BOOK XI
and when the ruling Reason in a man is vexed at anything that befalls, at that very moment it deserts its station.[1] For it was not made for justice alone, but also for piety[2] and the service of God. And in fact the latter are included under the idea of a true fellowship, and indeed are prior to the practice of justice.[3]
21. He who has not ever in view one and the same goal of life cannot be throughout his life one and the same.[4] Nor does that which is stated suffice, there needs to be added what that goal should be. For just as opinion as to all the things that in one way or another are held by the mass of men to be good is not uniform, but only as to certain things, such, that is, as affect the common weal, so must we set before ourselves as our goal the common and civic weal. For he who directs all his individual impulses towards this goal will render his actions homogeneous and thereby be ever consistent with himself.[5]
22. Do not forget the story of the town mouse and the country mouse, and the excitement and trepidation of the latter.[6]
23. Socrates used to nickname the opinions of the multitude Ghouls,[7] bogies to terrify children.
24. The Spartans at their spectacles assigned to strangers seats in the shade, but themselves took their chance of seats anywhere.
- ↑ xi. 9.
- ↑ xii. 2. ὁσιότης = δικαιοσύνη προς θεούς, see Stob. Ecl. ii. 104.
- ↑ But cp. xi. 10.
- ↑ cp. Dio 71. 34, § 5: ὅμοιος διὰ πάντων ἐγένετο καὶ ἐν οὐδένι ἠλλοιώθη: Aristides ad Reg. § 113 (Jebb), says he was ὁ αὐτὸς διὰ τέλους.
- ↑ i. 8.
- ↑ Aesop, Fab. 297; Hor. Sat. ii. 6 ff.
- ↑ Lamiae, or "vampires," "fabulous monsters said to feed on human flesh," Hor. A. P. 540; Apul. Met. i. 57. cp. Epict. ii. 1, § 14: ταῦτα Σωκράτης μορμολυκεῖα ἐκάλει: Philostr. Vit. Apoll. iv. 25, whence Keats took his Lamia.
