Throughout his essays, Montaigne re-tells different stories to convey the idea that our brain can control all of our physical reactions without the need to be touched. At the beginning of the essays, he tells the story of someone who died even before being executed. This person’s imagination went beyond and he feared so much what would happen to him next that he provoked his own death. This is the case for many humans since when we allow our mind to wander, depending on our thoughts this can provoke different physical reactions such as dizziness or nauseous when we are afraid. Montaigne tries to demonstrate that our brain is responsible for everything, including it own name and all our thoughts about it.
2 thoughts on “How does Montaigne reflect on the effects of imagination in the human body?”
Comments are closed.
Great post. I agree with you that we as human let our minds wander. With that being said, we start to think of many things that could affect us in the long run. I included, my mind wanders thinking about my finances, health, and well being.
I agree with Montaigne that our brain is capable of doing so much and sometimes our thoughts alone can haunt us at night. It is scary to think that our thoughts can lead us to our death and that we cannot do anything about it. During these hectic times, I have also been having a lot of stressful and scary thoughts, and many times they would keep me up at night. Although it is unpleasant, it is only natural since we have to experience all this as humans.