Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to Gods and men;and he who would be blessed and happy, should be from the first apartaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long aspossible, for then he can be trusted; but he is not to be trustedwho loves voluntary falsehood, and he who loves involuntaryfalsehood is a fool. Neither condition is enviable, for theuntrustworthy and ignorant has no friend, and as time advances hebecomes known, and lays up in store for himself isolation in crabbedage when life is on the wane: so that, whether his children or friendsare alive or not, he is equally solitary.-Worthy of honour is he whodoes no injustice, and of more than twofold honour, if he not onlydoes no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any; thefirst may count as one man, the second is worth many men, because heinforms the rulers of the injustice of others. And yet more highlyto be esteemed is he who co-operates with the rulers in correcting thecitizens as far as he can-he shall be proclaimed the great and perfectcitizen, and bear away the palm of virtue. The same praise may begiven about temperance and wisdom, and all other goods which may beimparted to others, as well as acquired by a man for himself; he whoimparts them shall be honoured as the man of men, and he who iswilling, yet is not able, may be allowed the second place; but hewho is jealous and will not, if he can help, allow others to partakein a friendly way of any good, is deserving of blame: the good,however, which he has, is not to be undervalued by us because it ispossessed by him, but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of ourpower. Let every man, then, freely strive for the prize of virtue, andlet there be no envy. For the unenvious nature increases the greatnessof states-he himself contends in the race, blasting the fair fame ofno man; but the envious, who thinks that he ought to get the better bydefaming others, is less energetic himself in the pursuit of truevirtue, and reduces his rivals to despair by his unjust slanders ofthem. And so he makes the whole city to enter the arena untrained inthe practice of virtue, and diminishes her glory as far as in himlies. Now every man should be valiant, but he should also be gentle.
From the cruel, or hardly curable, or altogether incurable acts ofinjustice done to him by others, a man can only escape by fighting anddefending himself and conquering, and by never ceasing to punish them;and no man who is not of a noble spirit is able to accomplish this. Asto the actions of those who do evil, but whose evil is curable, in thefirst place, let us remember that the unjust man is not unjust ofhis own free will. For no man of his own free will would choose topossess the greatest of evils, and least of all in the most honourablepart of himself. And the soul, as we said, is of a truth deemed by allmen the most honourable. In the soul, then, which is the mosthonourable part of him, no one, if he could help, would admit, orallow to continue the greatest of evils. The unrighteous and viciousare always to be pitied in any case; and one can afford to forgiveas well as pity him who is curable, and refrain and calm one"sanger, not getting into a passion, like a woman, and nursingill-feeling. But upon him who is incapable of reformation and whollyevil, the vials of our wrath should be poured out; wherefore I saythat good men ought, when occasion demands, to be both gentle andpassionate.
Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men isinnate, and which a man is always excusing in himself and nevercorrecting; mean, what is expressed in the saying that "Every man bynature is and ought to be his own friend." Whereas the excessivelove of self is in reality the source to each man of all offences; forthe lover is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly ofthe just, the good, and the honourable, and thinks that he oughtalways to prefer himself to the truth. But he who would be a great manought to regard, not himself or his interests, but what is just,whether the just act be his own or that of another. Through asimilar error men are induced to fancy that their own ignorance iswisdom, and thus we who may be truly said to know nothing, thinkthat we know all things; and because we will not let others act for usin what we do not know, we are compelled to act amiss ourselves.
Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love, and condescend tofollow a better man than himself, not allowing any false shame tostand in the way. There are also minor precepts which are oftenrepeated, and are quite as useful; a man should recollect them andremind himself of them. For when a stream is flowing out, there shouldbe water flowing in too; and recollection flows in while wisdom isdeparting. Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excesseither of laughter or tears, and should exhort his neighbour to do thesame; he should veil his immoderate sorrow or joy, and seek tobehave with propriety, whether the genius of his good fortuneremains with him, or whether at the crisis of his fate, when heseems to be mounting high and steep places, the Gods oppose him insome of his enterprises. Still he may ever hope, in the case of goodmen, that whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future Godwill lessen, and that present evils he will change for the better; andas to the goods which are the opposite of these evils, he will notdoubt that they will be added to them, and that they will befortunate. Such should be men"s hopes, and such should be theexhortations with which they admonish one another, never losing anopportunity, but on every occasion distinctly reminding themselves andothers of all these things, both in jest and earnest.
Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching thepractices which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons whothey ought severally to be. But of human things we have not as yetspoken, and we must; for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods.