Book V - Snyder Bible

304
this is what I shall do at last. Yet I wish first to see if it is possible
by discussion to find what is sought. My wish therefore is
that Clement should begin first, and should show if there is
any good or evil in substance or in actions.
Chapter VII: Clements Argument
To this I answered: Since indeed you wish to learn from
me if there is any good or evil in nature or in act, or whether it
is not rather that men, prejudiced by custom, think some
things to be good, and others to be evil, forasmuch as they
have made a division among themselves of common things,
which ought, as you say, to be as common as the air and the
sunshine; I think that I ought not to bring before you any
statements from any other quarter than from those studies in
which you are well versed, and which you support, so that
what I say you will receive without hesitation. You assign certain
boundaries of all the elements and the heavenly bodies,
and these, you say, meet in some without hurt, as in marriages;
but in others they are hurtfully united, as in adulteries. And
you say that some things are general to all, but other things do
not belong to all, and are not general. But not to make a long
discussion, I shall speak briefly of the matter. The earth which
is dry is in need of the addition and admixture of water, that it
may be able to produce fruits, without which man cannot live:
this is therefore a legitimate conjunction. On the contrary if
the cold of hoarfrost be mixed with the earth, or heat with the
water, a conjunction of this sort produces corruption; and this,
in such things, is adultery.
Chapter VIII: Admitted Evils
Then my father answered: But as the harmfulness of an inharmonious
conjunction of elements or stars is immediately
betrayed, so ought also adultery to he immediately shown that
it is an evil. Then I: First tell me this, whether, as you yourself
have confessed, evils are produced from incongruous and
inharmonious mixture; and then after that we shall inquire
into the other matter. Then my father said: The nature of