Chapter 66

INTUITIONISM

90. WHAT IS IT?--"We come into the world," said Epictetus, "with no natural notion of a right-angled triangle, or of a quarter-tone, or of a half-tone; but we learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art; and for this reason those who do not know them do not think that they know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and becoming and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and improper, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, who ever came into the world without having an innate idea of them?" [Footnote: _Discourses_, Book II, chapter xi, translation by GEORGE LONG.] Seneca adds his testimony to the self-luminous character of moral truth: "Whatever things tend to make us better or happier are either obvious or easily discovered." [Footnote: _On Benefits_, Book VII,