350

_The Stoics._--They conclude that what has been done once can be done
always, and that since the desire of glory imparts some power to those
whom it possesses, others can do likewise. There are feverish movements
which health cannot imitate.

Epictetus[130] concludes that since there are consistent Christians,
every man can easily be so.

351

Those great spiritual efforts, which the soul sometimes assays, are
things on which it does not lay hold.[131] It only leaps to them, not as
upon a throne, for ever, but merely for an instant.

352

The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but
by his ordinary life.

353

I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the
same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas,[132] who
had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is
not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one
extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening
space. But perhaps this is only a sudden movement of the soul from one
to the other extreme, and in fact it is ever at one point only, as in
the case of a firebrand. Be it so, but at least this indicates agility
if not expanse of soul.

354

Man's nature is not always to advance; it has its advances and retreats.

Fever has its cold and hot fits; and the cold proves as well as the hot
the greatness of the fire of fever.

The discoveries of men from age to age turn out the same. The kindness
and the malice of the world in general are the same. _Plerumque gratae
principibus vices._[133]

355

Continuous eloquence wearies.

Princes and kings sometimes play. They are not always on their thrones.
They weary there. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated.
Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may
get warm.

Nature acts by progress, _itus et reditus_. It goes and returns, then
advances further, then twice as much backwards, then more forward than
ever, etc.

The tide of the sea behaves in the same manner; and so apparently does
the sun in its course.

356

The nourishment of the body is little by little. Fullness of nourishment
and smallness of substance.

357

When we would pursue virtues to their extremes on either side, vices
present themselves, which insinuate themselves insensibly there, in
their insensible journey towards the infinitely little: and vi