Book 1
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Then ought he also to have run away and left her,—the child being thus left alone and unassisted, from the great affection of her parents and her friends, or left to die among people who neither loved her nor took care of her?
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Heaven forbid!
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But is it not unreasonable and unjust that what you think right in yourself, on account of your affection, should not be allowed to others, who have the very same affection with you
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It is absurd.
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Pray, if you were ill yourself should you be willing to have your family, and even your wife and children, so very affectionate as to leave you helpless and alone?
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By no means.
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Or would you wish to be so loved by your friends as from their excessive affection always to be left alone when you were ill? Or would you not rejoice, if it were possible, to have such a kind of affection from your enemies, as to make them thus let you alone? If so, it remains, that your behavior was by no means affectionate. But now, was there no other motive that induced you to desert your child?
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How is that possible?
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I mean some such motive as induced a person at Rome to hide his face while a horse was running to which he earnestly wished success; and when, beyond his expectation, it won the race he was obliged himself to be sponged, to recover from his faintness.
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And what was this motive?
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At present, perhaps, it cannot be made clear to you. It is sufficient to be convinced, if what philosophers say be true, that we are not to seek any motive merely from without; but that there is the same [unseen] motive in all cases, which moves us to do or forbear any action; to speak or not to speak; to be elated or depressed; to avoid or pursue,—that very impulse which hath now moved us two; you, to come, and sit and hear me; and me, to speak as I do.
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And what is that?
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Is it anything else than that it seemed right to us to do so?
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Nothing else.
