Montaigne isn't simply warning us against ignorance—he's identifying a peculiar *mechanism* of conviction, one that operates in reverse proportion to evidence. The less we understand something, the more desperately our minds rush to fill the gap with certainty, as if doubt itself were unbearable. Watch how confidently people defend political positions they've never actually studied, or how a parent becomes most rigid about parenting choices precisely when evidence complicates the matter. What makes this observation sting is that it suggests our strongest beliefs often mark the *boundaries* of our knowledge, not the depths of it.