they may get profit from what they learn. It is ridiculous then to think that a person wishes to learn one thing, and will learn another; or further, that a man will make proficiency in that which he does not learn. But the many are deceived by this which deceived also the rhetorician Theopompus,[1] when he blames even Plato for wishing everything to be defined. For what does he say? Did none of us before you use the words Good or Just, or do we utter the sounds in an unmeaning and empty way without understanding what they severally signify? Now who tells you, Theopompus, that we had not natural notions of each of these things and preconceptions (προλήψεις)? But it is not possible to adapt preconceptions to their correspondent objects if we have not distinguished (analyzed) them, and inquired what object must be subjected to each preconception. You may make the same charge against physicians also. For who among us did not use the words healthy and unhealthy before Hippocrates lived, or did we utter these words as empty sounds? For we have also a certain preconception of health,[2] but we are not able to adapt it. For this reason one says, abstain from food; another says, give food; another says, bleed; and another says, use cupping. What is the reason? is it any other than that a man cannot properly adapt the preconception of health to particulars?
So it is in this matter also, in the things which concern life. Who among us does not speak of good and bad, of useful and not useful; for who among us has not a preconception of each of these things? Is it then a distinct and perfect preconception? Show this. How shall I show this? Adapt the preconception properly to the particular things. Plato, for instance, subjects definitions to the preconception of the useful, but you to the preconception of the useless. Is it possible then that both of you are
- ↑ This rhetorician or orator, as Epictetus names him, appears to be the same person as Theopompus of Chios, the historian.
- ↑ 'That Epictetus does not quite correctly compare the notion of what is wholesome to the human body with the preconceived notion (anticipata notione) of moral good and bad, will be apparent to those who have carefully inquired into the various origin and principles of our notions.' Schweigh. Also see his note on ἀνάτεινον.
