"God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself"
About this Quote
Self-knowledge gets framed here less as a private wellness project than as a relentless public summons. Charron stacks authorities - God, Nature, the wise, the world - like a prosecutorial list of witnesses, each one allegedly testifying to the same demand: look inward. The rhetoric is strategic. If your conscience can shrug off theology, maybe it yields to “Nature.” If you distrust philosophers, the “world” will still instruct you through consequences. By the time he arrives at “both by word and deed,” the line implies there is no loophole: advice arrives as sermons and as lived punishment.
That breadth isn’t piety so much as pressure. In late 16th-century France, with confessional conflict and institutional authority under strain, the appeal to multiple courts of judgment reads like a hedge against skepticism. Charron, a major channel for Montaigne’s influence into a more systematized moral philosophy, wants the inward turn to be universal without relying on any single foundation. The subtext is that external authorities are unstable, contradictory, or compromised; the one domain you can interrogate with some consistency is the self.
“Preach,” “exhort,” “study” also matter: this isn’t mere introspection; it’s discipline. The self becomes an object of inquiry, almost an instrument to be calibrated. Charron anticipates a modern sensibility: society is always teaching you who you are, but the only responsible response is to become your own examiner before the world does it for you.
That breadth isn’t piety so much as pressure. In late 16th-century France, with confessional conflict and institutional authority under strain, the appeal to multiple courts of judgment reads like a hedge against skepticism. Charron, a major channel for Montaigne’s influence into a more systematized moral philosophy, wants the inward turn to be universal without relying on any single foundation. The subtext is that external authorities are unstable, contradictory, or compromised; the one domain you can interrogate with some consistency is the self.
“Preach,” “exhort,” “study” also matter: this isn’t mere introspection; it’s discipline. The self becomes an object of inquiry, almost an instrument to be calibrated. Charron anticipates a modern sensibility: society is always teaching you who you are, but the only responsible response is to become your own examiner before the world does it for you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by Pierre
Add to List
