When Michel de Montaigne argues in his twenty-first essay that one man’s profit is another man’s loss, he draws upon a rich philosophical tradition stretching back centuries. This short but influential essay reflects not only the economic turmoil of sixteenth-century France but also the voices of Seneca, Plutarch, and Stoic philosophy. How did Montaigne relate to these thinkers, and what can we still learn today from their dialogue about greed, temperance, and human relationships?
The World of the Renaissance Humanist
To understand Montaigne’s essay, we must immerse ourselves in the intellectual climate of the French Renaissance. Scholars were rediscovering classical texts from Greek and Roman antiquity on a massive scale. Montaigne, born in 1533, grew up with Latin as his first language. His father ensured he could read the classics as naturally as other children read fairy tales. This upbringing made him a true humanist — someone who regarded the wisdom of the Ancients not as dead knowledge but as a living guide for daily life.
Renaissance humanism was defined by a return to the source: the original Greek and Latin texts, stripped of medieval interpretations. Erasmus had paved the way with his rediscovery of the New Testament in Greek. Montaigne went a step further by weaving classical philosophy together with personal experience. His Essays are not academic treatises but living conversations with thinkers who had been dead for centuries.
Seneca as Silent Companion
Of all the classical thinkers, Seneca stands closest to Montaigne’s essay on profit and loss. The Roman Stoic wrote extensively about the moral dangers of wealth and the art of knowing when enough is enough. In his Letters to Lucilius, Seneca repeatedly warns against the insatiable hunger for possessions. The wise man, Seneca argues, is distinguished not by what he has, but by what he does not need.
True profit lies not in what we accumulate at the expense of others, but in what we learn to let go of without losing ourselves.
Montaigne takes this Stoic principle and applies it to the economic realities of his time. Where Seneca speaks in general moral terms, Montaigne makes the insight concrete by arguing that every trade, every spoil of war, every inheritance has a flip side. Someone grows richer, and therefore someone else grows poorer. This is not cynicism — it is realism rooted in Stoic clear-headedness.
Plutarch and the Moral Mirror
Alongside Seneca, Plutarch served as a major source of inspiration. The Greek biographer and moralist wrote countless essays analyzing human virtues and vices. His Moralia contains treatises on greed, friendship, and the proper use of wealth. Montaigne owned an extensive collection of Plutarch’s works and quoted him frequently.
What Montaigne found in Plutarch was not an abstract philosophical system but concrete life lessons packaged in stories and examples. Plutarch showed how great men fell through greed and how the wise rose through temperance. This narrative approach perfectly suited Montaigne’s own style: philosophizing through storytelling, thinking through living.
Scepticism as Methodical Doubt
Montaigne’s thinking was also profoundly shaped by Pyrrhonian scepticism, which he encountered through the writings of Sextus Empiricus. This scepticism taught him to question all certainties, including the apparent self-evidence of economic gain. If we cannot know for certain what is truly good for us, how can we claim that our profit is truly profit?
This sceptical attitude explains why Montaigne’s essay is not a moral condemnation of trade or wealth. He does not claim that profit is inherently wrong, but he asks us to see the full picture. The merchant who turns a profit must acknowledge that somewhere, someone else has less. This is not an accusation — it is an invitation to awareness.
The Outsider’s Perspective and the Masonic Connection
Where the philosopher asks about the origin of ideas, the practical person asks about their usefulness. From that perspective, Montaigne’s essay can seem cynical or even fatalistic. If every gain implies a loss, why bother striving at all? But this is a shallow reading. Montaigne does not call for passivity — he calls for honesty. He asks us to acknowledge the price that others pay for our prosperity.
The Freemason recognizes in this attitude a fundamental principle: working on the rough ashlar requires honesty about our own shortcomings and about the consequences of our actions. No symbol in the lodge exists in isolation; no virtue exists without its shadow. Montaigne’s philosophical heirs — from Descartes to Spinoza — built upon this awareness that true understanding begins with acknowledging what we do not know or do not wish to see.
What Both Perspectives Share
Whether we approach this from the standpoint of academic philosophy or from the practice of the art of living, Montaigne’s message remains strikingly relevant. Both perspectives recognize that human action has consequences reaching far beyond immediate self-interest. The philosopher calls this ethical interconnection; the businessman calls it risk management; the Freemason calls it brotherhood.
The intellectual tradition from which Montaigne drew — from the Stoics through the Greek moralists to Renaissance humanism — provides fertile ground for anyone reflecting on justice, distribution, and human dignity. Montaigne’s essay is not a final word but an invitation to continue this age-old conversation.
Michel de Montaigne did not stand alone when he wrote about profit and loss. Behind him stood Seneca with his warnings against greed, Plutarch with his moral mirrors, and the sceptics with their methodical doubt. Together they form a chorus that invites us to look beyond the surface of gain and loss — to examine not merely what we acquire, but what it costs, and to whom. For the Freemason, this is more than philosophy. It is the daily work of the lodge: the patient, honest labour of shaping the rough stone into something worthy of the temple we build together.
Copyright text & image: devrijmetselaar.nl
Texts are based on the ideas and content of the author of devrijmetselaar.nl, reviewed, corrected, and supplemented with the assistance of OpenAI. Images are created based on the ideas of the author of devrijmetselaar.nl using OpenAI/DALL-E.
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