Shakespeare's Montaigne
Page 22
——via qua munita fidei
Proxima fert humanum in pectus, templaque mentis.
Whereby a way for credit leads well-lined
Into man’s breast and temple of his mind. [107]
Science [108] begins by them and in them is resolved. After all, we should know no more than a stone, unless we know that there is sound, smell, light, savor, measure, weight, softness, hardness, sharpness, colour, smoothness, breadth, and depth. Behold here the platform of all the frame and principles of the building of all our knowledge. And according to some, science is nothing else but what is known by the senses. Whosoever can force me to contradict my senses hath me fast by the throat and cannot make me recoil one foot backward. The senses are the beginning and end of human knowledge.
Invenies primis ab sensibus esse creatam
Notitiam veri, neque sensus posse refelli.
Quid maiore fide porro, quam sensus haberi
Debet?
You shall find knowledge of the truth at first was bred
From our first senses, nor can senses be misled.
What, then our senses should
With us more credit hold? [109]
Attribute as little as may be unto them, yet must this ever be granted them, that all our instruction is addressed by their meanes and intermission. Cicero sayeth that Chrysippus, having essayed to abate the power of his senses and of their virtue, presented contrary arguments unto himself, and so vehement oppositions, that he could not satisfy himself. Whereupon Carneades (who defended the contrary part) boasted that he used the very same weapons and words of Chrysippus to combat against him and therefore cried out upon him, Oh miserable man! Thine own strength hath failed thee.
There is no greater absurdity in our judgement than to maintain that fire heateth not, that light shineth not, that in iron there is neither weight nor firmness, which are notices our senses bring unto us. Nor belief or science in man that may be compared unto that in certainty.
The first consideration I have upon the senses subject [110] is that I make a question whether man be provided of all natural senses or no. I see diverse creatures that live an entire and perfect life, some without sight and some without hearing; who knoweth whether we also want [111] either one, two, three, or many senses more? For if we want any one, our discourse cannot discover the want or defect thereof. It is the senses’ privilege to be the extreme bounds of our perceiving. There is nothing beyond them that may stead us to discover them. No one sense can discover another.
An poterunt oculos aures reprehendere, an aures
Tactus, an hunc porro tactum sapor arguet oris,
An confutabunt nares, oculive revincent?
Can ears the eyes, or can touch reprehend
The ears, or shall mouth’s taste that touch amend?
Shall our nose it confute,
Or eyes gainst it dispute? [112]
They all make the extremest line of our faculty.
——seorsum cuique potestas
Divisa est, sua vis cuique est.
To each distinctly, might
Is shared, each hath its right. [113]
It is impossible to make a man naturally blind [114] to conceive that he seeth not; impossible to make him desire to see and sorrow his defect. Therefore ought we not to take assurance that our mind is contented and satisfied with those we have, seeing it hath not wherewith to feel her own malady and perceive her imperfection, if it be in any. It is impossible to tell that blind man anything, either by discourse, argument, or similitude, that lodgeth any apprehension of light, colour, or sight in his imagination. There is nothing more backward that may push the senses to any evidence. The blind-born, which we perceive desire to see, it is not to understand what they require; they have learned of us that something they want and something they desire that is in us with the effects and consequences thereof, which they call good. Yet wot not they what it is, nor apprehend they it near or far.
I have seen a gentleman of a good house, born blind, at least blind in such an age that he knows not what sight is. He understandeth so little what he wanteth that, as we do, he useth words fitting sight and applieth them after a manner only proper and peculiar to himself. A child being brought before him to whom he was godfather, taking him in his arms, he said, “Good Lord, what a fine child this is! It is a goodly thing to see him. What a cheerful countenance he hath, how prettily he looketh.” He will say as one of us, “This hall hath a fair prospect; [115] it is very fair weather; the sun shines clear.” Nay, which is more, because hunting, hawking, tennis-play, and shooting at buts [116] are our common sports and exercises (for so he hath heard), his mind will be so affected unto them, and he will so busy himself about them, that he will think to have as great an interest in them as any of us and show himself as earnestly passionate, both in liking and disliking them, as any else. Yet doth he conceive and receive them but by hearing. If he be in a fair champian ground [117] where he may ride, they will tell him yonder is a hare started or the hare is killed; he is as busily earnest of his game as he heareth others to be that have perfect sight. Give him a ball, he takes it in the left hand and with the right streekes [118] it away with his racket. In a piece [119] he shoots at random and is well pleased with what his men tell him, be it high or wide.
Who knows whether mankind commit as great a folly for want of some sense, and that by this default the greater part of the visage of things be concealed from us? Who knows whether the difficulties we find in sundry of nature’s works proceed thence? And whether diverse effects of beasts, which exceed our capacity, are produced by the faculty of some sense that we want? And whether some of them have by that mean a fuller and more perfect life than ours?
