Discourses - Book III   

read Archedemus; then, if a mouse should leap down and make a noise,
you are a dead man. For such a death awaits you as it did- what was
the man's name?- Crinis; and he too was proud, because he understood
Archedemus.
Wretch, will you not dismiss these things that do not concern you at
all? These things are suitable to those who are able to learn them
without perturbation, to those who can say: "I am not subject to
anger, to grief, to envy: I am not hindered, I am not restrained. What
remains for me? I have leisure, I am tranquil: let us see how we
must deal with sophistical arguments; let us see how when a man has
accepted an hypothesis he shall not be led away to anything absurd."
To them such things belong. To those who are happy it is appropriate
to light a fire, to dine; if they choose, both to sing and to dance.
But when the vessel is sinking, you come to me and hoist the sails.

CHAPTER 3

What is the matter on which a good man should he employed, and in
what we ought chiefly to practice ourselves

The material for the wise and good man is his own ruling faculty:
and the body is the material for the physician and the aliptes; the
land is the matter for the husbandman. The business of the wise and
good man is to use appearances conformably to nature: and as it is the
nature of every soul to assent to the truth, to dissent from the
false, and to remain in suspense as to that which is uncertain; so
it is its nature to be moved toward the desire of the good, and to
aversion from the evil; and with respect to that which is neither good
nor bad it feels indifferent. For as the money-changer is not
allowed to reject Caesar's coin, nor the seller of herbs, but if you
show the coin, whether he chooses or not, he must give up what is sold
for the coin; so it is also in the matter of the soul. When the good
appears, it immediately attracts to itself; the evil repels from
itself. But the soul will never reject the manifest appearance of
the good, any more than persons will reject Caesar's coin. On this
principle depends every movement both of man and God.
For this reason the good is preferred to every intimate
relationship. There is no intimate relationship between me and my
father, but there is between me and the good. "Are you so
hard-hearted?" Yes, for such is my nature; and this is the coin
which God has given me. For this reason, if the good is something
different from the beautiful and the just, both father is gone, and
brother and country, and everything. But shall I overlook my own good,
in order that you may have it, and shall I give it up to you? Why?
"I am your father." But you are not my good. "I am your brother."
But you are not my good. But if we place the good in a right
determination of the will, the very observance of the relations of
life is good, and accordingly he who gives up any external things
obtains that which is good. Your father takes away your property.
But he does not injure you. Your brother will have the greater part of