“I have never done anything without thinking of myself; and I do nothing else but think of myself.”Michel de Montaigne · Eseuri · 1580 · III, 13
Self-study is not egoism, but the shortest path to universal knowledge.
Montaigne confesses, with disarming honesty, that the self is his permanent center of interest. This is not vanity but method: since every person carries the whole human condition, studying oneself is the shortest path to universal knowledge. The mechanism is participatory observation: what I experience is material for what man is. When you note your envy at a friend's success, you examine more than yourself; you examine the species.
Why it matters It legitimizes introspective writing: observing yourself is not egoism but a form of general knowledge.