Essays of Michel de Montaigne Part 71

Science begins by them, and is resolved into them. After all, we should know no more than a stone if we did not know there is sound, odour, light, taste, measure, weight, softness, hardness, sharpness, colour, smoothness, breadth, and depth; these are the platforms and principles of the structure of all our knowledge; and, according to some, science is nothing else but sense. He that could make me contradict the senses, would have me by the throat; he could not make me go further back. The senses are the beginning and the end of human knowledge:--

Invenies primis ab sensibns esse creatam Not.i.tiam veil; neque sensus posse refelli....

Quid majore fide porro, quam sensus, haberi Debet?

"Of truth, whate'er discoveries are made, Are by the senses to us first conveyed; Nor will one sense be baffled; for on what Can we rely more safely than on that?"

Let us attribute to them the least we can, we must, however, of necessity grant them this, that it is by their means and mediation that all our instruction is directed. Cicero says, that Chrysippus having attempted to extenuate the force and virtue of the senses, presented to himself arguments and so vehement oppositions to the contrary that he could not satisfy himself therein; whereupon Cameades, who maintained the contrary side, boasted that he would make use of the very words and arguments of Chrysippus to controvert and confute him, and therefore thus cried out against him: "O miserable! thy force has destroyed thee."

There can be nothing absurd to a greater degree than to maintain that fire does not warm, that light does not s.h.i.+ne, and that there is no weight nor solidity in iron, which are things conveyed to us by the senses; neither is there belief nor knowledge in man that can be compared to that for certainty.

The first consideration I have upon the subject of the senses is that I make a doubt whether or no man be furnished with all natural senses. I see several animals who live an entire and perfect life, some without sight, others without hearing; who knows whether to us also one, two, three, or many other senses may not be wanting? For if any one be wanting, our examination cannot discover the defect. 'Tis the privilege of the senses to be the utmost limit of our discovery; there is nothing beyond them that can a.s.sist us in exploration, not so much as one sense in the discovery of another:--

An poterunt oculos aures reprehendere? an aures Tactus an hunc porro tactum sapor argnet oris?

An confutabunt nares, oculive revincent?

"Can ears the eyes, the touch the ears, correct?

Or is that touch by tasting to be check'd?

Or th' other senses, shall the nose or eyes Confute in their peculiar faculties?"

They all make the extremest limits of our ability:--

Seorsum cuique potestas Divisa est, sua vis cuique est,

"Each has its power distinctly and alone, And every sense's power is its own."

It is impossible to make a man naturally blind conceive that he does not see; impossible to make him desire sight, or to regret his defect; for which reason we ought not to derive any a.s.surance from the soul's being contented and satisfied with those we have; considering that it cannot be sensible herein of its infirmity and imperfection, if there be any such thing. It is impossible to say any thing to this blind man, either by reasoning, argument, or similitude, that can possess his imagination with any apprehension of light, colour, or sight; there's nothing remains behind that can push on the senses to evidence. Those that are born blind, whom we hear wish they could see, it is not that they understand what they desire; they have learned from us that they want something; that there is something to be desired that we have, which they can name indeed and speak of its effect and consequences; but yet they know not what it is, nor apprehend it at all.

I have seen a gentleman of a good family who was born blind, or at least blind from such an age that he knows not what sight is; who is so little sensible of his defect that he makes use as we do of words proper for seeing, and applies them after a manner wholly particular and his own.

They brought him a child to which he was G.o.d-father, which, having taken into his arms, "Good G.o.d," said he, "what a fine child! How beautiful to look upon! what a pretty face it has!" He will say, like one of us, "This room has a very fine prospect;--it is clear weather;--the sun s.h.i.+nes bright." And moreover, being that hunting, tennis, and b.u.t.ts are our exercises, and he has heard so, he has taken a liking to them, will ride a-hunting, and believes he has as good share of the sport as we have; and will express himself as angry or pleased as the best of us all, and yet knows nothing of it but by the ear. One cries out to him, "Here's a hare!" when he is upon some even plain where he may safely ride; and afterwards, when they tell him, "The hare is killed," he will be as overjoyed and proud of it as he hears others say they are. He will take a tennis-ball in his left hand and strike it away with the racket; he will shoot with a harquebuss at random, and is contented with what his people tell him, that he is over, or wide.

