Discourses: Book 1 11 : 2

But for the present I can give you the following assistance toward the attainment of what you desire. Does family affection seem to you to be in accordance with nature and good?—Of course.—What then? Is it possible that, while family affection is in accordance with nature and good, that which is reasonable is not good?—By no means.—That which is reasonable is not, therefore, incompatible with family affection?—It is not, I think.—Otherwise, when two things are incompatible and one of them is in accordance with nature, the other must be contrary to nature, must it not?—Even so, said he.—Whatever, therefore, we find to be at the same time both affectionate and reasonable, this we confidently assert to be both right and good?—Granted, said he.—What then? I suppose you will not deny that going away and leaving one's child when it is sick is at least not reasonable. But we have yet to consider whether it is affectionate.—Yes, let us consider that.—Were you, then, since you were affectionately disposed to your child, doing right when you ran away and left her? And has the mother no affection for her child?—On the contrary, she has affection.—Ought then the mother also to have left her child, or ought she not?—She ought not.—What of the nurse? Does she love her child?—She does, he said.—Ought, then, she also to have left her?—By no means.—What about the school attendant? Does not he love the child?—He does.—Ought, then, he as well to have gone away and left her, so that the child would thus have been left alone and helpless because of the great affection of you her parents and of those in charge of her, or, perhaps, have died in the arms of those who neither loved her nor cared for her?—Far from it!—And yet is it not unfair and unfeeling, when a man thinks certain conduct fitting for himself because of his affection, that he should not allow the same to others who have as much affection as he has?—That were absurd.—Come, if it had been you who were sick, would you have wanted all your relatives, your children and your wife included, to show their affection in such a way that you would be left all alone and deserted by them?—By no means.—And would you pray to be so loved by your own that, because of their excessive affection, you would always be left alone in sickness? Or would you, so far as this is concerned, have prayed to be loved by your enemies rather, if that were possible, so as to be left alone by them? And if this is what you would have prayed for, the only conclusion left us is that your conduct was, in the end, not an act of affection at all.