Therefore every man of
worth, when dealing with matters of worth, will be far from exposing
them to ill feeling and misunderstanding among men by committing
them to writing. In one word, then, it may be known from this that, if
one sees written treatises composed by anyone, either the laws of a
lawgiver, or in any other form whatever, these are not for that man
the things of most worth, if he is a man of worth, but that his
treasures are laid up in the fairest spot that he possesses. But if
these things were worked at by him as things of real worth, and
committed to writing, then surely, not gods, but men "have
themselves bereft him of his wits."
Anyone who has followed this discourse and digression will know well
that, if Dionysios or anyone else, great or small, has written a
treatise on the highest matters and the first principles of things, he
has, so I say, neither heard nor learnt any sound teaching about the
subject of his treatise; otherwise, he would have had the same
reverence for it, which I have, and would have shrunk from putting
it forth into a world of discord and uncomeliness. For he wrote it,
not as an aid to memory-since there is no risk of forgetting it, if
a man's soul has once laid hold of it; for it is expressed in the
shortest of statements-but if he wrote it at all, it was from a mean
craving for honour, either putting it forth as his own invention, or
to figure as a man possessed of culture, of which he was not worthy,
if his heart was set on the credit of possessing it.
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