rstand now and consider this indifference
which the Stoa refutes and calls consent, whence and in what manner it
gives us the knowledge of good. For if without good the indifference to
that which is not good cannot be understood, much less does the knowing
of good things give any intelligence of itself to those who had not
before some notion of the good. But as there can be no knowledge of the
art of things wholesome and unwholesome in those who have not first some
knowledge of the things themselves; so they cannot conceive any notion
of the science of good and evil who have not some fore-knowledge of good
and evil.

LAMPRIAS. What then is good? DIADUMENUS. Nothing but prudence. LAMPRIAS.
And what is prudence? DIADUMENUS. Nothing but the science of good.

LAMPRIAS. There is much then of "Jupiter's Corinth" (that is, much
begging the question) admitted into their reasoning. For I would have
you let alone the saying about the turning of the pestle, lest you
should seem to mock them; although an accident like to that has
insinuated itself into their discourse. For it seems that, to the
understanding of good, one has need to understand prudence, and to seek
for prudence in the understanding of good, being forced always to
pursue the one by the other, and thus failing of both; since to the
understanding of each we have need of that which cannot be known without
the other be first understood.

DIADUMENUS. But there is yet another way, by which you may perceive
not only the perversion but the eversion of their discourse, and the
reduction of it entirely to nothing. They hold the essence of good to be
the reasonable election of things according to Nature. Now the election
is not reasonable which is not directed to some end, as has been said
before. What, then, is this end? Nothing else, say they, but to reason
rightly in the election of things according to Nature. First, then, the
conception of good is lost and gone. For to reason rightly in election
is an operation proceeding from an habit of right reasoning, and
therefore being constrained to get this from the end; and the end not
without this, we fail of understanding either of them. Besides, which is
more, this reasonable election ought strictly to be a choice of
things good and useful, and cooperating to the end; for how can it be
reasonable to choose things which are neither convenient nor honorable
nor at all eligible? For be it, as they say, a reasonable election of