This discourse hath drawne me to the consideration of the senses, wherein consisteth the greatest foundation and triall of our ignorance. Whatsoever is knowne, is without peradventure knowne by the faculty of the knower: for, since the judgment commeth from the operation of him that judgeth, reason requireth that he performe and act this operation by his meanes and will, and not by others compulsion: as it would follow if wee knew things by the force, and according to the law of their essence. Now all knowledge is addressed unto us by the senses: they are our maisters:
-----via qua munita fidei
Proxima fert humanum in pectus, templaque mentis.
Whereby a way for credit leads well-linde
Into man's breast and temple of his minde.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. v. 102.
Science begins by them and in them is resolved. After all, we should know no more then a stone, unlesse we know that here is sound, smell, light, savor, measure, weight, softnesse, hardnesse, sharpnesse, colour, smoothnesse, breadth and depth. Behold here the platforme of all the frame and principles of the building of all our knowledge. And according to some, science is nothing else but what is knowne by the senses. Whosoever can force me to contradict my senses, hath me fast by the throate, and cannot make me recoyle one foote backward. The senses are the beginning and end of humane knowledge.
Invenies primis ab sensibus esse creatam
Notitiam veri, neque sensus posse refelli.
Quid maiore fide porro, guam sensus, haberi
Debet.
You shall finde knowledge of the truth at first was bred
From our first senses, nor can senses be misseled.
What, then our senses, should
With us more credit hold?
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 480, 484.
Attribute as little as may be unto them, yet must this ever be graunted them, that all our instruction is addressed by their meanes and intermission. Cicero saith that Chrysippus having assaid to abate the power of his senses, and of their vertue, presented contrary arguments unto himselfe, and so vehement oppositions, that he could not satisfie himselfe. Whereupon Carneades (who defended the contrary part boasted that he used the very same weapons and words of Chrysippus to combate against him and therefore cried out upon him, 'Oh miserable man! thine owne strength hath foiled thee. There is no greater absurditie in our judgment, then to maintaine that fire heateth not, that light shineth not, that in iron there is neither weight nor firmenesse, which are notices our senses bring unto us: Nor beliefe or science in man, that may be compared unto that, in certaintie.
The first consideration I have upon the senses subject is, that I make a question, whether man be provided of all naturall senses, or no. I see divers creatures that live an entire and perfect life, some without sight, and some without hearing; who knoweth whether we also want either one, two, three, or many senses more: For, if we want any one, our discourse cannot discover the want or defect thereof. It is the senses priviledge to be the extreme bounds of our perceiving. There is nothing beyond them that may stead us to discover them: No one sense can discover another.
An poterunt oculos aures reprehendere, an aures
Tactus, an hunc porro tactum sapor arguet oris,
An confutabunt nares, oculive revincent?
Can eares the eyes, or can touch reprehend
The cares, or shall mouthes taste that touch amend?
Shall our nose it confute,
Or eyes gainst it dispute?
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 488.
They all make the extreamest line of our facultie.
------seorsum cuique potestas
Divisa est, sua vis cuique est.
To teach distinctly might
Is shar'de, each hath its right.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 491.
It is impossible to make a man naturally blind, to conceive that he seeth not; impossible to make him desire to see, and sorrow his defect. Therefore ought we not to take assurance that our mind is contented and satisfied with those we have, seeing it hath not wherewith to feel her owne malady, and perceive her imperfection, if it be in any It is impossible to tell that blind man any thing, either by discourse, argument, or similitude, that lodgeth any apprehension of light, colour, or sight in his imagination. There is nothing more backward that may push the senses to any evidence. The blind-borne, which we perceive desire to se, it is not to understand what they require; they have learnt of us that something they want, and something they desire, that is in us, with the effects and consequences thereof, which they call good: yet wot not they what it is, nor apprehend they it neere or far.
