Nature vs. Custom in Clothing — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne asks whether nakedness in newly found nations comes from climate or from mankind's original state, then argues that nature clothes other creatures and would have clothed us if need alone ruled. We alone seem brought into the world defective, yet custom, not necessity, makes nudity unthinkable.

Borrowed forms and fashions destroyed our own; laborers still expose chest and belly as older French did. A shirtless beggar in winter says he is all face; Turks go naked for devotion; Caesar and Hannibal marched bareheaded in rain.

Montaigne notes harder Egyptian skulls under turbans, frozen wine cut with hatchets, and Romans numbed at Piacenza while Hannibal's men oiled themselves. He ends that custom shuts every avenue: he cannot endure an unbuttoned collar, while neighbours would feel chained if so braced.