Mandeville s definition of virtue: derived from Montaigne

Of Cannibals (c 1580)

1 Since the “barbarian” Italians, or Romans, later conquered Greece, Montaigne’s point here is that people often discount or underestimate those with different customs 2 Villegaignon landed in Brazil in 1557- the Indians described through this piece are all supposedly belong to the tribes of coastal Brazil

Montaigne: The Eclectic Pragmatist

Montaigne, by contrast, characteristically qualifies his introspective route to wisdom with the caveat “if I were a good scholar,” which he has previously told us he is not If Montaigne needed a model for his first-person style, he would have found it excellently rep-

Essays, Book I

meaning came solely from Montaigne’s way of labelling these ‘attempts’ or ‘exercises’ of his, and occasionally in the text there is some play on the word magistrate: In this work, ‘a magistrate’ is any ofﬁcial who applies the law; ‘the magistrate’ of a given nation is its system of such ofﬁcials

Essays, Book II - Early Modern Texts

meaning came solely from Montaigne’s way of labelling these ‘attempts’ or ‘exercises’ of his, and occasionally in the text there is some play on the word fatal: Translating fatal(e) As used on pages 94 and 121 , the word means ‘destiny-setting’, applicable to something that settles how some later course of events will unroll