“We should therefore do away with this department of precepts, because it cannot afford to all what it promises only to a few; wisdom, however, embraces all. Between the insanity of people in general and the insanity which is subject to medical treatment there is no difference, except that the latter is suffering from disease and the former from false opinions.778 In the one case, the symptoms of madness may be traced to ill-health; the other is the ill-health of the mind. If one should offer precepts to a madman—how he ought to speak, how he ought to walk, how he ought to conduct himself in public and in private, he would be more of a lunatic than the person whom he was advising. What is really necessary is to treat the black bile779 and remove the essential cause of the madness. And this is what should also be done in the other case—that of the mind diseased. The madness itself must be shaken off; otherwise, your words of advice will vanish into thin air.”
This is what Aristo says; and I shall answer his arguments one by one. First, in opposition to what he says about one’s obligation to remove that which blocks the eye and hinders the vision. I admit that such a person does not need precepts in order to see, but that he needs treatment for the curing of his eyesight and the getting rid of the hindrance that handicaps him. For it is Nature that gives us our eyesight; and he who removes obstacles restores to Nature her proper function. But Nature does not teach us our duty in every case. Again, if a man’s cataract is cured, he cannot, immediately after his recovery, give back their eyesight to other men also; but when we are freed from evil we can free others also. There is no need of encouragement, or even of counsel, for the eye to be able to distinguish different colours; black and white can be differentiated without prompting from another. The mind, on the other hand, needs many precepts in order to see what it should do in life; although in eye-treatment also the physician not only accomplishes the cure, but gives advice into the bargain. He says: “There is no reason why you should at once expose your weak vision to a dangerous glare; begin with darkness, and then go into half-lights, and finally be more bold, accustoming yourself gradually to the bright light of day. There is no reason why you should study immediately after eating; there is no reason why you should impose hard tasks upon your eyes when they are swollen and inflamed; avoid winds and strong blasts of cold air that blow into your face,”—and other suggestions of the same sort, which are just as valuable as drugs themselves. The physician’s art supplements remedies by advice.
“But,” comes the reply, “error is the source of sin;780 precepts do not remove error, nor do they rout our false opinions on the subject of Good and Evil.” I admit that precepts alone are not effective in overthrowing the mind’s mistaken beliefs; but they do not on that account fail to be of service when they accompany other measures also. In the first place, they refresh the memory; in the second place, when sorted into their proper classes, the matters which showed themselves in a jumbled mass when considered as a whole, can be considered in this with greater care. According to our opponents’781 theory, you might even say that consolation, and exhortation were superfluous. Yet they are not superfluous; neither, therefore, is counsel.
“But it is folly,” they retort, “to prescribe what a sick man ought to do, just as if he were well, when you should really restore his health; for without health precepts are not worth a jot.” But have not sick men and sound men something in common, concerning which they need continual advice? For example, not to grasp greedily after food, and to avoid getting overtired. Poor and rich have certain precepts which fit them both. “Cure their greed, then,” people say, “and you will not need to lecture either the poor or the rich, provided that in the case of each of them the craving has subsided.” But is it not one thing to be free from lust for money, and another thing to know how to use this money? Misers do not know the proper limits in money matters, but even those who are not misers fail to comprehend its use. Then comes the reply: “Do away with error, and your precepts become unnecessary.” That is wrong; for suppose that avarice is slackened, that luxury is confined, that rashness is reined in, and that laziness is pricked by the spur; even after vices are removed, we must continue to learn what we ought to do, and how we ought to do it.
“Nothing,” it is said, “will be accomplished by applying advice to the more serious faults.” No; and not even medicine can master incurable diseases; it is nevertheless used in some cases as a remedy, in others as a relief. Not even the power of universal philosophy, though it summon all its strength for the purpose, will remove from the soul what is now a stubborn and chronic disease. But Wisdom, merely because she cannot cure everything, is not incapable of making cures. People say: “What good does it do to
