Page 489
1. Commonplace; cf. Cicero, De fin., II. xiii. 43; Erillus, though a pupil of Zeno the Stoic, was close to Plato (Cicero, Acad., II. xlii. 129).
2. The Platonic contention. Cf. Socrates in Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, VII, i. 6–ii, 7 (a commonplace: cf. Cognatus’ Adages, Indocto nihil iniquius and Nil scientia potentius); vulgarized by Erasmus’ Apophthegmata (Socrates, XXXIII): ‘He said knowledge is the only good, ignorance the only evil.’ The intemperate, say, believe inordinate reactions to be ordinate. ‘The summum bonum is therefore knowledge of what is to be sought or avoided.’
3. A distinguished scholar and tutor from Toulouse (1499–1546). Similar praise in Lambin’s dedication to him of Lucretius, De nat. rerum, V.
4. ’88: ordinary people (and virtually everybody is in that category) lack…
5. Lucretius, V, 1140 (alluding to regicide).
6. ’88: a difficult undertaking.
7. ’88: death, with the carelessness which you can see from the infinite number of misprints left in by the printer, who alone was responsible for its execution…Montaigne struck out his first printer’s liminary material for the second edition.
8. He is also highly praised by Montaigne in I, 25, ‘On schoolmasters’ learning’, and II, 17, ‘On presumption’.
9. ’88: his sacrosanct goodness…
10. A ‘lively’ faith shows itself in good works; Christian ‘mysteries’ are not accessible to unaided human reason: that is standard orthodox doctrine.
11. Anon. The poem (based on Aeneid, VII, 587 ff.) praises the staunchly Catholic Ronsard and accompanies his reply to Protestant critics, Response aux injures et calomnies, 1563.
12. Guillaume Postel, the French orientalist, highly praised the fervour of Moslem believers. He believed that, once converted, they would be the most exemplary of Christians.
13. Cf. Joinville, Histoire, XIX.
14. Boccaccio, Decameron, day I, tale 2.
15. Matthew 17:20.
16. Quintilian, XII, 11, 12 – enjoining men to will to achieve natural virtue.
17. ’88: to men. Men take…
18. J.-A. de Thou in his Historia sui temporis relates how Montaigne made similar remarks to him directly.
19. Many Roman Catholics and Protestants switched positions as their rival candidates drew near to the throne. The Catholic Henry III, assassinated 2 August 1589, was succeeded by the Protestant Henry IV, who became a Roman Catholic in 1593.
20. ’88: from our armies those…
21. Historical faith (by which one believes historical facts) is a low form of faith, quite insufficient for salvation; Montaigne’s contemporaries fail (he suggests) even to have that.
22. Diogenes Lacrtius, Lives (VI, 4 and 39), a major source of Montaigne’s knowledge of scepticism. (Both anecdotes in Erasmus’ Apophthegmata.) ’95: like you who does nothing worthwhile?…
23. Lucretius, III, 612 f. (Lambin, 1563, p. 230), alludes to the De divino praemio, VII, of the Christian writer Lactantius for an answer to these words. Montaigne provides an answer in his own way.
24. Paul (Philippians 1:23) becomes an answer to Lucretius. For the highly orthodox association of Paul with Platonizing suicides, see my study, Montaigne and Melancholy, chapter 5, § 1.
25. ’88: pressing danger, extreme pain or closeness of death do not… Idea taken possibly from Plato, Laws, X (cf. Montaigne in I, 56, ‘On prayer’) and Plato, tr, Ficino, Republic, I, 330, 532.
26. Plato, Republic (Ficino, III, 391; cf. II, 379).
27. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Bion.
28. Cf. Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, LXVI.
29. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, De la tranquillité de l’âme, I, 76; Romans I:20; cf. Introduction, p. xxvii.
30. Manilius, IV, 907; ’88 (after quotation, referring to his translation of Sebond): If my printer were so enamoured of those studied, borrowed prefatory-pieces with which (according to the humour of this age) there is no book from a good publishing-house but has its forehead garnished, he should make use of verses such as these, which are of a better and more ancient stock than the ones he has planted there.
