Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK I. xxvin. 24-31When Patroclus died ? Far from it ;but whenAchilles himself was enraged,, when he was cryingabout a paltrydamsel., when he forgot that he wasthere,, not to get sweethearts, but to make war.These are the falls that come to mankind, this isthe siege of their city, this is the razing of it whentheir correct judgements are torn down, when theseare destroyed. Then when women are driven offinto captivity, and children are enslaved, and whenthe men themselves are slaughtered,, are not allthese things evils? Where do you get the justificationfor adding this ?opinion Let me knowalso. No, on the contrary, do yon let me knowwhere you get the justification for saying thatthey are not evils? Let us turn to our standards,produce your preconceptions.For this iswhy I cannot be sufficiently astonishedat what men do. In a case where we wish to judgeof weights, we do not judge at haphazard where;we wish to judge what is straight and what iscrooked, we do not judge at haphazard; in short,where it makes any difference to us to know thetruth in the case, no one of us will do anything athaphazard. Yet where there is involved the firstand only cause of acting aright or erring, ofprosperity or adversity, of failure or success, therealone are we haphazard and headlong. There Ihave nothing like a balance, there nothing like astandard, but some sense-impression comes andimmediately I go and act upon it. What, am Iany better than Agamemnon or Achilles are theybecause of following the impressions of their sensesto do and sulFer such evils, while I am to besatisfied with the impression of my senses? And