[62]
30. "Then shall we listen to Epicurus rather
than to Plato? As for Carneades, in his ardour for
controversy he asserts now this and now that.
' But,' you retort, 'Epicurus says what he thinks.'
But he thinks nothing that is ever well reasoned,
or worthy of a philosopher.1 Will you, then, put
this man before Plato or Socrates, who though
they gave no reason, would yet prevail over these
petty philosophers by the mere weight of their
name? Now Plato's advice to us is to set out
for the land of dreams with bodies so prepared
that no error or confusion may assail the soul. For
this reason, it is thought, the Pythagoreans were
forbidden to indulge in beans2 ; for that food produces great flatulence and induces a condition at war
[p. 295]
with a soul in search of truth.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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