Laudator Temporis Acti

Yet we are confused by the variety and incompatibility of men's opinions; and because the same disagreement does not occur in regard to the senses, we think the senses are reliable by nature whereas we brand as illusory those ideas that vary from one person to another and do not always remain consistent within the same person. This distinction is far from the truth. In the case of our senses no parent or nurse or teacher or poet or stage-show distorts them, nor does popular opinion lead them astray. For our minds, however, all kinds of traps are laid, either by the people just mentioned, who on receiving young untrained minds stain them and twist them as they please, or else by that power which lurks within, entwined with every one of our senses, namely pleasure, which masquerades as goodness but is in fact the mother of all ills. Seduced by her charms, our minds fail to see clearly enough the things that are naturally good, because those things lack the sweetness and the exciting itch of pleasure.

Sed perturbat nos opinionum varietas hominumque dissensio, et quia non idem contingit in sensibus, hos natura certos putamus, illa, quae aliis sic, aliis secus nec isdem semper uno modo videntur, ficta esse dicimus; quod est longe aliter. Nam sensus nostros non parens, non nutrix, non magister, non poeta, non scaena depravat, non multitudinis consensus abducit a vero; animis omnes tenduntur insidiae vel ab iis, quos modo enumeravi, qui teneros et rudes quom acceperunt, inficiunt et flectunt, ut volunt, vel ab ea, quae penitus in omni sensu inplicata insidet, imitatrix boni, voluptas, malorum autem mater omnium, quoius blanditiis corrupti, quae natura bona sunt, quia dulcedine hac et scabie carent, non cernunt satis.

cernunt Davis: cernuntur codd.