BOOK IV. V. 9-14
him for not striking me. "Yes, but he struck you too." I am greatly obliged to him for not wounding me. "Yes, but he wounded you too," I am greatly obliged to him for not killing me. 10For when, or from what teacher, did he learn that man is a tame animal,[1] that he manifests mutual affection, that injustice in itself is a great injury to the unjust man?[2] If, therefore, he has never learned this, or become persuaded of this, why shall he not follow what appears to him to be his advantage? "My neighbour has thrown stones." You have not made a mistake, have you? "No, but my crockery is broken." Are you a piece of crockery, then? No, but you are moral purpose. What, then, has been given you with which to meet this attack? If you seek to act like a wolf, you can bite back and throw more stones than your neighbour did; but if you seek to act like a man, examine your store, see what faculties you brought with you into the world. You brought no faculty of brutality, did you? No faculty of bearing grudges, did you? When, then, is a horse miserable? When he is deprived of his natural faculties. Not when he can't sing "cuckoo!" but when he can't run. And a dog? Is it when he can't fly? No, but when he can't keep the scent. Does it not follow, then, that on the same principles a man is wretched, not when he is unable to choke lions,[3] or throw his arms about statues[4] (for no man has brought with him from nature into this world faculties for this), but when he has lost his kind-
- ↑ See IV. 1, 120.
- ↑ A familiar idea in Plato, especially in the Crito, Gorgias, and Republic, but nowhere, as I recall, in exactly these words, though Crito 49 B and Republic 366 E and 367 D bear a close resemblance.
- ↑ That is, accomplish something almost superhuman, like Heracles.
- ↑ That is, in cold weather, as Diogenes was able to do. See III. 12, 2.
