at excuse I would not
have known there was anything amiss. "With reverence be it spoken...."
The only thing bad is their excuse.

59

"To extinguish the torch of sedition"; too luxuriant. "The restlessness
of his genius"; two superfluous grand words.

SECTION II

THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD

60

_First part_: Misery of man without God.

_Second part_: Happiness of man with God.

Or, _First part_: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself.

_Second part_: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture.

61

_Order._--I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this:
to show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show the vanity of
ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics,
stoics; but the order would not have been kept. I know a little what it
is, and how few people understand it. No human science can keep it.
Saint Thomas[20] did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they are
useless on account of their depth.

62

_Preface to the first part._--To speak of those who have treated of the
knowledge of self; of the divisions of Charron,[21] which sadden and
weary us; of the confusion of Montaigne;[22] that he was quite aware of
his want of method, and shunned it by jumping from subject to subject;
that he sought to be fashionable.

His foolish project of describing himself! And this not casually and
against his maxims, since every one makes mistakes, but by his maxims
themselves, and by first and chief design. For to say silly things by
chance and weakness is a common misfortune; but to say them
intentionally is intolerable, and to say such as that ...

63

_Montaigne._--Montaigne's faults are great. Lewd words; this is bad,
notwithstanding Mademoiselle de Gournay.[23] Credulous; _people without
eyes_.[24] Ignorant; _squaring the circle,[25] a greater world_.[26] His
opinions on suicide, on death.[27] He suggests an indifference about
salvation, _without fear and without repentance_.[28] As his book was
not written with a religious purpose, he was not bound to mention
religion; but it is always our duty not to turn men from it. One can
excuse his rather free and licentious opinions on some relations of life
(730,231)[29]; but one cannot excuse his thoroughly pagan views on
death, for a man must renounce piety altogether, if he does not at least
wish to die like a Christian. Now, through the whole of his book his
only conception of death is a