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

BOOK II. XXIH. 9-15faculty that opens and closes the eyes,,and turnsthem away from the things from which it should turnthem,, but directs them toward other things? Thefaculty of sight? No, but the faculty of moralpurpose. What is the faculty that closes and opensthe ears ? What is that faculty by virtue of whichmen are curious and inquisitive, or again, unmovedby what is said ? The faculty of hearing ? No, itis none other than the faculty of moral purpose.When, then, this faculty sees that all the otherfaculties which surround it are blind and deaf, andunable to see anything but the very acts for whichthey have been appointed to serve and ministerunto it, while it alone sees clearly and surveys, notonly all the rest, determining what each is worth,but itself also, is it likely to pronounce that anythingelse issupreme but itself? And what else can theopen eye do but see ? But whether it ought tosee someone's wife and how, what faculty tells it ?That of moral purpose. And what faculty tells aman whether he ought to believe what he has beentold, or disbelieve, and, if he believes, whether heought to be provoked byit or not? Is it not thatof moral purpose? And this faculty of speech andof the adornment of language, if it really is a separatefaculty, what else does it do, when discourse arisesabout some topic, but ornament and compose thewords, as hairdressers do the hair? But whetherit is better to speak than to keep silence, and todo so in this way, or in that, and whether this isappropriate or not appropriate, and the properoccasion and utility of each action what else tellsus all this but the faculty of moral purpose? Wouldyou, then, have it come forward and condemn itself?409