The article "Of the Cannibals" from Michel Eyquem de Montaigne speaks about two major problems. The first one is the problem of men telling stories subjectively instead of objectively. This problem is dealt with only in very short and there is no real solution presented in the essay. The other problem is men calling others barbarous just because they are different. The essay also deals with the word "barbarism" and what can be meant by that.

Eyquem de Montaignes' thesis is that his own countrymen are not less or more barbarous than cannibals, which are still very close to nature and to the origin of life.

The following excerpt of the essay will elaborate on these problems.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born in 1533. After a thoroughly humanist education and a relatively unhappy marriage, he shut himself up in a tower of his chateau to read and to...