s, "acts like the lead that makes the net go
down?"[249] For neither in music nor grammatical knowledge could anyone
recognize any improvement, if he remained as unskilful in them as
before, and had not lost some of his old ignorance. Nor in the case of
anyone ill would medical treatment, if it brought no relief or ease, by
the disease somewhat yielding and abating, give any perception of
improvement of health, till the opposite condition was completely
brought about by the body recovering its full strength. But just as in
these cases there is no improvement unless, by the abatement of what
weighs them down till they rise in the opposite scale, they recognize a
change, so in the case of those who profess philosophy no improvement or
sign of improvement can be supposed, unless the soul lay aside and purge
itself of some of its imperfection, and if it continue altogether bad
until it become absolutely good and perfect. For indeed a wise man
cannot in a moment of time change from absolute badness to perfect
goodness, and suddenly abandon for ever all that vice, of which he could
not during a long period of time divest himself of any portion. And yet
you know, of course, that those who maintain these views frequently give
themselves much trouble and bewilderment about the difficulty, that a
wise man does not perceive that he has become wise, but is ignorant and
doubtful that in a long period of time by little and little, by removing
some things and adding others, there will be a secret and quiet
improvement, and as it were passage to virtue. But if the change were so
great and sudden that the worst man in the morning could become the best
man at night, or should the change so happen that he went to bed vicious
and woke up in the morning wise, and, having dismissed from his mind all
yesterday's follies and errors, should say,

"False dreams, away, you had no meaning then!"[250]

who on earth could be ignorant of so great a change happening to
himself, of virtue blazing forth so completely all at once? I myself am
of opinion that anyone, like Caeneus,[251] who, according, to his
prayer, got changed from a woman into a man, would sooner be ignorant of
the transformation, than that a man should become at once, from a
cowardly and senseless person with no powers of self-control, brave and
sensible and perfect master of himself, and should in a moment change
from a brutish life to a divine without being aware of it.

Sec. II.