31. Horace, Epistles, V, 6.
32. ’88: malicious. Anyone who is already imbued with a belief more readily accepts arguments which support it than does a man who has drunk draughts from a contrary opinion, as do these people here. Some mental predisposition makes Sebond’s reasons… ’95: opinions. For an Atheist all writings lean towards atheism. He infects harmless matter…
33. Herodotus, VII, 10, apud John Stobaeus, Apophthegmata, 22. This was inscribed by Montaigne on a beam in his library.
34. I Peter: 5. Cf. Augustine, City of God, XVII, 4; Plato, tr. Ficino, Timaeus, 1546, p. 715.
35. City of God, XXI, 5.
36. Colossians 2:8; I Corinthians 3:19; I Corinthians 8:2; Galatians 6:3 (the last two inscribed in Montaigne’s library). For Montaigne, the Bible is the Holy Ghost speaking through men.
37. From here to the last page, revealed wisdom is left aside. See Introduction, p. xxv ff.
38. Cicero, De nat. deorum, I, ix, 23.
39. Ibid., II, liii, 133 (where the idea is attributed to Balbus the Stoic).
40. Lucretius, V, 1203 f.
41. Manilius, III, 58 (Montaigne mistranscribed Fata (fate) as facta (deeds). Fata makes better sense); then, I, 60–63; I, 55 and IV, 93; IV, 79 and 118.
42. Cicero, De nat. deorum, I, viii, 19.
43. Ibid., I, xxxi, 87 and 88 (refuting Epicurus).
44. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, De la face qui apparoist dedans le rond de la Lune; Diogenes Laertius, II, viii, 100; Seneca, De ira, II, ix; Wisdom of Solomon 9:15, apud Augustine, City of God, XII, 15.
45. ’88: moreover, says Pliny, the most given… (This quotation is used by Montaigne to conclude II, 14, ‘How our mind tangled itself up’; it was cited in Montaigne’s library.)
46. ’95: her? We entertain ourselves with mutual monkey-tricks. If I have times when I want to begin or to say no, so does she.
47. Plato, tr. Ficino, Politics, p. 206; Timaeus, p. 274 (cf. Montaigne in I, 11, ‘On prognostications’).
48. Benedetto Varchi, L’Hercolano. Dialogo nel qual si ragiona… delle lingue; Richerius Rhodiginus, Antiquae Lectiones XVII, xiii (disapprovingly); Pliny, Hist. nat., VI, xxxv, etc.
49. Lucretius, V, 1058.
50. Ibid., V, 1029.
51. ’88: by means of gestures. I have… (Cf. Rabelais, Tiers Livre, TLF, XIX–XX and notes.)
52. Torquato Tasso, Aminta, II, 34.
53. Quintilian, XI, iii, 66, 85–7; 68, 71–2; 78–86. Laughter and/or speech were normally considered the ‘specific characteristic’ (the ‘property’) of Man.
54. Pliny, VI, 30; cf. Rabelais, Pantagruel, TLF, XIII; Tiers Livre, XXX; J.-B. della Porta, De furtivis litterarum notis, 1563; etc.
55. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Les Dicts notables des Lacedaemoniens, I, 214 A.
56. Virgil, Georgics, IV, 219 f. For what follows, cf. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Quels sont les animaux les plus advisez ceulx de la terre ou ceulx des eaux? 512 CD.
57. ’88: over our invention and our arts…
58. ’88: so monstrous a constitution…
59. Commonplace deriving from Pliny, VII. Erasmus exploited it (Adage, Dulce bellum inexpertis); Rabelais satirized it (Tiers Livre, TLF, VIII).
60. Lucretius, V. 223; cf. Lambin, 389.
61. ’88: this world: our feebleness at birth is found, more or less, at the birth of the other creatures. Our skin…
62. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Lives, Lycurgus, XIII.
63. Lucretius, V, 1032.
64. Ibid., II, 1157.
65. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Quels animaux?, 512 CD.
66. Commonplace; for Herodotus, II, 2, Phrygian is Man’s natural language. Principal sources: Aristotle, Hist. animal., IV, ix; Varchi, L’Hercolano (citing Dante, Purgatorio, XXXVI, 34) and L. Joubert, Erreurs populaires au faict de la médecine, 1578, ad fin., (Lucretius, V. 1077, cited directly, and according to Lactantius, Div. institut., III). Same scepticism, Rabelais, Tiers Livre, XIX. If some animals can laugh, then laughter is not the ‘property’ of Man.
67. Already cited by Montaigne in I, 36 (‘On the custom of wearing clothing’); inscribed in Montaigne’s library and attributed to ‘Eccl. IX’.
