BOOK II. XIV. 19-25
saying: You know neither what God is, nor what man is, nor what good, nor what evil is—20if I say that you are ignorant of these other matters you may possibly endure that; but if I say that you do not understand your own self, how can you possibly bear with me, and endure and abide my questioning? You cannot do so at all, but immediately you go away offended. And yet what harm have I done you? None at all, unless the mirror also does harm to the ugly man by showing him what he looks like; unless the physician insults the patient, when he says to him, "Man, you think there is nothing the matter with you; but you have a fever; fast to-day and drink only water"; and no one says, "What dreadful insolence!" Yet if you tell a man, "Your desires are feverish, your attempts to avoid things are humiliating, your purposes are inconsistent, your choices are out of harmony with your nature, your conceptions are hit-or-miss and false," why, immediately he walks out and says, "He insulted me."
Our position is like that of those who attend a fair.[1] Cattle and oxen are brought there to be sold, and most men engage in buying and selling, while there are only a few who go merely to see the fair, how it is conducted, and why, and who are promoting it, and for what purpose. So it is also in this "fair" of the world in which we live; some persons, like cattle, are interested in nothing but their fodder; for to all of you that concern yourselves with property and lands and slaves and one office or another, all this is nothing but fodder! 25And few in number are the men who attend the fair because they are fond of the spectacle. "What,
- ↑ A famous comparison, ascribed to Pythagoras. See Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. v. 9; Diog. Laert. VIII. 8; Iamblichus, Vita Pythagori, 58. Cf. Menander, frg. 481K (Allinson, p. 442).
