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Emily Harris
Junior Colloquium
Professor Hamilton
November 10, 2013
Essay 4
An interpretation of Montaigne’s “Of Experience”. What is Montaigne saying? Why is he saying it?
How is he saying it? How does he “create” you as a reader? Consider the role of the classical past in
his essays. What is an “essay”?
In his complete compilation of essays, Montaigne seeks out on a quest to understand himself as
fully human in a world that has systematized our behaviors. On Experience is a particularly personal
essay in which Montaigne alludes to his own life experience of suffering, and, in referencing the art of
Law and Medicine, argues the importance of knowledge gained through naturalistic, personal
experience as a way to fulfill both our intellectual and bodily needs. Montaigne opens with, “There is no
desire more natural than the desire for knowledge”. This could point to the origin story of Adam and
Eve. It was, indeed, desire that drove them away from God and towards sin, knowledge that made
them shameful of their bodies, knowledge and experience in committing sin that made them this­worldly
and all the more human. As society has evolved, have we been moving away from what is human by
putting constraints, such as taking medicine and abiding by the law, on our natural experiences of
learning what is right and what is wrong? Montaigne argues that it is a combination of experience,
knowledge, and the knowledge gained from personal experience that need to be embraced collectively
by the individual in order for him to gain true wisdom and an understanding of himself.
Essays in Montaigne’s time, around 1570, were unlike the essays we write today in the
university setting. They were crafted pieces of rhetoric that served to involve the reader with the
author’s train of thought, pulling them through his thesis with supportive arguments from historical Latin,

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Ancient Greek, and Italian texts. In this sense the structure of Of Experience is more like an oral
presentation than a written dissertation, one that would have done well in this day and age to be read
aloud in order to distinguish nuances between written and verbalized prose.
This in mind, we can take a look at the structure of Of Experience ­ Montaigne begins with
reference to the practice of Law and Medicine, largely popular academic fields of study during
Montaigne’s time, along with pastoral studies. To begin, he views Law as something that attempts to
categorize and constrain human behavior but forever fails to do so as human behavior is infinite in it’s
varieties, “What have our legislators gained by selecting a hundred thousand particular cases and
actions, and applying a hundred thousand laws to them? This number bears no proportion to the infinite
diversity of human actions,” (815­816). There can never be enough laws to define and dictate all the
specificities human behavior, making little relation between the two. He makes an analogy between our
attempts to conform language to the law to that of trying to break down a piece of spirited metal:
Who has seen children trying to divide a mass of quicksilver into a
certain number of parts? The more they press it and knead it and try to
constrain it to their will, the more...it escapes their skill and keeps
dividing and scattering in little particles beyond their reckoning (816).
As we try to interpret the law, we forget the original form of our language which at first set out to
describe our behaviors and actions, creating a discrepancy between what actually happened and how
the law interprets what happened. Then there is the issue of judges, whom Montaigne declares not only
have different opinions as different men, but whose opinions vary over time, making them an inadequate
and inconsistent authority.
Montaigne relates this to our innate quest for knowledge by arguing that humans are forever
striving to learn more, discover more, create more, based on the foundations of those who came before
us. Law makes an example out of the individual, shows us who is upright and who is not, in order to

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then follow the paths of those who hold moral authority. The true soul within a body is constantly
searching, hungry for knowledge, “A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and
going beyond its strength...if it does not advance and press forward and stand at bay and clash, it is only
half alive,” (818). To seek out knowledge is to make us human. But where do we start? We start on the
foundations of those in a social hierarchy above us ­ they set examples for what we should make
ourselves learned of next: “Our opinions are grafted upon one another” (818). In this sense, we should
be following the laws of human nature rather than laws that have been crafted by society. Pure “law” is
natural law ­ we can learn from personal experience what we should do and what we should avoid in
order to advance our understanding and widen our breadth of wisdom. Whereas the ethical laws force
us to take example from others’ experiences, Montaigne argues that the most sufficient way to learn is
through interpretation of personal experience as it directly applies to the self,
Then whatever may be the fruit we can reap from experience, what we
derive from foreign examples will hardly be much use for our education,
if we make such little profit from the experience we have of ourselves,
which is more familiar to us, and certainly sufficient to inform us of what
we need (821).
Indeed, Montaigne concludes, “there is nothing so grossly and widely and ordinarily faulty as the laws,”
(821).
At this point Montaigne has made us the readers drawn into his argument by making it
personally relevant, appealing to the trials and errors each of us undergo through experiencing life and
learning from our mistakes and triumphs. By alluding to the great authors La Boetie, Alexander, Plato,
Seneca, Luther, and others, he appeals to a wide, albeit well­educated, audience, that might appreciate
his highly philosophical rhetoric and ability to outsource as a way to support his arguments. He admits
that it is only the well­educated that could understand the movement he is pushing for ­ that of garnering