68. Lucretius, V, 874; 921 (Lambin, pp. 430–4).
69. ’95: similar faculties, and from richer effects, richer faculties. Consequently we should admit that the animals employ the same method or some better one and the same reasoning… (Imagination in Montaigne can include thought. Sebond, LXIII, champions a contention rejected here by Montaigne: it is not convincing to unaided human reason.)
70. Plutarch, Quels animaux?, 513 G; Comment on pourra discerner le flatteur d’avec l’ami, 41A; Herodotus, IV, 71–2; Petronius, Satyricon; and Tibullus, I, ix, 21, cited by Justus Lipsius, Saturnalia, II, 5.
71. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Diogenes. The following pages are largely based on Plutarch, Quels animaux? and Que les brutes usent de la raison, with additions from Pliny, X, 43, and Plutarch’s Life of Sylla, etc. Cf. n. 94, below.
72. Juvenal, Satires, XIV, 74; 81.
73. Persius, Choliambics, which often appear as a preface or postscript to the Satires.
74. Or rather, Flavius Arrianus, tr. Vuitart, Les faicts d’Alexandre, 1581, XIV.
75. Juvenal, XII, 107.
76. Lopez de Gomara, tr. Fumée, Hist. générale des Indes, 1584, II, 9. Cf. G. Bouchet, Sérées, I, 7.
77. ’88: places. We live, both they and ourselves, under the same roof and breathe the same air. There is, save for more or less, a perpetual similarity between us. I once saw…
78. Cf. I, 31, ‘On the Cannibals’ (ad fin.); Martial, Epigrams, IV, xxix, 6.
79. ’88: own, for in our own children it is certain that until they are nearly grown up, we can find nothing to go on but their physical form.
80. Lucretius, IV, 1261 f.; 1266 f. (cited with approval by Tiraquellus, De Legibus Connubialibus who is similarly disapproving of women’s provocatory movements: see his Law XV, in toto).
81. Horace, Satire I, 2, 69. In the final pages of the Essays sex is considered a ‘necessity’ for the vast majority of humankind.
82. Oppianus was translated into Latin by both Adrian Turnebus and Jean Bodin, scholars admired by Montaigne.
83. Ovid, Metam., X, 325.
84. Juvenal, Satires, XV, 160.
85. Virgil, Georgics, IV, 67. For the Ancients, Queen bees were Kings.
86. Lucretius, II, 325 (Lambin, p. 127).
87. Horace, Epistle I, 2, 6.
88. Verses attributed to Augustus, in Martial, Epigrams, XI, 20. The patroness may be Margaret of France, the future wife of Henry of Navarre.
89. Virgil, Aeneid, VII, 718 f., IV, 404; here cited with Seneca in mind (Preface to Quaestiones Naturales).
90. Plutarch, Lives, Sertorius (but it was not Pompey); Virgil, Georgics, IV, 86.
91. S. Goulard, Histoire du Portugal, 1581 (1587), VIII, 19, 244v°.
92. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, V, 15, etc. This tale of ‘Androdus’ and the lion is related in Ravisius Textor’s Officina, which is a probable source of some of Montaigne’s animal lore throughout the ‘Apology’.
93. Virgil, Aeneid, XI, 89.
94. The long series of borrowings from Plutarch on animals ends here (cf. n. 71, above). The paragraphs which follow are indebted to Sebond, chapters 217 and 293.
95. Lucretius IV, 988 f, 992 f, 999 f. (Lambin, p. 345).
96. Propertius, II, 18, 26.
97. Lopez de Gomara, II: XX, 73; LXXXIV, 170 f.; IV: III, 276; Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI, xiii; Gasparo Balbi, Viaggio dell’Indie Orientali, 1590, 76; Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI, xiii.
98. Cf. Cicero, De nat. deorum, I. x. 24.
99. Seneca, Ep. moral. 124, 22 (reading multis for mutis).
100. Ovid, Metam., I, 84; it was often (as by Sebond) taken very seriously (cf. J. Du Bellay, Regrets, TLF, Sonnet 53, notes), but it does not commend itself to unaided, or unilluminated, human reason.
101. Cicero, De nat. deorum, II, liv, 133 ff. (A long praise of the Immortals’ care in shaping Man. It is indebted to Plato’s Timaeus.)
