Kitap 2
18
By placing such an example before you, you will conquer any alluring semblance, and not be drawn away by it. But in the first place, be not hurried away by excitement; but say, Semblance, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me try you. Then, afterwards, do not suffer it to go on drawing gay pictures of what will follow; if you do, it will lead you wherever it pleases. But rather oppose to it some good and noble semblance, and banish this base one. If you are habituated to this kind of exercise, you will see what shoulders, what nerves, what sinews, you will have. But now it is mere trifling talk, and nothing more. He is the true athlete who trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Stay, wretch, do not be hurried away. The combat is great, the achievement divine,—for empire, for freedom, for prosperity, for tranquillity. Remember God. Invoke him for your aid and protector, as sailors do Castor and Pollux, in a storm. For what storm is greater than that which arises from these perilous semblances, contending to overset our reason? Indeed what is the storm itself, but a semblance? For do but take away the fear of death, and let there be as many thunders and lightnings as you please, you will find that to the reason all is serenity and calm; but if you are once defeated, and say, you will get the victory another time, and then the same thing over again; assure yourself that you will at last be reduced to so weak and wretched a condition, you will not so much as know when you do amiss; but you will even begin to make defences for your behavior, and thus verify the saying of Hesiod:— With constant ills, the dilatory strive. Works and Days, v. 383.—H.
Concerning those who embrace philosophy only in words.
