ed, who
entertains a different opinion of the wise man himself? who, even when he
has decided that he must die, still is affected by the departure from his
family, and by the fact that he must leave the light of day. And above all
is the power of nature visible in the human race, since many endure
beggary to preserve life, and men worn out with old age are tortured with
the idea of the approach of death, and endure such things as we see
Philoctetes in the play suffer, who, while he was kept in torture by
intolerable pains, nevertheless preserved his life by the game which he
could kill with his arrows.

He, though slow, o'ertook the swift,
He stood and slew the flying--

as Attius says, and made himself coverings for his body by plaiting the
feathers together. I am speaking of mankind, and, indeed, generally of all
animals, though plants and trees have nearly the same nature, whether, as
is the opinion of some most learned men, because some predominant and
divine cause has implanted this power in them, or whether it is
accidental. We see those things which the earth produces preserved in
vigour by their bark and roots, which happens to animals by the
arrangement of their senses, and a certain compact conformation of limb.
And with reference to this subject, although I agree with those men who
think that all these things are regulated by nature, and that if nature
neglected to regulate them, the animals themselves could not exist, still
I grant that those who differ on this subject may think what they please,
and may either understand that when I say the nature of man I mean man
(for it makes no difference); for a man will be able to depart from
himself sooner than he can lose the desire of those things which are
advantageous to him. Rightly, therefore, have the most learned
philosophers sought the principle of the chief good in nature, and thought
that that appetite for things adapted to nature is implanted in all men,
for they are kept together by that recommendation of nature in obedience
to which they love themselves.

XII. The next thing which we must examine is, what is the nature of man,
since it is sufficiently evident that every one is dear to himself by
nature; for that is the thing which we are really inquiring about. But it
is evident that man consists of mind and body, and that the first rank
belongs to the mind, and the second to the body. In the next place we see,
also, that his body is so f