C’EST vne plaisante imagination, de conceuoir vn esprit balancé iustement entre-deux pareilles enuyes. Car il est indubitable, qu’il ne prendra iamais party: d’autant que l’application et le choix porte inequalité de prix: et qui nous logeroit entre la bouteille et le iambon, auec egal appetit de boire et de manger, il n’y auroit sans doute remede, que de mourir de soif et de faim.
It is an amusing notion to imagine a mind balanced exactly between two equal desires. For it is beyond doubt that it will never make up its mind, since leaning toward one and choosing it imply that they are unequal in value. If we were placed between the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite for drinking and eating, there would doubtless be no remedy but to die of thirst and hunger.
Pour pouruoir à cet inconuenient, les Stoïciens, quand on leur demande d’où vient en nostre ame l’election de deux choses indifferentes (et qui fait que d’vn grand nombre d’escus nous en prenions plustost l’vn que l’autre, n’y ayant aucune raison qui nous incline à la preference) respondent, que ce mouuement de l’ame est extraordinaire et desreglé, venant en nous d’vne impulsion estrangere, accidentale, et fortuite. Il se pourroit dire, ce me semble, plustost, que aucune chose ne se presente à nous, où il n’y ait quelque difference, pour legere qu’elle soit: et que ou à la veuë, ou à l’attouchement, il y a tousiours quelque choix, qui nous tente et attire, quoy que ce soit imperceptiblement.
To get round this difficulty, the Stoics, when asked where our soul gets its choice between two indifferent things (and what makes us take one coin rather than another from a large pile of crowns, when there is no reason to incline us to prefer one), answer that this movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, coming into us from an external, accidental, and fortuitous impulse. It might rather be said, it seems to me, that nothing presents itself to us in which there is not some difference, however slight; and that, either to the sight or to the touch, there is always something to choose that tempts and attracts us, even if imperceptibly.
Pareillement qui presupposera vne fisselle egallement forte par tout, il est impossible de toute impossibilité qu’elle rompe, car par où voulez vous que la faucée commence? et de rompre par tout ensemble, il n’est pas en nature. Qui ioindroit encore à cecy les propositions geometriques, qui concluent par la certitude de leurs demonstrations, le contenu plus grand que le contenant, le centre aussi grand que sa circonference: et qui trouuent deux lignes s’approchans sans cesse l’vne de l’autre, et ne se pouuans iamais ioindre: et la pierre philosophale, et quadrature du cercle, où la raison et l’effect sont si opposites: en tireroit à l’aduenture quelque argument pour secourir ce mot hardy de Pline, solum certum nihil esse certi, et homine nihil miserius aut superbius.
Likewise, if you suppose a cord equally strong throughout, it is utterly and absolutely impossible for it to break; for where would you have the break begin? And to break everywhere at once is not in nature. Suppose someone added to this the geometrical propositions that conclude, with all the certainty of their demonstrations, that the contents are greater than the container and the center as large as its circumference; and that find two lines forever approaching each other and never able to meet; and the philosophers’ stone, and the squaring of the circle, where reason and result are so opposed. He might perhaps draw from them some argument in support of that bold saying of Pliny: the only certainty is that nothing is certain, and nothing is more wretched or more arrogant than man.