The Essays Chapter 57

(1, p. 134v-136).Michel de MontaigneC1Montaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvuMontaigne - Essais, Éd de Bordeaux, 1.djvu/1134v-136
Chapitre 57 :
De l’Aage

IE ne puis recevoir la façon dequoy nous establissons la durée de nostre vie. Je voy que les sages l’acoursissent bien fort au pris de la commune opinion. Comment, dict le jeune Caton à ceux qui le vouloyent empescher de se tuer, suis je à cette heure en aage où l’on me puisse reprocher d’abandonner trop tost la vie ? Si n’avoit il que quarante et huict ans. Il estimoit cet aage là bien meur et
bien avancé, considerant combien peu d’hommes y arrivent : et ceux qui
s’entretiennent de ce, que je ne sçay quel cours, qu’ils nomment
naturel,
promet quelques années au delà, ils le pourroient faire, s’ils
avoient privilege qui les exemptast d’un si grand nombre d’accidents
ausquels chacun de nous est en bute par une naturelle subjection, qui
peuvent interrompre ce cours qu’ils se promettent. Quelle resverie
est-ce de s’attendre de mourir d’une defaillance de forces que
l’extreme vieillesse apporte, et de se proposer ce but à nostre
durée,
veu que c’est l’espece de mort la plus rare de toutes et la moins en
usage ? Nous l’apellons seule naturelle, comme si c’estoit contre
nature de voir un homme se rompre le col d’une cheute, s’estoufer d’un
naufrage, se laisser surprendre à la peste ou à une pleuresie, et
comme si nostre condition ordinaire ne nous presentoit à tous ces
inconvenients. Ne nous flatons pas de ces beaux mots : on doit, à
l’aventure, appeller plustost naturel ce qui est general, commun et
universel. Mourir de vieillesse, c’est une mort rare, singuliere et
extraordinaire, et d’autant moins naturelle que les autres ; c’est la
derniere et extreme sorte de mourir : plus elle est esloignée de nous,
d’autant est elle moins esperable ; c’est bien la borne au delà de
laquelle nous n’irons pas, et que la loy de nature a prescript pour
n’estre poinct outrepassée ; mais c’est un sien rare privilege de
nous
faire durer jusques là. C’est une exemption qu’elle donne par faveur
particuliere à un seul en l’espace de deux ou trois siecles, le
deschargeant des traverses et difficultez qu’elle a jetté entre deux
en cette longue carriere. Par ainsi, mon opinion est de regarder que
l’aage auquel nous sommes arrivez, c’est un aage auquel peu de gens
arrivent. Puis que d’un train ordinaire les hommes ne viennent pas
jusques là, c’est signe que nous sommes bien avant. Et, puis que nous
avons passé les limites accoustumez, qui est la vraye mesure de nostre
vie, nous ne devons esperer
d’aller
guiere outre : ayant eschappé tant d’occasions de mourir, où nous
voyons trebucher le monde, nous devons reconnoistre qu’une fortune
extraordinaire comme celle-là qui nous maintient, et hors de l’usage
commun, ne nous doit guiere durer. C’est un vice des loix mesmes
d’avoir cette fauce imagination : elles ne veulent pas qu’un homme soit
capable du maniement de ses biens, qu’il n’ait vingt et cinq ans ; et à
peine conservera-il jusques lors le maniement de sa vie. Auguste
retrancha cinq ans des anciennes ordonnances Romaines, et declara
qu’il suffisoit à ceux qui prenoient charge de judicature, d’avoir
trente
ans. Servius Tullius dispensa les chevaliers qui avoient passé
quarante sept ans, des courvées de la guerre ; Auguste les remit à
quarante et cinq. De renvoyer les hommes au sejour avant
cinquante cinq
ou soixante ans, il me semble n’y avoir pas grande apparence. Je
serois d’advis qu’on estandit nostre vacation et occupation autant
qu’on pourroit, pour la commodité publique ; mais je trouve la faute en
l’autre costé, de ne nous y embesongner pas assez tost. Cettuy-cy
avoit
esté juge universel du monde à dix et neuf ans, et veut que, pour
juger de la place d’une goutiere, on en ait trente. Quant à moy,
j’estime que nos ames sont denouées à vingt ans ce qu’elles doivent
estre, et qu’elles promettent tout ce qu’elles pourront. Jamais ame,
qui n’ait donné en cet aage arre bien evidente de sa force, n’en
donna
depuis la preuve. Les qualitez et vertus naturelles enseignent dans
ce
terme là, ou jamais, ce qu’elles ont de vigoureux et de beau :

