Book 1
28
Recur to the rules. Apply your principles. One cannot sufficiently wonder at what happens among men. When we would judge of light and heavy, we do not judge by guess, nor when we judge of straight and crooked; and, in general, when it concerns us to know the truth on any special point, no one of us will do anything by guess. But where the first and principal source of right or wrong action is concerned, of being prosperous or unprosperous, happy or unhappy,—there only do we act rashly, and by guess. Nowhere anything like a balance; nowhere anything like a rule; but something seems thus or so to me, and I at once act accordingly. For am I better than Agamemnon or Achilles; that they, by following what seemed best to them, should do and suffer so many things, and yet that seeming should not suffice me? And what tragedy hath any other origin? The Atreus of Euripides, what is it? Seeming. The Oedipus of Sophocles? Seeming. The Phoenix? The Hippolytus? All seeming. Who then, think you, can escape this influence? What are they called who follow every seeming? Madmen. Yet do we, then, behave otherwise?
Of courage.
29
The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.
29
What are things outward, then?
29
Materials on which the will may act, in attaining its own good or evil.
29
How, then, will it attain good?
29
If it be not dazzled by its own materials; for right principles concerning these materials keep the will in a good state; but perverse and distorted principles, in a bad one. This law hath God ordained, who says, If you wish for good, receive it from yourself. You say, No; but from another. Nay; but from yourself.
