214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

THE SECOND BOOKE 231
so you chuse. A very foolish answer: to which it
seemeth nevertheless that all Dogmatisme arriveth; by
which it is not lawfull for you to bee ignorant of that
we know not. Take the best and strongest side, it
shall never be so sure but you shall have occasion to
defend the same, to close and combat a hundred and a
hundred sides ? Is it not better to keepe out of this
confusion? You are suffered to embrace as your
honour and life Aristotles opinion upon the eternitie
of the soule, and to belie and contradict whatsoever
Plato saith concerning that; and shall they be interdicted
to doubt of it ? If it be lawfull for Pansecius to
maintaine his judgement about auspices, dreames,
oracles, and prophecies, whereof the Stoikes make no
doubt at all: wherfore shall not a wise man dare that
in all things which this man dareth in such as he hath
learned of his masters, confirmed and established by
the general consent of the schoole whereof he is a
sectary and a professor ? If it be a childe that judgeth,
he wots not what it is; if a learned man, he is
forestalled. They have reserved a great advantage
for themselves in the combat, having discharged themselves
of the care how to shroud themselves. They
care not to be beaten, so they may strike againe : and
all is fish that comes to net with them. If they
overcome, your proposition halteth; if you, theirs is
lame; if they faile, they verifie ignorance; if you, she
is verified by you; if they prove that nothing is knowen,
it is very well; if they cannot prove it, it is good
alike: Vt quum in eadem re paria contrants in partibua
momenta inveniuntur, facilius ab utraque parte assertio
sustineatur: 1 ' So as when the same matter the like
weight and moment is found on divers parts, we may
the more easily hold with avouching on both parts.'
And they suppose to find out more easily why a thing
is false than true, and that which is not than that
which is: and what they beleeve not, than that what
they beleeve. Their manner of speech is, ' I confirme
nothing.' It is no more so than thus, or neither; I
1 CIC. Acad. Qu. 1. x