It is but natural that a writer who deals with permanently interesting questions of principle and conduct, and who has always been read, should have been diversely judged during the very different centuries which have passed since his death. The judgments of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries on the scepticism of Montaigne are in fact examples of a truth which he has himself most excellently stated--namely, that we read much of ourselves into our authors. During the strong Roman Catholic reaction of the seventeenth century his amused interest in both sides of all questions, and his favourite thesis that no doctrine is so sure that we are justified in killing men for it, were found exasperating by those who were terribly in earnest. In the eighteenth century he was praised, and accepted as a forerunner of Voltaire, on these very grounds. What one body of critics called poorness of spirit and coldness of heart, another called wisdom. For that he would himself have been prepared. In the first of his _Essays_, “By divers meanes men come unto a like end,” he states what was perhaps the firmest of his convictions--to wit, that “surely man is a wonderfull, vaine, divers, and wavering subject; it is very hard to ground any directly-constant and uniforme judgement upon him.” We shall perhaps not go far wrong if we describe the scepticism of Montaigne as a constant recollection that whatever men have said, thought, or done, has been necessarily the work of this “vaine, divers, and wavering subject,” and is not to be taken too seriously. A wise man will accept the social and religious order of his country, even with its vices, since we have so little wisdom that our efforts at amendment will probably produce more mischief than they will correct. In any case, what has existed and stood the test of experience has more claim on our loyalty than the mere guesses of the reformer. Yet, while accepting existing order, he need not believe in it too much, and he certainly need not deny himself the pleasure of noting the innumerable absurdities of even the most respectable parts of man’s handiwork. Science is vain, since it is but speculation on subjects we shall never really understand. Conduct is the important thing. Do not lie, do not be cruel, do not be a pedant (on these points indeed there was no scepticism in Montaigne); do not strive after unattainable ideals of truth (for what is truth except what we think about the causes and nature of things, and what are we but “vaine, diverse, and wavering subjects”?), or of virtue, or of chastity. Let us live our lives, exercising all our faculties of body and mind--in prudent moderation, and with due regard to our time of life. It is not the greatest advice which can be given to man. If the human race had acted up to Montaigne’s standard of wisdom, there would have been no prophets, no saints, no martyrs, hardly any great thinkers, or great explorers.