214044_The_Essa ... rd_Of_Montaigne_Vol_II.pdf - OUDL Home

THE SECOND BOOKE 359
seeke for? Pliny saith that there are certaine seahares
in India that to us are poison, and we bane to
them; so that we die if we but touch them; now
whether is man or the sea-hare poison ? Whom shall
we beleeve, either the fish of man or the man of fish ?
Some Quality of the ayre infecteth man which nothing
at all nurteth the oxe: some other the oxe, and not
man: which of the two is, either in truth or nature,
the pestilent quality ? Such as are troubled with the
yellow jandise deeme all things they looke upon to be
yellowish, which seeme more pale and wan to them
then to us.
Lurida prcBtereaJiunt qucecunque tuentuf
Arquati,¹
And all that jaundis'd men behold,
They yellow straight or palish hold.
Those which are sicke of the disease which phisitians
call Hyposphagma, which is a suffusion of blood under
the skin, imagine that all things they see are bloodie
and red. Those humors that so change the sights
operation, what know we whether they are predominant
and ordinarie in beasts ? For we see some whose eyes
are as yellow as theirs that have the jandise, others that
have them all blood-shotten with rednesse : it is likely
that the objects collour they looke upon seemeth otherwise
to them then to us : which of the two judgements
shall be true ? For it is not said that the essence of
things hath reference to man alone. Hardnesse, whitenesse,
depth, and sharpnesse touch the service and concerne
the knowledge of beasts as well as ours: Nature
hath given the use of them to them as well as to us.
When we winke a little with our eye, wee perceive the
bodies we looke upon to seeme longer and out-stretched.
Many beasts have their eye as winking as we. This
length is then happily the true forme of that body, and
not that which our eyes give it, being in their ordinarie
seate. If we close our eye above, things seeme double
unto us:
1 LUCR. 1. iv. 333.