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330 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
more plaine: saying, that' fat and delicious countries
make men wanton and effeminate; and fertile soiles
yeeld infertile spirits.' If sometime wee see one art
to flourish, or a beliefe, and sometimes another, by
some heavenly influence: some ages to produce this
or that nature, and so to encline mankind to this or
that biase: mens spirits one while flourishing, another
while barren, even as fields are seene to be; what
become of all those goodly prerogatives wherewith we
still flatter ourselves ? Since a wise man may mistake
himselfe; yea, many men, and whole nations; and as
wee say, mans nature either in one thing or other,
hath for many ages together mistaken her selfe. What
assurance have we that at any time she leaveth her
mistaking, and that she continueth not even at this
day, in her error? Me thinkes amongst other testimonies
of our imbecilities, this one ought not to be
forgotten, that by wishing it selfe, man cannot yet
finde out what he wanteth; that not by enjoying or
possession, but by imagination and full wishing, we
cannot all agree in one that we most stand in need
of, and would best content us. Let our imagination
have free liberty to cut out and sew at her pleasure,
she cannot so much as desire what is fittest to please
and content her.
quid enim ratione timemus
Aut cupimus ? quid tarn dextro pede conapis, ut te
Conatus non paenitcat, votique per acti ?¹
By reason what doe we feare, or desire?
With such dexteritie what doest aspire,
But thou eftsoones repentest it,
Though thy attempt and vow doe hit?
That is the reason why Socrates never requested the
gods to give him anything but what they knew to be
good for him. And the publike and private prayer
of the Lacedemonians did meerely implie that good
and faire things might be granted them, remitting
the election and choise of them to the discretion of
the highest power, 1 Juv. Sat. x. 4.