A monstrous child. Montaigne

Monument for the more than 1100 patients of the psychiatric hospital in my town

 murdered, directly or indirectly, by the nazis during the Second World War 

In his essays, Montaigne often starts describing one or more typical cases in an objective way and then gives his personal view on the matter. Sometimes this structure that leads from the objective to the subjective is repeated several times in an essay, and sometimes it ends yet with a final conclusion. A simple instance is the essay “Of a monstrous child” (Essays, Book II-30). It begins with a detailed description of a deformed child that was carried around by his father, an uncle and an aunt to get money by showing it. The child was a Siamese twin with two bodies and one head. The case is followed by an intermediate comment and then followed by a second case. In the comment Montaigne says that “This double body and several limbs relating to one head might be interpreted a favourable prognostic to the king, of maintaining these various parts of our state under the union of his laws.” Montaigne is referring here to the civil war that is going on in France. However, he doesn’t mean it seriously, and it is rather a criticism of the practice of looking for omens after a calamity or a favourable event, for he goes on: “but lest the event should prove otherwise, ‘tis better to let it alone, for in things already past there needs no divination” and “tis said of Epimenides, that he always prophesied backward.” In other words, it’s safest to make your predictions afterwards.
The second case in this essay is about a herdsman without genitals, but who lived and functioned like any normal person would, including making love.
In Montaigne’s time, a deformed child was seen as a monster; as a divine punishment; something the parents wanted to keep secret; as unnatural, although they were sometimes also used for earning money, as in Montaigne’s example, a practice that continued (almost) to today. Although Montaigne called the child a monster, his message is different and typical for Montaigne. Contrary to what many people thought then, Montaigne stresses that also deformed born children are creations of God and are completely natural. “Those that we call monsters are not so to God”, so Montaigne. “From His all wisdom nothing but good, common, and regular proceeds; but we do not discern the disposition and relation. … Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her.” (italics mine) And then, the final sentence of this essay, which is also the overall conclusion: “Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that novelty brings along with it.” Or, as my Dutch version of the Essays renders Montaigne’s words (retranslated into English): “Let this universal natural truth free us from the misconceptions and amazement that every new thing brings to us.”
So, in this essay Montaigne calls for tolerance towards what, on the face of it, for many people, is a deviation from nature and therefore objectionable. But deviations from nature do not exist, and so, what seems to be so, cannot be objectionable. How relevant his words still are in a world in which natural behaviour often still is forbidden by law and even can be punished by death, or otherwise still is discriminated in a “milder” sense. See, for example, how much violence and discrimination there still is against LGBTQ people in this world. And see also, how in many countries women still are discriminated because they are women, and in some cases even are killed because they are women.
The essay “Of a monstrous child” is typical for Montaigne because of its structure, as said, but it is also so because of its contents. As for the latter, Montaigne’s Essays are – directly and indirectly – a call for humanity, justice and social fairness, and against torture and cruel punishment. In his essay “Of Cannibals” (Essays, Book I-30), he let natives from Brazil say, when asked for their opinion about France: “… that they had observed that there were amongst us men full and crammed with all manner of commodities, whilst, in the meantime, [poor people] were begging at their doors, lean and half-starved with hunger and poverty; and they thought it strange that these [poor] were able to suffer so great an inequality and injustice, and that they did not take the others by the throats, or set fire to their houses.” Of course, this is what Montaigne himself thought. When he was mayor of Bordeaux (1581-1585), in a letter, Montaigne asked the king for financial support of the poor. If it were up to Montaigne, we would live in a better world; a more tolerant world in the first place. Montaigne had a dream.

By the way, this blog shows a structure I often use: I start explaining the view of another thinker, like Montaigne, and at the end you find my personal view.