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216 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
exempted from this fever; and so of others. I say
therefore, that if simplicitie directeth us to have no
evill, it also addresseth us according to our condition
to a most happy estate. Yet ought it not to he imagined
so dull and heavie that it he altogether senselesse. And
Crantor had great reason to withstand the unsensiblenesse
of Epicurus, if it were so deeply rooted that the
approching and birth of evils might gainsay it. I
commend not that unsensiblenesse which is neither
possible nor to be desired. I am well pleased not to be
sicke, but if I be, I will know that I am so ; and if I be
cauterized or cut, I will feel it. Verily, he that should
root out the knowledge of evill should therewithall
extirp the knowledge of voluptuousnesse, and at last
bring man to nothing. Istud nihil dolere, non sine
magna mercede contingit immanitatis in animo, stuporis
in corpore:¹ ' This verse point, not to be offended or
grieved with any thing, befals not freely to a man
without either inhumanitie in his minde or senselesnesse
in his bodie.' Sicknesse is not amiss unto man, comming
in her turne; nor is he alwaies to shun pain, nor ever
to follow sensualitie. It is a great advantage for the
honour of ignorance that Science it selfe throwes us
into her armes when she findes her selfe busie to make
us strong against the assaults of evils : she is forced to
come to this composition: to yeeld us the bridle, and
give us leave to shrowd our selves in her lap, and
submit ourselves unto her favour, to shelter us against
the assaults and injuries of fortune. For what meaneth
she else when she perswades us to withdraw our thought
from the evils that possesse us, and entertaine them
with foregon pleasures, and stead us as a comfort of
present evils with the remembrance of forepast felicities,
and call a vanished content to our help, for to oppose
it against that which vexeth us ? Levationes segritudinum
in avocatione a cogitanda molestia, et revocations ad
contemplandas voluptates ponit.² ' Eases of grief she
reposeth either in calling from the thought of offence,
or calling to the contemplations of some pleasures.'
¹ CIC. TUSC. Qu. 1. iii. ² Ibid.