Slander: on not Being Quick to Put Faith in it (31)

Therefore, when a man comes and tells you a thing of this sort, you must investigate the matter on its own merits, without regarding the years of the speaker or his standing, or his carefulness in what he says; for the more plausible a man is, the closer your investigation should be. You should not, then, put faith in another's judgment, or rather (as you would be doing), in the accuser’s want of judgment, [*] but should reserve to yourself the province of investigating the truth, accrediting the slanderer with his envy and conducting an open examination into the sentiments of both men; and you should only hate or love a man after you have put him to the proof. To do so before that time, influenced by the first breath of slander—Heavens! how

childish, how base and, beyond everything, how unjust! But the cause of this and all the rest of it, as I said in the beginning, is ignorance, and the fact that the real character of each of us is shrouded in darkness. Hence, if some oné of the gods would only unveil our lives, Slander would vanish away to limbo, having no place left, since everything would be illumined by Truth.