Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 12.djvu/331

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Book vi.]
THE MISCELLANIES.
317

sprout of each plant, having got a fair start, according to the virtue of its own nature, is most powerful in inducing the appropriate end;" the historian writes, "Further, it is not natural for one of the wild plants to become cultivated, after they have passed the earlier period of growth;" and the following of Empedocles:

"For I already have been boy and girl,
And bush, and bird, and mute fish in the sea,"—

Euripides transcribes in Chrysippus:

"But nothing dies
Of things that are; but being dissolved,
One from the other,
Shows another form."

And Plato having said, in the Republic, that women were common, Euripides writes in the Protesilaus:

"For common, then, is woman's bed."

Further, Euripides having written:

"For to the temperate enough sufficient is,"—

Epicurus expressly says, "Sufficiency is the greatest riches of all."

Again, Aristophanes having written:

"Life thou securely shalt enjoy, being just
And free from turmoil, and from fear live well,"—

Epicurus says, "The greatest fruit of righteousness is tranquillity."

Let these species, then, of Greek plagiarism of sentiments, being such, stand as sufficient for a clear specimen to him who is capable of perceiving.

And not only have they been detected pirating and paraphrasing thoughts and expressions, as will be shown; but they will also be convicted of the possession of what is entirely stolen. For stealing entirely what is the production of others, they have published it as their own; as Eugamon of Oyrene did the entire book on the Thesprotians from Musæus, and Pisander of Camirus the Heraclea of Pisinus of Lindus, and Panyasis of Halicarnassus, the capture of Œchalia from Cleophilus of Samos.

You will also find that Homer, the great poet, took from