Ch. 17
How we must adapt preconceptions to particular cases.
WHAT is the first business of him who philosophizes? To
throw away self-conceit (οἴησις).342 For it is impossible for
a man to begin to learn that which he thinks that he
knows. As to things then which ought to be done and
ought not to be done, and good and bad, and beautiful
and ugly, all of us talking of them at random go to the
philosophers; and on these matters we praise, we censure,
we accuse, we blame, we judge and determine about principles honourable and dishonourable. But why do we go
to the philosophers? Because we wish to learn what we do
not think that we know. And what is this? Theorems.343
For we wish to learn what philosophers say as being
something elegant and acute; and some wish to learn that
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they may get profit from what they learn. It is ridiculous
then to think that a person wishes to learn one thing, and
will learn another; or further, that a man will make proficiency in that which he does not learn. But the many
are deceived by this which deceived also the rhetorician
Theopompus,344 when he blames even Plato for wishing
everything to be defined. For what does he say? Did
none of us before you use the words Good or Just, or do
we utter the sounds in an unmeaning and empty way
without understanding what they severally signify? Now
who tells you, Theopompus, that we had not natural
notions of each of these things and preconceptions (προλήψεις)? But it is not possible to adapt preconceptions
to their correspondent objects if we have not distinguished
(analyzed) them, and inquired what object must be subjected to each preconception. You may make the same
charge against physicians also. For who among us did
not use the words healthy and unhealthy before Hippocrates lived, or did we utter these words as empty sounds?
For we have also a certain preconception of health,345 but
we are not able to adapt it. For this reason one says,
abstain from food; another says, give food; another
says, bleed; and another says, use cupping. What is the
reason? is it any other than that a man cannot properly
adapt the preconception of health to particulars?
So it is in this matter also, in the things which concern
life. Who among us does not speak of good and bad, of
useful and not useful; for who among us has not a preconception of each of these things? Is it then a distinct
and perfect preconception? Show this. How shall I show
this? Adapt the preconception properly to the particular
things. Plato, for instance, subjects definitions to the
preconception of the useful, but you to the preconception
of the useless. Is it possible then that both of you are
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right? How is it possible? Does not one man adapt
the preconception of good to the matter of wealth, and
another not to wealth, but to the matter of pleasure and to
that of health? For, generally, if all of us who use those
words know sufficiently each of them, and need no diligence in resolving (making distinct) the notions of the
preconceptions, why do we differ, why do we quarrel, why
do we blame one another?
And why do I now allege this contention with one another and speak of it? If you yourself properly adapt your
preconceptions, why are you unhappy, why are you hindered? Let us omit at present the second topic about the
pursuits (ὅρμας) and the study of the duties which relate to
them. Let us omit also the third topic, which relates to the
assents (συγκαταθέσεις): I give up to you these two topics.
Let us insist upon the first, which presents an almost
obvious demonstration that we do not properly adapt the
preconoeptions.346 Do you now desire that which is possible
and that which is possible to you? Why then are you
hindered? why are you unhappy? Do you not now try
to avoid the unavoidable? Why then do you fall in with
any thing which you would avoid? Why are you unfortunate? Why, when you desire a thing, does it not happen,
and, when you do not desire it, does it happen? For this
is the greatest proof of unhappiness and misery: I wish
for something, and it does not happen. And what is more
wretched than I?347
It was because she could not endure this that Medea
came to murder her children: an act of a noble spirit in
this view at least, for she had a just opinion what it is
for a thing not to succeed which a person wishes. Then
she says, 'Thus I shall be avenged on him (my husband)
who has wronged and insulted me; and what shall I gain
if he is punished thus? how then shall it be don? I
shall kill my children, but I shall punish myself also:
and what do I care?348 This is the aberration of soul
which possesses great energy. For she did not know
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wherein lies the doing of that which we wish; that you
cannot get this from without, nor yet by the alteration
and new adaptation of things. Do not desire the man
(Jason, Medea's husband), and nothing which you desire
will fail to happen: do not obstinately desire that he
shall live with you: do not desire to remain in Gerinth;
and in a word desire nothing than that which God wills.