102. Ennius, apud Cicero, ibid., I, xxxv, 97.
103. ’88: vital, noble organs closest to ours is, according to the doctors, the pig…
104. ’88: beauty. And since Man did not have the wherewithal to present himself naked to the sight of the world, he was right to hide himself behind the coats of others: wool, feathers, hide or silk, and other borrowed commodities…
105. Ovid, Remedia amoris, 429.
106. Lucretius, IV, 1182 (Lambin, p. 359 f.).
107. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Des conceptions communes contre les Stoiques, 577 AB; cf. Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, XXXV and XI. ’88: to the mask of…
108. Cf. p. 573. ’88: daft. All our perfection, then, consists in being men. We do not…
109. Socrates: Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, iv. 12; Cicero, De nat. deorum, III, xxvii, 69.
110. Epicureans, especially, accused Aristotle of disloyalty and of a misspent youth.
111. Horace, Epodes, VIII, 17; Juvenal, XIV, 156.
112. ’88: for: ‘Among… dignity’, this sentence reads: Learning is even less necessary in the service of life than glory and such other qualities.
113. ’88: only obedience can…
114. References to the Fall, Genesis, III, and to Homer apud Cicero, De fin., V, xviii, 49. Cf. Plutarch (tr. Amyot), Contre Colotes, 597 FG, for the remark attributed to Epicurus.
115. ’88: he knows something. That is why simplicity and ignorance are so strongly advocated by our religion as elements properly conducive to subjection, belief and obedience. All the philosophers… (Colossians 2:8. Cf. Augustine, City of God, VIII, ix, a key text for Christian folly, the praise of which is soon to be taken up by Montaigne.)
116. Horace, Epistles, I, i. 106; John Stobaeus, Apophthegmata, Sermo 21.
117. Plutarch, Contre les Stoïques, 578 G.
118. Plutarch, Que les bestes brutes usent de raison, 270 F.
119. Cicero: Tusc. disput., V, xxxvi.
120. Lucretius, V, 8; Montaigne discusses his madness in II, 2, ‘On drunkenness’: ‘That great poet Lucretius vainly philosophizes and braces himself: there he was, driven out of his senses by a love potion.’
121. Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, xxiii, 73; De finibus, II, xiii, 40: ‘As Aristotle says: Man is born for thought and action: he is, as it were, a mortal god.’
122. Plutarch, Contre les Stoïques, 583 E; cited with Seneca in La Primaudaye, Académie françoyse, 1581, p. 5; Cicero, De nat. deorum, III, xxxvi, 87; Seneca, Epist. moral., LIII, 11–12.
123. ’88: footman. It is all wind and words. But supposing…
124. Cicero, Tusc. disput., II, xiii; De fin., V, xxxi, 94.
125. ’88: natural talent. Knowledge sharpens our feelings for ills rather than lightening them. What…
126. S. Goulard, Hist. du Portugal, II, xv, 46v°.
127. Aristotle, Problems, 30–I. (For Tasso’s madness, see Montaigne and Melancholy, p. 371ff.)
128. Livy, XXX, xxi; La Boëtie (ed. Bonnefon, 1892, p. 234); Ennius, apud Cicero, De fin., II, xiii, 41.
129. Cicero, Tusc. disput., III, vi, 12; III, xv, 33; De fin., II, xxxii, 105 (citing, in translation, Euripides’ Andromeda); I. xvii, 57; II, xxxii, 104 – and contexts. The Italian verse is otherwise unknown.
130. Epicurus (in Cicero, De fin., II, iii, 7 and in Lucretius, III, 1043–4); Seneca (the dramatist) Oedipus, III, 17.
131. Horace, Epist. I, v, 14.
132. ’88: vain fantasies. (What follows is virtually all from Erasmus’ adage, In nihil sapiendo jucundissima vita (including references to Horace, Epist., II, ii, 138; Sophocles, Ajax, 554; Ecclesiastes I:18). Also, Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, XXXVII.)
133. ’88 onwards: All Philosophy agrees… (The remedies of Philosophy are not of course those of revealed religion (which supersedes them when there is a clash). But Christianity welcomes Philosophy. For the usual view, see Melanchthon, On the First Book of the Ethics of Aristotle, ‘On the distinction between Philosophy and the Christian Religion’, Opera, 1541, IV, 127.)