Who knows whether all human kind commit not the like absurdity, for want of some sense, and that through this default the greatest part of the face of things is concealed from us? What do we know but that the difficulties which we find in several works of nature proceed hence; and that several effects of animals, which exceed our capacity, are not produced by faculty of some sense that we are defective in? and whether some of them have not by this means a life more full and entire than ours? We seize an apple with all our senses; we there find redness, smoothness, odour, and sweetness; but it may have other virtues besides these, as to heat or binding, which no sense of ours can have any reference unto. Is it not likely that there are sensitive faculties in nature that are fit to judge of and to discern those which we call the occult properties in several things, as for the loadstone to attract iron; and that the want of such faculties is the cause that we are ignorant of the true essence of such things? 'Tis perhaps some particular sense that gives c.o.c.ks to understand what hour it is at midnight, and when it grows to be towards day, and that makes them crow accordingly; that teaches chickens, before they have any experience of the matter, to fear a sparrow-hawk, and not a goose or a peac.o.c.k, though birds of a much larger size; that cautions them against the hostile quality the cat has against them, and makes them not to fear a dog; to arm themselves against the mewing, a kind of flattering voice, of the one, and not against the barking, a shrill and threatening voice, of the other; that teaches wasps, ants, and rats, to fall upon the best pear and the best cheese before they have tasted them, and inspires the stag, elephant, and serpent, with the knowledge of a certain herb proper for their cure. There is no sense that has not a mighty dominion, and that does not by its power introduce an infinite number of knowledges. If we were defective in the intelligence of sounds, of harmony, and of the voice, it would cause an unimaginable confusion in all the rest of our science; for, besides what belongs to the proper effect of every sense, how many arguments, consequences, and conclusions do we draw to other things, by comparing one sense with another? Let an understanding man imagine human nature originally produced without the sense of seeing, and consider what ignorance and trouble such a defect would bring upon him, what a darkness and blindness in the soul; he will then see by that of how great importance to the knowledge of truth the privation of such another sense, or of two or three, should we be so deprived, would be.

We have formed a truth by the consultation and concurrence of our five senses; but perhaps we should have the consent and contribution of eight or ten to make a certain discovery of it in its essence.

The sects that controvert the knowledge of man do it princ.i.p.ally by the uncertainty and weakness of our senses; for since all knowledge is by their means and mediation conveyed unto us, if they fail in their report, if they corrupt or alter what they bring us from without, if the light which by them creeps into the soul be obscured in the pa.s.sage, we have nothing else to hold by. From this extreme difficulty all these fancies proceed: "That every subject has in itself all we there find.

That it has nothing in it of what we think we there find;" and that of the Epicureans, "That the sun is no bigger than 'tis judged by our sight to be:--"

Quidquid id est, nihilo fertur majore figura, Quam nostris oculis quam cemimus, esse videtur:

"But be it what it will in our esteems, It is no bigger than to us it seems:"

that the appearances which represent a body great to him that is near, and less to him that is more remote, are both true:--

Nee tamen hic oculos falli concedimus hilum....

Proinde animi vitium hoc oculis adfingere noli:

"Yet that the eye's deluded we deny; Charge not the mind's faults, therefore, on the eye:"

"and, resolutely, that there is no deceit in the senses; that we are to lie at their mercy, and seek elsewhere reasons to excuse the difference and contradictions we there find, even to the inventing of lies and other flams, if it come to that, rather than accuse the senses."

Timagoras vowed that, by pressing or turning his eye, he could never perceive the light of the candle to double, and that the seeming so proceeded from the vice of opinion, and not from the instrument. The most absurd of all absurdities, with the Epicureans, is to deny the force and effect of the senses:--

Proinde, quod in quoquo est his visum tempore, verum est Et, si non potuit ratio dissolvere causam, Cur ea, quae fuerint juxtim quadrata, procul sint Visa rotunda; tamen praestat rationis egentem Beddere mendose causas utriusque figurae, Quam manibus manifesta suis emittere quaequam, Et violare fidem primam, et convellere tota Fundamenta, quibus nixatur vita salusque: Non modo enim ratio ruat omnis, vita quoque ipsa Concidat extemplo, nisi credere sensibus ausis, Procipitesque locos vitare, et caetera, quae sint In genere hoc fugienda.

"That what we see exists I will maintain, And if our feeble reason can't explain Why things seem square when they are very near, And at a greater distance round appear; 'Tis better yet, for him that's at a pause, 'T' a.s.sign to either figure a false cause, Than shock his faith, and the foundations rend On which our safety and our life depend: For reason not alone, but life and all, Together will with sudden ruin fall; Unless we trust our senses, nor despise To shun the various dangers that arise."

This so desperate and unphilosophical advice expresses only this,--that human knowledge cannot support itself but by reason unreasonable, foolish, and mad; but that it is yet better that man, to set a greater value upon himself, make use of any other remedy, how fantastic soever, than to confess his necessary ignorance--a truth so disadvantageous to him. He cannot avoid owning that the senses are the sovereign lords of his knowledge; but they are uncertain, and falsifiable in all circ.u.mstances; 'tis there that he is to fight it out to the last; and if his just forces fail him, as they do, to supply that defect with obstinacy, temerity, and impudence. In case what the Epicureans say be true, viz: "that we have no knowledge if the senses' appearances be false;" and if that also be true which the Stoics say, "that the appearances of the senses are so false that they can furnish us with no manner of knowledge," we shall conclude, to the disadvantage of these two great dogmatical sects, that there is no science at all.

