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AGAINST FOLLY: It isn't necessarily unnatural to rebel against human folly but, more usually, an indirect indication of one's own folly. For even if a man understands the inevitability and, indeed, absolute legitimacy of folly, even if he recognizes it as part of a duality which, in antithesis to wisdom, ultimately guarantees its opposite, there is no reason why he shouldn't continue to rebel against it precisely because of its periodic prevalence within himself. Hence his own folly will override his intellectual acknowledgement of its ultimate legitimacy and, consequently, enable him to continue acting 'unreasonably', or in apparent contradiction of his theoretical awareness.

However, there is of course another and perhaps more serious way of viewing the problem - namely, through the realization that a man naturally looks down on his periodic folly because, in addition to causing him inconvenience, it forms the negative antithesis to his wisdom or good sense. After all, a being who is essentially geared to the positive must consequently take rather a condescending view of the negative, and so, by rejecting folly, he really acts 'reasonably'.

Here is further proof, in explanation of the above contradiction, that the power of practice is somewhat stronger than that of theory. No matter what we know, we can only act in accordance with nature which, in human terms, is far more comprehensive than we may sometimes care to imagine.