——“He doth think it.”
Can ye, then, both be rightly applying the conceptions in matters wherein your opinions contradict each other?
——“We cannot.”
Have you, then, aught better to show for your application, or aught above this, that it seemeth so to you? But what else doth a madman do than those things that to him seem right? And doth this rule suffice for him?
——“It doth not suffice.”
Come, then, to that which is above seeming. What is this?
4. Behold, the beginning of philosophy is the observation of how men contradict each other, and the search whence cometh this contradiction, and the censure and mistrust of bare opinion. And it is an inquiry into that which seems, whether it rightly seems; and the discovery of a certain rule, even as we have found a balance for weights, and a plumb line for straight and crooked. This is the beginning of philosophy. Are all things right to all to whom they seem so? But how can contradictory things be right?
——“Nay, then, not all things, but those that seem to us right.”
And why to you more than the Syrians, or to the Egyptians? Why more than to me or to any other man? Not at all more. Seeming, then, doth not for every man answer to Being; for neither in weights or measures doth the bare appearance content us, but for each case we have discovered some rule. And here, then, is there no rule above seeming? And how could it be that there were no evidence or discovery of things the most necessary for men? There is, then, a rule. And wherefore do we not seek it, and find it, and, having found it, henceforth use it without transgression, and not so much as stretch forth a finger without it? For this it is, I think, that when it is discovered cureth of their madness those that mismeasure all things by seeming alone; so that henceforth, setting out from things known and investigated, we may use an organized body of natural conceptions in all our several dealings.
5. What is the subject about which we are inquiring? Pleasure? Submit it to the rule, cast it into the scales. Now the Good must be a thing of such sort that we ought to trust in it? Truly. And we ought to have faith in it? We ought. And ought we to trust in anything which is unstable? Nay. And hath pleasure any stability? It hath not. Take it, then, and fling it out of the scales, and set it far away from the place of the Good. But if you are dim of sight, and one balance doth not suffice, then take another. Is it right to be elated in what is good? Yea. And is it right to be elated then in the presence of a pleasure? See to it that thou say not it is right; or I shall not hold thee worthy even of the balance.[3] Thus are things judged and weighed, when the rules are held in readiness. And the aim of philosophy is this, to examine and establish the rules. And to use them when they are known is the task of a wise and good man.