BOOK II. XI. 12-16
then, show us anything higher than your own opinion which will make it possible for us to apply our preconceptions better? And does the madman do anything else but that which seems to him to be good? Is this criterion, then, sufficient in his case also?—It is not.—Go, therefore, to something higher than your own opinion, and tell us what that is.
Behold the beginning of philosophy!—a recognition of the conflict between the opinions of men, and a search for the origin of that conflict, and a condemnation of mere opinion, coupled with scepticism regarding it, and a kind of investigation to determine whether the opinion is rightly held, together with the invention of a kind of standard of judgement, as we have invented the balance for the determination of weights, or the carpenter's rule for the determination of things straight and crooked.—Is this the beginning of philosophy? Is everything right that every man thinks?[1] Nay, how is it possible for conflicting opinions to be right? Consequently, not all opinions are right.—But are our opinions right? 15Why ours, rather than those of the Syrians; why ours, rather than those of the Egyptians; why ours, rather than my own, or those of so-and-so?—There is no reason why.—Therefore, the opinion which each man holds is not a sufficient criterion for determining the truth; for also in the case of weights and measures we are not satisfied with the mere appearance, but we have invented a certain standard to test each. In the present case, then, is there no standard higher than opinion? And yet how can it possibly be that matters of the utmost consequence among men should be unde-
- ↑ "Each man" (ἔκαστος, as below, § 15) would have been a more logical form for this question, for it is clear from the context that Epictetus is not speaking here of the actual correctness of any opinion universally held, but only of any opinion held by any man.
