Kitap 2
23
A book will always be read with more pleasure and ease, if it be written in fair characters; and so every one will the more easily attend to discourses likewise, if ornamented with proper and beautiful expressions. It ought not then to be said, that there is no such thing as the faculty of eloquence; for this would be at once the part of an impious and timid person,—impious, because he dishonors the gifts of God; just as if he should deny any use in the faculties of sight, hearing, and speech itself. Has God then given you eyes in vain? Is it in vain that he has infused into them such a strong and active spirit as to be able to represent the forms of distant objects? What messenger is so quick and diligent? Is it in vain that he has made the intermediate air so yielding and elastic that sight penetrates through it? And is it in vain that he has made the light, without which all the rest would be useless? Man, be not ungrateful, nor, on the other hand, unmindful of your superior advantages; but for sight and hearing, and indeed for life itself, and the supports of it, as fruits and wine and oil, be thankful to God; but remember that he has given you another thing, superior to them all, which uses them, proves them, estimates the value of each. For what is it that pronounces upon the value of each of these faculties? Is it the faculty itself? Did you ever perceive the faculty of sight or hearing to say anything concerning itself; or wheat, or barley, or horses, or dogs? No. These things are appointed as instruments and servants, to obey that which is capable of using things as they appear. If you inquire the value of anything, of what do you inquire? What is the faculty that answers you? How then can any faculty be superior to this, which uses all the rest as instruments, and tries and pronounces concerning each of them? For which of them knows what itself is, and what is its own value? Which of them knows when it is to be used, and when not? Which is it that opens and shuts the eyes, and turns them away from improper objects? Is it the faculty of sight? No; but that of Will. Which is it that opens and shuts the ears? Which is it by which they are made curious and inquisitive, or, on the contrary, deaf, and unaffected by what is said? Is it the faculty of hearing? No; but that of Will. This, then, recognizing itself to exist amidst other faculties, all blind and deaf, and unable to discern anything but those offices in which they are appointed to minister and serve, itself alone sees clearly, and distinguishes the value of each of the rest. Will this, I say, inform us that anything is supreme but itself? What can the eye, when it is opened, do more than see? But whether we ought to look upon the wife of any one, and in what manner, what is it that decides us? The faculty of Will. Whether we ought to believe, or disbelieve what is said; or whether, if we do believe, we ought to be moved by it, or not, what is it that decides us? Is it not the faculty of Will? Again, the very faculty of eloquence, and that which ornaments discourse, if any such peculiar faculty there be, what does it more than merely ornament and arrange expressions, as curlers do the hair? But whether it be better to speak or to be silent, or better to speak in this or in that manner, whether this be decent or indecent, and the season and use of each, what is it that decides for us, but the faculty of Will? What, then; would you have it appear, and bear testimony against itself? What means this? If the case be thus, then that which serves may be superior to that to which it is subservient; the horse to the rider, the dog to the hunter, the instrument to the musician, or servants to the king. What is it that makes use of all the rest? The Will. What takes care of all? The Will. What destroys the whole man, at one time, by hunger; at another, by a rope or a precipice? The Will. Has man, then, anything stronger than this? And how is it possible that what is liable to restraint should be stronger than what is not? What has a natural power to restrain the faculty of sight? The Will and its workings. And it is the same with the faculties of hearing and of speech. And what has a natural power of restraining the Will? Nothing beyond itself, only its own perversion. Therefore in the Will alone is vice; in the Will alone is virtue.
