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BOOK I, CHAPTER XXVI
213

object of his study; what courage is, and temperance, and justice; what the difference is between ambition and cupidity, slavery and submission, license and liberty; by what signs genuine and solid contentment may be known; to what extent we should fear death, pain, and shame, —

(b) Et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem;[1]

(a) what springs move us, and the occasion of so many different stirrings within us. For it seems to me that the first teachings in which the intelligence should be steeped should be those which may regulate his morals and his mind, and which will teach him to understand himself and to know how to die well and to live well.

(c) Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.[2] They all help somewhat in the instruction of our life and in its employment, as all other things help somewhat. But let us choose that one which helps directly and professedly. If we could confine the appurtenances of our lives within their due and natural limits, we should find that the greater number of the branches of knowledge that are in use are outside of our use, and that even in those - which are [adapted to our use][3] there are breadths and depths which we should do well to let alone, and, following the teaching of Socrates,[4] limit our course of study in those branches where usefulness is lacking.

(a) Sapere aude,
Incipe; vivendi recte qui prorogat horam,
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.[5] —

  1. ↑ And how he may avoid or endure every kind of hardship. — Virgil, Æneid, III, 459.
  2. ↑ Entre les ars liberaux, commençons par l'art qui nous faict libres. I have tried, at some sacrifice, to reproduce the play upon the words liberaux and libres. This whole passage is a paraphrase of part of Seneca, Epistle 88.
  3. ↑ En celles mesmes qui le sont. A very curious construction.
  4. ↑ See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Socrates; Plato, Euthydemus.
  5. ↑ Dare to be wise; set about it; the man who delays the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to pass away; but it flows on, and forever will it flow. — Horace, Epistles, I, 2.40.
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