134. Seneca, Epist. moral. LXX, 15–16 (adapted); Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, xli; Horace, Epist., II, ii, 213; Lucretius, III, 1039 (Lambin, pp. 266–7); Plutarch, Contre les Stoïques, 564 CD; Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Crates; Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Comment l’on pourra apparcevoir si l’on amende et profite en l’exercice de la vertu, 114 EF; for Seneca’s praise of Quintus Sextius the Elder, cf. Seneca, Epist. moral., XCVIII, 13.
135. H.C. Agrippa, De Vanitate omnium scientiarum et de excellentia verbi Dei, 1537, I. St Paul is loosely paraphrased here, not quoted, on Christian Folly.
136. Idem (where Valentian also appears for Valentinian).
137. Ariosto, Orlando furioso, XIV, § 84.
138. Varro apud Nonius Marcellus, Opera, 201, 6.
139. ’88: not thinking anything of itself.
140. Genesis; then Socrates apud John Stobaeus, Apophthegmata, Sermo XXII (a saying inscribed in Montaigne’s library).
141. Plato, Apology for Socrates, 6.
142. Sayings inscribed on Montaigne’s library; the first from Ecclesiasticus 10:9; the second, ascribed to ‘Eccl. 7’, may perhaps be a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 7:1 (Vulgate) or a loose rendering of the Septuagint.
143. Augustine, De ordine, II, xvi, and Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, XXXIV, both cited in Justus Lipsius, Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinae, 1584,I, ii.
144. Plato, Laws, VII (Ficino, 1546, p. 837); tr. Cicero, Timaeus, II (in Fragmentis).
145. Lucretius, V, 121 (Lambin, pp. 383–4).
146. Cicero, De nat. deorum, III, xv, 38, and quoting from I, xvii, 45. (Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, VII, i. 1–2 may be in mind also.)
147. I Corinthians, 1:19–21, a key text for Christian Folly (cf. Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, LXV).
148. ’88: his own vileness and his weakness…
149. Plutarch, Comment l’on peut apparcevoir si l’on amende et profite en l’exercice de la vertu: 116 EF.
150. Cicero, De nat. deorum, I, vii, 17.
151. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Pherecides, I, 122.
152. Socrates; cf. Plato, Apology for Socrates, Lucretius, ed. Lambin, 309, etc.’88: ever was (and who had no other just cause to be called wise apart from this saying), when…
153. Plato, Politicus, 19, 277.
154. Cicero, Academica, I, xii, 44.
155. According to H. C. Agrippa, De Vanitate omnium scientiarum, I.
156. Cicero, De divinatione, II, iii, 8.
157. Lucretius, III, 1048; 1046 (Lambin pp. 266–8).
158. ’88: knowledge. Aristotle, Epicurus, Stoics…
159. Sextus Empiricus, Hypotyposes, I, i, I; xix, xxii, xxiii. With the opening words of this book Montaigne begins his first major borrowing from one of the main sources of scepticism.
160. Lucretius, IV, 469–70 (Lambin, p. 308). With these words begin Lucretius’ dense criticism of scepticism. Montaigne borrows much from him and the commentary of Lambin.
161. Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, xlvii, 144–45.
162. Sextus Empiricus, Hypotyposes, I, XII, 30; XIII, 33; cf. Rabelais, Tiers Livre, TLF, XXXVI.
163. Cicero, Acad… Lucullus, II, iii, 8–9, the source of both quotations.
164. For Plato, Forms are created: for Aristotle, they exist from all eternity.
165. Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, xxxiii, 107, and I, xii, 45–6.
166. These and similar aphorisms from Sextus Empiricus were inscribed in Montaigne’s library; Hypotyposes, I, 6, 21, 23, 26 and 27.
167. Sextus Empiricus, Hypotyposes, I, xi, 23–24, followed by quotation from Cicero, De divinat., I, xviii, 35.
168. ’88: himself. Laertius in the Life of Pyrrho says (and both Lucianus and Aulus Gellius incline the same way) describe him… (Laertius’ Life was printed in Montaigne’s copy of Sextus.)
169. Major borrowings follow from Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, xxxi, 99–101.
170. ’88: greater probability nor a greater appearance… ’88: the divine instruction and belief, annihilating…
171. This ‘quotation’ from Ecclesiastes figures in Latin in Montaigne’s library as ‘Fruere jucunde praesentibus, caetera extra te’. (Its actual source is unknown.) Then, [C], Psalm 94 (93): II.
