The Complete Essays of Montaigne by Michel Eyquem Montaigne

Author:Michel Eyquem Montaigne [Montaigne, Michel Eyquem]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 1958-06-01T05:00:00+00:00

THE SENSES ARE INADEQUATE]

AThis subject has brought me to the consideration of the senses, in which lies the greatest foundation and proof of our ignorance. All that is known, is doubtless known through the faculty of the knower; for since judgment comes from the operation of him who judges, it stands to reason that he performs this operation by his means and will, not by the constraint of others, as would happen if we knew things through the power and according to the law of their own essence.

Now all knowledge makes its way into us through the senses; they are our masters:

BNo shorter pathway can persuasion find

Into the human heart and human mind.

LUCRETIUS

AKnowledge begins through them and is resolved into them.

After all, we would know no more than a stone, if we did not know that there is sound, smell, light, taste, measure, weight, softness, hardness, roughness, color, smoothness, breadth, depth. There are the base and the principles of the whole edifice of our knowledge. CAnd according to some, knowledge is nothing else but sensation. AWhoever can force me to contradict the senses has me by the throat; he could not make me retreat any further. The senses are the beginning and the end of human knowledge:

Our senses, you will find, did first provide

The idea of truth; they cannot be denied.

. . . . . . . . . . .

In what then should we place a greater trust

Than in the senses?

LUCRETIUS

Attribute to them as little as you can, still you must grant them this, that by way of them and by their mediation proceeds all our instruction. Cicero says that Chrysippus, having tried to disparage the power and strength of the senses, presented himself with arguments to the contrary, and such violent objections, that he could not satisfy them. Whereupon Carneades, who was upholding the opposite side, boasted that he would use the very weapons and words of Chrysippus to combat him, and therefore exclaimed against him: “O wretched man, your strength has defeated you!”

We cannot conceive of an absurdity more extreme than to maintain that fire does not heat, that light does not illumine, that there is no weight or hardness in iron; these are items of knowledge brought to us by the senses; and man has no belief or knowledge that can compare with this sort for certainty.

The first consideration that I offer on the subject of the senses is that I have my doubts whether man is provided with all the senses of nature. I see many animals that live a complete and perfect life, some without sight, others without hearing; who knows whether we too do not still lack one, two, three, or many other senses? For if any one is lacking, our reason cannot discover its absence. It is the privilege of the senses to be the extreme limit of our perception. There is nothing beyond them that can help us to discover them; no, nor can one sense discover the other:

BCan ears the

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