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<h2> CHAPTER XIV——THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF </h2>
<p>'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two
equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch
as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem; and
were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to
drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die of
thirst and hunger. To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics, when
they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent things
proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns, rather take
one than another, they being all alike, and there being no reason to
incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this movement of the
soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us by a foreign,
accidental, and fortuitous impulse. It might rather, methinks, he said,
that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is not some difference,
how little soever; and that, either by the sight or touch, there is always
some choice that, though it be imperceptibly, tempts and attracts us; so,
whoever shall presuppose a packthread equally strong throughout, it is
utterly impossible it should break; for, where will you have the breaking
to begin? and that it should break altogether is not in nature. Whoever,
also, should hereunto join the geometrical propositions that, by the
certainty of their demonstrations, conclude the contained to be greater
than the containing, the centre to be as great as its circumference, and
that find out two lines incessantly approaching each other, which yet can
never meet, and the philosopher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle,
where the reason and the effect are so opposite, might, peradventure, find
some argument to second this bold saying of Pliny:</p>
<p>"Solum certum nihil esse certi,<br/>
et homine nihil miserius ant superbius."<br/>
<br/>
["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing<br/>
is more miserable or more proud than man."—Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]<br/></p>
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