Book 7
2
A little later he uses an illustration of this statement of his, which is in truth quite neat and appropriate: Fr. ii. 1000, Arn. For instance, he says, if you roll a cylindrical stone over a sloping, steep piece of ground, you do indeed furnish the beginning and cause of its rapid descent, yet soon it speeds onward, not because you make it do so, but because of its peculiar form and natural tendency to roll; just so the order, the law, and the inevitable quality of fate set in motion the various classes of things and the beginnings of causes, but the carrying out of our designs and thoughts, and even our actions, are regulated by each individual's own will and the characteristics of his mind. Then he adds these words, in harmony with what I have said: Fr. ii. 1000, Arn. Therefore it is said by the Pythagoreans also: Xru/sea )/Eph, 54. You'll learn that men have ills which they themselves Bring on themselves, for harm comes to each of them through themselves, and they go astray through their own impulse and are harmed by their own purpose and determination. Therefore he says that wicked, slothful, sinful and reckless men ought not to be endured or listened to, who, when they are caught fast in guilt and sin, take refuge in the inevitable nature of fate, as if in the asylum of some shrine, declaring that their outrageous actions must be charged, not to their own heedlessness, but to fate.
