Kitap 1
17
These things, says the diviner, I find in the auguries. These things are announced to you. If you please, you are free. If you please, you will have no one to complain of, no one to accuse. All will be equally according to your own mind, and to the mind of God.
17
For the sake of this oracle, I go to this diviner and philosopher; admiring not alone him for his interpretation, but also the things which he interprets.
That we ought not to be angry with the erring.
18
If what the philosophers say be true, that all men’s actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain; so, likewise, they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage,—and it is impossible to esteem one thing advantageous, and yet desire another; to esteem one thing a duty, and yet pursue another, why, after all, should we be angry at the multitude?
18
They are thieves and robbers.
18
What do you mean by thieves and robbers? They are in an error concerning good and evil. Ought you, then, to be angry, or rather to pity them? Do but show them their error, and you will see that they will amend their faults; but if they do not see the error, they will rise no higher than their convictions.
18
What, then; ought not this thief and this adulterer to be destroyed?
