rtaesum est, subitoque reventat,
Quippe foris nihilo melius qui sentiat esse.
Currit, agens mannos, ad villam precipitanter,
Auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans:
Oscitat extemplo, tetigit quum limina villae;
Aut abit in somnum gravis, atque oblivia quaerit;
Aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit_.[1]

[Footnote 1: III 1073.]

In their youth, such people must have had a superfluity of muscular
and vital energy,--powers which, unlike those of the mind, cannot
maintain their full degree of vigor very long; and in later years they
either have no mental powers at all, or cannot develop any for want
of employment which would bring them into play; so that they are in a
wretched plight. _Will_, however, they still possess, for this is the
only power that is inexhaustible; and they try to stimulate their
will by passionate excitement, such as games of chance for high
stakes--undoubtedly a most degrading form of vice. And one may say
generally that if a man finds himself with nothing to do, he is sure
to choose some amusement suited to the kind of power in which he
excels,--bowls, it may be, or chess; hunting or painting; horse-racing
or music; cards, or poetry, heraldry, philosophy, or some other
dilettante interest. We might classify these interests methodically,
by reducing them to expressions of the three fundamental powers,
the factors, that is to say, which go to make up the physiological
constitution of man; and further, by considering these powers by
themselves, and apart from any of the definite aims which they may
subserve, and simply as affording three sources of possible pleasure,
out of which every man will choose what suits him, according as he
excels in one direction or another.

First of all come the pleasures of _vital energy_, of food, drink,
digestion, rest and sleep; and there are parts of the world where it
can be said that these are characteristic and national pleasures.
Secondly, there are the pleasures of _muscular energy_, such as
walking, running, wrestling, dancing, fencing, riding and similar
athletic pursuits, which sometimes take the form of sport, and
sometimes of a military life and real warfare. Thirdly, there are the
pleasures of sensibility, such as observation, thought, feeling, or
a taste for poetry or culture, music, learning, reading, meditation,
invention, philosophy and the like. As regards the value, relative
worth and duration of each of these kinds of