in a good condition, or hear their
dogs praised; if they see their farm well-tilled, their garden
well-kept, they groan aloud. What a state think you then they would be
in, if you were to exhibit yourself as a just man, sensible and good, in
words excellent, in deeds pure, in manner of life decorous, "reaping
fruit from the deep soil of the soul, where good counsels grow."[509]
Pindar says[510] "those that are conquered are reduced to complete
silence:" but not absolutely, not all men, only those that see they are
outdone by their enemies in industry, in goodness, in magnanimity, in
humanity, in kindnesses; these, as Demosthenes says, "stop the tongue,
block up the mouth, choke people, and make them silent."[511]

"Be better than the bad: 'tis in your power."[512]

If you wish to vex the man who hates you, do not abuse him by calling
him a pathick, or effeminate, or intemperate, or a low fellow, or
illiberal; but be yourself a man, and temperate, and truthful, and kind
and just in all your dealings with those you come across. But if you are
tempted to use abuse, mind that you yourself are very far from what you
abuse him for, dive down into your own soul, look for any rottenness in
yourself, lest someone suggest to you the line of the tragedian,

"You doctor others, all diseased yourself."[513]

If you say your enemy is uneducated, increase your own love of learning
and industry; if you call him coward, stir up the more your own spirit
and manliness; and if you say he is wanton and licentious, erase from
your own soul any secret trace of the love of pleasure. For nothing is
more disgraceful or more unpleasant than slander that recoils on the
person who sets it in motion; for as the reflection of light seems most
to injure weak eyes, so does censure when it recoils on the censurer,
and is borne out by the facts. For as the north-east wind attracts
clouds, so does a bad life draw upon itself rebukes.

Sec. V. Whenever Plato was in company with people who behaved in an
unseemly manner, he used to say to himself, "Am I such a person as
this?"[514] So he that censures another man's life, if he straightway
examines and mends his own, directing and turning it into the contrary
direction, will get some advantage from his censure, which will be
otherwise idle and unprofitable. Most people laugh if a bald-pate or
hump-back jeer and mock at others who are so too: it is quite as
ridiculous to jeer and mock if one lies open