Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/415

 THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER because it dispels the ignorance from which, as I have said, all evils spring." 15 — Then messer Pietro Bembo said: " I do not know, my lord Ottaviano, whether my lord Gaspar ought to grant you that all evils spring from ignorance; and that there are not many who well know that they are sinning when they sin, and do not in the least deceive themselves as to true pleasure, nor yet as to true suffering. For it is certain that those who are incontinent judge reasonably and rightly, and know that to be evil to which they are prompted by their lusts in spite of duty, and therefore resist and set reason against appetite, whence arises a conflict of pleasure and pain against judgment. Conquered at last by too potent appetite, reason yields, like a ship which resists awhile the buffetings of the sea, but finally beaten by the too furious violence of the gale, with anchor and rigging broken, suffers herself to be driven at fortune's will, without use of helm or any guidance of compass to save her. " Therefore the incontinent commit their errours with a cer- tain doubtful remorse, and as it were in their own despite ; which they would not do if they did not know that what they are doing is evil, but would follow appetite without restraint of reason and wholly uncontrolled, and would then be not incontinent but intemperate, which is much worse. Thus incontinence is said to be a diminished vice, because it has a grain of reason in it; and likewise continence is said to be an imperfect virtue, becau-^/e it has a grain of passion in it. Therefore in this, methinks, we cannot say that the errours of the incontinent proceed from ignorance, or that they deceive themselves and that they do not sin, when they well know that they are sinning." 16.— My lord Ottaviano replied: "In truth, messer Pietro, your argument is fine; yet to my thinking it is specious rather than sound, for although the incon- tinent sin hesitatingly, and reason struggles with appetite in their mind, and although that which is evil seems evil to them, — yet they have no perfect perception of it, nor do they know it so thoroughly as they need. Hence they have a vague idea rather than any certain knowledge of it, and thus allow their reason to be overcome by passion; but if they had true knowledge of it, 255