nor the want of contradiction a sign
of truth.
385. Scepticism.--Each thing here is partly true and partly false.
Essential
truth is not so; it is altogether pure and altogether true. This mixture
dishonours and annihilates it. Nothing is purely true, and thus nothing is
true, meaning by that pure truth. You will say it is true that homicide is
wrong. Yes; for we know well the wrong and the false. But what will you
say
is good? Chastity? I say no; for the world would come to an end. Marriage?
No; continence is better. Not to kill? No; for lawlessness would be
horrible, and the wicked would kill all the good. To kill? No; for that
destroys nature. We possess truth and goodness only in part, and mingled
with falsehood and evil.
386. If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much
as
the objects we see every day. And if an artisan were sure to dream every
night for twelve hours' duration that he was a king, I believe he would be
almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night for twelve hours
on
end that he was an artisan.
If we were to dream every night that we were pursued by enemies and
harassed
by these painful phantoms, or that we passed every day in different
occupations, as in making a voyage, we should suffer almost as much as if
it
were real, and should fear to sleep, as we fear to wake when we dread in
fact to enter on such mishaps. And, indeed, it would cause pretty nearly
the
same discomforts as the reality.
But since dreams are all different, and each single one is diversified,
what
is seen in them affects us much less than what we see when awake, because
of
its continuity, which is not, however, so continuous and level as not to
change too; but it changes less abruptly, except rarely, as when we
travel,
and then we say, "It seems to me I am dreaming." For life is a dream a
little less
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