Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

9561

Plutarch, On Superstition, 164f

nan and just as dislocations of the joints accompanied by lacerations are hardest to deal with, so also is it with derangements of the soul accompanied by emotion. Aman thinks that in the beginning the universe was created out of atoms and void. His assumption is false, but it causes no sore, no throbbing, no agitating pain. Aman assumes that wealth is the greatest good. This falsehood contains venom, it feeds upon his soul, distracts him, does not allow him to sleep, fills him with stinging desires, pushes him over precipices, chokes him, and takes from him his freedom of speech. Again, some people think that virtue and vice are corporeal. This piece of ignorance is disgraceful, perhaps, but it is not worthy of wailings or lamentations. But consider judgements and assumptions that are like this: Poor virtue! Amere name thou art, Ifind, But Idid practise thee as real! and thereby Igave up wrongdoing which is productive of wealth, and licentiousness which begets every sort of pleasure. These it is right and proper that we pity, and at the same time loathe

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subject	book bibliographic info
deception	Wilson (2012) 185
desires	Wilson (2012) 185
falsehood	Wilson (2012) 185
flattery	Wilson (2012) 185
freedom	Wilson (2012) 185
gratitude	Wilson (2012) 185
power	Wilson (2012) 185
silence	Wilson (2012) 185
sleep	Wilson (2012) 185
solon	Wilson (2012) 185
speech	Wilson (2012) 185
the tongue'	Wilson (2012) 185