"Essays" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montaigne Michel de)

1575

ESSAYS

by Michel de Montaigne

translated by Charles Cotton

I.

OF CUSTOM, AND THAT WE SHOULD NOT

EASILY CHANGE A LAW RECEIVED.

HE seems to have had a right and true apprehension of the power of
custom, who first invented the story of a countrywoman who, having
accustomed herself to play with and carry, a young calf in her arms,
and daily continuing to do so as it grew up, obtained this by
custom, that, when grown to be a great ox, she was still able to
bear it. For, in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous
schoolmistress. She, by little and little, slily and unperceived,
slips in the foot of her authority, but having by this gentle and
humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established
it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which
we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our
eyes. We see her, at every turn, forcing and violating the rules of
nature: "Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister." I refer to her
Plato's cave in his Republic, and the physicians, who so often
submit the reasons of their art to her authority; as the story of that
king, who by custom brought his stomach to that pass, as to live by
poison, and the maid that Albertus reports to have lived upon spiders.
In that new world of the Indies, there were found great nations, and
in very differing climates, who were of the same diet, made
provision of them, and fed them for their tables; as also, they did
grasshoppers, mice, lizards, and bats; and in a time of scarcity of
such delicacies, a toad was sold for six crowns, all which they
cook, and dish up with several sauces. There were also others found,
to whom our diet, and the flesh we eat, were venomous and mortal.
"Consuetudinis magna vis est: pernoctant venatores in nive: in
montibus uri se patiuutur: pugiles coestibus contusi, ne ingemiscunt
quidem."

These strange examples will not appear so strange if we consider
what we have ordinary experience of, how much custom stupefies our
senses. We need not go to what is reported of the people about the
cataracts of the Nile; and what philosophers believe of the music of
the spheres, that the bodies of those circles being solid and
smooth, and coming to touch and rub upon one another, cannot fail of
creating a marvelous harmony, the changes and cadences of which
cause the revolutions and dances of the stars; but that the hearing