De Ebrietate

Therefore this company is one of sober persons who have made instruction their guide; but the former one is a company of drunkards, whose leader is ignorance.

But since intoxication does not only display folly, which is the child of ignorance, but also utter insensibility; and since, again, wine is the cause of that insensibility which affects the body, while the cause of the insensibility of the soul is the ignorance of those things with which it is proper and natural to be acquainted; we must now say a few words about ignorance, reminding the reader of only the most important particulars relating to it.

To which, then, of the passions which affect the body shall we compare that passion in the soul which is called ignorance? To the deprivation of the organs of the external senses? Therefore all those, who have been injured in their eyes or ears, are no longer able to see or hear at all, but have no acquaintance with day or light, which are the only objects for the sake of which, if we are to tell the plain truth, life is really desirable, but dwell in lasting darkness and everlasting night, being made insensible to everything whether of small or great importance; men whom ordinary conversation naturally is accustomed to call infirm.

For even if all the other faculties of the rest of the body, should attain to the very extreme limit of strength and vigour, still, if they are tripped up, as it were, and deprived of their foundation by the deprivation of the eyes and ears, they will meet with a great fall, so as never again to be able to rise; for the things which support man and keep him erect are in name, indeed, the feet, but in reality the powers of hearing and seeing; and the man who possesses them in their complete integrity is awake and stands upright, but he who is deprived of them falls and will be utterly destroyed.