sophy, however, are different according
to the difference of inclinations in men. If indeed it lights on one who
loves a dull and inactive sort of life, that makes himself the centre
and the little conveniences of life the circumference of all his
thoughts, such a one does contract the sphere of her activity, so that
having only made easy and comfortable the life of a single person, it
fails and dies with him; but when it finds a man of a ruling genius,
one fitted for conversation and able to grapple with the difficulties
of public business, if it once possess him with principles of honesty,
honor, and religion, it takes a compendious method, by doing good to
one, to oblige a great part of mankind. Such was the effect of the
intercourse of Anaxagoras with Pericles, of Plato with Dion, and of
Pythagoras with the principal statesmen of all Italy. Cato himself took
a voyage, when he had the concern of an expedition lying upon him, to
see and hear Athenodorus; and Scipio sent for Panaetius, when he was
commissioned by the senate "to take a survey alike of the habits of men
good and bad," ("Odyssey," xvii. 487.) as Posidonius says. Now what
a pretty sort of return would it have been in Panaetius to send word
back,--"If indeed you were in a private capacity, John a Nokes or John
a Stiles, that had a mind to get into some obscure corner or cell, to
state cases and resolve syllogisms, I should very gladly have accepted
your invitation; but now, because you are the son of Paulus AEmilius who
was twice consul, and grandson of that Scipio who was surnamed from
his conquest of Hannibal and Africa, I cannot with honor hold any
conversation with you!"

The objections which they bring from the two kinds of discourse, one of
which is mental, the other like the gift of Mercury expressed in words
or interpretative of the former, are so frivolous, that they are best
answered by laughter or silence; and we may quote the old saying, "I
knew this before Theognis arose." However, thus much shall be added,
that the end of them both is friendship,--in the first case with
ourselves, in the second with another. For he that hath attained to
virtue by the methods of philosophy hath his mind all in tune and good
temper; he is not struck with those reproaches of conscience, which
cause the acutest sense of pain and are the natural punishments of
our follies; but he enjoys (the great prerogative of a good man) to be
always easy and in amity with himse