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262 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
of the occasions of this worlds troubles are Grammaticall
Our suits and processes proceed but from
the canvasing and debating the interpretation of the
Lawes, and most of our warres from the want of
knowledge in State-counsellors, that could not cleerely
distinguish and fully expresse the Covenants and Conditions
of accords betweene Prince and Prince. How
many weighty strifes and important quarels hath the
doubt of this one sillable, hoc, brought forth in the
world? Examine the plainest sentence that Logike,
it selfe can present unto us. If you say, it is faire
weather, and in so saying, say true ; it is faire weather
then. Is not this a certaine forme of speech? Yet
will it deceive us : That it is so; let us follow the
example: If you say, I lye, and in that you should say
true, you lye then. The Art, the reason, the force of
the conclusion of this last, are like unto the other; notwithstanding
we are entangled. I see the Pyrrhonian
Phylosophers, who can by no manner of speech expresse
their generall conceit: for they had need of a new
language. Ours is altogether composed of affirmative
propositions, which are directly against them. So that,
when they say I doubt, you have them fast by the
throat to make them avow that at least you are assured
and know that they doubt. So have they beene compelled
to save themselves by this comparison of Physicke,
without which their conceit would be inexplicable
and intricate. When they pronounce, I know not, or
I doubt, they say that this proposition transportes it
selfe together with the rest, even as the Rewbarbe
doeth, which scowred ill humours away, and therewith
is carried away himselfe. This conceipt is more certainly
conceived by an interrogation: What can I tell ? As
I beare it in an Imprese of a paire of ballances. Note
how some prevaile with this kinde of unreverent and
unhallowed speech. In the disputations that are nowadayes
in our religion, if you overmuch urge the adversaries,
they will roundly tell you that it lieth not
in the power of God to make his body at once to be
in Paradise and on earth, and in many other places