I have seene a gentleman of a good house, borne blind, at least blind in such an age that he knowes not what sight is; he understandeth so little what he wanteth, that as we doe, he useth words fitting sight, and applieth them after a manner onely proper and peculiar to himselfe. A child being brought before him to whom he was god-father, taking him in his armes, he said, 'Good Lord, what a fine child this is! it is a goodly thing to see him. What a cherefull countenance he hath! how prettily he looketh!' He will say as one of us, 'This hall hath a faire prospect. It is very faire weather, The Sunne shines cleare. Nay, which is more: because hunting, hawking, tennis-play, and shuting at buts are our common sports and exercises (for so he hath heard) his mind will be so affected unto them, and he wil so busie himselfe about them, that he will thinke to have as great an interest in them as any of us, and shew himselfe as earnestly passionate, both in liking and disliking them, as any else; yet doth be conceive and receive them but by hearing. If he be in a faire champion ground, where he may ride, they will tell him, yonder is a Hare started, or the Hare is killed, he is as busily earnest of his game as he heareth others to be that have perfect sight. Give him a ball, he takes it in the left hand, and with the right strikes it away with his racket; in a piece he shutes at randome; and is well pleased with what his men tell him, be it high or wide. Who knowes whether mankind commit as great a folly, for want of some sense, and that by this default the greater part of the visage of things be concealed from us?
Who knowes whether the difficulties we find in sundry of Natures workes proceede thence? And whether diverse effects of beasts, which exceed our capacitie, are produced by the facultie of some sense that we want? And whether some of them have by that meane a fuller and more perfect life then ours? We seize on an apple wel nigh with all our senses; we find rednesse, smoothnesse, odor and sweetnesse in it; besides which, it may have other vertues, either drying or binding, to which we have no sense to be referred. The proprieties which in many things we call secret, as in the Adamant to draw iron, is it not likely there should be sensitive faculties in nature able to judge and perceive them, the want whereof breedeth in us the ignorance of the true essence of such things? It is happily some particular sense that unto cockes or chanticleares discovereth the morning and midnight houre, and moveth them to crow: that teacheth a hen, before any use or experience, to feare a hawke and not a goose or a peacocke, farre greater birds: that warneth yong chickins of the hostile qualitie which the cat hath against them, and not to distrust a dog; to strut and arme themselves against the mewing of the one (in some sort a flattering and milde voice) and not against the barking of the other (a snarling and quarrelous voice): that instructeth rats, wasps, and emmets, ever to chuse the best cheese and fruit, having never tasted them before: and that addresseth the stag, the elephant, and the serpent, to the knowledge of certaine herbs and simples, which, being either wounded or sicke, have the vertue to cure them. There is no sense but hath some great domination, and which by his meane affordeth not an infinite number of knowledges. If we were to report the intelligence of sounds, of harmony and of the voice, it would bring an imaginable confusion to all the rest of our learning and science. For, besides what is tyed to the proper effect of every sense, how many arguments, consequences, and conclusions draw we unto other things, by comparing one sense to another? Let a skilfull, wise man but imagine humane nature to be originally produced without sight and discourse, how much ignorance and trouble such a defect would bring unto him, and what obscurity and blindnesse in our mind. By that shall we perceive how much the privation of one, or two, or three such senses (if there be any in us) doth import us about the knowledge of truth. We have by the consultation and concurrence of our five senses formed one Verity, whereas peradventure there was required the accord and consent of eight or ten senses, and their contribution, to attaine a perspicuous insight of her, and see her in her true essence.
Those Sects which combate mans science, doe principally combate the same by the uncertainty and feeblenesse of our senses. For, since by their meane and intermission all knowledge comes unto us, if they chance to misse in the report they make unto us, if either they corrupt or alter that, which from abroad they bring unto us, if the light which by them is transported into our soule be obscured in the passage, we have nothing else to hold by. From this extreme difficultie are sprung all these phantazies, which everie subject containeth, whatsoever we finde in it, that it hath not what we suppose to finde in it, and that of the Epicurians, which is; that the sunne is no greater than our sight doth judge it:
Quicquid id est, nihilo fertur maiore figura,
Quam nostris oculis quam cernimus esse videtur.
Whate'er it be, it in no greater forme doth passe,
Then to our eyes, which it behold, it seeming was.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. v. 676.
That the apparances, which represent a great body to him that is neare unto it, and a much lesser to him that is further from it, are both true:
Nec tamen hic oculis falli concedimzus hilum:
Proinde animi vitium hoc oculis adfingere noli.
Yet graunt we not, in this, our eyes deceiv'd or blind,
Impute not then to eyes this error of the mind:
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 380.
