You are not content to stay at home with the honours you had
before; you want something on a larger scale, and more conspicuous. But
when did you ever undertake a voyage for the purpose of reviewing your
own principles and getting rid of any of them that proved unsound? Whom
did you ever visit for that object? What time did you ever set yourself
for that? What age? Run over the times of your life--by yourself, if you
are ashamed before me. Did you examine your principles when a boy? Did
you not do everything just as you do now? Or when you were a stripling,
attending the school of oratory and practising the art yourself, what
did you ever imagine you lacked? And when you were a young man, entered
upon public life, and were pleading causes and making a name, who any
longer seemed equal to you? And at what moment would you have endured
another examining your principles and proving that they were unsound?
What then am I to say to you? "Help me in this matter!" you cry. Ah, for
that I have no rule! And neither did you, if that was your object, come
to me as a philosopher, but as you might have gone to a herb-seller or
a cobbler.--"What do philosophers have rules for, then?"--Why, that
whatever may betide, our ruling faculty may be as Nature would have it,
and so remain.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58