We seize on an apple well nigh with all our senses: We find redness, smoothness, odor, and sweetness in it; besides which, it may have other virtues, either binding or restrictive, [120] to which we have no sense to be referred. The proprieties [121] which in many things we call secret, as in the adamant to draw iron, [122] is it not likely there should be sensitive faculties in nature able to judge and perceive them, the want whereof breedeth in us the ignorance of the true essence of such things? It is happily [123] some particular sense that unto cocks or chanticleers discovereth the morning and midnight hour and moveth them to crow; that teacheth a hen, before any use or experience, to fear a hawk and not a goose or a peacock, far greater birds; that warneth young chickens of the hostile quality which the cat hath against them and not to distrust a dog: to strut and arm themselves against the mewing of the one (in some sort a flattering and mild voice) and not against the barking of the other (a snarling and quarrelous [124] voice); that instructeth rats, wasps, and emmets [125] ever to choose the best cheese and fruit, having never tasted them before. And that addresseth the stag, the elephant, and the serpent to the knowledge of certain herbs and simples [126] which, being either wounded or sick, have the virtue to cure them.
There is no sense but hath some great domination and which by his mean affordeth not an infinite number of knowledges. If we were to report the intelligence of sounds, of harmony and of the voice, it would bring an inimaginable confusion to all the rest of our learning and science. For, besides what is tied to the proper effect of every sense, how many arguments, consequences, and conclusions draw we unto other things, by comparing one sense to another? Let a skillful wise man but imagine human nature to be originally produced without sight and discourse, how much ignorance and trouble such a defect would bring unto him and what obscurity and blindness in our mind. By that shall we perceive how much the privation of one or two or three such senses (if there be any in us) doth import us about the knowledge of truth. We have by the consultation and concurrence of our five senses formed one verity, whereas peradventure there was required the accord and consent of eight or ten senses, and their contribution to attain a perspicuous insight of her and see her in her true essence.
Those sects [127] which combat man’s science do principally combat the s
ame by the uncertainty and feebleness of our senses. For, since by their mean and intermission all knowledge comes unto us, if they chance to miss in the report they make unto us, if either they corrupt or alter that, which from abroad they bring unto us, if the light which by them is transported into our soul be obscured in the passage, we have nothing else to hold by. From this extreme difficulty are sprung all these fantasies, which every subject containeth, whatsoever we find in it. That it hath not what we suppose to find in it; and that of the Epicurians, which is that the sun is no greater than our sight doth judge it—
Quicquid id est, nihilo fertur maiore figura,
Quam nostris oculis quam cernimus esse videtur.
What ere it be, it in no greater form doth pass,
Than to our eyes, which it behold, it seeming was. [128]
—that the appearances which represent a great body to him that is near unto them and a much lesser to him that is further from them are both true—
Nec tamen hic oculis falli concedimzus hilum:
Proinde animi vitium hoc oculis adfingere noli.
Yet grant we not, in this, our eyes deceiv’d or blind,
Impute not then to eyes this error of the mind. [129]
—and, resolutely, that there is no deceit in the senses, that a man must stand to their mercy and elsewhere seek reasons to excuse the difference and contradiction we find in them; yea, invent all other untruths and raving conceits (so far come they) rather than accuse the senses.
Timagoras swore that howsoever he winked or turned his eyes he could never perceive the light of the candle to double. And that this seeming proceeded from the vice of opinion, and not from the instrument. Of all absurdities, the most absurd amongst the Epicurians is to disavow the force and effect of the senses.
Proinde quod in quoque est his visum tempore, verum est.
Et si non potuit ratio dissoluere causam,
Cur ea quæ fuerint iuxtim quadrata, procul sint
Visa rotunda: tamen præstat rationis egentem
Reddere mendos causas vtriúsque figuræ,
Quam manibus manifesta suis emittere quoquam,
Et violare fidem primam, et convellere tota
Fundamenta, quibus nixatur vita salusque.
Non modo enim ratio ruat omnis, vita quoque ipsa
Concidat extemplo, nisi credere sensibus ausis,
Præcipitesque locos vitare, et cætera quæ sint
In genere hoc fugienda.
What by the eyes is seen at any time is true,
Though the cause reason could not render of the view,
Why what was square at hand, a far-off seemed round,
Yet it much better were that wanting reason’s ground
The causes of both forms we harp on, but not hit,
Then let slip from our hands things clear and them omit,
And violate our first belief, and rashly rend
All those groundworks, whereon both life and health depend,
For not alone all reason falls, life likewise must
Fail out of hand, unless your senses you dare trust,
And break-neck places, and all other errors shun,
From which we in this kind most carefully should run. [130]
This desperate and so little-philosophical counsel represents no other thing, but that human science cannot be maintained but by unreasonable, fond, and mad reason; yet is it better that man use it to prevail, yea, and of all other remedies else, how fantastical soever they be, rather than avow his necessary foolishness. So prejudicial and disadvantageous a verity he cannot avoid, but senses must necessarily be the sovereign masters of his knowledge. But they are uncertain and falsifiable to all circumstances. There must a man strike to the utmost of his power, and if his just forces fail him (as they are wont), to use and employ obstinacy, temerity, and impudency.