And resolutely, that there is no deceit in the senses that a man must stand to their mercy, and elsewhere seek reasons to excuse the difference and contradiction we find in them: yea invent all other untruthes and raving conceits (so farre come they) rather than accuse the senses. Timagoras swore, that howsoever he winked or turned his eyes, he could never perceive the light of the candle to double: and that this seeming proceeded from the vice of opinion, and not from the instrument. Of all absurdities the most absurd amongst the Epicurians is to disavow the force and effect of the senses.
Proinde quod in quoque est his visum tempore, verum est:
Et si non potuit ratio dissolvere causam,
Cur ed quae fuerint iuxtim quadrata, procul sint.
Viarotunda: tamen praestat rationis egentem
Reddere mendose causas vtriusque figurae,
Quam manibus manifesta suis emittere quoquam,
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,
Praecipitesque locos vitare, et caetera quae sint In genere hoc fugienda.
What by the eyes is seene at any time, is true,
Though the cause treason could not render of the view,
Why, what was square at hand, a farre off seemed round,
Yet it much better were, that wanting reasons ground
The causes of both formes we harp-on, but not hit,
Then let slip from our hands things cleare, and them omit,
And violate our first beliefe, and rashly rend
All those grounorkes, whereon both life and health depend,
For not alone all reason falls, life likewise must
Faile out of hand, unlesse your senses you dare trust,
And breake-neeke places, and all other errours shunne,
From which we in this kinde most carefully should runne.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 502.
This desperate and so little Philosophicall counsell, represents no other thing but that humane science cannot be maintained but by unreasonable, fond and mad reason; yet is it better that man use it to prevaile, yea and of all other remedies else how phantasticall soever they be, rather than avow his necessarie foolishnesse.: So prejudiciall and disadvantageous a veritie he cannot avoide, but senses must necessarily be the Soveraigne maisters of his knowledge; but they are uncertaine and falsifiable to all circumstances. There must a man strike to the utmost of his power, and if his just forces faile him (as they are wont) to use and employ obstinacie, temeritie and impudencie. If that which the Epicurians affirme, be true, that is to say, we have no science, if the apparances of the senses be false, and that which the Stoicks say, if it is also true that the senses apparences are so false as they can produce us no science; we will conclude at the charges of these two great Dogmatist Sects, that there is no science.
Touching the error and uncertaintie of the senses operation, a man may store himselfe with as many examples as he pleaseth, so ordinary are the faults and deceits they use towards us. And the echoing or reporting of a valleys the sound of a trumpet seemeth to sound before us, which cometh a mile behind us.
Exstantesque procul medio de gargite montes
Idem apparent longe diversi licet.
Et fugere ad puppim colles campique videntur
Quos agimus prater navim.
------ubit in medio nobis equus acer abhaesit
Flumine, equi corpus transversum ferre videtur
Vis, et in adversum flumen contrudere raptim.
And hills, which from the maine far-off to kenning stand,
Appeare all one, though they farre distant be, at hand,
And hilles and fields doe seeme unto our boate to flie,
Which we drive by our boate as we doe passe thereby,
When in midst of a streame a stately Horse doth stay,
The streame's orethwarting seemes his body crosse to sway,
And swiftly 'gainst the streame to thrust him th' other way.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 398, 390, 423.
