Talent makes counterfeit ties; genius makes the real

ones.

“But, though we are natural conservers and causationists, and reject a sour, dumpish unbelief, the skeptical class, which Montaigne represents, have reason, and every man at some time belongs to it. Every superior mind will pass through this domain of equilibrium; I should rather say, will know how to avail himself of the checks and balances in Nature, as a natural weapon against the exaggeration and formalism of bigots and blockheads.

"Skepticism is the attitude assumed by the student in relation to the particulars which society adores, but which he sees to be reverend only in their tendency and spirit. The ground occupied by the skeptic is the vestibule of the temple. Society does not like to have any breath of question blown on the existing order. But the interrogation of custom at all points is an inevitable stage in the growth of every superior mind, and is the evidence of its perception of the flowing Power which remains itself in all changes."

Emerson goes on to speak of several kinds of irrational skepticism. He says:

"I mean to celebrate this calendar-day of our Saint Michael de Montaigne by counting and describing these doubts and negations. I wish to ferret them out of their holes and sun them a little. We must do with them as the police do with old rogues, who are shown up to the public at the marshal's office. They will never be so formidable when once they have been entered and registered. But I mean honestly by them; that justice shall be done to their terrors. I shall not take sundry objec

tions, made up on purpose to be put down. I shall take the worst I can find, whether I can dispose of them or they of me. I do not press the skepticism of the Materialist. I know the quadruped opinion will not prevail. It is of no importance what bats and oxen think."

But there are dangerous forms of irrational skepticism.

LEVITY OF INTELLECT.

"The first dangerous symptom I report is levity of intellect, as if it were fatal to earnestness to know too much. 'Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know. The dull pray, the geniuses are light mockers. How respectable is earnestness on every platform! but intellect kills it.' This is hobgoblin the first, and though it has been the subject of much eulogy in our nineteenth century, I confess it is not very affecting to my imagination, for it seems to concern the shattering of babyhouses and toy-shops. What flutters the Church of Rome, or of England, or of Geneva, or of Boston may have, may yet be very far from touching, any principle of faith. I think the wiser a man is, the more stupendous he finds the natural and moral economy, and lifts himself to a more absolute reliance."

THE POWER OF MOODS.

"There is the power of moods, each setting at naught all but its own tissue of facts and beliefs. The beliefs and unbeliefs appear to be structural. Our life is March weather, savage and serene each hour. We go forth austere, serene, dedicated; believing in the iron links of destiny, and will not turn on our heel to save our life.

But a book or a bust, or only the sound of a name, shoots a spark through the nerves, and we suddenly believe in will; 'Fate is for imbeciles; all is possible to the resolved mind.' Presently a new experience gives a new turn to our thoughts; common-sense resumes its tyranny; we say, 'Well, the army, after all, is the gate to fame, manners, and poetry; and look you, on the whole, selfishness plants best, prunes best, makes the best commerce, and the best citizen.' Are the opinions of men on right and wrong, on fate and causation, at the mercy of a broken sleep or an indigestion? Is his belief in God and duty no deeper than a stomach evidence? And what guaranty for the permanence of his opinions? I like not the French celerity-a Church and a State once a week. This is the second negation; and I shall let it pass for what it will."

FATE OR DESTINY.

"The word fate, or destiny, expresses the sense of mankind in all ages-that the laws of the world do not always befriend, but often hurt and crush us. Fate, in the shape of Kinde or Nature, grows over us like grass. We paint Time with a scythe; Love and Fortune, blind; Destiny, deaf. We have too little power of resistance against this ferocity which champs us up. What front can we make against these unavoidable, victorious, maleficent forces? What can I do against the influence of race in my history? What can I do against hereditary and constitutional habits; against scrofula, lymph, impotence; against climate, against barbarism in my country? I can reason down or deny everything except this perpetual Belly; feed he must and will, and I cannot make him respectable."

ILLUSIONISM.

"But the main resistance which the affirmative impulse finds and one including all others-is in the doctrine of the illusionists. There is a painful rumor in circulation that we have been practised upon in all the principal performances of life, and free-agency is the emptiest name. The mathematics, it is complained, leave the mind where they find it: so do all sciences; and so do all events and actions. I find a man who has passed through all the sciences the churl he was, and through all the offices, learned, civil, and social, can detect the child. We are not the less necessitated to dedicate life to them. In fact, we may come to accept it as the fixed rule and theory of our state of education that God is a substance, and his method is illusion. The eastern sages owned the goddess Yoganidra, the great illusory energy of Vishnu, by whom, as utter ignorance, the whole world is beguiled; or shall I state it thus: The astonishment of life is the absence of any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life."

Twenty years before, Emerson had thought-or at least thought that he thought—that all these obstinate questionings of things outward and inward could be easily resolved. In his "Nature" he had said: "Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable; whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened, the order of things can satisfy. The true theory will explain all phenomena." Now everything is unexplained, and apparently as inexplicable as ever. And so every sound man must perforce be a skeptic. "Shall we,” he asks, "because a good nature in

clines to virtue's side, say 'There are no doubts,' and lie for the right? Can you not believe that a man of earnest and burly habit may find small good in tea, essays, and catechism, and wants a rougher instruction to make things plain to him? And has he not a right to be convinced in his. own way? When he is convinced he will be worth the pains.

Montaigne, as we read him, was never much vexed with any of these doubts and questionings; or, if he was vexed by them, never came to be convinced. He lived his threescore years, took things as he found them, and did not try to mend them. He married because he saw that other men of his years and station were wont to marry; and partook of the sacrament when on his deathbed, because that was the custom in France. For things which lay close around him he had a keen perception, and had a sharp way of expressing his perception. But for all higher matters, if to his chosen motto, "Que sçais je?" (What do I know ?) we add, "And what do I care?" we shall have the measure of the man. We are not sure what direct answer Emerson would have given to his own question: "Has Montaigne spoken wisely, and given the right and permanent expression of the human mind on the conduct of life ?" But our answer, and the answer of the whole scope of Emerson's teachings is, "He has not so done."