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242 which you did not see? — : I am constrained to admit that I must judge by the absent of the present. Only tell me this: If I pass no judgment from the present on the absent, does my knowledge of the present suffer any detriment? By knowing which I may derive benefit in judging of the absent from the present. — distinguish it from what differs from it. — : How so? — : If the saying of the wise DARIUS be true, that no one knows the truth who cannot discriminate it from the false, and no one knows what is right who cannot sever it from what is wrong, then so long as you are not acquainted with the absent, you have no means of knowing the present. — : This subject is over. Now, O guide to philosophy! I would ask you this: Is it possible to embrace in one notion all those things concerning the baseness of which mankind are agreed, fornication, theft, drunkenness, deceit, injustice, treachery, fraud, malice, envy, ignorance, pride, self-complacency, so as to exclude nothing, whereby I might know that the events which have not yet passed over me are like to those which have passed over me? — : The possessors of these qualities and characteristics are unjust, false, and self-blinding, insomuch as they strive after what is not theirs. — : How so? — : Do you not see that no one sets about any of these iniquities before avarice, desire, or anger bestir· itself in him, after which he sets about them. Now with avarice, desire, and passion reason cannot remain at peace. And the reason being out of order, it cannot take the right path, and whoso does not take the right path goes astray; he that goes astray is a wrong-doer, and the wrong-doer and the liar are in torment. — : You have collected under one notion all the vices; could you do the same for the virtues? — : To abandon injustice is to adhere to justice and right; and to avoid the false is to strain after the true. If the foulness of the vices has been made clear to you, it must inevitably have been made clear that virtue consists in abandoning
 * No one knows a thing who is unable to