Kitap 4
8
Why, then, will you not first see, whether when acting improperly he fulfils his profession, ere you proceed to blame the study? Whereas now, when acting soberly yourself, you say, in regard to whatever he appears to do amiss, Observe the philosopher! as if it were proper to call a person who does such things a philosopher. And again, This is philosophical! But you do not say, Observe the carpenter, or observe the musician, when you know one of them to be an adulterer, or see him to be a glutton. So, in some small degree, even you perceive what the profession of a philosopher is, but are misled and confounded by your own carelessness. And, indeed, even those called philosophers enter upon their profession by commonplace beginnings. As soon as they have put on the cloak and let their beards grow, they cry, am a philosopher. Yet no one says, am a musician, merely because he has bought a fiddle and fiddlestick; nor, am a smith, because he is dressed in the cap and apron. But they take their name from their art, not from their garb.
