gives it the first
place amongst external goods; and avoids, as too extreme vices, the
immoderate either seeking or evading it. I believe that, if we had the
books Cicero wrote upon this subject, we should there find pretty
stories; for he was so possessed with this passion, that, if he had
dared, I think he could willingly have fallen into the excess that others
did, that virtue itself was not to be coveted, but upon the account of
the honour that always attends it:

"Paulum sepultae distat inertiae
Celata virtus:"

["Virtue concealed little differs from dead sloth."
--Horace, Od., iv. 9, 29.]

which is an opinion so false, that I am vexed it could ever enter into
the understanding of a man that was honoured with the name of
philosopher.

If this were true, men need not be virtuous but in public; and we should
be no further concerned to keep the operations of the soul, which is the
true seat of virtue, regular and in order, than as they are to arrive at
the knowledge of others. Is there no more in it, then, but only slily
and with circumspection to do ill? "If thou knowest," says Carneades,
"of a serpent lurking in a place where, without suspicion, a person is
going to sit down, by whose death thou expectest an advantage, thou dost
ill if thou dost not give him caution of his danger; and so much the more
because the action is to be known by none but thyself." If we do not
take up of ourselves the rule of well-doing, if impunity pass with us for
justice, to how many sorts of wickedness shall we every day abandon
ourselves? I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully
restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy
and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I
should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think
it of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius Rufus,
whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his
conscience, not only not against law, but even by the determination of
the laws themselves; and M. Crassus and Hortensius, who, by reason of
their authority and power, having been called in by a stranger to share
in the succession of a forged will, that so he might secure his own part,
satisfied themselves with having no hand in the forgery, and refused not
to make their advantage and to come in for a share: secure enough, i