CHAPTER 15
To or against those who obstinately persist in what they have
determined
When some persons have heard these words, that a man ought to be
constant, and that the will is naturally free and not subject to
compulsion, but that all other things are subject to hindrance, to
slavery, and are in the power of others, they suppose that they
ought without deviation to abide by everything which they have
determined. But in the first place that which has been determined
ought to be sound. I require tone in the body, but such as exists in a
healthy body, in an athletic body; but if it is plain to me that you
have the tone of a frenzied man and you boast of it, I shall say to
you, "Man, seek the physician": this is not tone, but atony. In a
different way something of the same kind is felt by those who listen
to these discourses in a wrong manner; which was the case with one
of my companions who for no reason resolved to starve himself to
death. I heard of it when it was the third day of his abstinence
from food and I went to inquire what had happened. "I have
resolved," he said. But still tell me what it was which induced you to
resolve; for if you have resolved rightly, we shall sit with you and
assist you to depart; but if you have made an unreasonable resolution,
change your mind. "We ought to keep to our determinations." What are
you doing, man? We ought to keep not to all our determinations, but to
those which are right; for if you are now persuaded that it is
right, do not change your mind, if you think fit, but persist and say,
"We ought to abide by our determinations." Will you not make the
beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the
determination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it
firmness and security? But if you lay a rotten and ruinous foundation,
will not your miserable little building fall down the sooner, the more
and the stronger are the materials which you shall lay on it?
Without any reason would you withdraw from us out of life a man who is
a friend, and a companion, a citizen of the same city, both the
great and the small city? Then, while you are committing murder and
destroying a man who has done no wrong, do you say that you ought to
abide by your determinations? And if it ever in any way came into your
head to kill me, ought you to abide by your determinations?
Now this man was with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But
it is impossible to convince some persons at present; so that I seem
now to know, what I did not know, before, the meaning of the common
saying, "That you can neither persuade nor break a fool." May it never
be my lot to have a wise fool for my friend: nothing is more
untractable. "I am determined," the man says. Madmen are also; but the
more firmly they form a judgment on things which do not exist, the
more ellebore they require. Will you not act like a sick man and
call in the physician? "I am sick, master, help me; consider what I
must do: it is my duty to obey you." So it is here also: "I know not
what I ought to do, but I am come to learn." Not so; but, "Speak to me
about other things: upon this I have determined." What other things?
for what is greater and more useful than for you to be persuaded
that it is not sufficient to have made your determination and not to
change it. This is the tone of madness, not of health. "I will die, if
you compel me to this." Why, man? What has happened? "I have
determined." I have had a lucky escape that you have not determined to
kill me. "I take no money." Why? "I have determined." Be assured
that with the very tone which you now use in refusing to take, there
is nothing to hinder you at some time from inclining without reason to
take money and then saying, "I have determined." As in a distempered
body, subject to defluxions, the humor inclines sometimes to these
parts and then to those, so too a sickly soul knows not which way to
incline: but if to this inclination and movement there is added a
tone, then the evil becomes past help and cure.
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