De toutes les belles actions humaines qui sont venues à ma
connoissance, de quelque sorte qu’elles soient, je penserois en avoir
plus grande part, à nombrer celles qui ont esté produites, et aux
siecles anciens et au nostre, avant l’aage de trente
ans, que apres ;

Quant à moy, je tien pour certain que, depuis cet aage, et mon
esprit
et mon corps ont plus diminué qu’augmenté, et plus reculé que
avancé. Il est possible qu’à ceux qui emploient bien le temps, la
science et l’experience croissent avec la vie ; mais la vivacité,
la promptitude, la fermeté, et autres parties bien plus nostres, plus
importantes et essentielles, se fanissent et s’alanguissent.

je me plains des loix, non pas dequoy elles nous laissent trop tard à
la besongne, mais dequoy elles nous y emploient trop tard. Il me
semble que, considerant la foiblesse de nostre vie, et à combien
d’escueils ordinaires et naturels elle est exposée, on n’en devroit
pas faire si grande part à la naissance, à l’oisiveté, et à
l’apprentissage.

Chapter LVII. Of age.

I cannot allow of the way in which we settle for ourselves the duration

of our life. I see that the sages contract it very much in comparison of

the common opinion: "what," said the younger Cato to those who would stay

his hand from killing himself, "am I now of an age to be reproached that

I go out of the world too soon?" And yet he was but eight-and-forty

years old. He thought that to be a mature and advanced age, considering

how few arrive unto it. And such as, soothing their thoughts with I know

not what course of nature, promise to themselves some years beyond it,

could they be privileged from the infinite number of accidents to which

we are by a natural subjection exposed, they might have some reason so to

do. What am idle conceit is it to expect to die of a decay of strength,

which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no

shorter lease of life than that, considering it is a kind of death of all

others the most rare and very seldom seen? We call that only a natural

death; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with

a fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or the

plague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these

inconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these fine

words; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural which is

general, common, and universal.

To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular, and,

therefore, so much less natural than the others; 'tis the last and

extremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for.

It is, indeed, the bourn beyond which we are not to pass, and which the

law of nature has set as a limit, not to be exceeded; but it is, withal,

a privilege she is rarely seen to give us to last till then. 'Tis a

lease she only signs by particular favour, and it may be to one only in

the space of two or three ages, and then with a pass to boot, to carry

him through all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way

of this long career. And therefore my opinion is, that when once forty

years we should consider it as an age to which very few arrive. For

seeing that men do not usually proceed so far, it is a sign that we are

pretty well advanced; and since we have exceeded the ordinary bounds,

which is the just measure of life, we ought not to expect to go much

further; having escaped so many precipices of death, whereinto we have

seen so many other men fall, we should acknowledge that so extraordinary

a fortune as that which has hitherto rescued us from those eminent

perils, and kept us alive beyond the ordinary term of living, is not like

to continue long.

'Tis a fault in our very laws to maintain this error: these say that a

man is not capable of managing his own estate till he be five-and-twenty

years old, whereas he will have much ado to manage his life so long.

Augustus cut off five years from the ancient Roman standard, and declared

that thirty years old was sufficient for a judge. Servius Tullius

superseded the knights of above seven-and-forty years of age from the

fatigues of war; Augustus dismissed them at forty-five; though methinks

it seems a little unreasonable that men should be sent to the fireside

till five-and-fifty or sixty years of age. I should be of opinion that

our vocation and employment should be as far as possible extended for the

public good: I find the fault on the other side, that they do not employ

us early enough. This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at

nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to

determine a dispute about a gutter.

For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are

ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by

that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after

come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have

of vigorous and fine, within that term or never,

"Si l'espine rion picque quand nai,

A pene que picque jamai,"

as they say in Dauphin.

Of all the great human actions I ever heard or read of, of what sort

soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more were

performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the

very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of

Hannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives they

lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after,

'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of

themselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that since

that age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayed

than improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible, that

with those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience

may increase with their years; but vivacity, promptitude, steadiness, and

other pieces of us, of much greater importance, and much more essentially

our own, languish and decay:

"Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi

Corpus, et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus,

Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque, mensque."

Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind; and I have

seen enough who have got a weakness in their brains before either in

their legs or stomach; and by how much the more it is a disease of no

great pain to the sufferer, and of obscure symptoms, so much greater is

the danger. For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that

they keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late.

For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural

rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to

childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship.