In the brave morning of his thought he adopted Stoicism. Since Christianity, splitting into fratricidal sects and bloodying itself with war and massacre, had apparently failed to give man a moral code capable of controlling his instincts, Montaigne turned to philosophy for a natural ethic, a morality not tied to the rise and fall of religious creeds. Stoicism seemed to have approached this ideal; at least it had molded some of the finest men of antiquity.
