Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam."

["Let the wise man bear the name of a madman, the just one of an

unjust, if he seek wisdom more than is sufficient."

--Horace, Ep., i. 6, 15.]

["The wise man is no longer wise, the just man no longer just, if he

seek to carry his love for wisdom or virtue beyond that which is

This is a subtle consideration of philosophy. A man may both be too much

in love with virtue, and be excessive in a just action. Holy Writ agrees

with this, Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise.--[St.

Paul, Epistle to the Romans, xii. 3.]--I have known a great man,

--["It is likely that Montaigne meant Henry III., king of France.

The Cardinal d'Ossat, writing to Louise, the queen-dowager, told

her, in his frank manner, that he had lived as much or more like a

monk than a monarch (Letter XXIII.) And Pope Sextus V., speaking of

that prince one day to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, protector of the

affairs of France, said to him pleasantly, 'There is nothing that

your king hath not done, and does not do so still, to be a monk, nor

anything that I have not done, not to be a monk.'"--Coste.]

prejudice the opinion men had of his devotion, by pretending to be devout

beyond all examples of others of his condition. I love temperate and

moderate natures. An immoderate zeal, even to that which is good, even

though it does not offend, astonishes me, and puts me to study what name

to give it. Neither the mother of Pausanias,

--["Montaigne would here give us to understand, upon the authority of

Diodorus Siculus, that Pausanias' mother gave the first hint of the

punishment that was to be inflicted on her son. 'Pausanias,' says

this historian, 'perceiving that the ephori, and some other

Lacedoemonians, aimed at apprehending him, got the start of them,

and went and took sanctuary m Minerva's temple: and the

Lacedaemonians, being doubtful whether they ought to take him from

thence in violation of the franchise there, it is said that his own

mother came herself to the temple but spoke nothing nor did anything

more than lay a piece of brick, which she brought with her, on the

threshold of the temple, which, when she had done, she returned

home. The Lacedaemonians, taking the hint from the mother, caused

the gate of the temple to be walled up, and by this means starved

Pausanias, so that he died with hunger, &c. (lib. xi. cap. 10., of

Amyot's translation). The name of Pausanias' mother was Alcithea,

as we are informed by Thucydides' scholiast, who only says that it

was reported, that when they set about walling up the gates of the

chapel in which Pausanias had taken refuge, his mother Alcithea laid

the first stone."--Coste.]

who was the first instructor of her son's process, and threw the first

stone towards his death, nor Posthumius the dictator, who put his son to

death, whom the ardour of youth had successfully pushed upon the enemy a