“In this sense, then, justice and shame, which you say Jove sent upon earth to all men, are natural in each one of us. But just as a body without eyes, however strong it be, often fails if it moves towards any object, so the root of these virtues potentially engendered in our minds often comes to naught if it be not helped by cultivation. For if it is to ripen into action and perfect character, nature alone is not enough, as has been said, but there is need of studied practice and of reason, to purify and clear the soul by lifting the dark veil of ignorance, from which nearly all the errours of men proceed,—because if good and evil were well perceived and understood, everyone would always prefer good and shun evil. Thus virtue may almost be said to be a kind of prudence and wit to prefer the good, and vice a kind of imprudence and ignorance which lead us to judge falsely; for men never prefer evil deeming it to be evil, but are deceived by a certain likeness that it bears to good.” 14.—Then my lord Gaspar replied: “There are, however, many who know well that they are doing evil, and yet do it; and this because they have more thought for the present pleasure which they feel, than for the chastisement which they fear must come upon them: like thieves, homicides, and other such men.” My lord Ottaviano said: “True pleasure is always good, and true suffering always evil; therefore these men deceive themselves in taking false pleasure for true, and true suffering for false; hence by false pleasures they often run into true sufferings. Therefore that art which teaches how to discern the true from the false, may well be learned; and the faculty whereby we choose that which is truly good and not that which falsely seems so, may be called true wisdom and more profitable to human life than any other, because it dispels the ignorance from which, as I have said, all evils spring.” 15.—Then messer Pietro Bembo said: “I do not know, my lord Ottaviano, whether my lord Gaspar ought to grant you that all evils spring from ignorance; and that there are not many who well know that they are sinning when they sin, and do not in the least deceive themselves as to true pleasure, nor yet as to true suffering. For it is certain that those who are incontinent judge reasonably and rightly, and know that to be evil to which they are prompted by their lusts in spite of duty, and therefore resist and set reason against appetite, whence arises a conflict of pleasure and pain against judgment. Conquered at last by too potent appetite, reason yields, like a ship which resists awhile the buffetings of the sea, but finally beaten by the too furious violence of the gale, with anchor and rigging broken, suffers herself to be driven at fortune’s will, without use of helm or any guidance of compass to save her.