Student Question
In "Of Solitude," what are Montaigne's views on duty, public health, and responsibility?
Quick answer:
In his essay "Of Solitude," Montaigne states that we have a responsibility when young to devote ourselves to the larger public health. However, it is also an important duty to cultivate a love of solitude. Learning to embrace solitude helps us put worldly ambition into perspective and helps us to prepare for old age, when we will be retired from civic life. We have a duty to prepare for the time when we will necessarily be more alone.
In "Of Solitude," Montaigne expresses his conviction that men have a duty and responsibility to engage in a civic or public life, one that includes career, health, and family, when young. As he writes:
Wives, children, and goods must be had, and especially health, by him that can get it.
In this essay, however, his focus is on solitude as a way to put the public life and all its duties into perspective, stating:
but we are not so to set our hearts upon them [Wives, children, and goods] that our happiness must have its dependence upon them
Montaigne thus emphasizes the importance of cultivating the habits of solitude. These help to keep us from becoming overly ambitious and help us cultivate a spiritual perspective. Solitude allows us to see the bigger picture of life and death. It helps us to learn to enjoy our own company and to...
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rely on ourselves so that we are not frightened when others are not around. It encourages us to see that every individual will:
voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory, the most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current amongst us
By taking time alone, we learn to better discern what is most important and, therefore, what our chief duties and responsibilities are.
Perhaps most importantly, learning to embrace the virtues of solitude when we are young will help support us emotionally when solitude necessarily becomes a bigger part of our life in old age. We must at at certain point retire from public life: no longer will fame and worldly reputation be a part of our lives. At this point, it is best if we have cultivated the inner resources that will be our solace as we face death. Solitude is the key to this renunciation, and preparation for it is one of our life's duties.
What does Montaigne say about public health duties in "Of Experience"?
Montaigne states that everyone gets sick during their life and experiences some pain as a result of this. He says that since this is a universal condition, people have a duty to suffer in silence:
Tis injustice to lament that which has befallen any one which may befall every one
In other words, it is wrong to make a big deal out of something that is completely ordinary, such as a cold, as if we are the only ones who suffer.
People also have a duty to society to accept aging and death. As Montaigne puts it:
See an old man who begs of God that he will maintain his health vigorous and entire; that is to say, that he restore him to youth ... is it not folly? his condition is not capable of it.
He adds that it is irresponsible for a person:
to prolong life in a weak and wasted body, useless to his country and to his profession
Montaigne says that a responsible person takes care of his own health by keeping to steady habits and listening to what one's own body is saying, noting that:
change, be it what it will, distempers and puts one out.
If we are social, keep as far as possible to our usual routines when sick, and don't submit to strange treatments prescribed by doctors that are worse than being sick, we will have behaved responsibly to ourselves and society vis-a-vis our health.
Montaigne relies heavily on the authority of classical authors of antiquity, such as Plato. He takes a hard-headed approach to illness and old age that might run contrary to the higher value we put on human life if our times. He does maintain that in matters of health, we have to think not only of ourselves, but to be responsible towards the larger community.