"We are too easily persuaded," he says, "that goodness, like beauty, is a gift of birth.
"It is time to destroy an error rooted in our minds for too many centuries.
"Goodness is acquired by reasoning and logic, as are so many other qualities, and it is common sense which governs its formation.
"Have we ever reflected over the sum total of annoyances that people, who are essentially wicked, add every day to those imposed upon them by circumstances?
"Are we capable of appreciating the joys of life when impatience makes the nerves vibrate or when anger brandishes its torch in the bends and turns of the brain?
"People who lack goodness are the first to be punished for their defect. Serenity is unknown to them and they live in perpetual agitation, caused by the irritation which they experience on the slightest provocation."
Common sense indicates then in an irrefutable way that there is every advantage in being good.
And Yoritomo proves it to us, by using his favorite syllogism:
"Happiness," he says, "is above all a combination of harmony and absence of sorrow.
"Wickedness, by inspiring us with discontent and anger, disturbs this harmony.