discern the good and the evil in life, and always and everywhere to choose the better according to his ability. He will reckon up all the things we have just mentioned, taking them both together and separately, and estimate their contribution to virtue of life; and so he will know what of good or evil is worked by beauty, whether mixed with poverty or riches, and with what disposition of soul these are good and with what bad; and what of good or evil is worked by noble birth or ignoble birth, by private or public station, by strength or weakness of body, by learning or ignorance, and all such properties as concern the soul, both natural and acquired, in their combinations with one another, so that he may be able to put all these considerations together, and looking to the nature of the soul may choose the worse or the better life, calling that worse which will lead the soul into greater injustice, and that better which will lead it into greater justice. But all other considerations he will leave alone. tor we have seen that this is the greatest choice both for life and beyond it. And a man when he goes to the other world must have this belief like adamant within him, in 619 order that there also he may be unmoved by riches and evils of that sort, and may not by falling into tyranny or some such course of action, both commit and himself suffer in greater degree evils many and incurable, but may have knowledge to choose always the life that lies in the middle and avoid the extremes on both sides, both in this life, so far as he may, and in the life to come. For so man wins his greatest happiness.
“Now the messenger from yonder went on with his tale, and told how the prophet spoke thus: ‘Even for him that comes last, if he choose with understanding, and take heed in his life, there is laid up a life that is not evil, with which he may be content. Let not him who hath first choice be careless, or him who hath last down-hearted.’
“He said that when the prophet had thus spoken, he who had drawn first came forward and chose the mightiest of tyrannies, and from folly and greed he chose without
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