על השיכרות ג׳On Drunkenness 3
א׳
1[11] So much then for what we may call the preliminaries of our treatise. I will now proceed to the demonstration of each head beginning with the first. Well, we agreed that indiscipline was the cause of folly and error, as wine when taken in large quantities is to so many foolish persons.
ב׳
2[12] Indiscipline is indeed the prime cause of the soul’s errors, and from it as from a spring flow those actions of our lives which give to none any sweet and salutary stream, but only briny waters fraught with plague and destruction to those who use them.
ג׳
3[13] Thus it is against the untrained and undisciplined more perhaps than against any other person that the lawgiver breathes slaughter. Here is our proof. Who play the part of protectors not so much by acquired habit as by nature amongst humankind and every other kind of animal? Surely it is the parents. Not even a madman would give a different answer. For nature ever instinctively prompts the maker to care for what he has made, and to take thought for its preservation and perpetual maintenance.