To roule a bullet under the fore finger, the midlemost being put over it, a man must very much enforce himselfe to affirme there is but one, so assuredly doth our sense present us two. That the senses do often maister our discourse, and force it to receive impressions which he knoweth and judgeth to be false, it is daily seene. I leave the sense of feeling which hath his functions neerer more quicke and substantiall, and which by the effect of the griefe or paine it brings to the body doth so often confound and re-enverse all these goodly Stoicall resolutions, and enforceth to cry out of the bellyache him who hath with all resolution established in his mind this doctrine, that the cholike, as every other sicknesse or paine, is a thing indifferent, wanting power to abate any thing of soveraigne good or chiefe felicity, wherein the wise man is placed by his owne vertue: there is no heart so demisse, but the rattling sound of a drum or the clang of a trumpet will rowse and inflame; nor mind so harsh and sterne, but the sweetnesse and harmony of musicke will move and tickle; nor any soule so skittish and stubborne, that hath not a feeling of some reverence in considering the clowdy vastitie and gloomie canapies of our churches, the eye-pleasing diversitie of ornaments, and orderly order of our ceremonies, and hearing the devout and religious sound of our organs, the moderate, symphonicall, and heavenly harmonie of our voices: even those that enter into them with an obstinate will and contemning minde have in their hearts a feeling of remorse, of chilnesse and horrour, that puts them into a certaine diffidence of their former opinions. As for me, I distrust mine owne strength to heare with a settled minde some of Horace or Catullus verses sung with a sufficiently well tuned voice, uttered by and proceeding from a faire, yong, and hart-alluring mouth. And Zeno had reason to say that the voice was the flower of beautie. Some have gone about to make me beleeve that a man, who most of us French men know, in repeating of certaine verses he had maide, had imposed upon me that they were not such in writing as in the aire, and that mine eyes would judge of them otherwise than mine eares: so much credit hath pronounciation to give price and fashion to those workes that passe at her mercy; whereupon Philoxenus was not to be blamed, when hearing one to give an ill accent to some composition of his, he tooke in a rage some of his pots or bricks, and breaking them, trode and trampled them under his feet, saying unto him, 'I breake and trample what is thine, even as thou manglest and marrest what is mine. Wherefore did they (who with an undanted resolve have procured their owne death, because they would not see the blow or stroke comming) turne their face away? And those who for their health's sake cause themselves to be cut and cauterized, why cannot they endure the sight of the preparations, tooles, instruments and workes of the Chirurgion, since the sight can have no part of the paine or smart? Are not these fit examples to verifie the authoritie which senses have over discourse? We may long enough know that such a ones lockes or flaring tresses are borrowed of a page or taken from some lacky, that this faire ruby-red came from Spaine, and this whitenes or smoothnes from the ocean sea: yet must sight force us to find and deeme the subject more lovely and more pleasing against all reason. For in that there is nothing of its owne.
Auferimur cultu: gemnis, auroque teguntur Crimina, pars minima est ipsa puelia sui. Saepe ubi sit quod ames inter tam multa requiras Decepit hac oculos AEgide dives amor.
We are misse-led by ornaments: what is amisse Gold and gemmes cover, least part of her selfe the maiden is, 'Mongst things so many you may aske, where your love lies, Rich love by this Gorgonian shield deceives thine eye.
Ovid. Rem. Am. 1. i. 343.
How much doe Poets ascribe unto the vertue of the senses which makes Narcissus to have even fondly lost himselfe for the love of his shadow?
Cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipsa, Se cupit imprudens, et qui probat, ipse probatur, Dumque petit petitur: pariterque accendit et ardit.
He all admires, whereby himselfe is is admirable, Fond he, fond of himseife, to himselfe amiable, He that doth like, is lik'd, and while he doth desire: He is desired, at once he burnes and sets on fire.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1. iii. 424.
And Pygmalions wit's so troubled by the impression of the sight of his ivory statue that hee loves and serves it as if it had life:
Osculadat, reddique putat, sequiturque, tenetque Et credit tactis digitos insidere membris, Et metuit pressos veniat ne livor in artus.
He kisses, and thinks kisses come againe, He sues, pursues, and holds, beleeves in vaine His fingers sinke where he doth touch the place, And feares least black and blew toucht-lims deface.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1. x. 256.
Let a Philosopher be put in a cage made of small and thin- set iron wire, and hanged on the top of our Ladies Church steeple in Paris; he shall, by evident reason, perceive that it is impossible he should fall down out of it: yet can he not choose (except he have beene brought up to the trade of tilers or thatchers) but the sight of that exceeding height must needs dazle his sight, and amaze or turne his senses. For we have much ado to warrant our selves in the walks or battlements of a high tower or steeple, if they be hattlemented and wrought with pillars, and somewhat wide one from another, although of stone and never so strong. Nay, some there are that call scarcely think or heare of such heights. Let a beame or planke be laid acrosse from one of those two steeples to the other, as big, as thick, as strong, and as broad as would suffice any man to walke safely upon it, there is no philosophicall wisdome of so great resolution and constancie that is able to encourage and perswade us to march upon it, as we would were it below on the ground. I have sometimes made triall of it upon our mountaines on this side of Italie, yet am I one of those that will not easily be affrighted with such things, and I could not without horror to my minde and trembling of legs and thighes endure to looke on those infinite precipices and steepy downe-fals, though I were not neere the brim, nor any danger within my length and more; and unlesse I had willingly gone to the perill, I could not possibly have falne. Where I also noted that how deep soever the bottome were, if but a tree, a shrub, or any out-butting crag of a rock presented it selfe unto our eyes upon those steepe and high Alpes, somewhat to uphold the sight; and divide the same, it doth somewhat ease and assure us from feare, as if it were a thing which in our fall might either helpe or upheld us: and that we cannot without some dread and giddinesse in the head so much as abide to looke upon one of those even and downe-right precipices:
Vt despici sine vertigine simul oculorum animique non possit.
