A man but ill proves the honour and beauty of an action by its utility:  and very erroneously concludes that every one is obliged to it, and that it becomes every one to do it, if it be of utility: 

“Omnia non pariter rerum sunt omnibus apta.”

               ["All things are not equally fit for all men.” 
               —­Propertius, iii. 9, 7.]

Let us take that which is most necessary and profitable for human society; it will be marriage; and yet the council of the saints find the contrary much better, excluding from it the most venerable vocation of man:  as we design those horses for stallions of which we have the least esteem.

CHAPTER II

OF REPENTANCE

Others form man; I only report him:  and represent a particular one, ill fashioned enough, and whom, if I had to model him anew, I should certainly make something else than what he is but that’s past recalling.  Now, though the features of my picture alter and change, ’tis not, however, unlike:  the world eternally turns round; all things therein are incessantly moving, the earth, the rocks of Caucasus, and the pyramids of Egypt, both by the public motion and their own.  Even constancy itself is no other but a slower and more languishing motion.  I cannot fix my object; ’tis always tottering and reeling by a natural giddiness; I take it as it is at the instant I consider it; I do not paint its being, I paint its passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people say, from seven to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute, I must accommodate my history to the hour:  I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.  ’Tis a counterpart of various and changeable accidents, and of irresolute imaginations, and, as it falls out, sometimes contrary:  whether it be that I am then another self, or that I take subjects by other circumstances and considerations:  so it is that I may peradventure contradict myself, but, as Demades said, I never contradict the truth.  Could my soul once take footing, I would not essay but resolve:  but it is always learning and making trial.

I propose a life ordinary and without lustre:  ’tis all one; all moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one of richer composition:  every man carries the entire form of human condition.  Authors communicate themselves to the people by some especial and extrinsic mark; I, the first of any, by my universal being; as Michel de Montaigne, not as a grammarian, a poet, or a lawyer.  If the world find fault that I speak too much of myself, I find fault that they do not so much as think of themselves.  But is it reason that, being so particular in my way of living, I should pretend to recommend myself to the public knowledge?  And is it also reason that I should produce to the world, where art and handling have