Discourses - Book IV   

that I may be able to change him and "Beauty is not in this, but in
that?" Would you have me to tell him, that beauty consists not in
being daubed with muck, but that it lies in the rational part? Has
he any desire of beauty? has he any form of it in his mind? Go and
talk to a hog, and tell him not to roll in the mud.
For this reason the words of Xenocrates touched Polemon also;
since he was a lover of beauty, for he entered, having in him
certain incitements to love of beauty, but he looked for it in the
wrong place. For nature has not made even the animals dirty which live
with man. Does a horse ever wallow in the mud or a well-bred dog?
But the hog, and the dirty geese, and worms and spiders do, which
are banished furthest from human intercourse. Do you, then, being a
man, choose to be not as one of the animals which live with man, but
rather a worm, or a spider? Will you not wash yourself somewhere
some time in such manner as you choose? Will you not wash off the dirt
from your body? Will you not come clean that those with whom you
keep company may have pleasure in being with you? But do you go with
us even into the temples in such a state, where it is not permitted to
spit or blow the nose, being a heap of spittle and of snot?
When then? does any man require you to ornament yourself? Far from
it; except to ornament that which we really are by nature, the
rational faculty, the opinions, the actions; but as to the body only
so far as purity, only so far as not to give offense. But if you are
told that you ought not to wear garments dyed with purple, go and daub
your cloak with muck or tear it. "But how shall I have a neat
cloak?" Man, you have water; wash it. Here is a youth worthy of
being loved, here is an old man worthy of loving and being loved in
return, a fit person for a man to intrust to him a son's
instruction, to whom daughters and young men shall come, if
opportunity shall so happen, that the teacher shall deliver his
lessons to them on a dunghill. Let this not be so: every deviation
comes from something which is in man's nature; but this is near
being something not in man's nature.

CHAPTER 12

On attention

When you have remitted your attention for a short time, do not
imagine this, that you will recover it when you choose; but let but
let this thought be present to you, that in consequence of the fault
committed to-day your affairs must be in a worse condition for all
that follows. For first, and what causes most trouble, a habit of
not attending is formed in you; then a habit of deferring your
attention. And continually from time to time you drive away, by
deferring it, the happiness of life, proper behavior, the being and
living conformably to nature. If, then, the procrastination of
attention is profitable, the complete omission of attention is more
profitable; but if it is not profitable, why do you not maintain
your attention constant? "To-day I choose to play." Well then, ought