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352 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
the error and uncertaintie of the senses operation, a
man may store himselfe with as many examples as he
pleaseth, so ordinary are the faults and deceits they use
towards us. And the echoing or reporting of a valley,
the sound of a trumpet seemeth to sound before us,
which cometh a mile behind us.
Exstantesque procul medio degurgite monies
Idem apparent longe diveisi licet, 1
Et fagere ad puppim colles campique videntur
Quos agimus praeter navim. 2
vbi in medio nobis equus acer obharsit
Flumine, equi corpus transversum feiie vidctur
Vis et in adveisumflumencontrudeie taptim.*
And hills, which from the maine far-off to kenning stand,
Appeare all one, though they farre distant be, at hand,
And hilles and fields doe seeme unto our boatc to flie,
Which we drive by our boate as we doe passe thereby,
When in midst of a streame a stately Horse doth stay,
The streame's orethwartmg seemes his bodv crosse to sway,
And swiftly 'gainst the streame to thrust him th' other way.
To roule a bullet under the fore finger, the midlemost
being put over it, a man must very much enforce
himselfe to affirme there is but one, so assuredly doth
our sense present us two. That the senses do often
maister our discourse, and force it to receive impressions
which he knoweth and judgeth to be false, it is daily
seene. I leave the sense of feeling which hath his
functions neerer more quicke and substantiall, and which
by the effect of the griefe or paine it brings to the
body doth so often confound and re-enverse all these
goodly Stoicall resolutions, and enforceth to cry out
of the belly-ache him who hath with all resolution
established in his mind this doctrine, that the cholike,
as every other sicknesse or paine, is a thing indifferent,
wanting power to abate any thing of soveraigne good or
chiefe felicity, wherein the wise man is placed by his
owne vertue: there is no heart so demisse, but the
rattling sound of a drum or the clang of a trumpet will
rowse and inflame; nor mind so harsh and sterne, but
1 LUCR. 1. iv. 398. ² Ib. 390. ³ lb. 423.