nderstanding frames to itself, by repeating and joining together ideas
that it had either from objects of sense or from its own operations
about them; so that even those large and abstract ideas are derived from
sensation or reflection, being no other than what the mind may and does
attain by the ordinary use of its own faculties.

_IV.--Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things_

It is the actual receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of
the existence of other things, and makes us know that something does
exist at that time without us which causes that idea in us, though
perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does it. And this, though
not so certain as our own intuitive knowledge, or as the deductions of
our reason employed about the clear abstract ideas of our own minds, yet
deserves the name of knowledge.

It is plain that those perceptions are produced by exterior causes
affecting our senses for the following reasons.

Because those that want the organs of any sense never can have the ideas
belonging to that sense produced in their minds.

Because sometimes I find I cannot avoid having those ideas produced in
my mind; for as when my eyes are shut, or the windows fast, I can at
pleasure recall to my mind the ideas of light or the sun which former
sensations have lodged in my memory; so I can at pleasure lay by that
idea and take into my view that of a rose or taste of sugar. But if I
turn my eyes at noon towards the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the
light or sun produces in me. There is nobody who does not perceive the
difference in himself contemplating the sun as he has an idea of it in
his memory and actually looking upon it; and, therefore, he has certain
knowledge that they are not both memory or the actions of his mind and
fancies only within him, but that actual seeing has a cause without.

Add to this that many of those ideas are produced with pain, which
afterwards we remember without the least offence.

Lastly, our senses bear witness to the truth of each other's report
concerning the existence of sensible things without us.

MONTAIGNE

Essays

Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, one of the greatest masters
of the essay in all literature, was born at his family's ancestral
chateau near Bordeaux, in France, Feb. 28, 1533, and died on
September 13, 1592. His life was one of much suffering from
hereditary disease, which, however, he endure