Discourses - Book II   

doctrines; nor if another who neglects his parents should be confirmed
in his audacity by this teaching. What then in your opinion is good or
bad? This or that? Why then should a man say any more in reply to such
persons as these, or give them any reason or listen to any reasons
from them, or try to convince them? By Zeus one might much sooner
expect to make certainties change their mind than those who are become
so deaf and blind to their own evils.

CHAPTER 21

Of inconsistency

Some things men readily confess, and other things they do not. No
one then will confess that he is a fool or without understanding; but,
quite the contrary, you will hear all men saying, "I wish that I had
fortune equal to my understanding." But readily confess that they
are timid, and they say: "I am rather timid, I confess; but to other
respects you will not find me to foolish." A man will not readily
confess that he is intemperate; and that he is unjust he will not
confess at all. He will by no means confess that be is envious or a
busybody. Most men will confess that they are compassionate. What then
is the reason? The chief thing is inconsistency and confusion in the
things which relate to good and evil. But different men have different
reasons; and generally what they imagine to be base, they do not
confess at all. But they suppose timidity to be a characteristic of
a good disposition, and compassion also; but silliness to be the
absolute characteristic of a slave. And they do not at all admit the
things which are offenses against society. But in the case of most
errors, for this reason chiefly, they are induced to confess them,
because they that there is something involuntary in them as in
timidity and compassion; and if a man confess that he is in any
respect intemperate, he alleges love as an excuse for what is
involuntary. But men do not imagine injustice to be at all There is
also in jealousy, as they suppose, something involuntary; and for this
reason they confess to jealousy also.
Living among such men, who are so confused so ignorant of what
they say, and of evils which they have or have not, and why they
have them, or how they shall be relieved of them, I think it is
worth the trouble for a man to watch constantly "Whether I also am one
of them, what imagination I have about myself, how I conduct myself,
whether I conduct myself as a prudent man, whether I conduct myself as
a temperate man, whether I ever say this, that I have been taught to
be prepared for everything that may happen. Have I the
consciousness, which a man who knows nothing ought to have, that I
know nothing? Do I go to my teacher as men go to oracles, prepared
to obey? or do I like a sniveling boy go to my school to learn history
and understand the books which I did not understand before, and, if it
should happen so, to explain them also to others?" Man, you have had a
fight in the house with a poor slave, you have turned the family
upside down, you have frightened the neighbours, and you come to me as