point of view. In short, I would have it my scholar’s book. Such a multitude of humours, of sects, of judgements, of opinions, of laws, and of customs teaches us to judge wisely of our own, and teaches our judgement to recognise its imperfection and its natural weakness; which is no slight training. So many civil commotions and changes of public fortune teach us to make no great miracle of our own fortune. So many names, so many victories and conquests buried in oblivion make it ridiculous to hope to perpetuate our names by the capture of ten insignificant troopers and an unimportant little fortress that is known only by its fall. The proud pomp of so many foreign nations, the swollen majesty of so many courts and stately mansions, steadies us and permits our sight to endure the brilliancy of our own without blinking. So many millions of men interred before ourselves encourage us not to fear going to join such good company in the other world. And so with the rest.
(c) Our life, said Pythagoras,[1] resembles the vast and populous assemblage of the Olympic games. Some exercise the body to acquire glory in games; others carry merchandise thither to sell for profit. There are those (and they are not the worst) who seek there no other advantage than to observe how and why each thing is effected, and to be spectators of the life of other men, in order to judge of it, and to regulate their own life. (a) To examples can properly be joined all the most profitable teachings of philosophy, by which human actions should be tested as their canon. You will tell him, —
(b) quid fas optare, quid asper
Utile nummus habet; patris charisque propinquis
Quantum elargiri deceat; quem te Deus esse
Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re;
Quid sumus, aut quidnam victuri gignimur,[2] —
(a) what it is to know and not to know what should be the
- ↑ See Cicero, Tusc. Disp., V, 3.
- ↑ What it is right to desire; what usefulness has newly coined money; how much it is fitting to bestow on thy country and on dear kindred; what sort of man God has commanded thee to be, and what is your post in the human commonwealth; what we are, and what the life we are
born to lead. — Persius, Satires, III, 69-72, 67.
