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24
MONTAIGNE
and that fine Athenian humanity which by
study he had made his own were revolted by
barbarous punishments. That there may be
men too vile to live seemed to him, doubtless,
a tenable opinion he could forget all about
the fallibility
of human judgments but
" "
Quant a moy," he says, en la Justice
mesme, tout ce qui est au dela de la mort
simple, me semble pure cruaute." To hurt
others for our own good is not, he dimly per-
ceived, to cut a very magnanimous figure.
To call it hurting them for their own, he
would have thought damnable ; but that
is the invention of a more
piece of hypocrisy
enlightened age. Torture he abhorred. Assuredly
Montaigne would have been more at
home in the streets of Periclean Athens than
in those of sixteenth-century Bordeaux or
twentieth-century London.
Nothing illustrates better Montaigne's essential
paganism than his passionate admiration
for magnanimity. That was the virtue he
loved. High courage and fortitude, dignity,
patience, and generosity these are qualities,
examples of which never fail to strike a spark
of enthusiasm from his calm nature. He is
never tired of extolling the constancy of
Socrates and Cato, the courage of Caesar, the
generosity of Alexander, the great and grandiose
actions of the heroes of antiquity.