Montaigne: Selected Essays

We can train and practice for almost any eventuality except one, death: “[W]e can experience it only once. We are all novices when we come to that” (116). A few make determined efforts to observe the moment of death: Canius Julius, wrongly sentenced to die, told his friends that he would try “with all my power to see whether at the moment of death—so short, so swift—I can perceive some dislodging of my soul” (117) and somehow report the results.

Montaigne believes we can find hints and clues about death from sleep: “[R]ight from the start of life she presents us with the eternal state that she is saving for us after this one, to accustom us to it and take away our fear” (117). Fainting because of a “violent accident” also provides a simulation of death.

The moment of death is too short for extended pain: “It is its approaches that we have to fear, and these can subside with experience” (118). These include illness, or extreme discomfort—as when outside during a raging storm—and our fears of them subside when we actually experience them.

Montaigne relates a time when he gets knocked flying off his horse and, seriously injured, loses consciousness.