Book 2
21
Conversing therefore with such men, thus confused, thus ignorant what they say, and what are or are not their ills, whence they have them, and how they may be delivered from them, it is worth while, I think, to ask one’s self continually, Am I too one of these? What do I imagine myself to be? How do I conduct myself,—as a prudent, as a temperate man? Do I, too, ever talk at this rate,—that I am sufficiently instructed for what may happen? Have I that persuasion that I know nothing which becomes one who knows nothing? Do I go to a master as to an oracle, prepared to obey; or do I also, like a mere driveller, enter the school only to learn and understand books which I did not understand before, or perhaps to explain them to others?
