Pagina 875 di 1391

I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the

meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn.

Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of

good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an

evil, and to possess the truth a good? and you would agree that

to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth?

Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are

deprived of truth against their will.

And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft,

or force, or enchantment?

Still, he replied, I do not understand you.

I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians.

I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that

others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and

time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me?

Yes.

Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some

pain or grief compels to change their opinion.