But when I
inquired, why, from some, I know not what, painful sensation,
there follows sadness of mind, and from the pleasurable
sensation there arises joy, or why this mysterious pinching of
the stomach which I call hunger causes me to desire to eat,
and dryness of throat causes a desire to drink, and so on, I
could give no reason excepting that nature taught me so; for
there is certainly no affinity (that I at least can
understand) between the craving of the stomach and the desire
to eat, any more than between the perception of whatever
causes pain and the thought of sadness which arises from this
perception. And in the same way it appeared to me that I had
learned from nature all the other judgments which I formed
regarding the objects of my senses, since I remarked that
these judgments were formed in me before I had the leisure to
weigh and consider any reasons which might oblige me to make
them.
But afterwards many experiences little by little
destroyed all the faith which I had rested in my senses; for I
from time to time observed that those towers which from afar
appeared to me to be round, more closely observed seemed
square, and that colossal statues raised on the summit of
these towers, appeared as quite tiny statues when viewed from
the bottom; and so in an infinitude of other cases I found
error in judgments founded on the external senses.
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