Discourses - Book II   

men then apply themselves earnestly to the things which are bad? By no
means. Well, do they apply themselves to things which in no way
concern themselves? Not to these either. It remains, then, that they
employ themselves earnestly only about things which are good; and if
they are earnestly employed about things, they love such things
also. Whoever, then, understands what is good, can also know how to
love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which
are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of
loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.
"How is this?" a man may say; am foolish, and yet love my child."
I am surprised indeed that you have begun by making the admission that
you are foolish. For what are you deficient in? Can you not make use
of your senses? do you not distinguish appearances? do you not use
food which is suitable for your body, and clothing and habitation? Why
then do you admit that you are foolish? It is in truth because you are
often disturbed by appearances and perplexed, and their power of
persuasion often conquers you; and sometimes you think these things to
be good, and then the same things to be bad, and lastly neither good
nor bad; and in short you grieve, fear, envy, are disturbed, you are
changed. This is the reason why you confess that you are foolish.
And are you not changeable in love? But wealth, and pleasure and, in a
word, things themselves, do you sometimes think them to he good and
sometimes bad? and do you not think the same men at one time to be
good, at another time bad? and have you not at one time a friendly
feeling toward them and at another time the feeling of an enemy? and
do you not at one time praise them and at another time blame them?
"Yes; I have these feelings also." Well then, do you think that he who
has been deceived about a man is his friend? "Certainly not." And he
who has selected a man as his friend and is of a changeable
disposition, has he good-will toward him? "He has not." And he who now
abuses a man, and afterward admires him? "This man also has no
good-will to the other." Well then, did you never see little dogs
caressing and playing with one another, so that you might say there is
nothing more friendly? but, that you may know what friendship is,
throw a bit of flesh among them, and you will learn. Throw between
yourself and your son a little estate, and you will know how soon he
will wish to bury you and how soon you wish your son to die. Then
you will change your tone and say, "What a son I have brought up! He
has long been wishing to bury me." Throw a smart girl between you; and
do you, the old man, love her, and the young one will love her too, If
a little fame intervene, or dangers, it will be just the same. You
will utter the words of the father of Admetus!

Life gives you pleasure: and why not your father.

Do you think that Admetus did not love his own child when he was
little? that he was not in agony when the child had a fever? that he
did not often say, "I wish I had the fever instead of the child?" then
when the test (the thing) came and was near, see what words they
utter. Were not Eteocles and Polynices from the same mother and from