From the essay on “Glory.”

IS it reasonable that the life of a wise man should depend upon the judgment of fools? “An quidquam stultius, quam quos singulos contemnas, eos aliquid putare esse universos?”—Elian. Varro. “Can any thing be more foolish than to think that those you despise single, can be any other when join’d together?” He that makes it his business to please them will have enough to do, and never have done: ’tis a mark that never is to be reach’d or hit. “Nil tam inæstimabile est, quam animi multitudinis.” “Nothing is to be so little esteem’d as the minds of the multitude.” Demetrius pleasantly said of the voice of the people, that he made no more account of that which came from above than of that which fum’d from below. Cicero says more, “Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non esse non turpe, quum id à multitudine laudatur.”—Cic. de Fin. “I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself, yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude.” No art, no activity of wit could conduct our steps so as to follow so wandering and so irregular a guide. In this windy confusion of the noise of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth any thing can be chosen. Let us not purpose to ourselves so floating and wavering an end; let us follow constantly after reason, let the publick approbation follow us there, if it will, and it wholly depending upon fortune, we have no reason sooner to expect it by any other way than that. Though I would not follow the right way because it is right, I should, however, follow it for having experimentally found that at the end of the reckoning ’tis commonly the most happy, and of greatest utility. “Dedit hoc providentia hominibus munus, ut honesta magis juvarent.” “This gift providence has given to man, that honest things should be the most delightful.” The mariner said thus to Neptune, “O god, thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but, however, I will steer my rudder true.” I have seen a thousand men of ambiguous natures, and that no one doubted but they were more worldly wise than I, throw themselves away, where I have sav’d one.

    Paulus Æmylius, going in the glorious expedition of Macedonia, above all things charg’d the people of Rome not to speak of his actions during his absence. Oh, the license of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs! Forasmuch as every one has not the constancy of Fabius against common, adverse, and injurious ways: who rather suffer’d his authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of man than to go less in his charge with a favourable reputation and the popular applause. There is, I know not what natural sweetness in hearing a man’s self commended; but we are a great deal too fond of it.

  I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in my own. I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing. Strangers see nothing but events and outward apparences; every body can set a good face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within. They do not see my heart, they see but by my countenance. ’Tis with good reason that men decry the hypocrite that is in war; for what is more easie to an old souldier than to shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no more heart than a chicken? There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a man’s own person that we have deceiv’d the world a thousand times before we come to be engag’d in a real danger; and even then, finding ourselves in an inevitable necessity of doing some thing, we can make shift for that time to conceal our apprehensions with setting a good face on the business, though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonick ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turn’d inward towards the palm of the hand, a great many would hide themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being plac’d in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them brave.

  Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external apparences are marvellously incertain and doubtful; and that there is no certain testimony as every one is to himself. In these other, how many powder monkeys are made companions of our glory? He that stands firm in an open trench, what does he in that do more than fifty poor pioneers, who open him the way, and cover it with their own bodies for five pence a day pay, have done before him?

  The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great; we will have them there well receiv’d, and that this increase turn to their advantage, which is all that can be excusable in this design; but the excess of this disease proceeds so far, that many covet to have a name, be it what it will. Trogus Pompeius says of Herostratus, and Titus Livius of Manlius Capitolinus, “that they were more ambitious of a great reputation than a good one.” This vice is very common. We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak; and ’tis enough for us that our names are often mention’d, be it after what manner it will. It should seem that to be known is in some sort to have a man’s life and its duration in another’s keeping. I for my part hold that I am not but in my self, and of that other life of mine which lies in the knowledge of my friends, to consider it naked and simply in it self. I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit nor enjoyment, but by the vanity of a fantastick opinion; and when I shall be dead, I shall be much less sensible of it; and shall withal absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes accidently follow it; I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation: neither shall it have any whereby to take hold of, or to cleave to me. For, to expect that my name should be advanc’d by it, in the first place, I have no name that is enough my own; of two that I have, one is common to all my race, and even to others also. There are two families at Paris and Montpellier, whose sirname is Montaigne, another in Brittany, and another Montaigne in Xaintonge. The transposition of one syllable only is enough to ravel our affairs, so that I shall, peradventure, share in their glory, and they shall partake of my shame; and, moreover, my ancestors have formerly been sirnam’d Eyquem, a name wherein a family well known in England is at this day concern’d. As to my other name, every one may take it that will. And so perhaps I may honour a porter in my own stead. And besides, though I had a particular distinction by my self, what can it distinguish when I am no more? Can it favour inanity? But of this I have spoken else where. As to what remains, in a great battel where ten thousand men are maim’d or kill’d, there are not fifteen that are taken notice of. It must be some very eminent greatness, or some consequence of great importance, that fortune has added to it, that must signalize a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten, to expose a man’s self bravely to the utmost peril of death, is, indeed, something in every one of us, because we there hazard all; but for the world’s concern they are things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown. Of so many thousands of valiant men that have died within these fifteen years in France, with their swords in their hands, not a hundred have come to our knowledge. The memory, not of the commanders only, but of battels and victories, is buried and gone. The fortunes of above half of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish without duration. If I had unknown events in my possession, I should think with great ease to outdo those that are recorded in all sorts of examples. Is it not strange, that even of the Greeks and Romans, amongst so many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few are arriv’d at our knowledge?