So as they cannot looke downe without giddinesse both of eyes and mindes:
Which is an evident deception of the sight. Therefore was it that a worthy Philosopher pulled out his eyes that so he might discharge his soule of the seducing and diverting he received by them, and the better and more freely apply himselfe unto Philosophy. But by this accompt, he should also have stopped his eares, which (as Theophrastus said) are the most dangerous instruments we have to receive violent and sodaine impressions to trouble and alter us, and should in the end have deprived himself of all his other senses; that is to say, both of his being and life. For they have the power to command our discourses and sway our minde:
Fit etiam saepe specie quadam, saepe vocum gravitate et cantibus, vt pellantur animi vehementius: saepe etiam cura et timore.
It comes to passe that many times our mindes are much moved with some shadow, many times with deep sounding or singing of voices, many times with care and feare.
Cicero, Div. 1. i.
Physitians hold that there are certain complexions which by some sounds and instruments are agitated even unto furie. I have seene some who, without infringing their patience, could not well heare a bone gnawne under their table: and we see few men but are much troubled at that sharpe, harsh, and teeth-edging noise that smiths make in filing of brasse, or scraping of iron and steele together: others will be offended if they but heare one chew his meat somewhat aloud; nay, some will be angrie with or hate a man that either speaks in the nose or rattles in the throat. That piping prompter of Gracchus, who mollified, raised, and wound his masters voice whilst be was making orations at Rome; what good did he if the motion and qualitie of the sound had not the force to move and efficacy to alter the auditories judgement: Verily there is great cause to make so much ado, and keepe such a coyle about the constancie and firmnesse of this goodly piece, which suffers it selfe to be handled, changed, and turned by the motion and accident of so light a winde.
The very same cheating and cozening that senses bring to our understanding, themselves receive it in their turnes. Our mind doth likewise take revenge of it, they lie, they cog, and deceive one another a vie. What we see and heare, being passionately transported by anger, we neither see nor heare it as it is.
Et solem geminum, et duplices se ostendere Thebas.
That two Sunnes doe appeare,
And double Thebes are there.
Virgil, AEn. 1. iv. 470.
The object which we love seemeth much more fairer unto us then it is:
Multimodis igitur pravos turpesque videmus
Esse in delitiis, summoque in honore vigere.
We therefore see that those, who many waies are bad,
And fowle, are yet belov'd, and in chiefe honour had.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 1147.
And that much fowler which we loath. To a pensive and heart- grieved man a cleare day seemes gloomie and duskie. Our senses are not onely altered but many times dulled, by the passions of the mind. How many things see we, which we perceive not, if our mind be either busied or distracted elsewhere?
------in rebus quoque apertis noscere possis,
Si non advertas animum, proinde esse, quasi omni
Tempore semotae fuerint, longeque remotae.
Ev'n in things manifest it may be seene,
If you marke not, they are, as they had beene
At all times sever'd farre, remooved cleane.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 808.
The soule seemeth to retire her selfe into the inmost parts, and ammuseth the senses faculties: so that both the inward and outward parts of man are full of weaknes and falshood.
Those which have compared our life unto a dreame, have happily had more reason so to doe then they were aware. When we dreame, our soule liveth, worketh and exerciseth all her faculties, even and as much as when it waketh; and if more softly and obscurely, yet verily not so, as that it may admit so great a difference as there is betweene a dark night and a cleare day: yea as betweene a night and a shadow: there it sleepeth, here it slumbreth: more or lesse they are ever darknesses, yea Cimmerian darknesses. We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. In my sleep I see not so cleare; yet can I never find my waking cleare enough, or without dimnesse. Sleepe also, in his deepest rest, doth sometimes bring dreames asleepe: but our waking is never so vigilant as it may clearely purge and dissipate the ravings or idle phantasies which are the dreames of the waking, and worse then dreames. Our reason and soule, receiving the phantasies and opinions, which sleeping seize on them, and authorising our dreames actions, with like approbation, as it doth the daies, why make we not a doubt whether our thinking and our working be another dreaming, and our waking some kind of sleeping?
