with
an abstract of everything, it has come to pass that its image above
every other usually occupies the mind of the multitude, because they can
imagine hardly any kind of joy without the accompanying idea of money as
its cause.

XXIX

This, however, is a vice only in those who seek money not from poverty
or necessity, but because they have learned the arts of gain, by which
they keep up a grand appearance. As for the body itself, they feed it in
accordance with custom, but sparingly, because they believe that they
lose so much of their goods as they spend upon the preservation of their
body. Those, however, who know the true use of money, and regulate the
measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few
things.

XXX

Since, therefore, those things are good which help the parts of the body
to perform their functions, and since joy consists in this, that the
power of man, in so far as he is made up of mind and body, is helped or
increased, it follows that all things which bring joy are good. But
inasmuch as things do not work to this end--that they may affect us with
joy--nor is their power of action guided in accordance with our profit,
and finally, since joy is generally related chiefly to some one part of
the body, it follows that generally the emotions of joy (unless reason
and watchfulness be present), and consequently the desires which are
begotten from them, are excessive. It is to be added, that an emotion
causes us to put that thing first which is sweet to us in the present,
and that we are not able to judge the future with an equal emotion of
the mind.

XXXI

Superstition, on the contrary, seems to affirm that what brings sorrow
is good, and, on the contrary, that what brings joy is evil. But, as we
have already said, no one, excepting an envious man, is delighted at my
impotence or disadvantage, for the greater the joy with which we are
affected, the greater the perfection to which we pass, and consequently
the more do we participate in the divine nature; nor can joy ever be
evil which is controlled by a true consideration for our own profit. On
the other hand, the man who is led by fear, and does what is good that
he may avoid what is evil, is not guided by reason.

XXXII

But human power is very limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the
power of external causes, so that we do not possess an absolute power to
adapt to our service the things which are without us. Neve