214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

158 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
What masons and carpenters were to so great a
worke?' Why doe we then deprive them of soule,
of life, and of discourse? Have we discovered or
knowen any unmoveable or insensible stupidity in
them ? We, who have no commerce but of obedience
with them ? Shall we say we have seene the use of a
reasonable soule in no other creature but in man?
What? Have we seene anything comparable to the
sunne ? Leaveth he to be, because we have seene
nothing semblable unto it? And doth he leave his
moving because his equall is nowhere to be found ? If
that which we have not seene is not, our knowledge is
wonderfull abridged. Quce sunt tantce animi angustice f
' What narrownesse ef my heart is such ?' Be they
not dreames of humane vanity, to make a celestiall earth
or world of the moone, as Anaxagoras did? And
therein to plant habitations, and as Plato and Plutarch
doe, erect their colonies for our use. And to make of
our knowne earth a bright shining planet ? Inter ccetera
jnortalitatis incommoda, et hoc est cahgo mentium; nee
tantum necessitas errandi, sed errorum amor:¹ ' Among
other discommodities of our mortality this is one, there
is darknesse in our minds, and in us not onely necessity
of erring, but a love of errors.' Oorruptibile corpus
aggravat animam, et deprimit terrena inhabitatio sensum
multa cogitantem: 2 'Our corruptible body doth overlode
our soule, and our dwelling on earth weighs
downe our sense that is set to thinke of many matters/
Presumption is our naturall and originall infirmitie.
Of all creatures man is the most miserable and fraile,
and therewithall the proudest and disdainfullest Who
perceiveth and seeth himselfe placed here, amidst the
filth and mire of the world, fast tied and nailed to the
worst, most senselesse, and drooping part of the world,
In the vilest corner of the house, and farthest from
heavens coape, with those creatures that are the worst
of the three conditions; and yet dareth imaginarily
lace himselfe above the circle of the moon, and reduce
pheaven under his feet. It is through the vanitie of the
1
SEN. Ira. 1. ii. c. 9. ² Ib. Epist. xcv.