Some people think philosophers' ideas sound like contradictions. Let's examine whether it's really true that you can do everything with both caution and confidence. Caution seems to oppose confidence. And opposites can't work together. Here's what people find contradictory about this idea: if we said you should use caution and confidence on the same things, people would rightly accuse us of combining things that don't mix. But what's actually difficult about what we're saying?
The opinion of the philosophers perhaps seem to some to be a paradox; but still let us examine as well as we can, if it is true that it is possible to do everything both with caution and with confidence. For caution seems to be in a manner contrary to confidence, and contraries are in no way consistent. That which seems to many to be a paradox in the matter under consideration in my opinion is of this kind; if we asserted that we ought to employ caution and confidence in the same things, men might justly accuse us of bringing together things which cannot be united. But now where is the difficulty in what is said?