Book 1
28
Absolutely no other. The Iliad consists of nothing but such semblances and their results. It seemed to Paris that he should carry off the wife of Menelaus. It seemed to Helen that she should follow him. If, then, it had seemed to Menelaus that it was an advantage to be robbed of such a wife, what could have happened? Not only the Iliad had been lost, but the Odyssey too.
28
Do such great events, then, depend on so small a cause?
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What events, then, call you great?
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Wars and seditions, the destruction of numbers of men, and the overthrow of cities.
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And what in all this is great? Nothing. What is great in the death of numbers of oxen, numbers of sheep, or in the burning or pulling down numbers of nests of storks or swallows?
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Are these things then similar?
28
They are. The bodies of men are destroyed, and the bodies of sheep and oxen. The houses of men are burnt, and the nests of storks. What is there so great or fearful in all this? Pray, show me what difference there is between the house of a man and the nest of a stork, considered as a habitation, except that houses are built with beams and tiles and bricks, and nests with sticks and clay?
28
What, then; are a stork and a man similar? What do you mean?
28
Similar in body.
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Is there no difference, then, between a man and a stork?
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Yes, surely; but not in these things. In what, then?
28
Inquire; and you will find, that the difference lies in something else. See whether it be not in rationality of action, in social instincts, fidelity, honor, providence, judgment.
28
Where, then, is the real good or evil of man?
