o fix my crown in peace;
But base Thyestes, eager for the prey,
Crept to my bed, and stole the gem away.

Do you not perceive that Thyestes must have had a share of reason
proportionable to the greatness of his crimes--such crimes as are not
only represented to us on the stage, but such as we see committed, nay,
often exceeded, in the common course of life? The private houses of
individual citizens, the public courts, the senate, the camp, our
allies, our provinces, all agree that reason is the author of all the
ill, as well as of all the good, which is done; that it makes few act
well, and that but seldom, but many act ill, and that frequently; and
that, in short, the Gods would have shown greater benevolence in
denying us any reason at all than in sending us that which is
accompanied with so much mischief; for as wine is seldom wholesome, but
often hurtful in diseases, we think it more prudent to deny it to the
patient than to run the risk of so uncertain a remedy; so I do not know
whether it would not be better for mankind to be deprived of wit,
thought, and penetration, or what we call reason, since it is a thing
pernicious to many and very useful to few, than to have it bestowed
upon them with so much liberality and in such abundance. But if the
divine will has really consulted the good of man in this gift of
reason, the good of those men only was consulted on whom a
well-regulated one is bestowed: how few those are, if any, is very
apparent. We cannot admit, therefore, that the Gods consulted the good
of a few only; the conclusion must be that they consulted the good of
none.

XXVIII. You answer that the ill use which a great part of mankind make
of reason no more takes away the goodness of the Gods, who bestow it as
a present of the greatest benefit to them, than the ill use which
children make of their patrimony diminishes the obligation which they
have to their parents for it. We grant you this; but where is the
similitude? It was far from Deianira's design to injure Hercules when
she made him a present of the shirt dipped in the blood of the
Centaurs. Nor was it a regard to the welfare of Jason of Pherae that
influenced the man who with his sword opened his imposthume, which the
physicians had in vain attempted to cure. For it has often happened
that people have served a man whom they intended to injure, and have
injured one whom they designed to serve; so that the effect of the gift
is by no means