Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/402

380 misfortune impatiently, then he directeth and opposeth all his plaints and lamentations against fortune and casualty; then he crieth out that there is nothing in the world governed either by justice or with providence, but that all the affairs of man run confusedly headlong to destruction: but the fashion of the superstitious is otherwise, for let there never so small an accident or mishap befall unto him, he sits him down sorrowing, and thereto he multiplieth and addeth other great and grievous afflictions, such as hardly be removed; he imagineth sundry frights, fears, suspicions, and troublesome terrors, giving himself to all kind of wailing, groaning, and doleful lamentation; for he accuseth not any man, fortune, occasion, or his own self; but he blameth God as the cause of all, giving out in plain terms that from thence it is that there falleth and runneth over him such a celestial influence of all calamity and misery, contesting in this wise, that an unhappy or unlucky man he is not, but one hated of the gods, worthily punished and afflicted, yea, and suffering all deservedly by that divine power and providence: now if the godless atheist be sick, he discourseth with himself and calleth to mind his repletions and full feedings, his surfeiting upon drinking wine, his disorders in diet, his immoderate travail and pains taken, yea, and his unusual and absurd change of air, from that which was familiar, unto that which is strange and unnatural: moreover, if it chance that he have offended in any matter of government touching the state, incurred disgrace and an evil opinion of the people and country wherein he liveth, or been falsely accused and slandered before the prince or sovereign ruler, he goeth no farther than to himself and those about him, imputing the cause of all thereto and to nothing else, and thus he reasoneth:

whereas the superstitious person will think and say, that every disease and infirmity of his body, all his losses, the death of his children, his evil success and infortunity in managing civil affairs of state, and his repulses and disgraces, are so many plagues inflicted upon him by the ire of the gods, and the very assaults of the divine justice; insomuch as he dare not go about to seek for help and succour, nor avert his own calamity; he will not presume to seek for remedy, nor oppose himself against the invasion of adverse fortune, for fear (forsooth) lest he might seem to fight against the gods, or to resist their power and will when