■dnCter a H)ogwoob witb /iDontatgne 



to do now — for fear of losing a professor- 

 ship, a pulpit, a vote, or a shop-customer ! 

 Montaigne would have regarded our re- 

 cent reformers with a very casual interest. 

 His sympathies stopped short of every 

 plan for making human nature over again 

 and thus eliminating evil. It was his best 

 business to observe, 



with eye serene. 

 The very pulse of the machine. 



Why look at ethics with a pretense of 

 bilious melancholy and atonic weakness? 

 Does salvation depend upon refusing to 

 smile when you are amused? Must the 

 human being wither, deny its functions, 

 die a mummy, in order to flourish in 

 heaven ? As for doing evil, that is another 

 thing; but evil seemed to him not pos- 

 sessed of so broad a field as the church 

 would insist upon granting to it. " II 

 fault retenir, a tout nos dents et nos 

 griffes, I'usage des plaisirs de la vie." (" We 

 must hold, with teeth and nails, to the 

 practice of life's pleasures.") It is a 

 good rule ; but the individual claiming 

 284 



