things). For the door ought to be open for all occasions; and so we have
no trouble.

What then is the fruit of these opinions? It is that which ought to be
the most noble and the most becoming to those who are really educated,
release from perturbation, release from fear. Freedom. For in these
matters we must not believe the many, who say that free persons only
ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who
say that the educated only are free. How is this? In this manner: Is
freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing
else. Tell me then, ye men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No
one then who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do you
wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in perturbation? By no
means. No one then who is in a state of fear or sorrow or perturbation
is free; but whoever is delivered from sorrows and fears and
perturbations, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude. How
then can we continue to believe you, most dear legislators, when you
say, We only allow free persons to be educated? For philosophers say we
allow none to be free except the educated; that is, God does not allow
it. When then a man has turned round before the prætor his own slave,
has he done nothing? He has done something. What? He has turned round
his own slave before the prætor. Has he done nothing more? Yes: he is
also bound to pay for him the tax called the twentieth. Well then, is
not the man who has gone through this ceremony become free? No more than
he is become free from perturbations. Have you who are able to turn
round (free) others no master? is not money your master, or a girl or a
boy, or some tyrant or some friend of the tyrant? Why do you trouble
then when you are going off to any trial (danger) of this kind? It is
for this reason that I often say, study and hold in readiness these
principles by which you may determine what those things are with