על השיכרות ל״חOn Drunkenness 38
א׳
1[154] But drunkenness, we saw, does not only signify folly, which is the work of this rejection of discipline, but it also signifies complete insensibility. In the body this is produced by wine, but in the soul by ignorance of things of which we should naturally have acquired knowledge. Consequently on the subject of ignorance I must say a few words, only just what is needful, by way of reminder. Now what we call ignorance is an affection of the soul.
ב׳
2[155] To what affection of the body can we liken it, but to the incapacitation of the sense-organs? All who have lost the use of eyes and ears can no longer see or hear and have no knowledge of day and light, which alone in truth make life desirable, but are surrounded by enduring darkness and everlasting night, thus rendered helpless in regard to every issue great or small. These persons are in common life generally and with good reason called “incapable.”
ג׳
3[156] For even if all the faculties of the rest of the body should attain the utmost limit of strength and capacity, yet if they are handicapped by the crippling of eyes and ears they fall, and great is that fall, making any reinstatement impossible. For, though we speak of the feet as the support which upholds the man, in reality that is done by the faculties of sight and hearing: possessed of these in their fullness, the man stands uprisen and erect; deprived of them, he gives way and is utterly prostrated.
ד׳
4[157] An exactly similar result in the soul is produced by ignorance, which destroys its powers of seeing and hearing, and suffers neither light, which might shew it realities, nor reason, which might be its teacher, to find their way in; but sheds about it profound darkness and a flood of unreason, and turns the soul’s fair and lovely form into a senseless block of stone.
