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The atheist, when he is ill, takes into account and calls to mind the times when he has eaten too much or drunk too much wine, also irregularities in his daily life, or instances of over-fatigue or unaccustomed changes of air or locality; and again when he has given offence in administering office, and has encountered disrepute with the masses or calumny with a ruler, he looks to find the reason in himself and his own surroundings: Where did I err, and what have I done? What duty of mine was neglected? Pythagoras, Carmina aurea, 42; quoted again in Moralia, 515 F. But in the estimation of the superstitious man, every indisposition of his body, loss of property, deaths of children, or mishaps and failures in public life are classed as afflictions of God or attacks of an evil spirit. Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 29 (72). For this reason he has no heart to relieve the situation or undo its effects, or to find some remedy for it or to take a strong stand against it, lest he seem to fight against God and to rebel at his punishment; but when he is ill the physician is ejected from the house, and when he is in grief the door is shut on the philosopher who would advise and comfort him. Oh, sir, he says, leave me to pay my penalty, impious wretch that I am, accursed, and hateful to the gods and all the heavenly host. Perhaps the language was suggested by the words in Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 1340.
