hurt himself by doing an unjust act to me, shall I not hurt myself by
doing some unjust act to him? Why do we not imagine to ourselves
(mentally think of) something of this kind? But where there is any
detriment to the body or to our possession, there is harm there; and
where the same thing happens to the faculty of the will, there is (you
suppose) no harm; for he who has been deceived or he who has done an
unjust act neither suffers in the head nor in the eye nor in the hip,
nor does he lose his estate; and we wish for nothing else than (security
to) these things. But whether we shall have the will modest and faithful
or shameless and faithless, we care not the least, except only in the
school so far as a few words are concerned. Therefore our proficiency is
limited to these few words; but beyond them it does not exist even in
the slightest degree.

* * * * *

WHAT THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY IS.--The beginning of philosophy, to
him at least who enters on it in the right way and by the door is a
consciousness of his own weakness and inability about necessary things;
for we come into the world with no natural notion of a right-angled
triangle, or of a diesis (a quarter tone), or of a half-tone; but we
learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art;
and for this reason those who do not know them do not think that they
know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and becoming
and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and improper,
and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, who ever came into
the world without having an innate idea of them? Wherefore we all use
these names, and we endeavor to fit the preconceptions to the several
cases (things) thus: he has done well; he has not done well; he has done
as he ought, not as he ought; he has been unfortunate, he has been