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292 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
knew being in her puritie, was a true understanding,
knowing things as they are by her divine intelligence:
whereas here, if she be instructed, she is made to
receive lies and apprehend vice, wherein she cannot
imploy her memorie; this image and conception havingnever
had place in her. To say that the corporall
prison doth so suppresse her naturall faculties, that
they are altogether extinct in her: first, is cleane
contrarie to this other beleefe, to knowledge her forces
so great, and the operations which men in this transitorie
life feel of it, so wondcrfull, as to have thereby
concluded this divinitie, and fore-past eternitie, and the
immortalitie to come:
Nam si tantopere est animi mutata potestat,
Omnis ut actarum excidertt rctinentia rerum,
Non ut opmor ea ab lethojam longior etrat, 1
If of our minde the power be so much altered,
As of things done all hold, all meroone is fled,
Then (as I guesse) it is not far from being dead*
Moreover, it is here with us, and no where else, that
the soules powers and effects are to be considered ; all
the rest or her perfections are vaine and unprofitable
unto her: it is by her present condition that all her
immortalitie must be rewarded and paid, and she is
only accomptable for the life of man : it were injustice
to have abridged her of her meanes and faculties, and
to have disarmed her against the time of her captivitie
and prison, for her weaknesse and sicknesse, of the
time and season where she had beene forced and compelled
to draw the judgement and condemnation of
infinite and endlesse continuance, and to relye upon the
consideration of so short a time, which is peradventure
of one or two houres, or, if the worst happen, of an age
(which have no more proportion with infinitie than a
moment) definitively to appoint and establish of all her
being by that instant of space. It were an impious
disproportion to wrest an eternall reward in consequence
of so short a life. Plato, to save himselfe from this
¹ LUCE, 1. ill. 695.