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Page 39
11. About what am I now employing my own soul? On every occasion I must
ask myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of
me which they call the ruling principle? and whose soul have I
now,--that of a child, or of a young man, or of a feeble woman, or of a
tyrant, or of a domestic animal, or of a wild beast?
12. What kind of things those are which appear good to the many, we may
learn even from this. For if any man should conceive certain things as
being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he
would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to
anything+ which should not be in harmony with what is really good.+ But
if a man has first conceived as good the things which appear to the many
to be good, he will listen and readily receive as very applicable that
which was said by the comic writer. +Thus even the many perceive the
difference.+ For were it not so, this saying would not offend and would
not be rejected [in the first case], while we receive it when it is said
of wealth, and of the means which further luxury and fame, as said fitly
and wittily. Go on then and ask if we should value and think those
things to be good, to which after their first conception in the mind the
words of the comic writer might be aptly applied,--that he who has them,
through pure abundance has not a place to ease himself in.
13. I am composed of the formal and the material; and neither of them
will perish into non-existence, as neither of them came into existence
out of non-existence. Every part of me then will be reduced by change
into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another
part of the universe, and so on forever. And by consequence of such a
change I too exist, and those who begot me, and so on forever in the
other direction. For nothing hinders us from saying so, even if the
universe is administered according to definite periods [of revolution].
14. Reason and the reasoning art [philosophy] are powers which are
sufficient for themselves and for their own works. They move then from a
first principle which is their own, and they make their way to the end
which is proposed to them; and this is the reason why such acts are
named Catorthoseis or right acts, which word signifies that they proceed
by the right road.
15. None of these things ought to be called a man's, which do not belong
to a man, as man. They are not required of a man, nor does man's nature
promise them, nor are they the means of man's nature attaining its end.
Neither then does the end of man lie in these things, nor yet that which
aids to the accomplishment of this end, and that which aids toward this
end is that which is good. Besides, if any of these things did belong to
man, it would not be right for a man to despise them and to set himself
against them; nor would a man be worthy of praise who snowed that he did
not want these things, nor would he who stinted himself in any of them
be good, if indeed these things were good. But now the more of these
things a man deprives himself of, or of other things like them, or even
when he is deprived of any of them, the more patiently he endures the
loss, just in the same degree he is a better man.
16. Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character
of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a
continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a
man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace;
well then, he can also live well in a palace. And again, consider that
for whatever purpose each thing has been constituted, for this it has
been constituted, and towards this it is carried; and its end is in that
towards which it is carried; and where the end is, there also is the
advantage and the good of each thing. Now the good for the reasonable
animal is society; for that we are made for society has been shown
above.[A] Is it not plain that the inferior exists for the sake of the
superior? But the things which have life are superior to those which
have not life, and of those which have life the superior are those which
have reason.
[A] ii. 1.
17. To seek what is impossible is madness: and it is impossible that the
bad should not do something of this kind.
18. Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.
The same things happen to another, and either because he does not see
that they have happened, or because he would show a great spirit, he is
firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and conceit
should be stronger than wisdom.
19. Things themselves touch not the soul, not in the least degree; nor
have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul: but
the soul turns and moves itself alone, and whatever judgments it may
think proper to make, such it makes for itself the things which present
themselves to it.
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