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348 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
peculiar to himselfe. A child being brought before
him to whom he was god-father, taking him in his
annes, he said, ' Good Lord, what a fine child this is!
it is a goodly thing to see him. What a cherefull
countenance he hath ! how prettily he looketh !' He
will say'as one of us, 'This hall hath a faire prospect.
It is very faire weather. The Sunne shines cleare'
Nay, which is more: because hunting, hawking, tennisplay,
and shuting at buts are our common sports and
exercises (for so he hath heard) his mind will be so
affected unto them, and he wil so busie himselfe about
them, that he will thinke to have as great an interest
in them as any of us, and shew himselfe as earnestly
passionate, both in liking and disliking them, as any
else; yet doth he conceive and receive them but by
hearing. If he be in a faire champion ground, where
he may ride, they will tell him, yonder is a Hare
started, or the Hare is killed, he is as busily earnest of
his game as he heareth others to be that have perfect
sight. Give him a ball, he takes it in the left hand,
and with the right strikes it away with his racket; in
a piece he shutes at randome ; and is well pleased with
what his men tell him, be it high or wide. Who
knowes whether mankind commit as great a folly, for
want of some sense, and that by this default the greater
part of the visage of things be concealed from us?
Who knowes whether the difficulties we find in sundry
of Natures workes proceede thence? And whether
diverse effects of beasts, which exceed our capacitie,
are produced by the facultie of some sense tnat we
want ? And whether some of them have by that meane
a fuller and more perfect life then ours ? We seize on
an apple wel nigh with all our senses; we find rednesse,
smoothnesse, odor and sweetnesse in it; besides which,
it may have other vertues, either drying or binding, to
which we have no sense to be referred. The proprieties
which in many things we call secret, as in the Adamant
to draw iron, is it not likely there should be sensitive
faculties in nature able to judge and perceive them, the
want whereof breedeth in us the ignorance of the true