74 /-34 to /-38
would neither [lacuna of about 25 words] to occur, but to call even
necessity empty, from what you people say. And if someone does not
say this and has no auxiliary [cause] in us and no inclination to dissuade
us from things which we do, while calling the responsibility for them
'through our own agency', but giving everything which we now assert
that we do while naming the responsibility for it as being 'through our
own agency' the name of 'foolish necessity', then he will merely be
altering the name. And he will not change any of our actions, in the way
in which in some cases he who sees what sort of things are necessitated
usually dissuades those who are eager to act in defiance of force. And
the intellect will endeavour to find out which sort of thing one is to think
an action is, which we do somehow from within ourselves, but which
we are not eager to do.
For he has no choice but to say that what sort [of action] is necessitated
[and what not] [lacuna of about 40 words] ... among the most senseless.
If someone does not forcibly insist on this or again set out what he is
refuting and what he is introducing, only the wording is changed, as I
have been going on about for a while now.
But those who first gave a sufficient causal account and were not only
superior to their predecessors but also many times over superior to their
successors, failed to notice-despite the fact that they removed serious
difficulties in many areas-that they gave causal accounts for everything
by referring to necessity and mechanistic explanation. And the very
argument which explains this doctrine disintegrated, and the fellow did
not notice that it brought his actions into conflict with his opinions; and
that if a kind of distraction did not possess him while he acted, he would
be constantly disturbing himself; and that insofar as his opinion held
sway, he got into the worst sort of problems, but insofar as it did not
hold sway he was filled with internal strife because of the contradiction
between his actions and his opinion ....
From the Puzzles
Plutarch Against Colotes 1127d (18 U,
12 [1] A)
[I-35]... For in the Puzzles Epicurus asks himself whether the wise man
will do some things which the laws forbid, if he knows that he will escape
detection. And he answers: "the plain statement [of the answer] is not
easy", i.e., I will do it but I do not wish to admit it.