Montaigne once said, “If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life.”
He asked:
What good did their great erudition do for Varro and Aristotle? Did it free them from human ills? Did it relieve them of misfortunes such as befall a common porter? Could logic console them for the gout…?
He commented:
I gladly come back to the theme of the absurdity of our education: its end has not been to make us good and wise, but learned. And it has succeeded. It has not taught us to seek virtue and to embrace wisdom: it has impressed upon us their derivation and their etymology….
We readily inquire, “Does he know Greek or Latin?” “Can he write poetry and prose?” But what matters most is what we put last: “Has he bcome better and wiser?” We ought to find out not who understands most but understands best. We work merely to fill the memory, leaving the understanding and the sense of right and wrong empty.
Though far from being sports-minded himself Montaigne declared:
If our souls do not move with a better motion and if we do not have a healthier judgement, then I would just as soon that a pupil spend his time playing tennis.
He said:
I have always felt grateful to that girl from Miletus who, seein g the local philosopher [sc. Thales] …. with his eyes staring upwards, constantly occupied in contemplating the vault of heaven, tripped him up, to warn him that there was time enough to occupy his thoughts with things above the clouds when he had accounted for everything lying before his feet… You can make exactly the same reproach as that woman made against Thales against anyone concerned with philosophy: he fails to see what lies before his feet.
[See Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy, 152-154]
Montaigne was the champion of down-to-earth, practical applicable learning that helps us to be better and wiser people. However, this presupposes that Montaigne knew in advance what it meant to be a better and wiser person, that he understood that which we need to know to be the kind of people we ought to be. Early in the book of Proverbs we read: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Prov 1:7). To fear the Lord is to understand that we are ultimately accountable to him for how we live our lives and that we must take seriously his revealed intent for our lives. He has created us in his image, to be like him in character and certain functional respects (e.g. exercising God-honouring rule or control). Only as we seek to develop Christlike, that is, Godlike qualities, and honour and please our Creator is it possible to become the virtuous and wise person supremely modeled by Jesus.
Posted April 17, 2011
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