me unavoidable circumstance,
that they demand a dice-box or some game of some kind, or conversation;
and, as they have none of the liberal delights of learning, seek circles
and assemblies. Even beasts, which we shut up for our own amusement,
though they are better fed than if they were free, still do not willingly
endure being imprisoned, but pine for the free and unrestrained movements
given to them by nature. Therefore, in proportion as every one is born and
prepared for the best objects, he would be unwilling to live at all if,
being excluded from action, he were able only to enjoy the most abundant
pleasures.

For men wish either to do something as individuals, or those who have
loftier souls undertake the affairs of the state, and devote themselves to
the attainment of honours and commands, or else wholly addict themselves
to the study of learning; in which path of life they are so far from
getting pleasures, that they even endure care, anxiety and sleeplessness,
enjoying only that most excellent portion of man which may be accounted
divine in us, I mean the acuteness of the genius and intellect, and they
neither seek for pleasure nor shun labour. Nor do they intermit either
their admiration of the discoveries of the ancients, or their search after
new ones; and, as they are insatiable in their pursuit of such, they
forget everything else, and admit no low or grovelling thoughts; and such
great power is there in those studies, that we see even those who have
proposed to themselves other chief goods, which they measure by advantage
or pleasure, still devote their lives to the investigation of things, and
to the explanation of the mysteries of nature.

XXI. This, then, is evident, that we were born for action. But there are
several kinds of action, so that the lesser are thrown into the shade by
those more important. But those of most consequence are, first of all, as
it appears to me, and to those philosophers whose system we are at present
discussing, the consideration and knowledge of the heavens, and of those
things which are hidden and concealed by nature, but into which reason can
still penetrate. And, next to them, the management of state affairs, or a
prudent, temperate, courageous principle of government and knowledge, and
the other virtues, and such actions as are in harmony with those virtues,
which we, embracing them all in one word, call honourable; to the
knowledge and practice of which we are led by n