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232 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
conceive it not; apparances are every where alike.
The law of speaking pro or contra is all one. ' Nothing
seemeth true that may not seeme false.' Their sacramental
word is ' which is as much to say as I
hold and stir not. Behold the burdens of their songs
and other such like. Theyr effects is a pure, entire,
and absolute surceasing and suspence of judgement.
They use their reason to enquire and to debate, and
not to stay and choose. Whosoever shall imagine a
perpetuall confession of ignorance, and a judgement
upright and without staggering, to what occasion soever
may chance, that man conceives the true Pyrrhonisme.
I expound this fantazy as plaine as I can, because many
deeme it hard to be conceived: and the authors themselves
represent it somewhat obscurely and diversly.
Touching the actions of life, in that they are after the
common sort, they are lent and applied to naturall
inclinations, to the impulsion and constraint of passions,
to the constitutiones of lawes and customes, and to the
tradition of arts: Non enim nos Deus ista scire, sed
tantummodo uti voluit: 1 'For God would not have us
know these things, but only use them/ By such
meanes they suffer their common actions to be directed
without any conceit or judgement, which is the reason
that I cannot well sort unto this discourse what is said
of Pyrrho. They faine him to be stupide and unmovable,
leading a kinde of wild and unsociable life, not
shunning to be hit with carts, presenting himselfe unto
downefals, refusing to conforme himselfe to the lawes.
It is an endearing of his discipline. Hee would not
make himselfe a stone or a blocke, but a living, discoursing,
and reasoning man, enjoying all pleasures
and naturall commodities, busying himselfe with and
using all his corporall and spirituall parts in rule and
right. The fantasticall and imaginary and false privileges
which man hath usurped unto himselfe to sway,
to appoint, and to establish, he hath absolutely renounced
and quit them. Yet is there no Sect but is
enforced to allow her wise Sectary, in chiefe to follow
1 CIC. Divin. 1. i.