kind is felt by those who listen to these discourses in a wrong manner;
which was the case with one of my companions, who for no reason resolved
to starve himself to death. I heard of it when it was the third day of
his abstinence from food, and I went to inquire what had happened. "I
have resolved," he said. "But still tell me what it was which induced
you to resolve; for if you have resolved rightly, we shall sit with you
and assist you to depart, but if you have made an unreasonable
resolution, change your mind." "We ought to keep to our determinations."
"What are you doing, man? We ought to keep not to all our
determinations, but to those which are right; for if you are now
persuaded that it is right, do not change your mind, if you think fit,
but persist and say, We ought to abide by our determinations. Will you
not make the beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the
determination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it firmness
and security? But if you lay a rotten and ruinous foundation, will not
your miserable little building fall down the sooner, the more and the
stronger are the materials which you shall lay on it? Without any reason
would you withdraw from us out of life a man who is a friend and a
companion, a citizen of the same city, both the great and the small
city? Then while you are committing murder and destroying a man who has
done no wrong, do you say that you ought to abide by your
determinations? And if it ever in any way came into your head to kill
me, ought you to abide by your determinations?"

Now this man was with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But it is
impossible to convince some persons at present; so that I seem now to
know what I did not know before, the meaning of the common saying, that
you can neither persuade nor break a fool. May it never be my lot to
have a wise fool for my friend; nothing is more untractable. "I am
determined," the man says. Madmen are also, but the more firmly they