11. Would you venture to say
that, in this universe, this thing or the other thing is an evil, whose
origin and cause you are unable to explain and to analyze?3259
| 3259
“To analyze”—dissolvere—is in the
ms. marked as spurious. |
And
because it interferes with your
lawful, perhaps even your
unlawful
pleasures, would you say that it is
pernicious and adverse? What,
then, because cold is disagreeable to your members, and is wont to
chill
3260
| 3260
In the ms. we find “to chill and
numb”—congelare, constringere; but the last
word, too, is marked as spurious. |
the warmth of
your
blood, ought not
winter on that account to exist in the
world? And because you are unable
3261
| 3261
ms. sustinere (marked as a gloss),
“to sustain;” perferre, “to endure.” |
to
endure the hottest rays of the sun,
is
summer to be removed from the year, and a different course of
nature
to be instituted under different
laws? Hellebore is
poison to
men; should it therefore not grow? The
wolf lies in wait by the
sheepfolds; is
nature at all in fault, because she has produced a
beast
most
dangerous to
sheep? The
serpent by his
bite takes away life;
a reproach, forsooth, to creation, because it has added to animals
monsters so cruel.
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