Chapter 9.—All Acknowledge the
Superiority of Unchangeable Wisdom to that Which is
Variable.
9. Now, no one is so egregiously
silly as to ask, “How do you know that a life of unchangeable
wisdom is preferable to one of change?” For that very truth
about which he asks, how I know it? is unchangeably fixed in the
minds of all men, and presented to their common contemplation.
And the man who does not see it is like a blind man in the sun,
whom it profits nothing that the splendor of its light, so clear
and so near, is poured into his very eye-balls. The man, on the
other hand, who sees, but shrinks from this truth, is weak in his
mental vision from dwelling long among the shadows of the flesh.
And thus men are driven back from their native land by the contrary
blasts of evil habits, and pursue lower and less valuable objects
in preference to that which they own to be more excellent and more
worthy.