BOOK XI
things are said even by the writers of these is recognized by all. But what end in view had this whole enterprize of such poetical and dramatic composition?[1]
7. How clearly is it borne in on thee that there is no other state of life so fitted to call for the exercise of Philosophy as this in which thou now findest thyself.[2]
8. A branch cut off from its neighbour branch[3] cannot but be cut off from the whole plant. In the very same way a man severed from one man has fallen away from the fellowship of all men. Now a branch is cut off by others, but a man separates himself[4] from his neighbour by his own agency in hating him or turning his back upon him; and is unaware that he has thereby sundered himself from the whole civic community.[5] But mark the gift of Zeus who established the law of fellowship. For it is in our power to grow again to the neighbour branch, and again become perfective of the whole. But such a schism constantly repeated makes it difficult for the seceding part to unite again and resume its former condition. And in general the branch that from the first has shared in the growth of the tree and lived with its life is not like that which has been cut off and afterwards grafted on to it, as the gardeners are apt to tell you. Be of one bush, but not of one mind.
9. As those who withstand thy progress along the path of right reason will never be able to turn thee
- ↑ Lucian, de Salt. 35, says of the Art of Dancing (Pantomime) that it requires the acme of culture and even of philosophy!
- ↑ cp. Lucan i. 493: "exeat aula qui vult esse pius"; Montaigne iii. 9 (Florio's version): "Plato saith that who escapes untainted and clean-handed from the managing of the world escapeth by some wonder." See also above viii. 1.
- ↑ St. Paul, Rom. xi. 19.
- ↑ iv. 29; viii. 34.
- ↑ ix. 23.
