Kitap 2
24
I have only this to say to you; that whoever is utterly ignorant what he is and wherefore he was born, and in what kind of a universe and in what society; what things are good and what evil, what fair and what base; who understands neither discourse nor demonstration, nor what is true nor what is false, nor is able to distinguish between them; such a one will neither exert his desires, nor aversions, nor pursuits conformably to Nature; he will neither aim, nor assent, nor deny, nor suspend his judgment conformably to Nature; but will wander up and down, entirely deaf and blind, supposing himself to be somebody, while he is nobody. Is there anything new in all this? Is not this ignorance the cause of all the errors that have happened, from the very origin of mankind? Why did Agamemnon and Achilles differ? Was it not for want of knowing what is advantageous, what disadvantageous? Does not one of them say it is advantageous to restore Chryseis to her father; the other, that it is not? Does not one say that he ought to take away the prize of the other; the other, that he ought not? Did they not by these means forget who they were, and for what purpose they had come there? Why, what did you come for, man,—to win mistresses, or to fight? To fight. With whom,—Trojans or Greeks? With the Trojans. Leaving Hector, then, do you draw your sword upon your own king? And do you, good sir, forgetting the duties of a king,— Intrusted with a nation and its cares, Homer, Iliad, 2.25. go to squabbling about a girl with the bravest of your allies, whom you ought by every method to conciliate and preserve? And will you be inferior to a subtle priest who pays his court anxiously to you fine gladiators? You see the effects produced by ignorance of what is truly advantageous.
