ance, our eyes
represent things at a distance to be less than they really are. A
straight stick in the water appears crooked; the moon to be no bigger
than a cheese; the sun greater at rising and setting than at noon. The
shore seems to move, and the ship to stand still; square things to be
round at a distance; an erect pillar to be less at the top. Neither (say
they) do we know whether objects are really as our eyes represent them
to us, for the same thing which seems white to us seems yellow to a
jaundiced man, and red to a creature afflicted with red eyes; also, if a
man rubs his eyes, the figure which he beholds seems long or narrow, and
therefore it is not improbable that goats, cats, and other creatures,
which have long pupils of the eye, may think those things long which we
call round, for as glasses represent the object variously, according
to their shape, so it may be with our eyes. And so the sense of hearing
deceives. Thus, the echo of a trumpet, sounded in a valley, makes the
sound seem before us, when it is behind us. Besides, how can we think
that an ear, which has a narrow passage, can receive the same sound with
that which has a wide one? Or the ear, whose inside is full of hair, to
hear the same with a smooth ear? Experience tells us that if we stop,
or half stop, our ears, the sound cometh different as when the ears are
open. Nor is the smelling, taste, or touch less subject to mistake; for
the same scents please some, and displease others, and so in our tastes.
To a rough and dry tongue that very thing seems bitter (as in an ague,)
which to the most moist tongue seems otherwise, and so is it in other
creatures. The like is true of the touch, for it were absurd to think
that those creatures which are covered with shells, scales, or hairs,
should have the same sense in touching with those that are smooth. Thus
one and the same object is diversely judged of, according to the
various qualities of the instruments of sense, which convinceth to
the imagination; from all which the Sceptic concluded, that what these
things are in their own nature, whether red, white, bitter, or sweet,
he cannot tell; for, says he, why should I prefer my own conceit in
affirming the nature of things to be thus, or thus, because it seemeth
so to me--when other living creatures, perhaps, think it is otherwise?
But the greatest fallacy is in the operation of our inward senses; for
the fancy is sometimes persuaded that it hears and s