Can any one restrain you from assenting to truth?—"No one."—Can any one compel you to admit a falsehood?—"No one."—You see, then, that you have in this topic a choice incapable of being restrained or compelled or hindered. Well, is it any otherwise with regard to pursuit and desire? What can conquer one pursuit?—"Another pursuit."—What desire and aversion?—"Another desire and another aversion." If you set death before me (say you) you compel me. No; not what is set before you doth it, but your principle, that it is better to do such or such a thing than to die. Here, again, you see it is your own principle which compels you—that is, choice compels choice. For, if God had constituted that portion which he hath separated from his own offence and given to us, capable of being restrained or compelled, either by himself or by any other, he would not have been God, nor have taken care of us in a due manner.

§ 3. These things, says the diviner, I find in the victims. These things are signified to you. If you please, you are free. If you please, you will have no one to complain of, no one to accuse. All will be equally according to your own mind, and to the mind of God.

§ 4. For the sake of this oracle I go to the diviner and the philosopher, admiring not him merely on the account of his interpretation, but the things which he interprets.

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Chapter XVIII

That We Are Not To Be Angry With the Errors of Others

§ 1.1 IF what the philosophers say be true, that all men's actions proceed from one source; that, as they assent, from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent, from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment, from a persuasion that it is uncertain; so, likewise, they exert their pursuits, from a persuasion that such a thing is for their advantage; and it is impossible to esteem one thing advantageous, and desire another; to esteem one thing a duty, and pursue another: why, after all, should we be angry at the multitude?

They are thieves and pilferers.

What do you mean by thieves and pilferers? They are in an error concerning good and evil. Ought you, then, to be angry, or to pity them? Do but show them their error, and you will see that they will amend their faults; but, if they do not see it, the principles they form are to them their supreme rule.

What, then, ought not this thief and this adulterer to be destroyed?

By no means [ask that]; but say rather,2 "Ought not he to be destroyed who errs and is deceived in things of the greatest importance; blinded, not in the sight that distinguishes white from black, but in the judgment that distinguishes good from evil?" By stating your question thus you see how inhuman it is, and just as if you would say, "Ought not this blind, or that deaf, man to be destroyed?" For, if the greatest hurt be a deprivation of the most valuable things, and the most valuable thing to every one is a right judgment in choosing; when any one is deprived of this, why, after all, are you angry? You ought not to be affected, man, contrary to nature, by the ills of another. Pity3 him rather. Do not be angry; nor say, as many do, What! shall these execrable and odious wretches dare to act thus? Whence have you so suddenly learnt wisdom? Because we admire those things which such people take from us. Do not admire your clothes, and you will not be angry with the thief. Do not admire the beauty of your wife, and you will not be angry with an adulterer. Know that a thief and an adulterer have no place in the things that are properly your own; but in those that belong to others, and which are not in your power. If you give up these things, and look upon them as nothing, with whom will you any longer be angry? But while you admire them, be angry with yourself rather than with others. Consider only: You have a fine suit of clothes, your neighbour has not. You have a window, you want to air them. He knows not in what the good of man consists, but imagines it is in a fine suit of clothes; the very thing which you imagine too. Must not he, then, of course, come and take them away? When you show a cake to greedy people, and are devouring it all yourself, would not you have them snatch it from you? Do not provoke them. Do not have a window. Do not air your clothes. I, too, the other day, had an iron lamp burning before my household deities. Hearing a noise at the window, I ran. I found my lamp was stolen. I considered, that he who took it away did nothing unaccountable. What then? To-morrow, says I, you shall find an earthen one; for a man loses only what he hath. I have lost my coat.