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Book II. ing on, because all the Strength of the Body is exerted with the Voice, and the Blow is laid on with greater • Force.' We have enough to do to deal with the Difcafe, without troubling ourselves with these fuperfluous Rules. I say this Montaigne kept his Temper in the Height of his Pain.

in Excuse of those whom we ordinarily fee impatient in the Affaults and Shocks of this Infirmity; for as to myself, I have passed it over, hitherto, with a little better Countenance, and contented myself with grunting, without roaring out: Not, however, that I put any great Task upon myself to maintain this exterior Decency, for I make little Account of fuch an Advantage: I allow herein as much as the Pain requires, but either my Pains are not fo exceffive, or I have more than ordinary Refolution to fupport them: I complain, and fret, in a very sharp Fit, but not to fuch a Degree of Defpair, as he who with

Ejulatu, queftu, gemitu, fremitibus
Refonando multum flebiles voces refert.

i. e.

Howling, Roaring, and a thousand Groans
Exprefs'd his Torment in moft difmal Tones.

I found myself in the worst of my Fits, and have always found, that I was in a Capacity to speak, think, and give as rational an Answer as at any other Time, but not with fuch Steadiness, being troubled and interrupted by the Pain. When I am looked upon, by my Viliters, to be almost spent, and that they therefore forbear to talk, I oft try my own Strength, and broach fome Discourse myself, on Subjects the most remote I can contrive from my prefent Condition: I can do any Thing by a fudden Effort, but not to hold long. What Pity 'tis I have not the Faculty of that Dreamer in Cicero; who, dreaming he was lying with a Wench, found he had discharged his Stone in the Sheets!' My Pains do ftrangely take off my Appetite that way. In the Intervals from this exceffive Torment, when my Ureters languish without gnawing, I prefently recover my wonted State, forafmuch as my Soul

< Cic. Tufc. lib. ii. c. 14.

takes

takes no other Alarm but what is fenfible and corporeal, which I certainly owe to the Care I have had of prepar ing myself, by Reason, against fuch Accidents.

laborum

Nulla mibi nova nunc facies inopinaque furgit,
Omnia præcepi, atque animo mecum ante peregia.

i. e.

No Face of Pain or Labour, now can rife,
Which by its Novelty can me furprise;
I've been accuftom'd all Things to explore,
And been inur'd unto them long before.

I am a little roughly handled for a Learner, and, with a fudden and fharp Alteration, being fallen, in an Inftant, from a very easy and happy Condition of Life, into the most uneafy and painful that can be imagined: For, befides that it is a Disease very much to be feared in itself, it begins with me after a more sharp and fevere Manner than it used to do: My Fits come fo thick upon me, that I am scarce ever in Health; and yet I have hitherto kept my Mind in fuch a Frame, that, provided I can còntinue it, I find myself in a much better Condition of Life than a thousand others, who have no Fever, nor other Difeafe but what they create to themselves for Want of Reafoning.

that fprings

A Refemblance that paffes to Children, from Grandfathers Grandfathers,

and Great

as well as Fa

thers.

There is a certain Sort of crafty Humility from Prefumption; as this, for Example, that we confefs our Ignorance in many Things, and are fo courteous as to acknowledge, that there are, in the Works of Nature, fome Qualities and Conditions that are imperceptible by us, and of which our Understanding cannot discover the Means and Caufes: By this honeft Declaration we hope to obtain, that People shall alfo believe us in those that we say we do understand. We need not trouble ourselves to feek Miracles and strange Difficulties; methinks there are Wonders fo incomprehenfible amongst the Things that we ordinarily fee, as furpafs all Difficulties of Miracles. What a wonderful Thing VOL. II. PP

d Æneid. lib. vi. v. 103, 5%.

it

Book II. it is, that the Drop of Seed from which we are produced, fhould carry in itself the Impreffion not only of the bodily Form, but even of the Thoughts and Inclinations of our Fathers? Where can that Drop of fluid Matter contain that infinite Number of Forms? And how do they carry on thefe Refemblances with fo precipitant and irregular a Progrefs, that the Grandfon fhall be like his Great Grandfather, the Nephew like his Uncle? In the Family of Lepidus at Rome, there were three, not fucceffively, but by Intervals, that were born with one and the fame Eye covered with a Web. At Thebes, there was a Race that carried, from their Mothers Womb, the Mark of the Spear of a Lance,' and who was not born fo, was looked upon as illegitimate. And Ariftotle says, That, in a certain Nation, where the Women were in common, they affigned the Children to their Fathers by their Refemblance.

