Pagina 385 di 734

Again, if Self-Control makes a man apt to abide by all opinions

without exception, it may be bad, as suppose the case of a false

opinion: and if Imperfect Self-Control makes a man apt to depart

from all without exception, we shall have cases where it will be

good; take that of Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles,

for instance: he is to be praised for not abiding by what he was

persuaded to by Ulysses, because he was pained at being guilty of

falsehood.

Or again, false sophistical reasoning presents a difficulty: for

because men wish to prove paradoxes that they may be counted

clever when they succeed, the reasoning that has been used

becomes a difficulty: for the intellect is fettered; a man being

unwilling to abide by the conclusion because it does not please

his judgment, but unable to advance because he cannot disentangle

the web of sophistical reasoning.