rgotten the brother and
instead of a brother have become an enemy, would you appear not to have
changed one thing for another in that case? And if instead of a man, who
is a tame animal and social, you are become a mischievous wild beast,
treacherous, and biting, have you lost nothing? But (I suppose) you must
lose a bit of money that you may suffer damage? And does the loss of
nothing else do a man damage? If you had lost the art of grammar or
music, would you think the loss of it a damage? and if you shall lose
modesty, moderation ([Greek: chtastolaen]) and gentleness, do you think
the loss nothing? And yet the things first mentioned are lost by some
cause external and independent of the will, and the second by our own
fault; and as to the first neither to have them nor to lose them is
shameful; but as to the second, not to have them and to lose them is
shameful and matter of reproach and a misfortune.

What then? shall I not hurt him who has hurt me? In the first place
consider what hurt ([Greek: blabae]) is, and remember what you have
heard from the philosophers. For if the good consists in the will
(purpose, intention, [Greek: proaireeis]), and the evil also in the
will, see if what you say is not this: What then, since that man has
hurt himself by doing an unjust act to me, shall I not hurt myself by
doing some unjust act to him? Why do we not imagine to ourselves
(mentally think of) something of this kind? But where there is any
detriment to the body or to our possession, there is harm there; and
where the same thing happens to the faculty of the will, there is (you
suppose) no harm; for he who has been deceived or he who has done an
unjust act neither suffers in the head nor in the eye nor in the hip,
nor does he lose his estate; and we wish for nothing else than (security
to) these things. But whether we shall have the will modest and faithful
or shameless and faithless, we care not the least, except only in the
school so far as a few words are concerned. Therefore our proficiency is
limited to these few words; but beyond them it does not exist even in
the slightest degree.

* * * * *

WHAT THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY IS.--The beginning of philosophy, to
him at least who enters on it in the right way and by the door is a
consciousness of his own weakness and inability about necessary things;
for we come into the world with no natural notion of a right-angled
triangle, or of a d