Hefiod corrects lows close at the Heels of Sin; for, he says, it is Punishment born at the fame Instant with Sin. Whofo- connate with ever expects Punishment already fuffers it; Sin, Plato's Assertion that Punishment fal and whosoever has deserved it expects it. Wickedness contrives Tortures for itself: Malum confilium confultori pessimum. He that gives bad Counsel suffers most by it. As the Wasp stings and hurts another, but most of all itfelf; for it thereby loses its Sting and its Strength for ever : --Vitasque in vulnere ponunt: i. e. And do their own Lives stake In the small Wound they make.. * The Spanish Fly, or Cantharides, has in itself some Particle which, by the Contrariety of its Nature, serves as an Antidote to its own Poifon. In like Manner, at the same Instant that a Man feels a Pleasure in Vice, there is a Sting at the Tail of it in the Conscience, which tortures us sleeping and waking with many racking Thoughts: Quippe ubi se multi per fomnia fæpe loquentes, 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 saw himself flea'd by the Scythians, and then boiled in a Cauldron; and that his Heart This Reflection is taken from Plutarch's Treatise, Why the Divine Justice fometimes defers the Punishment of Crimes, ch. 9. Senec. Epift. 105. Aul. Gell. lib. iv. c. 5. lib. iv. ver. 238. Montaigne afferts this i Virg. Georg. more positively than Plutarch, the Author from whom he took it, ch. 9. of Plutarch's Tract abovementioned. Lucret. lib. v. ver. 1157, &c. Heart muttered these Words: I am the Cause of all these EvilsTM. Epicurus faid, No Lurking-hole could hide the Wicked, because they could not assure themselves of being concealed, whilst their Consciences discovered them to themselves. -- 'Tis the first Punishment of Sin, That no bad Man abfolves himself within. As an evil Conscience poffefses us with Fear, a good The Confidence one gives us Afsurance and Confidence. And refulting from a I can truly say, I have faced several Dangood Conscience. gers with the more Boldness, in Confideration of the secret Knowledge I had of my own Will, and of the Innocency of my Intentions: Confcia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra As a Man's Confcience is, so Hope within, Of this there are a thousand Examples, of which it The confident may suffice to produce three of one and the Innocency of fame Person. Scipio, having a heavy AccufaScipio. tion laid against him one Day before the People of Rome, instead of excusing himself, or foothing his Judges, It will well become you, said he to them, to fit in fudgment 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 some Impeachments brought againft him by a Tribune of the People, instead 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 also taken from Plutarch's beforementioned Treatise of the Delay of the Divine Justice, ch. 9. This Apollodorus, who reigned like a true Tyrant, was King of Caffandria, in Macedonia. ■ Juv. Sat. xiii. ver. 2, 3. Ovid. Faft. lib. i. ver. 25, 26. Plutarch, in his Treatise, intitled, How far a Man is allowed to praise bimself, &c. ch. 5. • Valer. Maxim. lib. 3. cap. 7. in Romanis. And, advancing first towards the Temple himself, the whole Affembly, not excepting his Accuser, followed in his Train. And, Petilius having been instigated by Cato to demand an Account of the Money which had passed through his Hands in the Province of Antioch, Scipio, who came to the Senate for this Purpose, produced a Book from under his Robe, wherein, he told them, was an exact Account of his Receipts and Disbursements; but, being required to deliver it to the Register, he refused it, saying, he would not so far disgrace 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 Afsurance. • He had naturally too high a Spirit, says Livy', and was • accustomed to too great Fortune to know how to be cri• minal, and to descend to the Meanness of defending his • own Innocence.' The Inconveni encies of the 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 by him who can bear it, and by him who Rack. cannot. For why should Pain fooner make me confefs 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 accused, has the Patience to undergo those Torments, why should not he who is guilty have as much, when so fair a Reward as his Lite is set before him? I imagine that this Invention owes its Rife to the Confideration of the Power of Confcience, which seems to be assisting to the Rack to make the guilty Person confess his Fault, and to weaken his Resolution; while, on the other Hand, it fortifies the Innocent against the Torture. To say the Truth, 'tis a Remedy full of Uncertainty and Danger. What will not a Man say, what will he not do, rather than fuffer such a painful Torture? Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor': VOL. II. • Tit. Liv. lib. xxxviii. cap. 54, 55 • Ex Mimis Publianis, E i. • Lib. xxxviii. cap. 52. i. e. Pain compels even the innocent to lye. From hence it comes to pass, that he whom the Judge 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 false Confeffions; in the Number of whom I place Philotas", confidering the Circumstances of the Process that Alexander commenced against him, and the Progress of his Torture. But so it is (fay they) that'tis the least Evil human Weakness could have invented; yet, in my Opinion, the Invention was very inhuman, and to very little Purpose. Several Nations, not so barbarous in this Respect 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 The Use of the Rack condemned by feveral Nations, and why. 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 observe how often Men chuse to die without Reason, rather than to pass through this Inquifition more painful than Execution, and so acute that it often difpatches them before it. I know not where I had this Story*; but 'tis an exact Representation of the Conscience of our Justice: A Country-woman accused a Soldier to the General of the Army (who was a Grand Justiciary, and therefore determined all civil and criminal Causes in his Precinct) of having taken from her Children the little boiled Meat she had left to keep them from 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 Froissart calls Amorabaquin. I was lately given to understand, by the ingenious Commentator on Rabelais, Tom. V, p. 217, that Bajazet was so called, because he was the Son of Amurath; which E observe for the Sake of those who might be as ignorant of this Particular as I was, before I happened to cast my Eye upon the Page where 'tis mentioned, in Bordefius's Rabelais, printed at Amsterdam 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 she said, forasmuch as she would incur the Guilt of her own Accusation, if she was found in a Lye; but, The persisting in her Charge, he caused the Soldier's Belly to be ripped open, in order to be sure of the Truth of the Fact; and it appeared that the Woman was in the Right. An instructive Sentence this! CHAP. VI. Exercise and Habit makes Things familiar to us. I IS hardly hardly to to be expected that Reason and Instruction, though we are ever so ready to affent thereto, Reafon and Inftruction, without Practice, cannot make us virtuous. should 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 should take; or elfe, when the Effects are in their Power, they will undoubtedly be embarrassed. This is the Reafon why those of the Philofophers, who have aimed at the Attainment of any fuperior Excellency, did not indulge themselves in Ease and Security, and indolently wait for the Cruelties of Fortune to attack them in their Retirement; but, for Fear she should surprize them in the State of unexperienced and raw Soldiers, undisciplined for the Battle, they sallied out to meet her, and put themselves 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 themselves to Misfortune and hard Ez * The whole Story is at large, and well attested, in Froissart's Hiftory, Vol. iv. ch. 87. If she had been convicted of a false Accusation, the General would have been in the same Case as the Judge who caused a Man to be hanged, after the Rack had extorted a Confession from him of a Crime, of which it appeared afterwards he was altogether innocent. |