These, and many other illusions more strange and tragical than
these,—resembling those mormos and bugbears which they themselves
laugh at and deride, as they are described by Empedocles to be, “with
winding feet and undivided hands, bodied like ox and faced like
man,”—with certain other prodigious and unnatural phantoms, these men
have gathered together out of dreams and the alienations of distracted
minds, and affirm that none of them is a deception of the sight, a
falsity, or inconsistence; but that all these imaginations are true,
being bodies and figures that come from the ambient air. What thing
then is there so impossible in Nature as to be doubted of, if it is
possible to believe such reveries as these? For these men, supposing
that such things as never any mask-maker, potter, carver of wonderful
images, or skilful and all-daring painter durst join together, to
deceive or make sport for the beholders, are seriously and in good
earnest existent,—nay, which is more, affirming that, if they are not
really so, all firmness of belief, all certainty of judgment and truth,
is for ever gone,—do by these their suppositions and affirmations
cast all things into obscurity, and bring fears into our judgments,
and suspicions into our actions,—if the things which we apprehend, do,
are familiarly acquainted with, and have at hand are grounded on the
same imagination and belief with these furious, absurd, and extravagant
fancies. For the equality which they suppose to be in all apprehensions
rather derogates from the credit of such as are usual and rational,
than adds any belief to those that are unusual and repugnant to reason.
Wherefore we know many philosophers who would rather and more willingly
grant that no imagination is true than that all are so, and that would
rather simply disbelieve all the men they never had conversed with,
all the things they had not experimented, and all the speeches they
had not heard with their own ears, than persuade themselves that any
one of these imaginations, conceived by these frantic, fanatical, and
dreaming persons, is true. Since then there are some imaginations
which may, and others which may not be rejected, it is lawful for us
to retain our assent concerning them, though there were no other cause
but this discordance, which is sufficient to work in us a suspicion of
things, as having nothing certain and assured, but being altogether
full of obscurity and perturbation. For in the dissensions about the
infinity of worlds and the nature of atoms and individuums and their
inclinations, although they trouble and disturb very many, there is
yet this comfort, that none of all these things that are in question
is near us, but rather every one of them is far remote from sense. But
as to this diffidence, perplexity, and ignorance concerning sensible
things and imaginations (whether these be true or false), found even
in our eyes, our ears, and our hands, what opinion does it not shock?
What consent does it not turn upside down? For if men neither drunk,
intoxicated, nor otherwise disturbed in their senses, but sober, sound
in mind, and professedly writing of the truth and of the canons and
rules by which to judge it, do in the most evident passions and motions
of the senses set down either that which has no existence for true,
or that which is existent for false, it is not to be wondered that a
man should be silent about all things, but rather that he should give
his assent to any thing; nor is it incredible that he should have no
judgment about things which appear, but rather that he should have
contrary judgments. For it is less to be wondered, that a man should
neither affirm the one nor the other but keep himself in a mean between
two opposite things, than that he should set down things repugnant and
contrary to one another. For he that neither affirms nor denies, but
keeps himself quiet, is less repugnant to him who affirms an opinion
than he who denies it, and to him who denies an opinion than he who
affirms it. Now if it is possible to withhold one’s assent concerning
these things, it is not impossible also concerning others, at least
according to your opinion, who say that one sense does not exceed
another, nor one imagination another.
29. The doctrine then of retaining the assent is not, as Colotes
thinks, a fable or an invention of rash and light-headed young men who
please themselves in babbling and prating; but a certain habit and
disposition of men who desire to keep themselves from falling into
error, not leaving the judgment at a venture to such suspected and
inconstant senses, nor suffering themselves to be deceived by those
who hold that in uncertain matters things which do not appear are
credible and ought to be believed, when they see so great obscurity
and uncertainty in things which appear. But the infinity you assert
is a fable, and so indeed are the images you dream of; and he breeds
in young men rashness and self-conceitedness, who writ of Pythocles,
not yet eighteen years of age, that there was not in all Greece a
better or more excellent nature, that he admirably well expressed his
conceptions, and that he was in other respects like a woman,—praying
that all these extraordinary endowments of the young man might not work
him hatred and envy. But these are sophisters and arrogant, who write
so impudently and proudly against great and excellent personages. I
confess indeed, that Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Democritus
contradicted those who went before them; but never durst any man
besides Colotes set forth with such an insolent title as this against
all at once.