If that which the Epicurians affirm be true, that is to say, we have no science whether [131] the appearances of the senses be false, and that which the Stoics say, that it is also true that the senses’ appearances are so false as they can produce us no science. We will conclude at the charges of these two great dogmatist sects that there is no science. Touching the error and uncertainty of the senses’ operation, a man may store himself with as many examples as he pleaseth, so ordinary are the faults and deceits they use towards us. And the echoing or reporting of a valley, the sound of a trumpet seemeth to sound before us, which cometh a mile behind us.
Extantesque procul medio de gurgite montes
Iidem apparent longe diversilicet.
Et fugere ad puppim colles campique videntur
Quos agimus propter navim.
Ubi in medio nobis equus acer obhæsit
Flumine, equi corpus transversum ferre videtur
Vis, et in adversum flumen contrudere raptim.
And hills, which from the main far off to kenning [132] stand,
Appear all one, though they far distant be, at hand.
And hills and fields do seem unto our boat to fly,
Which we drive by our boat as we do pass thereby,
When in midst of a stream a stately horse doth stay,
The stream’s o’erthwarting seems his body cross to sway,
And swiftly gainst the stream to thrust him th’other way. [133]
To roll a bullet under the forefinger, the middlemost being put over it, a man must very much enforce himself to affirm there is but one, so assuredly doth our sense present us two. That the senses do often master our discourse [134] and force it to receive impressions, which he knoweth and judgeth to be false, it is daily seen. I leave the sense of feeling which hath his functions nearer, more quick and substantial, and which by the effect of the grief or pain it brings to the body doth so often confound and re-enverse [135] all these goodly Stoical resolutions and enforceth him, who with all resolution hath established this dogma or doctrine in his mind, to cry out his belly acheth and that the colic, as every other sickness or pain, is a thing indifferent, wanting power to abate anything of sovereign good or chief felicity, wherein the wise man is placed by his own virtue.
There is no heart so demisse [136] but the rattling sound of a drum or the clang of a trumpet will rouse and inflame; nor mind so harsh and stern but the sweetness and harmony of music will move and tickle; nor any soul so skittish and stubborn that hath not a feeling of some reverence in considering the cloudy vastity [137] and gloomy canapies of our churches, the eye-pleasing diversity of ornaments and orderly order of our ceremonies, and hearing the devout and religious sound of our organs, the moderate, symphonial, and heavenly harmony of our voices. Even those that enter into them with an obstinate will and contemning mind have in their heart a feeling of remorse, of chilnesse, [138] and horror that puts them into a certain diffidence of their former opinions.
As for me, I distrust mine own strength to hear with a settled mind some of Horace or Catullus verses sung with a sufficiently well-tuned voice, uttered by and proceeding from a fair, young, and heart-alluring mouth. And Zeno had reason to say that the voice was the flower of beauty.
Some have gone about to make me believe that a man whom most of us French men know, in repeating of certain verses he had made, had imposed upon me that they were not such in writing as in the air and that mine eyes would judge of them otherwise than mine ears. So much credit hath pronunciation to give price and fashion to those works that pass her mercy. Whereupon Philoxenus was not to be blamed when, hearing one to give an ill accent to some composition of his, he took in a rage some of his pots or bricks and, breaking them, trode and trampled them under his feet, saying unto him, I break and trample what is thine, even as thou manglest and marrest what is mine.
Wherefore did they (who with an undaunted resolve have procured their own death because they would not see the blow or stroke coming) turn their face away? And those who for their health’s sake cause themselves to be cut and cauterized cannot endure the sight of the preparations, tools, instruments, and works of the chirurgi
on [139] but because the sight can have no part of the pain or smart? Are not these fit examples to verify the authority which senses have over discourse? We may long enough know that such a one’s locks or flaring-tresses are borrowed of a page or taken from some lacky, that this fair ruby-red [140] came from Spain, and this whiteness or smoothness from the ocean sea. Yet must sight force us to find and deem the subject more lovely and more pleasing, against all reason. For in that there is nothing of its [141] own:
Auferimur cultu: gemnis, auroque teguntur
Crimina, pars minima est ipsa puelia sui.
Sæpe ubi sit quod ames inter tam multa requiras:
Decipit hac oculos Ægide, dives amor.
We are misled by ornaments: what is amiss
Gold and gems cover, least part of herself the maiden is.
’Mongst things so many you may ask, where your love lies:
Rich love by this Gorgonian shield deceives thine eyes. [142]
How much do poets ascribe unto the virtue of the senses, which makes Narcissus to have even fondly lost himself for the love of his shadow?
Cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipse,
Se cupit imprudens, et qui probat, ipse probatur,
Dumque petit, petitur: pariterque accendit et ardet.
He all admires, whereby himself is admirable,
Fond he, fond of himself, to himself amiable,
He, that doth like, is lik’d, and while he doth desire;
He is desired, at once he burns and sets on fire. [143]
And Pygmalion’s wits so troubled by the impression of the sight of his ivory statue that he loveth and serves it as if it had life: