214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

312 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
same: I could not possibly embrace any verity, nor
with more assurance keepe it, than I doe this. I am
wholy and absolutely given to it: but hath it not beene
my fortune, not once, but a hundred, nay a thousand
times, nay daily, to have embraced some other thing
with the very same instruments and condition which
upon better advise I have afterward judged false ? A
man should at the least become wise at his owne cost,
and learne by others harmes. If under this colour I
have often found my selfe deceived, if my Touch-stone
be commonly found false and my ballance un-even and
unjust; what assurance may I more take of it at this
time than at others ? Is it not folly in me to suffer my
selfe so often to be beguiled and couzened by one
guide? Neverthelesse, let fortune remove us five
hundred times from our place, let ber doe nothing but
incessantly empty and fill, as in a vessell, other and
other opinions in our mind, the present and last is
alwaies supposed certaine and infallible. For this must
a man leave goods, honour, life, state, health and all:
posterior les ilia reperta
Peidit; et immutat sensus adpristina quceque. 1
The latter thing destroiea all found before ;
And alters sense at all things lik'd of yore.
Whatsoever is told us, and what ever we learne, we
should ever remember: it is man that delivereth and
man that receiveth : it is a mortall hand that presents
it, and a mortall hand that receives it. Onely things
which come to us from heaven have right and authority
of perswasion and markes of truth : which we neither
see with our eyes nor receive by our meanes : this sacred
and great image would be of no force in so wretched
a Mansion except God prepare it to that use and purpose,
unlesse God by his particular grace and supernaturall
favor reforme and strengthen the same. Our
fraile and defective condition ought at least make us
demeane our selves more moderately and more circumspectly
in our changes. We should remember that
1 LUCR. L v. 1424.