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personal experience ­ “The difficulties and obscurity in any science are perceived only by those who
have access to it. For a man needs at least some degree of intelligence to be able to notice that he does
not know; and we must push against a door to know that it is closed to us,” (823). Montaigne’s
vehemence and strong opinions on social laws creates a firm standpoint that we, the readers, can either
at once accept or reject without confusion. It is clear he believes that social law has manipulated our
words and experiences, behaviors and knowledge under a generalized system that constrains our ability
to learn and grow through personalized experience.
In the second half of his essay, Montaigne focuses on the field of Medicine in relation to his
personal medical concerns, that of a kidney stone which has plagued him for quite some time and which
there was no current remedy for. Montaigne argues that, even more so than in the field of law, in
medicine experience counts for more than anything else and is the direct route to knowledge, “So, Plato
was right in saying that to become a true doctor, the candidate must have passed through all the illnesses
that he wants to cure all the accidents and circumstances that he is to diagnose,” (827). Montaigne
suggests that habit is the best way to ward off disease, as one’s body becomes accustomed to the daily
rituals it endures so far as that nothing can enter that is foreign and not adapted to. While law represents
the experience of the soul, medicine represents the experience of the body. Medicine, like Law, seeks
to confine the individual to a series of constraints that inhibits him from his natural behaviors. By acting
unnaturally, one cannot learn from the personal experience of living. By, for example, following the
doctor’s orders to stay in bed, one is not out in the world, living, enduring their suffering and teaching
their body to recover naturalistically. Indeed, “Change of any sort is disturbing and hurtful...Prescribe
water to a Breton of seventy, shut up a seaman in an overheated room, forbid a Basque footman to take
walks. You deprive them of movement, and in the end, of air and light,” (832).

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Montaigne argues again for a naturalistic remedy for the concern. Just as natural law ­ the
learning of do’s and don’ts through experience ­ gains us wisdom and knowledge, so natural remedy ­
the learning of do’s and don’ts through living experience ­ gains us understanding of how to cure
ourselves of sickness. Montaigne makes a plea, “Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business
better than we do” (834). Just as animals are destined to die at some point, so humans have their time ­
Montaigne borders on the religious in his conclusion that we should not actively interfere with the natural
processes of our bodies’ healing. In fact, like judges of law who vary in their interpretation and moral
authority, so do doctors vary with their diagnosis’,
We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed,
like the harmony of the world, of contrary things,also of different tones,
sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud (835).
Like judges, doctors cannot be trusted, so we must rely on ourselves to accommodate for the variety of
feelings and experiences that may appeal to us in our lifetimes and learn how to respond accordingly.
Here he draws the reader in closely once again with a personal anecdote, referring to his kidney
stone. Initially he visited doctors for treatment, but as of late has learned to endure the pain and allow
for his body to rid of it on it’s own. The purpose of this, he explains, is that in enduring pain, he has
learned to appreciate it’s opposite ­ relief and pleasure,
Just as the Stoics say that vics are brought into the world usefully to give
value to virtue and assist it, we can say...that nature has lent us pain for
the honor and service of pleasure and painlessness (838).
To keep challenging oneself, to endure the obstacles as they come, is to live fully and to gain
knowledge through experience.
Finally, Montaigne appeals to the readers with an offering of how he believes we can live most
freely, and pursue the most knowledge and experience. Montaigne explains that we can reduce our
suffering by actively living through the pains and joys of everyday life, not allowing them to silence us.

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He uses his experience as a soldier as an anecdote to this idea:
Death is more abject, more lingering and distressing, in bed than in
battle; fevers and catarrhs are as painful and fatal as a harquebus shot.
Whoever is prepared to bear valiantly the accidents of everyday life
would not have to swell his courage to become a soldier (841).
Montaigne admits to personally being overindulgent in life’s pleasures, as a means of counterbalancing
the potential suffering of the future and risks taken in everyday life. He admits that this is foolish in
alluding to the story of Xerxes (849), but reminds us it is more foolish and sadistic to cut ourselves off
from pleasures that come naturally to us.
Montaigne ends his essay on a religious note. He appeals to God, having lived his life as God
has wanted him to and according to natural, as opposed to socialized law. The arts of Medicine and
Law, Montaigne concludes are but socialized practices that force us to systematize our behaviors and
forcibly correct our physical ailments instead of allowing the mind, body, and soul to live life naturally
and learn it’s rights and wrongs through experience. Were we to allow ourselves to learn from
experience, we would be much more wiser for it.