' There is method in Hamlet's madness. With correct logic
he draws from dogmas which pronounce Nature to be sinful, the conclusion
that we need not wonder at the abounding of evil in this world, seeing
that a God himself assists in creating it. He, therefore, warns Polonius
against his daughter, too, becoming 'a breeder of sinners.'
Before we follow Hamlet now to the scene with Ophelia, where, 'in an
ecstasy of divine inspiration, equally weak in reason, and violent in
persuasion and dissuasion,' [12] he calls upon her to go to a nunnery,
we must direct attention to the concluding part of an Essay [13] of
Montaigne. It is only surprising that nobody should as yet have pointed
out how unmistakeably, in that famous scene, the inconsistencies of the
whimsical French writer are scourged. In that Essay the following thought
occurs, which one would gladly accept as a correct one: 'Falsely do we
judge the _honesty_ and the _beauty_ of an action from its usefulness.
Equally wrong it is to conclude that everyone is bound to do the
same, and that it is an honest action for everybody, if it be a
useful one.'
Now, Montaigne endeavours to apply this thought to the institution of
marriage; and he descends, in doing so, to the following irrational
argument:--'Let us select the most necessary and most useful institution
of human society: _it is marriage_. Yet the counsel of the saints
deems the contrary side to be more _honest_; thus excluding the most
venerable vocation of men.
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