mous; as being then
an imitator of God he must do and say everything consistently with this
fact.

* * * * *

TO OR AGAINST THOSE WHO OBSTINATELY PERSIST IN WHAT THEY HAVE
DETERMINED.--When some persons have heard these words, that a man ought
to be constant (firm), and that the will is naturally free and not
subject to compulsion, but that all other things are subject to
hindrance, to slavery, and are in the power of others, they suppose that
they ought without deviation to abide by everything which they have
determined. But in the first place that which has been determined ought
to be sound (true). I require tone (sinews) in the body, but such as
exists in a healthy body, in an athletic body; but if it is plain to me
that you have the tone of a frenzied man and you boast of it, I shall
say to you, Man, seek the physician; this is not tone, but atony
(deficiency in right tone). In a different way something of the same
kind is felt by those who listen to these discourses in a wrong manner;
which was the case with one of my companions, who for no reason resolved
to starve himself to death. I heard of it when it was the third day of
his abstinence from food, and I went to inquire what had happened. "I
have resolved," he said. "But still tell me what it was which induced
you to resolve; for if you have resolved rightly, we shall sit with you
and assist you to depart, but if you have made an unreasonable
resolution, change your mind." "We ought to keep to our determinations."
"What are you doing, man? We ought to keep not to all our
determinations, but to those which are right; for if you are now
persuaded that it is right, do not change your mind, if you think fit,
but persist and say, We ought to abide by our determinations. Will you
not make the beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the
determination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it firmness
and security? But if you lay a rotten and ruinous foundation, will not
your miserable little building fall down the sooner, the more and the
stronger are the materials which you shall lay on it? Without any reason
would you withdraw from us out of life a man who is a friend and a
companion, a citizen of the same city, both the great and the small
city? Then while you are committing murder and destroying a man who has
done no wrong, do you say that you ought to abide by your
determinations? And if it ever in any way came