Book 1
29
But some one in authority has given a sentence. I judge you to be impious and profane. What has befallen you?—I have been judged to be impious and profane.—Anything else?—Nothing.—Suppose he had passed his judgment upon any process of reasoning, and had questioned the conclusion that, if it be day, it is light; what would have befallen the proposition? In this case, who is judged, who is condemned,—the proposition, or he who cannot understand it? Does he know, who claims the power of ruling in your case, what pious or impious means? Has he made it his study or learned it? Where? From whom? A musician would not regard him, if he pronounced bass to be treble; nor a mathematician, if he passed sentence, that lines drawn from the centre to the circumference are not equal. And shall he who is instructed in the truth respect an ignorant man, when he pronounces upon pious and impious, just and unjust?
29
Oh, the persecutions to which the wise are exposed! Is it here that you have learned this talk? Why do not you leave such pitiful discourse to idle, pitiful fellows; and let them sit in a corner, and receive some little mean pay, or grumble that nobody gives them anything? But do you come, and make some use of what you have learned. It is not reasonings that are wanted now, for there are books stuffed full of stoical reasonings.
29
What is wanted, then?
29
The man who shall apply them; whose actions may bear testimony to his doctrines. Assume this character for me, that we may no longer make use in the schools of the examples of the ancients, but may have some examples of our own.
29
To whom, then, does the contemplation of these abstractions belong?
