Est et Non

De Est et Non

All men make frequent use of the well-known monosyllables "Yes" and "No." With these taken away, there is nothing for the speech of men to turn over. All things are in these, and from these are all things, whether of business or of leisure there is anything, whether things troubled or calm. By one or the other equally, sometimes, often apart, they oppose our pursuits, so that character and disposition, and an easy or a difficult contention, is born. If there is agreement, no delay: "Yes, yes" comes between. But if it is disputed, dissent will throw in "No." Hence the law-courts burst apart with shouting, hence are the frenzied quarrels of the circus, hence the wedge-shaped theatre's great sedition, and the senate-house too stirs up such strifes. Marriages and children with their fathers sow these words in their quiet pursuits, speaking with piety unimpaired.

Hence too the school, in tune with its placid disciplines, drives on its dogmatic disputes in slow contest. Hence every dialectical throng of the sages contends. It is light. Is it day, then? That does not follow. For when by many torches or by lightnings there is light for a man by night, that is not the light of day. "Yes" and "No," therefore, as often as it must be confessed that there is light, but that it is not day. From this a thousand contests arise. Hence many a hoarse one, who, brooding on such things, with their muttering shut up, gnaw at their rabid silences. What a thing is the life of men, which two monosyllables turn about!