Kitap 2
16
Why, then, are we still surprised, if, when we waste all our attention on the mere materials of action, we are, in the manner of action itself, low, sordid, unworthy, timid, wretched, and altogether failures? For we do not care about these things, nor make them our study. If we had feared, not death or exile, but fear itself, we should have studied not to fall into what appears to us to be evil. But as the case now stands, we are eager and loquacious in the schools; and when any little question arises about any of these things, we are prepared to trace its consequences; but drag us into practice, and you will find us miserably shipwrecked. Let something of alarming aspect attack us, and you will perceive what we have been studying, and in what we are exercised. Besides, through this negligence we always exaggerate, and represent things greater than the reality. In a voyage, for instance, casting my eyes down upon the ocean below, and looking round me, and seeing no land, I am beside myself, and imagine that, if I should be shipwrecked, I must swallow all that ocean; not does it occur to me, that. three pints are enough for me. What is it, then, that alarms me,—the ocean? No; but my own impressions. Again, in an earthquake I imagine the city is going to fall upon me; but is not one little stone enough to knock my brains out? What is it, then, that oppresses and makes us beside ourselves? Why, what else but our own impressions? For what is it, but mere impressions, that distress him who leaves his country, and is separated from his acquaintance and friends and place and usual manner of life? When children cry, if their nurse happens to be absent for a little while, give them a cake, and they forget their grief. Shall we compare you to these children, then?
16
No, indeed. For I do not desire to be pacified by a cake, but by right impressions. And what are they?
