על שכל אדם ישר הוא בן חורין ח׳Every Good Man is Free 8
א׳
1VIII. [51] By the same line of argument it will appear that the fool is a slave. The laws of music, of grammar, of art in general, do not put the unmusical, the illiterate, the inartistic in general on an equal footing in discussion with the musical, the literary and the artistic. In the same way the laws of life and conduct do not put the unproficient in life matters on an equal footing in discussion with the proficient.
ב׳
2[52] But this right of equal discussion, which these laws give, is given to all the free [and some of the good are free]. And in life-matters the bad are unproficient, while the wise are most proficient and consequently none of the bad is free but all are slaves.
ג׳
3[53] Zeno, who lived under the direction of virtue to an unsurpassed degree, proves still more forcibly that the bad are not on equal terms in addressing the virtuous. “Shall not the bad rue it if he gainsay the good?” he says. The bad man, therefore, has no right to speak to a good man as his equal.
ד׳
4[54] I am aware that many people will pour abuse on such words and hold that Zeno’s question shows presumption rather than good sense. But when they have had their jeering and stopped laughing, if they are willing to look closely and seek for a clear understanding of the saying, they will to their utter confusion recognize its absolute truth and that nothing will a man rue more than refusal to listen to the wise.
ה׳
5[55] For confiscation of money or disfranchisement or banishment or the cruel disgrace of the lash, or anything else of the same kind, are small things and of no account when set against vices and the results which vices produce. But the majority, who through the blindness of their reason do not discern the damages which the soul has sustained, only feel the pain of external injuries, because the faculty of judgement, which alone can enable them to apprehend the damage to the mind, is taken from them.
ו׳
6[56] But if they could recover their sight, observing the delusions which folly brings and the outrages wrought by cowardice and all that the sottishness of incontinence and the lawlessness of injustice has done, they will be filled with ceaseless sorrow at the calamitous plight of the best thing they possess, and even refuse to listen to consolation, so vast are the evils which have befallen them.
ז׳
7[57] We may well suppose that the fountain from which Zeno drew this thought was the law-book of the Jews, which tells of two brothers, one wise and temperate, the other incontinent, how the father of them both prayed in pity for him who had not attained to virtue that he should be his brother’s slave. He held that slavery, which men think the worst of evils, was the best possible boon to the fool, because the loss of independence would prevent him from transgressing without fear of punishment, and his character would be improved under the control of the authority set above him.