214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

226 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
conscience, he will confesse that all the benefit he hath
gotten by so tedious a pursuit hath been that he hath
learned to know his owne weaknesse. That ignorance
which in us was naturall, we have with long study
confirmed and averred. It hath happened unto those
that are truly learned, as it hapneth unto eares of
come, which as long as they are empty, grow and raise
their head aloft, upright and stout; but if they once
become full and bigge with ripe corne, they begin to
humble and droope downeward. So men having tried
and sounded all, and in all this chaos and huge heape
of learning and provision of so infinite different things,
found nothing that is substantiall, firme, and steadie,
but all vanitie, have renounced their presumption, and
too late knowen their naturall condition. It is that
which Velleius upbraids Cotta and Cicero withall, that
they have learnt of Philo to have learned nothing.
Pherecydes, one of the seven wise men, writing to
Thales even as he was yeelding up the ghost, ' I have,'
saith he, ' appoynted my friends, as soon as I shal be
layed in my grave, to bring thee all my writings. If they
please thee and the other sages, publish them ; if not,
conceale them. They containe no certaintie, nor doe
they any whit satisfie mee. My profession is not to know
the truth nor to attaine it. I rather open than discover
things.' The wisest that ever was, being demanded
what he knew, answered, he knew that he knew
nothing. He verified what some say, that the greatest
part of what we know is the least part of what we know
not: that is, that that which we thinke to know is but
a parcel, yea, and a small particle, of our ignorance.
' We know things in a dreame,' saith Plato, ' and we
are ignorant of them in truth.' Omnes pene veteres
nihil cognosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse diocerunt:
angustos sensus, imbecilles animos, brevia curricula mix :¹
'Almost all the ancients affirmed nothing may be
knowen, nothing perceived, nothing understood : that
our senses are narrow, our mindes are weake, and the
race of our life is short.' Cicero himselfe, who ought
1 CIC. Acad. Qu. 1. i.