Book 1
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This, however, can properly be said only by one who is really in earnest. But he who reads these things, and applies to the philosophers, merely for the sake of showing, at some entertainment, that he understands hypothetical reasonings, what aim has he but to be admired by some senator, who happens to sit near him? This passage is omitted as inexplicable by Mrs. Carter. Schweighaeuser says, Tentare interpretationem possum; praestare non possum. A passage just below I also have omitted, as the text is admitted to be in a hopeless state.—H. Great possessions may be won by such aims as that, but what we hold as wealth passes there for folly. It is hard, therefore, to overcome by appearances, where vain things thus pass for great.
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I once saw a person weeping and embracing the Knees of Epaphroditus, and deploring his hard fortune, that he had not more than 150,000 drachmae left. What said Epaphroditus then? Did he laugh at him, as we should do? No; but cried out with astonishment: Poor man! How could you be silent under it? How could you bear it?
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The first step, therefore, towards becoming a philosopher is to be sensible in what state the ruling faculty of the mind is; for on knowing it to be weak, no person will immediately employ it in great attempts. But, for want of this, some who can scarce digest a crumb will yet buy and swallow whole treatises; and so they throw them up again, or cannot digest them; and then come colics, fluxes, and fevers. Such persons ought to consider what they can bear. Indeed, it is easy to convince an ignorant person, so far as concerns theory; but in matters relating to life, no one offers himself to conviction, and we hate those who have convinced us. Socrates used to say, that we ought not to live a life unexamined.Plato, Apologia, i. 28.—H.
Of the varied appearances of things to the mind, and what means are at hand by which to regulate them.
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Appearances to the mind are of four kinds.
