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RV 140 (Chap. 14.) So then! I do not understand them now?

No. You do not.

How is it, then, that I use them?

Just as the Illiterate do written Expressions; and Brutes, the Appearances of Things. For Use is one Thing, and Understanding another. But if you think you understand them, bring whatever Word you please, and let us see whether we understand it, or not.

Well: but it is a grievous Thing for a Man to be confuted who is grown old; and perhaps arrived, through a regular Course of Military Service, to the Dignity of a Senator.

I know it very well: for you now come to me, as if you wanted nothing. And how can it enter into your Imagination, that there should be any thing in which you are defective? You are rich; and perhaps have a Wife and Children, and a great Number of Domestics. Cæsar takes Notice of you: you have many Friends at Rome: you render to all their Dues: you know how to requite a Favour, and revenge an Injury. In what are you deficient? Suppose then, I should prove to you, that you are deficient, in what is most necessary and important to Happiness; and that hitherto you have taken care of every Thing, rather than your Duty; and, to complete all, that you understand neither what God or Man, or Good or Evil, means? That you are ignorant of all the rest, perhaps, you may bear to be told: but if I prove to you, that you are ignorant even of yourself, how will you bear with me, and how will you have Patience to stay and be convinced? Not at all. You will immediately be offended, and go away. And yet what Injury have I done you; unless a Looking-Glass injures a Person not handsome, when it shows him to himself, such as he is? Or unless a Physician can be thought to affront his Patient, when he says to him; "Do you think, Sir, that you ail nothing? You have a Fever.