As to the error and uncertainty of the operation of the senses, every one may furnish himself with as many examples as he pleases; so ordinary are the faults and tricks they put upon us. In the echo of a valley the sound of a trumpet seems to meet us, which comes from a place behind:--

Exstantesque procul medio de gurgite montes, Cla.s.sibus inter qnos liber patet exitus, idem Apparent, et longe divolsi licet, ingens Insula conjunctis tamen ex his ana videtur...

Et fugere ad puppim colies campique videntur, Qnos agimns proter navim, velisque volamus....

Ubi in medio n.o.bis equus acer obhaesit Flamine, equi corpus transversum ferre videtur Vis, et in adversum flumen contrudere raptim.

"And rocks i' th' seas that proudly raise their head, Though far disjoined, though royal navies spread, Their sails between; yet if from distance shown, They seem an island all combin'd in one.

Thus s.h.i.+ps, though driven by a prosperous gale, Seem fix'd to sailors; those seem under sail That ride at anchor safe; and all admire, As they row by, to see the rocks retire.

Thus, when in rapid streams my horse hath stood, And I look'd downward on the rolling flood; Though he stood still, I thought he did divide The headlong streams, and strive against the tide, And all things seem'd to move on every side."

Take a musket-ball under the forefinger, the middle finger being lapped over it, it feels so like two that a man will have much ado to persuade himself there is but one; the end of the two fingers feeling each of them one at the same time; for that the senses are very often masters of our reason, and constrain it to receive impressions which it judges and knows to be false, is frequently seen. I set aside the sense of feeling, that has its functions nearer, more lively, and substantial, that so often, by the effects of the pains it helps the body to, subverts and overthrows all those fine Stoical resolutions, and compels him to cry out of his belly, who has resolutely established this doctrine in his soul--"That the colic, and all other pains and diseases, are indifferent things, not having the power to abate any thing of the sovereign felicity wherein the wise man is seated by his virtue." There is no heart so effeminate that the rattle and sound of our drums and trumpets will not inflame with courage; nor so sullen that the harmony of our music will not rouse and cheer; nor so stubborn a soul that will not feel itself struck with some reverence in considering the gloomy vastness of our churches, the variety of ornaments, and order of our ceremonies; and in hearing the solemn music of our organs, and the grace and devout harmony of our voices. Even those that come in with contempt feel a certain s.h.i.+vering in their hearts, and something of dread that makes them begin to doubt their opinions. For my part I do not think myself strong enough to hear an ode of Horace or Catullus sung by a beautiful young mouth without emotion; and Zeno had reason to say "that the voice was the flower of beauty." One would once make me believe that a certain person, whom all we Frenchmen know, had imposed upon me in repeating some verses that he had made; that they were not the same upon paper that they were in the air; and that my eyes would make a contrary judgment to my ears; so great a power has p.r.o.nunciation to give fas.h.i.+on and value to works that are left to the efficacy and modulation of the voice. And therefore Philoxenus was not so much to blame, hearing one giving an ill accent to some composition of his, in spurning and breaking certain earthen vessels of his, saying, "I break what is thine, because thou corruptest what is mine." To what end did those men who have, with a firm resolution, destroyed themselves, turn away their faces that they might not see the blow that was by themselves appointed?

And that those who, for their health, desire and command incisions to be made, and cauteries to be applied to them, cannot endure the sight of the preparations, instruments, and operations of the surgeon, being that the sight is not in any way to partic.i.p.ate in the pain? Are not these proper examples to verify the authority the senses have over the imagination? 'Tis to much purpose that we know these tresses were borrowed from a page or a lackey; that this rouge came from Spain, and this pearl-powder from the Ocean Sea. Our sight will, nevertheless, compel us to confess their subject more agreeable and more lovely against all reason; for in this there is nothing of its own:--

Auferinrar cultu; gemmis, auroque teguntur Crimina; pars minima est ipsa puella sni.

Saepe, ubi sit quod ames, inter tarn multa requiras: Decipit hac oculos aegide dives Amor.

"By dress we're won; gold, gems, and rich brocades Make up the pageant that your heart invades; In all that glittering figure which you see, The far least part of her own self is she; In vain for her you love amidst such cost You search, the mistress in such dress is lost."

What a strange power do the poets attribute to the senses, that make Narcissus so desperately in love with his own shadow,

Cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipse; Se cupit imprudens, et, qui probat, ipse probatur; Dumque pet.i.t, pet.i.tur; pariterque accendit, et ardet:

"Admireth all; for which to be admired; And inconsiderately himself desir'd.

The praises which he gives his beauty claim'd, Who seeks is sought, th' inflamer is inflam'd:"