's sake that thou shouldest at one time fall sick, at another brave
the perils of the sea, again, know the meaning of want and perhaps die
an early death. Why then repine? Knowest thou not that as the foot is
no more a foot if detached from the body, so thou in like case art no
longer a Man? For what is a Man? A part of a City:--first of the City
of Gods and Men; next, of that which ranks nearest it, a miniature of
the universal City. . . . In such a body, in such a world enveloping us,
among lives like these, such things must happen to one or another. Thy
part, then, being here, is to speak of these things as is meet, and to
order them as befits the matter.

LVII

That was a good reply which Diogenes made to a man who asked him for
letters of recommendation.--"That you are a man, he will know when he
sees you;--whether a good or bad one, he will know if he has any skill
in discerning the good or bad. But if he has none, he will never know,
though I write him a thousand times."--It is as though a piece of silver
money desired to be recommended to some one to be tested. If the man be
a good judge of silver, he will know: the coin will tell its own tale.

LVIII

Even as the traveller asks his way of him that he meets, inclined in no
wise to bear to the right rather than to the left (for he desires only
the way leading whither he would go), so should we come unto God as to a
guide; even as we use our eyes without admonishing them to show us some
things rather than others, but content to receive the images of such
things as they present to us. But as it is we stand anxiously
watching the victim, and with the voice of supplication call upon the
augur:--"Master, have mercy on me: vouchsafe unto me a way of escape!"
Slave, would you then have aught else then what is best? is there
anything better than what is God's good pleasure? Why, as far as in you
lies, would you corrupt your Judge, and lead your Counsellor astray?

LIX

God is beneficent. But the Good also is beneficent. It should seem then
that where the real nature of God is, there too is to be found the real
nature of the Good. What then is the real nature of God?--Intelligence,
Knowledge, Right Reason. Here then without more ado seek the real nature
of the Good. For surely thou dost not seek it in a plant or in an animal
that reasoneth not.

LX

Seek then the real nature of the Good in that without whose presence
thou wilt not admit t