilty feldom their own Counsel keep :)
They either will, by talking in their Sleep,

Or, in a Fever raving, will reveal

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

f This Reflection is taken from Plutarch's Treatife, Juflice fometimes defers the Punishment of Crimes, ch. 9.

Senec. Epift. 105.

lib. iv. ver. 238.

Aul. Gell. lib. iv. c. 5.

Heart

Why the Divine

i Virg. Georg.

Montaigne afferts this more pofitively than Plutarch, the Author from whom he took it, ch. 9. of Plutarch's Tract abovementioned.

Lucret. lib. v. ver. 1157, &c.

Heart muttered thefe Words: I am the Caufe of all these Evils. Epicurus faid, No Lurking-hole could hide the Wicked, because they could not affure themselves of being concealed, whilft their Confciences difcovered them to themselves.

'Tis the first Punishment of Sin,

That no bad Man abfolves himself within.

As an evil Confcience poffeffes us with Fear, a good The Confidence one gives us Affurance and Confidence. And refulting from a I can truly fay, I have faced feveral Dangood Confcience. gers with the more Boldness, in Confideration of the fecret Knowledge I had of my own Will, and of the Innocency of my Intentions:

Confcia mens ut cuique fua eft, ita concipit intra
Pectora pro facto, fpemque metumque fuo°.

i. e.

As a Man's Confcience is, fo Hope within,
Or Fear, prevails, fuiting to his Design.

Of this there are a thousand Examples, of which it The confident may fuffice to produce three of one and the Innocency of fame Perfon. Scipio, having a heavy AccufaScipio. tion laid against him one Day before the People of Rome, inftead 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 Cause, 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? And,

m This is alfo taken from Plutarch's beforementioned Treatife of the Delay of the Divine Juftice, ch. 9. This Apollodorus, who reigned like a true Tyrant, was King of Caffandria, in Macedonia.

n Juv. Sat. xiii. ver. 2, 3.

Ovid. Faft. lib. i. ver. 25, 26. Plutarch, in his Treatife, intitled, How far a Man is allowed to praife bimfelf, &c. ch. 5, • Valer. Maxim, lib. 3. cap. 7. in Romanis.

And, advancing firft 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 came to the Senate for this Purpofe, produced a Book from under his Robe, wherein, he told them, was an exact Account of his Receipts and Difbursements; but, being required to deliver it to the Regifter, he refused it, faying, he would not fo far difgrace himself; and he tore the Book to Pieces with his own Hands in the Prefence of the Senate. I cannot suppose that the most seared Confcience could have counterfeited fuch an Affurance. • He had naturally too high a Spirit, fays Livy', and was • accustomed to too great Fortune to know how to be cri⚫minal, and to defcend to the Meannefs of defending his own Innocence,"

The Inconveni

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 encies of the by him who can bear it, and by him who Rack. cannot. For why fhould Pain fooner make me confess what is the real Truth, than force me to say what is not? And, on the contrary, if he who is not guilty of that whereof he is accufed, has the Patience to undergo those Torments, why should not he who is guilty have as much, when fo fair a Reward as his Life is set before him? I imagine that this Invention owes its Rife to the Confideration of the Power of Conscience, which seems to be affifting to the Rack to make the guilty Perfon confess his Fault, and to weaken his Refolution; while, on the other Hand, it fortifies the Innocent against the Torture. To fay the Truth, 'tis a Remedy full of Uncertainty and Danger. What will not a Man fay, what will he not do, rather than fuffer fuch a painful Torture?

Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor:

The Use of the
Rack condemn
ed by feveral
Nations, and

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. Thousands have burthened their Confciences by it with falfe 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 'tis the leaft Evil human Weakness 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 Romans, by whom they were called Barbarians, think it horrible and cruel to torment and pull a Man to Pieces for a Fault of which you are as yet in Doubt. Is he to blame for your Ignorance? Are not 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 to pass through this Inquifition more painful than Execution, and fo acute that it often difpatches them before it. I know not where I had this Story; but 'tis an exact Reprefentation of the Confcience of our Juftice: A Country-woman accused a Soldier 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 fhe had left to keep them from

why.

Q. Curtius, lib. vi. ch. 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 seems to have forgot his Autho rity for it.

y 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 Son of Amurath; which I obferve for the Sake of those who might be as ignorant of this Particular as I was, before I happened to caft my Eye upon the Page where 'tis menioned, in Bordefius's Rabelais, printed at Amfterdam in 1711.

from Starving, the 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 said, 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 Soldier'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 Sentence this!

a

CH A P. VI.

Exercife and Habit makes Things familiar to us.

"T

Reafon and Inftruction,without Practice, cannot make us

virtuous.

IS hardly to be expected that Reafon and Inftruction, though we are ever fo ready to affent thereto, fhould be powerful enough to lead us on to Action, if we do not moreover exercise and form our Minds by Experience to the Course which we are defirous they fhould take; or elfe, when the Effects are in their Power, they will undoubtedly be embarraffed. This is the Reafon why those 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 furprize them in the State of unexperienced and raw Soldiers, undisciplined for the Battle, they fallied out to meet her, and put themfelves purposely upon the Proof of Hardships. Some abandoned their Riches, to exercise themselves in a voluntary Poverty; others fought for Labour, and the Austerity of a painful Life, to inure themfelves to Misfortune and E 2 hard

The whole Story is at large, and well attested, in Froissart's History, Vol. iv. ch. 87.

If fhe 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.