Kitap 2
10
Of what sort do you mean?
10
Have we not a natural sense of honor?
10
We have.
10
Does he who loses this suffer no damage? Is he deprived of nothing? Does he part with nothing that belongs to him? Have we no natural fidelity; no natural affection; no natural disposition to mutual usefulness, to mutual forbearance? Is he, then, who carelessly suffers himself to be damaged in these respects still safe and uninjured?
10
What, then; shall not I injure him who has injured me?
10
Consider first what injury is; and remember what you have heard from the philosophers. For, if both good and evil lie in the will, see whether what you say does not amount to this: Since he has hurt himself by injuring me, shall I not hurt myself by injuring him? Why do we not make to ourselves some such representation as this? Are we hurt when any detriment happens to our bodily possessions, and are we not at all hurt when our will is depraved? He who has erred, or injured another, has indeed no pain in his head; nor loses an eye, nor a leg, nor an estate; and we wish for nothing beyond these. Whether our will be habitually humble and faithful, or shameless and unfaithful, we regard as a thing indifferent, except only in the discussions of the schools. In that case, all the improvement we make reaches only to words; and beyond them is absolutely nothing.
The beginning of philosophy.