If the senses be our first judges, it is not ours that must only be called to counsell: for, in this facultie, beasts have as much (or more) right as we. It is most certaine that some have their hearing more sharpe than man; others their sight; others their smelling; others their feeling, or taste. Democritus said that Gods and beasts had the sensitive faculties much more perfect than man. Now, betweene the effects of their senses and ours the difference is extreame. Our spettle cleanseth and drieth our sores, and killeth serpents.
Tantaque in his rebus distantia differitasque est,
Ut quod alus cibus est, aliis fuat acre venenum.
Saepe etenim serpens, hominis contacta saliva,
Disperit, ac sese mandendo conficit ipsa.
There is such distance, and such difference in these things,
As what to one is meate, t'another poison brings.
For oft a Serpent toucht with spettle of a man
Doth die, and gnaw it selfe with fretting all he can.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 640.
What qualitie shall we give unto spettle, either according to us or according to the serpent? by which two senses shall we verifie its true essence, which we 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 hurteth the one: 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 tey looks upon to be yellowish, which seeme more pale and wan to them then to us.
Lurida praeterea fiunt quaecunque tuentur
Arquati.
And all that jaundis'd men behold,
They yellow straight or palish hold.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 333.
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 humours 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 outstretched. 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.
Bina lucernarum florentia lumina flammis
Et duplices hominum facies, et corpora bina.
The lights of candles double flaming then;
And faces twaine, and bodies twaine of men.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 452, 454.
If our eares chance to be hindred by any thing, or that the passage of our hearing bee stopt, we receive the sound otherwise then we were ordinarily wont. Such beasts as have hairie eares, or that in lieu of an eare have but a little hole, doe not by consequence heare that we heare, and receive the sound other then it is. We see at solemn shewes or in theatres that, opposing any collourd glasse betweene our eyes and the torches light, whatsoever is in the roome seemes or greene, or yellow, or red unto us, according to the collour of the glasse:
Et vulgo faciunt id lutea russague vela,
Et ferruginea, cum magnis intenta theatris
Per malos volgata trabesque trementia pendent,:
Namque ibi consessum caveat subter, et omnem
Scenai speciem, patrum matrumque deorumque
Inficiunt coguntque suo fluitare colore.
And yellow, russet, rustic curtained worke this feate
In common sights abroade, where over skaffold's great
Stretched on masts, spred over beames, they hang still waving.
All the seates circuit there, and all the stages braving,
Of fathers, mothers, Gods, and all the circle showe
They double-dye and in their colours make to flowe.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 73.
It is likely that those beasts eyes which we see to be of divers collours, produce the apparances of those bodies they looke upon to be like their eyes.
To judge the senses operation, it were then necessary we were first agreed with beasts, and then betweene our selves; which we are not, that ever-and-anon disputing about that one seeth, heareth, or tasteth something to be other then indeed it is; and contend as much as about any thing else, of the diversity of those images our senses report unto us. A yong child heareth, seeth, and tasteth otherwise, by natures ordinary rule, then a man of thirtie yeares; and he otherwise then another of threescore. The senses are to some more obscure and dimme, and to some more open and quicke. We receive things differently, according as they are and seeme unto us. Things being then so uncertaine and full of controversie, it is no longer a wonder if it be told us that we may avouch snow to seeme white unto us; but to affirme that it's such in essence and in truth, we cannot warrant ourselves: which foundation being so shaken, all the science in the world must necessarily goe to wracke. What, doe our senses themselves hinder one another? To the sight a picture seemeth to be raised aloft, and in the handling flat: shall we say that muske is so pleasing or no, which comforteth our smelling and offendeth our taste? There are hearbs and ointments which to some parts of the body are good, and to other some hurtfull. Honie is pleasing to the taste, but unpleasing to the sight. Those jewefl wrought and fashioned like feathers or sprigs, which in impreses are called feathers without ends, no eye can discerne the bredth of them, and no man warrant himselfe from this deception, that on the one end or side it groweth not broder and broder, sharper and sharper, and on the other more and more narrow, especially being rouled about ones finger, when notwithstanding in handling it seemeth equal in bredth, and every where alike. Those who to encrease and aide their luxury were anciently wont to use perspective or looking glasses, fit to make the object they represented appeare very big and great, that so the members they were to use might, by that ocular increase, please them the more: to whether of the two senses yeelded they, either to the sight presenting those members as big and great as they wisht them, or to the feeling that presented them little and to be disdained? Is it our senses that lend these diverse conditions unto subjects, when for all that the subjects have but one? as we see in the Bread we eat: it is but Bread, but one using it, it maketh bones, blood, flesh, haire, and nailes thereof:
Ut cibus in membra atque artus cum diditur omnes
Disperit, atque aliam naturam sufficit ex se.
