BOOK IX
See then what actually happens at the present time; for at the present time it is only the intelligent creatures that have forgotten their mutual affinity and attraction, and here alone there is no sign of like flowing to like. Yet flee as they will, they are nevertheless caught in the toils, for Nature will have her way. Watch closely and thou wilt see 'tis so. Easier at any rate were it to find an earthy thing in touch with nothing earthy than a man wholly severed from mankind.
10. They all bear fruit—Man and God and the Universe: each in its due season bears. It matters nought that in customary parlance such a term is strictly applicable only to the vine and such things. Reason too hath its fruit both for all and for itself, and there issue from it other things such as is Reason itself.[1]
11. If thou art able, convert the wrong-doer.[2] If not, bear in mind that kindliness was given thee to meet just such a case. The Gods too are kindly to such persons and even co-operate with them for certain ends—for health, to wit, and wealth and fame, so benignant are they.[3] Thou too canst be the same; or say who is there that prevents thee.
12. Do thy work not as a drudge, nor as desirous of pity or praise. Desire one thing only, to act or not to act as civic reason directs.
13. This day have I got me out of all trouble, or rather have cast out all trouble, for it was not from without, but within, in my own imagination.[4]
- ↑ St. Paul, Gal. v. 22.
- ↑ v. 28; viii. 59.
- ↑ ix. 27.
- ↑ v. 2; viii. 40; xii. 22. cp. Montaigne, i. 40 (Florio's version): "Men, saith an ancient Greek sentence, are tormented by the opinions they have of things and not the things themselves. . . . If evil have no entrance into us but by our judgment, it seemeth that it lieth in our power either to contemne or turn them to our good. . . . If that which we call evil and torment be neither torment nor evil, but that our fancy only gives it that quality, it is in us to change it."
