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364 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
passions: and so, nor the phantasie, nor the apparence
is the subject's, but rather the passion's only, and
sufferance of the sense : which passion and subject are
divers things: Therefore, who judgeth by apparences,
judgeth by a thing different from the subject. And
to say that the senses' passions referre the qualitie of
strange subjects by resemblance unto the soule: How
can the soule and the understanding rest assured of
that resemblance, having of it selfe no commerce with
forraigne subjects? Even as he that knowes not
Socrates, seeing his picture, cannot say that it resembleth
him. And would a man judge by apparences,
be it by all it is impossible; for by their contraries
and differences they hinder one another, as we see by
experience. May it be that some choice apparences
rule and direct the others ? This choice must be
verified by another choice, the second by a third : and
so shal we never make an end. In few, there is no
constant existence, neither of our being, nor of the
objects. And we and our judgement and all mortall
things else do uncessantly rowle, turne and passe away.
Thus can nothing be certainely established, nor of
the one nor of the other; both the judgeing and the
judged being in continuall alteration and motion. We
have no communication with being; for every humane
nature is ever in the middle betwcene being borne and
dying; giving nothing of it selfe but an obscure apparence
and shadow, and an uncertaine and weake opinion.
And if perhaps you fix your thought to take its being,
it would be even as if one should go about to graspe
the water: for, how much the more he shal close and
presse that which by its owne nature is ever gliding,
so much the more he shall loose what he would hold
and fasten. Thus, seeing all things are subject to
passe from one change to another, reason, which
therein seeketh a reall subsistence, fiudes her selfe
deceived as unable to apprehend any thing subsistent
and permanent: forsomuch as each thing either comxneth
to a being, and is not yet altogether: or beginneth
to dy before it be borne. Plato said that bodies had