In Michel de Montaigne’s Essais and Émilie Du Châtelet’s Discourse on Happiness, the philosopher’s job is reframed as a quest for the good life. Both agree that one must establish an appropriate relationship with the presence of death that comes with the burden of life in order to live a good life, but the two diverge radically at this point. Whereas Montaigne suggests a Stoic approach in which we come to terms with death through repeated contemplation of its properties in his essay That To Philosophize is to Learn How to Die, Du Châtelet says that we ought to avoid thinking of it at all costs.
For Du Châtelet, happiness is not a particularly complex thing to understand. She uses a line from Gresset to explain her position, which says that “‘Suffering is a century, and death a moment… Let us turn the mind away from all disagreeable ideas; they are the source of all metaphysical anxieties, and it is above all those anxieties that it is almost always in our power to avoid’” (354). This quote implies that the suffering that comes about from considering death outweighs the pain of the actual event. Du Châtelet makes this point explicit in her own words: “Death, for example, is an idea that always distresses us whether we foresee our own, or think of that of the people we love. So we must avoid with care all that can remind us of this idea” (354). The idea of death is inherently detrimental to our happiness in Du Châtelet’s philosophy, meaning that it is best to avoid it rather than grapple with it like prominent philosophies concerning death such as Stoicism would suggest. Avoiding negative thoughts leaves room for positive ideas and prevents us from being distracted from the good in the world.
Montaigne doesn’t simply disagree with this concept, he fully insults those that participate in it. He says, “The remedy of the common herd is not to think about it. But from what brutish stupidity can come so gross a blindness!” (57-58). Even if we wanted to, he finds it impossible to distract oneself entirely from death’s presence in everyday life: “With such frequent and ordinary examples passing before our eyes, how can we possibly rid ourselves of the thought of death and of the idea that at every moment it is gripping us by the throat?” (59). From his own near-death experience of falling off a horse to the sudden death of his brother to a speeding tennis ball, Montaigne’s life is littered with death in such a way that it serves as a prime example of the inevitability of death. This possibly develops a bias for death’s inevitability in his work, but despite these circumstances there is truth to his idea – all lives end. At any moment, death can and will strike somewhere in the world.
As if acknowledging this personal bias, Montaigne presents a situation in which Du Châtelet’s strategy might be possible for a time to show its inevitable failure. He says, “But it is folly to expect to get there that way. They go, they come, they trot, they dance— of death no news. All that is fine. But when it comes, either to them or to their wives, children, or friends, surprising them unprepared and defenseless, what torments, what cries, what frenzy, what despair overwhelms them!” (59). Death’s inevitability trumps a strategy like Du Châtelet’s in Montaigne’s philosophy because it becomes more powerful when one is unprepared for it. The happiness gained in the time it is ignored is not worth the despair it brings once it can no longer be ignored. Responding to Du Châtelet’s argument, he says, “If it were an enemy we could avoid, I would advise us to borrow the arms of cowardice. But since that cannot be, since it catches you just the same, whether you flee like a coward or act like a man… and since no kind of armor protects you… let us learn to meet it steadfastly and combat it” (59-60). By situating himself in a position of seeking the most possible happiness in life even through means of “cowardice,” he paints his strategy in a practical tone seeking whatever lets one be the happiest they can be rather than a solution based upon lofty ideals as it may seem to some. From these lines of reasoning, Montaigne reaches the main conclusion of this essay. He says, “..let us learn to meet it steadfastly and to combat it. And to begin to strip it of its greatest advantage against us, let us take an entirely different way from the usual one. Let us rid it of its strangeness, come to know it, get used to it. Let us have nothing on our minds as often as death… It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation of freedom… He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave” (60). He argues that familiarizing ourselves with death is the only answer to strip it of its power and free ourselves from its despair. For this to work, philosophers like Du Châtelet ask, just how much of a toll will the contemplation of the uncomfortable idea take on us before we become “familiarized” with it?
Du Châtelet responds directly to Montaigne’s stance in her essay, offering a clear assessment of her perspective of the aims of his argument and her own. She says, “I very much disagree with Montaigne, who congratulated himself on having so accustomed himself to death that he was sure he would see it approach without being afraid. It may be seen by the complacency with which he reports victory that it was a costly effort for him. And in this the wise Montaigne had miscalculated, because surely it is a folly to poison with this sad and humiliating idea part of the little time we have to live, all this in order to endure more patiently a moment that bodily sufferings always make very bitter, in spite of our philosophy” (354). Her language alludes to the primary point of disagreement between the two philosophers – just how costly it can be to familiarize oneself with death. In simpler terms, Du Châtelet argues that it is too costly to think of death in preparation of encountering it and Montaigne believes it is worthwhile to do so to avoid the intense pain of coming across it unprepared.
Whether or not freedom from death’s power over our happiness is worth the effort is the crux of this debate. Montaigne argues, however, that with his stoic awareness of death comes additional benefits that make the effort more worthwhile. Primarily in developing the virtue of temperance, keeping death in mind helps us to appreciate the life that we do have and keep ourselves in check to live it to the fullest. Montaigne summarizes these ideas in this point: “And I constantly sing myself this refrain: Whatever can be done another day can be done today” (61). We can possess an understanding and acceptance of death to such a point that it doesn’t only release us of our despair, but also actively enhances our lives with the accent it gives to life’s true value. These benefits of coming to terms with death popularized by Stoic philosophy ironically promote values that Du Châtelet herself finds essential to living a happy life. For example, temperance is critical to happiness in her philosophy, along with being sure “what one wants to be and about what one wants to do” to make the most of the time a person has alive. She elaborates saying that it is “…the prerequisite without which there is no happiness at all. Without it, one swims forever in a sea of uncertainties, one destroys in the morning what one made in the evening; life is spent doing stupid things, putting them right, repenting of them” (355). This idea is reliant on the timer death places on us to make something meaningful of our lives to function, even if Du Châtelet believes it necessary to ignore death’s presence to fully pursue it.
Despite their directly clashing methods of coping with death, Montaigne and Du Châtelet ultimately share their quest for happiness and what they believe entails living a good life. The practical philosophies present in their essays prove useful for analysis in even the modern world, and both aim to help readers develop their own philosophies of life. Whether through Montaigne’s application of stoic philosophy to meet death head-on or Du Châtelet’s avoidance of it, death is a subject that must be addressed in some shape or form for every person that lives. Comparing and contrasting the thoughts of past thinkers on a topic so integral to our lives helps situate their advice in a modern context and revitalize it with new life.
Works Cited:
Michel De Montaigne, and Donald Murdoch Frame. The Complete Works of Montaigne: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1989.
Du Châtelet, Émilie. (2009) Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings. Edited by Zinsser, Judith P.. Translated by Bour, Isabelle and Zinsser, Judith P.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.