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342 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
restrained, they had also afterward need to seeke
some secret place. He had not seene far enough
into their licenciousnesse : for Diogenes in sight of
all, exercising his Masturbation, bred a longing desire
in the by-standers, that in such sort they might fill
their bellies by rubbing or clawing the same. To
those that asked him why he sought for no fitter
place to feed in then in the open frequented highway,
he made answer, ' It is because I am hungry
in tie open frequented high-way.' The Philosophers
Women, which medled with their Sects, did likewise
in all places and without any discretion medle with
their bodies: And Crates had never received Hipparchia
into his fellowship but upon condition to
follow all the customes and fashions of his order.
These Philosophers set an extreme rate on vertue and
rejected al other disciplins except the mortall; hence
it is that in all actions they ascribed the Soveraigne
authority to the election of their wise, yea, and above
al lawes : and appointed no other restraint unto voluptuousness
but the moderation and preservation of
others liberty. Heraclitus and Protagoras, forsomuch
as wine seemeth bitter unto the sicke and pleasing to
the healthy; and an oare crooked in the water and
straight to them that see it above water, and such-like
contrary apparances which are found in some subjects
; argued that all subjects had the causes of these
apparances in them, and that there was some kind of
bitternes in the wine which had a reference unto the
sick mans taste; in the oare a certain crooked qualities
having relation to him that seeth it in the water. And
so of all things else Which implieth, that all is in
all things, and by consequence nothing in any: for
either nothing is, or all is. This opinion put me in
mind of the experience we have, that there is not any
one sense or visage, either straight or crooked, bitter
or sweet, but mans wit shall find in the writings which
he undertaketh to runne over. In the purest, most
unspotted, and most absolutely perfect word that possibly
can be, how many errors, falshoods and lies