The essays of Montaigne (1533-92) offer a haunting and deeply influential picture of Man and his place in the University partly in the form of a self-portrait, arising out of a crisis of melancholy - a pioneering and ruthlessly honest analysis of his own thoughts and habits, feelings and failings. The
Apology
is a witty defence of a long-forgotten treatise on Natural Theology and a masterpiece of Counter-Reformation and Renaissance argument, and in it Montaigne is ironical and so fair to opposing views that it became a favourite with Deists and free-thinkers also.