And who shall hinder you? who shall compel you? No
man shall compel you any more than he shall compel Zeus.
When you have such a guide349 and your wishes and
desires are the same as his, why do you still fear disappointment? Give up your desire to wealth and your
aversion to poverty, and you will be disappointed in the
one, you will fall into the other. Well give them up
to health, and you will be unfortunate: give them up to
magistracies, honours, country, friends, children, in a word
to any of the things which are not in man's power (and
you will be unfortunate). But give them up to Zeus
and to the rest of the gods; surrender them to the gods,
let the gods govern, let your desire and aversion be ranged
on the side of the gods, and wherein will you be any
longer unhappy?350 But if, lazy wretch, you envy, and
complain, and are jealous, and fear, and never cease for
a single day complaining both of yourself and of the gods,
why do you still speak of being educated? What kind
of an education, man? Do you mean that you have been
employed about sophistical syllogisms (συλλογισμοὺς μεταπίπτοντας)?351 Will you not, if it is possible, unlearn all
these things and begin from the beginning, and see at
the same time that hitherto you have not even touched the
matter; and then commencing from this foundation, will
you not build up all that comes after, so that nothing may
happen which you do not choose, and nothing shall fail
to happen which you do choose?
Give me one young man who has come to the school
with this intention, who is become a champion for this
matter and says, 'I give up every thing else, and it is
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enough for me if it shall ever be in my power to pass my
life free from hindrance and free from trouble, and to stretch
out (present) my neck to all things like a free man, and
to look up to heaven as a friend of God and fear nothing
that can happen.' Let any of you point out such a man
that I may say, 'Come, young man, into the possession
of that which is your own, for it is your destiny to adorn
philosophy: yours are these possessions, yours these books,
yours these discourses.' Then when he shall have laboured sufficiently and exercised himself in this part of
the matter (τόπον), let him come to me again and say,
'I desire to be free from passion and free from perturbation; and I wish as a pious man and a philosopher and
a diligent person to know what is my duty to the gods,
what to my parents, what to my brothers, what to my
country, what to strangers.' (I say) 'Come also to the
second matter (τόπον): this also is yours.''But I have
now sufficiently studied the second part (τόπον) also, and
I would gladly be secure and unshaken, and not only when
I am awake, but also when I am asleep, and when I am
filled with wine, and when I am melancholy.' Man, you
are a god, you have great designs.
No: but I wish to understand what Chrysippus says in
his treatise of the Pseudomenos352 (the Liar).Will you
not hang yourself, wretch, with such your intention? And
what good will it do you? You will read the whole with
sorrow, and you will speak to others trembling. Thus
you also do. Do you wish me,353 brother, to read to
you, and you to me?You write excellently, my man;
and you also excellently in the style of Xenophon, and you
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in the style of Plato, and you in the style of Antisthenes
Then having told your dreams to one another you return
to the same things: your desires are the same, your
aversions the same, your pursuits are the same, and your
designs and purposes, you wish for the same things and
work for the same. In the next place you do not even
seek for one to give you advice, but you are vexed if you
hear such things (as I say). Then you say, An ill-na-
tured old fellow: when I was going away, he did not
weep nor did he say, Into what danger you are going: if
you come off safe, my child, I will burn lights.354 This is
what a good natured man would do. It will be a great
thing for you if you do return safe, and it will be worth
while to burn lights for such a person: for you ought to
be immortal and exempt from disease.
Casting away then, as I say, this conceit of thinking
that we know something useful, we must come to philosophy as we apply to geometry, and to music: but if we
do not, we shall not even approach to proficiency though
we read all the collections355 and commentaries of Chrysippus and those of Antipater and Archedemus.356
