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It is a world of mischief that may be done by one single example of avarice or luxury. One voluptuous palate makes a great many. A wealthy neighbor stirs up envy, and a fleering companion moves ill-nature wherever he comes. What will become of those people then that expose themselves to a popular violence? which is ill both ways; either if they comply with the wicked, because they are many, or quarrel with the multitude because they are not principled alike. The best way is to retire, and associate only with those that may be the better for us, and we for them. These respects are mutual; for while we teach, we learn. To deal freely, I dare not trust myself in the hands of much company: I never go abroad that I come home again the same man I went out. Something or other that I had put in order is discomposed; some passion that I had subdued gets head again; and it is just with our minds as it is after a long indisposition with our bodies; we are grown so tender, that the least breath of air exposes us to a relapse. And it is no wonder if a numerous conversation be dangerous, where there is scarce any single man but by his discourse, example, or behavior, does either recommend to us, or imprint in us, or, by a kind of contagion, insensibly infect us with one vice or other; and the more people the greater is the peril. Especially let us have a care of public spectacles where wickedness insinuates itself with pleasure; and, above all others, let us avoid spectacles of cruelty and blood; and have nothing to do with those that are perpetually whining and complaining; there may be faith and kindness there, but no peace. People that are either sad or fearful, we do commonly, for their own sakes, set a guard upon them, for fear they should make an ill use of being alone; especially the imprudent, who are still contriving of mischief, either for others or for themselves, in cherishing their lusts, or forming their designs.

Now, though it be by instinct that we covet society, and avoid solitude, we should yet take this along with us, that the more acquaintance the more danger: nay, there is not one man of a hundred that is to be trusted with himself. If company cannot alter us, it may interrupt us, and he that so much as stops upon the way loses a great deal of a short life, which we yet make shorter by our inconstancy. If an enemy were at our heels, what haste should we make!—but death is so, and yet we never mind it. There is no venturing of tender and easy natures among the people, for it is odds that they will go over to the major party. It would, perhaps, shake the constancy of Socrates, Cato, Lælius, or any of us all, even when our resolutions are at the height, to stand the shock of vice that presses upon us with a kind of public authority.

The best conversation is with the philosophers—that is to say, with such of them as teach us matter, not words—that preach to us things necessary and keep us to the practice of them. There can be no peace in human life without the contempt of all events. There is nothing that either puts better thoughts into a man, or sooner sets him right that is out of the way, than a good companion, for the example has the force of a precept, and touches the heart with an affection to goodness; and not only the frequent hearing and seeing of a wise man delights us, but the very encounter of him suggests profitable contemplation such as a man finds himself moved with when he goes into a holy place. I will take more care with whom I eat and drink than what, for without a friend the table is a manger.

“Because I have found that that work has been since brought out, and with a mischievous design, by those who aim at disturbing and changing the condition of our government, without troubling themselves to think whether they are likely to improve it: and because they have mixed up his work with some of their own performance, I have refrained from inserting it here. But that the memory of the author may not be injured, nor suffer with such as could not come near-hand to be acquainted with his principles, I here give them to understand, that it was written by him in his boyhood, and that by way of exercise only, as a common theme that has been hackneyed by a thousand writers. I make no question but that he himself believed what he wrote, being so conscientious that he would not so much as lie in jest: and I moreover know, that could it have been in his own choice, he had rather have been born at Venice, than at Sarlac; and with reason. But he had another maxim sovereignty imprinted in his soul, very religiously to obey and submit to the laws under which he was born. There never was a better citizen, more affectionate to his country; nor a greater enemy to all the commotions and innovations of his time: so that he would much rather have employed his talent to the extinguishing of those civil flames, than have added any fuel to them; he had a mind fashioned to the model of better ages. Now, in exchange of this serious piece, I will present you with another of a more gay and frolic air, from the same hand, and written at the same age.”

As an ill air may endanger a good constitution, so may a place of ill example endanger a good man, nay, there are some places that have a kind of privilege to be licentious, and where luxury and dissolution of manners seem to be lawful; for great examples give both authority and excuse to wickedness. Those places are to be avoided as dangerous to our manners. Hannibal himself was unmanned by the looseness of Campania, and though a conqueror by his arms, he was overcome by his pleasures. I would as soon live among butchers as among cooks—not but a man may be temperate in any place—but to see drunken men staggering up and down everywhere, and only the spectacle of lust, luxury and excess before our eyes, it is not safe to expose ourselves to the temptation. If the victorious Hannibal himself could not resist it, what shall become of us then that are subdued, and give ground to our lusts already? He that has to do with an enemy in his breast, has a harder task upon him than he that is to encounter one in the field; his hazard is greater if he loses ground, and his duty is perpetual, for he has no place or time for rest. If I give way to pleasure, I must also yield to grief, to poverty, to labor, ambition, anger, until I am torn to pieces by my misfortunes and lusts. But against all this philosophy propounds a liberty, that is to say, a liberty from the service of accidents and fortune. There is not anything that does more mischief to mankind than mercenary masters and philosophy, that do not live as they teach—they give a scandal to virtue. How can any man expect that a ship should steer a fortunate course, when the pilot lies wallowing in his own vomit? It is a usual thing first to learn to do ill ourselves, and then to instruct others to do so: but that man must needs be very wicked that has gathered into himself the wickedness of other people.

--[In Cotton’s translation the work referred to is “those Memoirs upon the famous edict of January,” of which mention has already been made in the present edition. The edition of 1580, however, and the Variorum edition of 1872-1900, indicate no particular work; but the edition of 1580 has it “this boy of eighteen years” (which was the age at which La Boetie wrote his “Servitude Volontaire”), speaks of “a boy of sixteen” as occurring only in the common editions, and it would seem tolerably clear that this more important work was, in fact, the production to which Montaigne refers, and that the proper reading of the text should be “sixteen years.” What “this boy spoke” is not given by Montaigne, for the reason stated in the next following paragraph.]

The comfort of life depends upon conversation. Good offices, and concord, and human society, is like the working of an arch of stone; all would fall to the ground if one piece did not support another. Above all things let us have a tenderness for blood; and it is yet too little not to hurt, unless we profit one another. We are to relieve the distressed; to put the wanderer into his way; and to divide our bread with the hungry: which is but the doing of good to ourselves; for we are only several members of one great body. Nay, we are all of a consanguinity; formed of the same materials, and designed to the same end; this obliges us to a mutual tenderness and converse; and the other, to live with a regard to equity and justice. The love of society is natural; but the choice of our company is matter of virtue and prudence. Noble examples stir us up to noble actions; and the very history of large and public souls, inspires a man with generous thoughts. It makes a man long to be in action, and doing something that the world may be the better for; as protecting the weak, delivering the oppressed, punishing the insolent. It is a great blessing the very conscience of giving a good example; beside, that it is the greatest obligation any man can lay upon the age he lives in.