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350 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
meane and intermission all knowledge comes unto us,
if they chance to misse in the report they make unto
ns, if either they corrupt or alter that, which from
abroad they bring unto us, if the light which by them
is transported into our soule be obscured in the passage,
we have nothing else to hold by. From this extreme
difficultie are sprung all these phantazies, which everie
subject containeth, whatsoever we finde in it, that it
hath not what we suppose to finde in it, and that of the
Epicurians, which is, that the sunne is no greater than
our sight doth judge it:
Quicquid id est, nihilo fertur maiore figura,
Quam nostris ocuhs quatn ceinimus esse videtur:¹
Whate'er it be, it in no greater forme doth passe,
Then to our eyes, which it behold, it seeming was:
that the apparances, which represent a great body to
him that is neare unto it, and a much lesser to him that
is further from it, are both true:
Nec tamen hic oculisfalli concedimus hilum:
Provide ammi vitium hoc ocults adjingere noli: ²
Yet graunt we not, in this, our eyes deceiv'd or blind,
Impute not then to eyes this error of the mind:
and resolutely, that there is no deceit in the senses;
that a man must stand to their mercy, and elsewhere
seek reasons to excuse the difference and contradiction
we find in them: yea invent all other untruthes and
raving conceits (so farre come they) rather than accuse
the senses. Timagoras swore, that howsoever he
winked or turned his eyes, he could never perceive the
light of the candle to double: and that this seeming
proceeded from the vice of opinion, and not from
the instrument. Of all absurdities the most absurd
amongst the Epicurians is to disavow the force and
effect of the senses.
Proinde quod in quoque est his visum tempore, verum est;
Et si non potuit ratio dissolvere causam,
Cur ea quoe fuerint iuxtim quadrata, proeul sint
¹ LUCR. 1. v. 576. ² Ib. 1. iv. 380.