30. Whence it comes to pass that, like to such as have offended some
Divinity, confessing his fault, he says thus towards the end of his
book: “Those who have established laws and ordinances and instituted
monarchies and other governments in towns and cities, have placed human
life in great repose and security and delivered it from many troubles;
and if any one should go about to take this away, we should lead the
life of savage beasts, and should be every one ready to eat up one
another as we meet.” For these are the very words of Colotes, though
neither justly nor truly spoken. For if any one, taking away the laws,
should leave us nevertheless the doctrines of Parmenides, Socrates,
Plato, and Heraclitus, we should be far from mutually devouring one
another and leading the life of beasts. For we should fear dishonest
things, and should for honesty alone venerate justice, the Gods, our
superiors, and magistrates, believing that we have spirits and Daemons
who are the guardians and superintendents of human life, esteeming all
the gold that is upon and within the earth not to be equivalent to
virtue; and doing that willingly by reason, as Xenocrates says, which
we now do by force and through fear of the law. When then will our life
become savage, unsocial, and bestial? When, the laws being taken away,
there shall be left doctrines inciting men to pleasure; when the world
shall be thought not to be ruled and governed by Divine Providence;
when those men shall be esteemed wise who spit at honesty if it is not
joined with pleasure; and when such discourses and sentences as these
shall be scoffed at and derided:
For Justice has an eye which all things sees;
and again:
God near us stands, and views whate’er we do;
and once more: “God, as antiquity has delivered to us, holding the
beginning, middle, and end of the universe, makes a direct line,
walking according to Nature. After him follows Justice, a punisher of
those who have been deficient in their duties by transgressing the
divine law.”
For they who contemn these things as if they were fables, and think
that the sovereign good of man consists about the belly, and in those
other avenues by which pleasure is admitted, are such as stand in
need of the law, and fear, and stripes, and some king, prince, or
magistrate, having in his hand the sword of justice; to the end that
they may not devour their neighbors through their gluttony, rendered
confident by their atheistical impiety. For this is the life of
brutes, because brute beasts know nothing better nor more honest than
pleasure, understand not the justice of the Gods, nor revere the beauty
of virtue; but if Nature has bestowed on them any point of courage,
subtlety, or activity, they make use of it for the satisfaction of
their fleshly pleasure and the accomplishment of their lusts. And
the wise Metrodorus believes that this should be so, for he says:
“All the fine, subtle, and ingenious inventions of the soul have
been found out for the pleasure and delight of the flesh, or for the
hopes of attaining to it and enjoying it, and every act which tends
not to this end is vain and unprofitable.” The laws being by such
discourses and philosophical reasons as these taken away, there wants
nothing to a beast-like life but lions’ paws, wolves’ teeth, oxen’s
paunches, and camels’ necks; and these passions and doctrines do the
beasts themselves, for want of speech and letters, express by their
bellowings, neighings, and brayings, all their voice being for their
belly and the pleasure of their flesh, which they embrace and rejoice
in either present or future; unless it be perhaps some animal which
naturally takes delight in chattering and garrulity.
31. No sufficient praise therefore or equivalent to their deserts can
be given those who, for the restraining of such bestial passions, have
set down laws, established policy and government of state, instituted
magistrates and ordained good and wholesome laws. But who are they that
utterly confound and abolish this? Are they not those who withdraw
themselves and their followers from all part in the government? Are
they not those who say that the garland of tranquillity and a reposed
life are far more valuable than all the kingdoms and principalities
in the world? Are they not those who declare that reigning and being
a king is a mistaking the path and straying from the right way of
felicity? And they write in express terms: “We are to treat how a man
may best keep and preserve the end of Nature, and how he may from the
very beginning avoid entering of his own free will and voluntarily
upon offices of magistracy, and government over the people.” And yet
again, these other words are theirs: “There is no need at all that
a man should tire out his mind and body to preserve the Greeks, and
to obtain from them a crown of wisdom; but to eat and drink well,
O Timocrates, without prejudicing, but rather pleasing the flesh.”
And yet in the constitution of laws and policy, which Colotes so
much praises, the first and most important article is the belief and
persuasion of the Gods. Wherefore also Lycurgus heretofore sanctified
the Lacedaemonians, Numa the Romans, the ancient Ion the Athenians,
and Deucalion universally all the Greeks, through prayers, oaths,
oracles, and omens, rendering them devout and affectionate to the Gods
by means of hopes and fears at once. And if you will take the pains to
travel through the world, you may find towns and cities without walls,
without letters, without kings, without houses, without wealth, without
money, without theatres and places of exercise; but there was never
seen nor shall be seen by man any city without temples and Gods, or
without making use of prayers, oaths, divinations, and sacrifices for
the obtaining of blessings and benefits, and the averting of curses and
calamities. Nay, I am of opinion, that a city might sooner be built
without any ground to fix it on, than a commonweal be constituted
altogether void of any religion and opinion of the Gods,—or being
constituted, be preserved. But this, which is the foundation and
ground of all laws, do these men, not going circularly about, nor
secretly and by enigmatical speeches, but attacking it with the first
of their most principal opinions, directly subvert and overthrow; and
then afterwards, as if they were haunted by the Furies, they come and
confess that they have grievously offended in thus taking away the
laws, and confounding the ordinances of justice and policy, that they
may not be capable of pardon. For to err in opinion, though it be not
the part of wise men, is at least human; but to impute to others the
errors and offences they commit themselves, how can any one declare
what it is, if he forbears to give it the name it deserves?
32. For if, in writing against Antidorus or Bion the sophister, he had
made mention of laws, policy, order, and justice, might not either of
them have said to him, as Electra did to her mad brother Orestes: