Montaigne’s tone in this passage is waspish and passionate, as he knows that his words contradict the general populace’s opinion. Rather than believing that the “old world” way of life is more righteous and pure than the “new world,” he believes the opposite is true. He is of the opinion that living as nature intended, with no human artifice such as language or money, is less barbaric than living with these human-made ideas, which he believes is the “bastardized” way of living.
Montaigne’s description on how the people indigenous to the “new world” sounds almost exactly the same as Gonzalo’s vision of a utopian society, in Act II, Scene i. In Gonzalo’s kingdom, there would be no writing, officials, money, trade, agriculture, or violence;