Chapter VIII.—Admitted Evils.

Then my father answered:  “But as the harmfulness of an inharmonious conjunction of elements or stars is immediately betrayed, so ought also adultery to be immediately shown that it is an evil.”  Then I:  “First tell me this, whether, as you yourself have confessed, evils are produced from incongruous and inharmonious mixture; and then after that we shall inquire into the other matter.”  Then my father said:  “The nature of things is as you say, my son.”  Then I answered:  “Since, then, you wish to learn of these things, see how many things there are which no one doubts to be evils.  Do you think that a fever, a fire, sedition, the fall of a house, murder, holds, racks, pains, mournings, and such like, are evils?”  Then said my father:  “It is true, my son, that these things are evil, and very evil; or, at all events, whoever denies that they are evil, let him suffer them!”