ay be made longer or shorter according to the integrity
of the whole term of the natural life.

Throughout all these ages this Nobility of which we speak manifests
its effects in different ways in the ennobled Soul; and it is that
which this part of the Song, concerning which we write at present,
intends to demonstrate. Where it is to be known that our good and
upright nature makes forward progress in us in the reasoning powers,
as we see the nature of the plants make forward progress; and
therefore it is that different manners and different deportment are to
be held reasonable at one age rather than at another. The ennobled
Soul proceeds in due order along a single path, employing each of its
powers in its time and season, or even as they are all ordained to the
final production of the perfect fruit. And Tullius is in harmony with
this in his book On Old Age. And putting aside the figurative sense
which Virgil holds in the AEneid concerning this different progress of
the ages, and letting that be which Egidius the hermit mentions in the
first part On the Government of Princes, and letting that be to which
Tullius alludes in his book Of Offices, and following that alone which
Reason can see of herself, I say that this first age is the door and
the path through which and along which we enter into our good life,
And this entrance must of necessity have certain things which the good
Nature, which fails not in things necessary, gives to us; as we see
that she gives to the vine the leaves for the protection of the fruit,
and the little tendrils which enable it to twine round its supports,
and thus bind up its weakness, so that it can sustain the weight of
its fruit. Beneficent Nature gives, then, to this age four things
necessary to the entrance into the City of the Good Life. The first is
Obedience, the second Suavity, the third Modesty, the fourth Beauty of
the Body, even as the Song says in the first section of this part. It
is, then, to be known that like one who has never been in a city, who
would not know how to find his way about the streets without
instruction from one who is accustomed to them, even so the adolescent
who enters into the Wood of Error of this life would not know how to
keep to the good path if it were not pointed out to him by his elders.
Neither would the instruction avail if he were not obedient to their
commands, and therefore at this age obedience is necessary. Here it
might be possible for some