The Complete Essays

by Michel de Montaigne

What use is knowledge if, for its sake, we lose the calm and repose which we would enjoy without it and if it makes our condition worse than that of Pyrrho’s pig? Intelligence was given us for our greater good: shall we use it to bring about our downfall by fighting against the design of Nature and the order of the Universe, which require each creature to use its faculties and resources for its advantage? Fair enough, you may say: your rule applies to death, but what about want? And what have you to say about pain which [C] Aristippus, Hieronymus and16 [A] the majority of sages judge to be the [C] ultimate [A] evil?17 Even those who denied this in words accepted it in practice: Possidonius was tormented in the extreme by an acutely painful illness; Pompey came to see him and apologized for having picked on so inappropriate a time for hearing him discourse on philosophy: ‘God forbid,’ said Possidonius, ‘that pain should gain such a hold over me as to hinder me from expounding philosophy or talking about it.’ And he threw himself into the theme of contempt for pain. Meanwhile pain played her part and