As meate distributed into the members, dies,
Another nature yet it perishing supplies.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iii. 728.
The moistnesse which the roote of a tree suckes becomes a trunke, a leafe, and fruite: And the aire being but one, applied unto a trumpet, becommoth diverse in a thousand sorts of sounds. Is it our senses (say I) who likewise fashion of diverse qualities those subjects, or whether they have them so and such? And upon this doubt, what may wee conclude of their true essence? Moreover, since the accidents of sicknesse, of madnesse, or of sleepe, make things appeare other unto us then they seeme unto the healthy, unto the wise, and to the waking: is it not likely that our right seate and naturall humors have also wherewith to give a being unto things, having reference unto their condition, and to appropriate them to it selfe, as doe inordinate humors; and our health as capable to give them his visage as sicknesse? Why hath not the temperate man some forme of the objects relative unto himselfe as the intemperate: and shall not he likewise imprint his character in them? The distasted impute wallowishnes unto wine: the healthier good taste; and the thirsty, brisknesse, rellish, and dellicacie. Now our condition appropriating things unto it selfe, and transforming them to its owne humour: wee know no more how things are in sooth and truth; for nothing comes unto us but falsified and altered by our senses. Where the compasses, the quadrant, or the ruler are crooked, all proportions drawne by them, and all the buildings erected by their measure, are also necessarily defective and imperfect. The uncertaintie of our senses yeelds what ever they produce, also uncertaine.
Denique ut in fabrica, si prava est regula prima, Normaque si fallax rectis regionibus exit, Et libella aliqua si ex parte claudicat hilum, Omnia mendose fieri, atque obstipa necessum est, Prava, cubantia, prona, supina, atque absona tecta, Iam ruere ut quaedam videantur velle, ruantque Prodita judiciis fallacibus omnia primis. Hic igitur ratio tibi rerum prava necesse est, Falsaque sit falsis quaecunque a sensibus orta est.
As in building if the first rule be to blame, And the deceitful squire erre from right forms and frame, If any instrument want any jot of weight, All must needs faultie be, and stooping in their height, The building naught, absurd, upward and downeward bended, As if they meant to fall, and fall, as they intended; And all this as betrayde By judgements formost laid. Of things the reason therefore needs must faultie bee And false, which from false senses drawes its pedigree.
Lucretius, The Nature of Things, 1. iv. 514
As for the rest, who shall bee a competent Judge in these differences? As wee said in controversies of religion, that we must have a judge inclined to either party, and free from partialitie, or affection, which is hardly to be had among Christians; so hapneth it in this: For if he be old he cannot judge of ages sense, himself being a party in this controversie: and so if he be yong, healthy, sicke, sleeping, or waking, it is all one: We had need of some body void and exempted from all these qualities, that without any preoccupation of judgement might judge of these propositions as indifferent unto him: by which accompt we should have a judge that were no man.
To judge of the apparances that we receive of subjects, we had need have a judicatorie instrument: to verifie this instrument we should have demonstration; and to approve demonstration, an instrument; thus are we ever turning round. Since the senses cannot determine our disputation, themselves being so full of uncertainty, it must then be reason: and no reason can be astiblished without another reason: then are we ever going backe unto infinity. Our phantasie doth not apply it selfe to strange things, but is rather conceived by the interposition of senses; and senses cannot comprehend a strange subject; nay, not so much as their owne passions: and so, nor the phantasie, nor the apparence is the subject's, but rathier 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, turns 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.