Kitap 1
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When any one, then, assents to what is false, be assured that he does not wilfully assent to it as false,—for, as Plato affirms, the soul is unwillingly deprived of truth,This is not a literal quotation from Plato, but similar passages are to be found in his Laws, 9. 5; Sophist, 29; Protagoras, 87, etc.—H.—but what is false appears to him to be true. Well, then; have we, in actions, anything correspondent to this distinction between true and false? There are right and wrong; advantageous and disadvantageous; desirable and undesirable, and the like.
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A person, then, cannot think a thing truly advantageous to him, and not choose it?
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He cannot. But how says Medea?— I know what evils wait upon my purpose; But wrath is stronger than this will of mine. Euripides, Medea, 1087.—H.
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Was it that she thought the very indulgence of her rage, and the punishing her husband, more advantageous than the preservation of her children? Yes; but she is deceived. Show clearly to her that she is deceived, and she will forbear; but, till you have shown it, what has she to follow but what appears to herself? Nothing.
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Why, then, are you angry with her, that the unhappy woman is deceived in the most important points, and instead of a human creature, becomes a viper? Why do you not rather, as we pity the blind and lame, so likewise pity those who are blinded .and lamed in their superior faculties? Whoever, therefore, duly remembers, that the appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man,—that this is either right or wrong, and if right, he is without fault; if wrong, he himself suffers punishment; for that one man cannot be the person deceived, and another the only sufferer,—such a person will not be outrageous and angry at any one; will not revile, or reproach, or hate, or quarrel with any one.
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So, then, have all the great and dreadful deeds that have been done in the world no other origin than semblances?
