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238 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
in Plutarke ? How much doe they speake sometimes
of one face and sometimes of another, for such as looke
neere unto it? Those who reconcile lawyers, ought
first to have reconciled them every one unto himselfe.
Plato hath (in my seeming) loved this manner of philosophying
dialogue wise in good earnest, that thereby
he might more decently place in sundry mouthes the
diversity and variation of his owne conceits. Diversly
to treat of matters is as good and better as to treat
them conformably; that is to say, more copiously and
more profitably Let us take example by our selves.
Definite sentences make the last period of dogmaticall
and resolving speech; yet see wee that those which
our Parliaments present unto our people as the most
exemplare and fittest to nourish in them the reverence
they owe unto this dignitie, especially by reason of the
sufliciencie of those persons which exercise the same,
taking their glory, not by the conclusion, which to
them is dayly, and is common to al judges as much as
the debating of diverse and agitations of contrary
reasonings of law causes will admit. And the largest
scope for reprehensions of some Philosophers against
others, draweth contradictions and diversities with it,
wherein every one of them findeth himself so entangled,
either by intent to show the wavering of mans minde
above all matters, or ignorantly forced by the volubilitie
and incomprehensiblenesse of all matters : What
meaneth this burden ? In a slippery and gliding place
let us suspend our beliefe. For as Euripides saith,
Les ceuvres de Dieu en diverges
Facons, nous donnent des travel ses.
Gods workes doe travers our imaginations,
And crosse our workes in divers different fashions.
Like unto that which Empedocles was wont often to
scatter amongst his bookes, as moved by a divine furie
and forced by truth. No, no, we feel nothing, we see
nothing; all things are hid from us; there is not
one that we may establish, how and what it is. But