Kitap 1
6
This would be madness and folly. But as they were in being, and to be met with, they were proper subjects to call out and exercise Hercules. Do you therefore likewise, being sensible of this, consider the faculties you have, and after taking a view of them say, Bring on me now, O Zeus, what difficulty thou wilt, for I have faculties granted me by thee, and powers by which I may win honor from every event? No; but you sit trembling, for fear this or that should happen, and lamenting and mourning and groaning at what doth happen; and then you accuse the gods! In what does such baseness end but in impiety? And yet God has not only granted these faculties by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but, like a good prince and a true father, has placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control; nor has he reserved a power, even to himself, of hindering or restraining them. Having these things free, and your own, will you not use them, nor consider what you have received, nor from whom? But you sit groaning and lamenting, some of you, blind to him who gave them, and not acknowledging your benefactor; while others basely turn themselves to complaints and accusations against God! I undertake to show you that you have means and faculties to exhibit greatness of soul, and a manly spirit; but what occasion you have to find fault and complain, do you show me if you can.
Of the use of the forms of right reasoning.
