Book 4
5
And will we not fortify, then, the only citadel that is granted us; and withdrawing ourselves from what is mortal and servile, diligently improve what is immortal and by nature free? Do we not remember that no one either hurts or benefits another; but only the views which we hold concerning everything? It is this that hurts us; this that overturns us. Here is the fight, the sedition, the war. It was nothing else that made Eteocles and Polynices enemies, but their views concerning empire, and their principles concerning exile; that the one seemed the extremest evil, the other the greatest good. Now, the very nature of every one is to pursue good, to avoid evil; to esteem him as an enemy and betrayer who deprives us of the one and involves us in the other, though he be a brother, or a son, or father. For nothing is more nearly related to us than good. So that if good and evil consist in externals, there is no affection between father and son, brother and brother; but all is everywhere full of enemies, betrayers, sycophants. But if a right choice be the only good, and a wrong one the only evil, what further room is there for quarrelling, for reviling? About what can it be? About what is nothing to us. Against whom? Against the ignorant, against the unhappy, against those who are deceived in the most important respects.
