Shakespeare's Montaigne by Michel de Montaigne

Author:Michel de Montaigne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59017-734-1
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2014-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

And when we others do foolishly fear a kind of death, when as we have already passed and daily pass so many others. For not only (as Heraclitus said) the death of fire is a generation of air, and the death of air a generation of water; but also we may most evidently see it in ourselves. The flower of age dyeth, fadeth, and fleeteth, when age comes upon us, and youth endeth in the flower of a full-grown man’s age; childhood in youth; and the first age dyeth in infancy. And yesterday endeth in this day, and today shall die in tomorrow. And nothing remaineth or ever continueth in one state.

For, to prove it, if we should ever continue one and the same, how is it then that now we rejoice at one thing, and now at another? How comes it to pass, we love things contrary, or we hate them, or we love them, or we blame them? How is it that we have different affections, holding no more the same sense in the same thought? For it is not likely that without alteration we should take other passions, and What admitteth alterations, continueth not the same, and if it be not one self-same, then it is not; but rather with being all one, the simple being doth also change, ever becoming other from other. And by consequence nature’s senses are deceived and lie falsely, taking what appeareth for what is, for want of truly-knowing what it is that is.

But then what is it, that is indeed? That which is eternal: that is to say, that which never had birth, nor ever shall have end; and to which no time can bring change or cause alteration. For time is a fleeting thing, and which appeareth as in a shadow, with the matter ever gliding, always fluent, without ever being stable or permanent. To whom rightly belong these terms, Before and After, and it Hath been or Shall be. Which at first sight doth manifestly show that it is not a thing which is; for it were great sottishness [179] and apparent falsehood to say that that is which is not yet in being, or that already hath ceased from being. And concerning these words, Present, Instant, Even-now, by which it seems that especially we uphold and principally ground the intelligence of time, reason discovering the same doth forthwith destroy it; for presently it severeth it asunder and divideth it into future and past-time, as willing to see it necessarily parted in two.

As much happeneth unto nature which is measured, according unto time which measureth her. For no more is there anything in her that remaineth or is subsistent; rather all things in her are either born, or ready to be born, or dying. By means whereof, it were a sin to say of God, who is the only that is, that he was or shall be. For these words are declinations, [180] passages, or vicissitudes of that which cannot last nor continue in being.

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