Montaigne opens by admitting that almost all our opinions come on authority and trust, which is not always bad in a weak age, yet it blinds us to simple wisdom. We praise only what is puffed out by art and mistake Socrates' plain speech, drawn from peasants, cobblers, and masons, for lowliness because it lacks scholastic ornament.
He contrasts bookish preparation with lived courage. Peasants and diggers face plague and civil war with ordinary firmness while Seneca sweats over death in advance; philosophy often alarms more than it steadies. Books exercise him but do not elevate his courage; nature still teaches constancy better than argument.
The essay turns personal through France's wars, plague, and moderation's costs. True liberty is to have oneself in one's power; he learns to trust himself when fortune withdraws familiar supports. Even then he still turns aside at a bow from a great person, proof that the will he praises remains tempted.
Death occupies the middle: preparation often hurts more than dying, peasants do not mourn death early, and Socrates' plain ignorance before the judges is wiser than ornate defence. Montaigne prefers Caesar's rule that grieving before necessity is the harder pain.
Physiognomy and beauty follow. We are richer than we think but taught to borrow; faces can mislead yet sometimes warrant trust. He embraces the rule that we cannot fail in following nature, without forcing himself into Stoic performance.
Two war stories close the essay. Enemy soldiers planned treachery at his house, but his countenance and frankness snatched the plot from their hands; another band seized him on the road yet spared him when his open manner seemed unworthy of the crime. A person's look is but a feeble warranty, yet honest bearing can do real work when words and credentials fail.
Coming Up in Chapter 107
After physiognomy and civil war, Montaigne closes the book with experience. There is no desire more natural than knowledge, yet reason and experience both multiply forms until every example differs from the next Montaigne's final essay begins with desire for knowledge. We try every road to truth; where reason fails we use experience, a weaker and cheaper guide, yet truth is too great to.
