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

BOOK II. xi. 12-16then,, show us anything higher than your ownopinion which will make it possible for us to applyour preconceptions better? And does the madmando anything else but that which seems to him to begood ? Is this criterion, then, sufficient in his casealso ? It is not. Go, therefore,, to somethinghigher than your own opinion, and tell us whatthat is.Behold the beginning of philosophy a recognitionof the conflict between the opinions ofImen, and a search for the origin of that conflict,,and a condemnation of mere opinion,, coupled withscepticism regarding it, and a kind of investigationto determine whether the opinion is rightly held,together with the invention of a kind of standard ofjudgement, as we have invented the balance for thedetermination of weights, or the carpenter's rule forthe determination of things straight and crooked.Is this the beginning of philosophy? Is everythingright that every man thinks? 1 Nay, how is itpossible for conflicting opinions to be right? Consequently,not all opinions are right.- But are ouropinions right? Why ours, rather than those ofthe Syrians; wliy ours, rather than those of theEgyptians why ours, rather than my own, or those;of so-and-so? There is no reason why. Therefore,the opinion which each man holds is not a sufficientcriterion for determining the truth for also in the;case of weights and measures we are not satisfiedwith the mere appearance, but we have invented acertain standard to test each. In the present case,then, is there no standard higher than opinionAnd ?yet how can it possibly be that matters of theutmost consequence among men should be undo-.87