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'Tis to be believed, that I derive this Infirmity from The Author's my Father, for he died wonderfully tormentFather afflicted with a great Stone in his Bladder; he was never fenfible of his Disease till the fixty-feventh Year of his Age, and, before that, had never felt any Symptoms of it, either in his Reins, Sides, or any other Part; and had lived, till then, in a happy State of Health, little fubject to Infirmities, and, having lived feven Years in this Disease, died a very painful Death. I was born above twenty-five Years before this Diftemper feized him, and in his moft healthful State of Body, was his third Child in Order of Birth: Where could his Propenfion to this Malady lurk all that while? And, he himself being fo far from the Infirmity at my Birth, how could that fmall Part of his Substance, of which I was compofed, carry away fo great an Impreffion of its Share? And how was it fo concealed, that, till forty-five Years after, I did not begin to be fenfible of it? being the only one, to this Hour, amongst fo many Brothers and Sifters, and all of one Mother, that was ever troubled

e Plin. lib. vii. of his Nat. Hift. c. 12.

f Plutarch in his Treatife of the Perfons whofe Punishment is delayed by God, c. 19. of Amyot's Tranflation; but he does not fay, that those of this Race, who had not this Mark, as fome had not, were deemed illegitimate.

troubled with it. He that can fatisfy me in this Point, I will believe him in as many other Miracles as he pleases; always provided, that, as the Manner is, he does not give me a Doctrine much more intricate and fantaftic than the Thing itself, for current Pay.

His Contempt

of Phyfic.

Let the Physicians a little excufe the Liberty I take; for by this fame Infufion, and fatal Infinuation, it is, that I have received a Hatred and Contempt of their Doctrine. The Antipathy I have against their Art is hereditary to me. My Father lived feventy-four Years, my Grandfather fixty-nine, my Great Grandfather almoft fourfcore Years, without ever tafting any sort of Phyfic; and, with them, whatever was not ordinary Diet, was inftead of a Drug. Phyfic is grounded upon Experience and Examples, fo is my Opinion: And is not this an express and very advantageous Experience? I do not know that they can find me, in all their Records, three that were born, bred, and died under the fame Roof, who have lived so long by their own Conduct. It must here, of Neceffity, be confeffed, that, if

6

Reason be not, Fortune at leaft is on my Side,' and with Physicians, Fortune goes a great deal further than Reason; let them not take me now at this Disadvantage; let them not threaten me in the demolished Condition I now am, for that were foul Play: And, to fay Truth, I have got fo much the better of them by thefe domestic Examples, that they should reft fatisfied. Human Things are not ufually fo conftant; it has been two hundred Years, fave eighteen, that this Trial has lafted, in our Family, for the first of them was born in the Year 1402. 'Tis now, indeed, very good Reason, that this Experience fhould begin to fail us: Let them not therefore reproach me with the Infirmities under which I now fuffer; is it not enough, for my Part, that I have lived forty-feven Years in perfect Health? Though it should be the End of my Career, 'tis of the longer fort.

My Ancestors had an Averfion to Phyfic by fome secret and natural Instinct, for the very Sight of a The fame ConPotion was loathfome to my Father. The tempt of it by Seigneur de Gaviac, my Uncle by the Father's his Ancestors. P P 2

Side,

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Book II. Side, a Churchman, and a Valetudinarian from his Birth, and yet one who made that crazy Life to hold out to fixtyfeven Years; being once fallen into a violent Fever, it was ordered, by the Physicians, he fhould be plainly told, • That if he would not make use of Help (for fo they call that which is very often a Hindrance) he would infallibly < be a dead Man.' The good Man, tho' terrified with this dreadful Sentence, yet replied, I am then a dead Man.' But God, foon after, proved the Prognostic falfe. The youngest of the Brothers, which were four, and by many Years the youngest, the Sieur de Buffaget, was the only Man of the Family that made ufe of Medicine, by reason, I fuppofe, of the Commerce he had with the other Arts, for he was a Counsellor in the Court of Parliament, and it fucceeded fo ill with him, that, being, in outward Appearance, of the strongest Conftitution, he yet died before any of the reft, the Sieur St. Michel only excepted.

'Tis poffible I may have derived this natural Antipathy His Reafon for to Phyfic from them; but, had there been no making fo very other Confideration in the Cafe, I would have light of Phyfic. endeavoured to have overcome it: For all Conditions that spring in us without Reason, are vicious, and is a kind of Disease that we are to wrestle with: It may be I had naturally this Propenfion, but I have fupported and fortified it by Arguments and Reasons, which have established in me the Opinion I have of it: For I alfo hate the Confideration of refufing Phyfic for the nauseous Tafte: I fhould hardly be of their Humour, who find Health worth purchasing by all the most painful Cauteries and Incifions that can be applied: And, according to Epicurus, I conceive, That Pleasures are to be avoided, if greater Pains be the Confequence; and Pains to be co• veted, that will terminate in greater Pleasures.' Health is a precious Thing, and the only one, in Truth, meriting that a Man fhould lay out, not only his Time, Sweat, Labour, and Goods, but also his Life itself to obtain it, forafmuch as, without it, Life is a Burden to us. fure, Wisdom, Learning, and Virtue, without it, wither and vanish; and to the most laboured and folid Discourses, that Philofophy would imprint in us to the contrary, we

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