BOOK II. XXIII. 9-15
faculty that opens and closes the eyes, and turns them away from the things from which it should turn them, but directs them toward other things? The faculty of sight? No, but the faculty of moral purpose. What is the faculty that closes and opens the ears? 10What is that faculty by virtue of which men are curious and inquisitive, or again, unmoved by what is said? The faculty of hearing? No, it is none other than the faculty of moral purpose. When, then, this faculty sees that all the other faculties which surround it are blind and deaf, and unable to see anything but the very acts for which they have been appointed to serve and minister unto it, while it alone sees clearly and surveys, not only all the rest, determining what each is worth, but itself also, is it likely to pronounce that anything else is supreme but itself? And what else can the open eye do but see? But whether it ought to see someone's wife and how, what faculty tells it? That of moral purpose. And what faculty tells a man whether he ought to believe what he has been told, or disbelieve, and, if he believes, whether he ought to be provoked by it or not? Is it not that of moral purpose? And this faculty of speech and of the adornment of language, if it really is a separate faculty, what else does it do, when discourse arises about some topic, but ornament and compose the words, as hairdressers do the hair? 15But whether it is better to speak than to keep silence, and to do so in this way, or in that, and whether this is appropriate or not appropriate, and the proper occasion and utility of each action—what else tells us all this but the faculty of moral purpose? Would you, then, have it come forward and condemn itself?