172. Plato, Timaeus, 29 (Ficino, p. 705). The Latin quotation is from Livy, Hist., xxvi, 22, 14. A marginal note authorized by Marie de Gournay reads, ‘Perhaps Seneca in Epistles’ – a wrong guess.
173. Cicero: Tusc. disput., I, ix.; Timaeus, III (in Fragmentis).
174. ’88: obscurity, (as for example on the subject of the immortality of the soul) so deep…
175. Cicero, De nat. deorum, I, v, 10 (adapted).
176. Plato called a dog ‘philosophical’ since it strives to get at the marrow of a bare bone (Republic, III, 375E; cf. Rabelais, Gargantua, TLF, p. 13).
177. Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, xlv, 139.
178. Lucretius, I, 639–42, incorporating matter in Lambin, p. 63 (Vitruvius, Cicero, etc.).
179. Cicero, De officiis, I, vi, 19: Diogenes Laertius, Lives: Aristippus, II, 91; Zeno, VII, 32; Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Life of Alexander.
180. Sallust apud Justus Lipsius, Politicorum, 1584, I, 10.
181. ’88: Learning and philosophy have despised… (Sextus Empiricus, Hypotyposes, I, XXXI, 221.)
182. Cf. Seneca, Epist, LXXXVIII; Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Socrates (ad fin.)..
183. Plato, Theaetetus, 150–1.’95: circumscribed for circumcised.
184. ’88 (in place of [C]) they do interlard them often with traits, dogmatist in form. In whom can one see that more clearly than in our Plutarch? How differently he treats the same subjects! How many times does he present us with two or three incompatible causes and divers reasons for the same subject, without selecting the one we ought to follow? What else can that refrain mean…
185. Cited from Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Des oracles qui ont cessé, 348B: ‘Les oeuvres de Dieu en diverses/Façons nous donnent des traverses.’
186. Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, V, 14; Wisdom of Solomon 9:14. Cf. Augustine, City of God, XII, 16.
187. ’88: mind; and desire moderation. Democritus… (Seneca, Epist., LXXXVIII, 36.)
188. Plutarch, tr. Amyot; Propos de Table, 368 G-H.; King Philopappus (Plutarch, loc. cit.); Seneca, Epist., LXXXVIII, 45.
189. Cicero, Acad.: Lucullus, II, xli, 127.
190. Plutarch, tr. Amyot: Que l’on ne sçauroit vivre selon la doctrine d’Epicurus, 282H-283A.
191. Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Suasoriae, IV.
192. Diogenes, cf. Diogenes Laertius apud Guy de Brués, Dialogues, contre les nouveaux Academiciens, que tout ne consiste point en opinion, 1557, p. 46.
193. ’88: public, their account of religions, for example: for it is not forbidden for us to draw advantage even from a lie, if needs be. With that…
194. Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Plato, II, lxxx; Plato, Republic, II (end), III (beginning); ibid., V, p. 459, tr. Ficino, p. 591.
195. Quintilian, II, 17, 4.
196. Valerius Soranus apud Augustine, City of God, VII, 11. ’88 (in place of [C] ): For the deities to which men have wished to give a form of their own invention are harmful, full of errors and impiety. That is why of all the religions…
197. Paul’s sermon in Acts 17:23: ‘I found also an altar with this inscription “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD”.’ By adding hidden Montaigne links this text to God as Deus absconditus (Introduction, p. xxx). Even good natural religion requires grace if it is to take root and grow.
198. Plutarch, tr. Amyot, Life of Numa.
199. ’88: required, because of the people’s conception), I think…
200. Ronsard, Remonstrance au peuple de France, 64 f.
201. There follows a massive borrowing, condensed, from Cicero, De nat. deorum, I, X, 25-xii, 30 (with some errors), with additions from ibid., I, viii, 18 f.; xxiv, 63, and De divinat., II, XVII, 40.
202. Ennius apud Cicero, De divinat. II, 1, 104.
203. ’88: deify: for adoring things of our own kind, sickly, corruptible and mortal, as all Antiquity did, of men whom they had seen living and dying and disturbed by our passions surpasses…
204. Lucretius, V, 123 (Lambin, pp. 383–4); Cicero, De nat. deor., II, xxviii, 70 (cited with Augustine, City of God, IV, xxx, in mind); Cicero, De nat. deorum, II, xxiii, 59 ff.; I, xi. 28; xvi, 42; Persius, Satires, II, 62 and 61.
205. St Augustine, City of God, XVIII, v.