ne brings many bad side effects with it. On page 204 he pronounces that a man can still find things bearable if his soul has cast off the weight of the fear of dying and the weight of all the warning threats, interferences and complications which the medicine stuffs into our heads. To Montaigne, the perfect death would be one that is spontaneous and just happens one day, without any events leading up to it. He says on page 397 that although you may not throw your arms about Deaths neck, you do, once a month, shake her by the hand. That gives you more reason to hope that Death will snatch you one day without warning. Throughout ones life one undergoes many near death experiences, and Montaigne wishes for his death to fall in that category. Through the course of aging, it is the opinion of Montaigne that ones mental health and ones wellbeing disintegrate. Montaigne has faith in the notion that there are four humours which fill the body and make up ones mental state. He says that, every day a new idea; and our humours change with the changes of the weather (page 126). Once a person reaches a certain age though they have a rather constant melancholic humour. This humour makes a person dismal, joyless and not in the right frame of mind to live their former life. To Montaigne, this humour brought on by aging causes the mind to corrode and apart from silly toitering pride, boring babble, prickly unsocialable humours, superstition, and a ridiculous concern for wealth when we have lost the use of it, I find that there are more envy and unfairness and malice; age sets more wrinkles on our minds than on our faces (page 246). The effect of growing older on the mental state of a person also effects the persons outlook on life. Montaigne is no longer the carefree youth he was. He is writing to help to relieve the melancholic humours that aging and misfortunes have caused him.Montaigne is firm in his belief that the process of growing old is unfa...
