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There is no justification in patriotism. The choice of religion is not a matter of conscience or of reason, but of custom and climate. We are Christians by the same title as we are Perigordins or Germans. If to destroy all human principles and illusions is to be a sceptic, Montaigne is the greatest sceptic that ever existed. But Montaigne’s scepticism is only a means to an end.
But only a systematic comparison could show that we have to do here with something more than a mental stimulus and a quickening of ideas, that Montaigne’s “Essays” have provided the foundations of Nietzsche’s philosophy, and that the Frenchman may rightly be called, and in a very definite sense, the “spiritual father” of the German.
All our sufferings are due to our departing from the teachings of Nature. The chapter on cannibalism, from which Shakespeare has borrowed a famous passage in “The Tempest,” and which has probably suggested the character of Caliban, must be taken in literal sense. The savage who lives in primitive simplicity comes nearer to Montaigne’s ideal of perfection than the philosopher and the saint.
[Footnote 7: Michael Montaigne’s “Gedanken und Meinungen über Allerley Gegenstände. Ins Deutsch übersetzt.” Berlin (Lagarde) 1793-5. Bode’s life is in Vol. VI, pages III-CXLIV. For a review of Bode’s Life see Neue Bibl. der schönen Wissenschaften, LVIII, p.
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