BOOK II. XXIII. 34-41
though without neglecting these, as far as this is possible. 35For we must take care of our eyes too, yet not as the highest thing, but we must take care of them for the sake of the highest; because this latter will not have its natural perfection unless it uses the eyes with reason and chooses one thing instead of another.
What, then, generally takes place? Men act like a traveller on the way to his own country who stops at an excellent inn, and, since the inn pleases him, stays there. Man, you have forgotten your purpose; you were not travelling to this but through it.[1] "But this is a fine inn." And how many other inns are fine, and how many meadows—yet simply for passing through. But your purpose is the other thing, to return to your country, to relieve the fear of your kinsmen, to do the duties of a citizen yourself, to marry, bring up children, hold the customary offices. For you did not come into the world to select unusually fine places, I ween, but to live and go about your business in the place where you were born and were enrolled as a citizen. 40Something like this takes place also in the matter which we are considering. Since a man must advance to perfection through the spoken word and such instruction as you receive here, and must purify his own moral purpose and correct the faculty which makes use of external impressions, and since the instruction must necessarily be given by means of certain principles, and in a particular style, and with a certain variety and impressiveness in the
- ↑ Compare the saying ascribed to Jesus by the Great Mogul Akbar as inscribed on a gateway of the ruined city Futtey-pore-Sikri in India. "Jesus had said: 'The world is but a bridge, over which you must pass, but must not linger to build your dwelling.'" See Resch, Agrapha (1906), no. 95, p. 292.
