Ch. 40
About purity (cleanliness).
SOME persons raise a question whether the social feeling770
is contained in the nature of man; and yet I think that
these same persons would have no doubt that love of
purity is certainly contained in it, and that if man is
distinguished from other animals by any thing, he is distinguished by this. When then we see any other animal
cleaning itself, we are accustomed to speak of the act
with surprise, and to add that the animal is acting like a
man: and on the other hand, if a man blames an animal
for being dirty, straightway as if we were making an
excuse for it, we say that of course the animal is not a
human creature. So we suppose that there is something
superior in man, and that we first receive it from the
Gods. For since the Gods by their nature are pure and
free from corruption, so far as men approach them by
reason, so far do they cling to purity and to a love (habit)
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of purity. But since it is impossible that man's nature
(οὐσία) can be altogether pure being mixed (composed) of
such materials, reason is applied, as far as it is possible,
and reason endeavours to make human nature love
purity.771
The first then and highest purity is that which is in the
soul; and we say the same of impurity. Now you could
not discover the impurity of the soul as you could discover that of the body: but as to the soul, what else
could you find in it than that which makes it filthy in
respect to the acts which are her own? Now the acts of
the soul are movement towards an object or movement
from it, desire, aversion, preparation, design (purpose),
assent. What then is it which in these acts makes the
soul filthy and impure? Nothing else than her own bad
judgments (κρίματα). Consequently the impurity of the
soul is the soul's bad opinions; and the purification of the
soul is the planting in it of proper opinions; and the
soul is pure which has proper opinions, for the soul
alone in her own acts is free from perturbation and
pollution.
Now we ought to work at something like this in the
body also, as far as we can. It was impossible for the
defluxions of the nose not to run when man has such a
mixture in his body. For this reason nature has made
hands and the nostrils themselves as channels for carrying
off the humours. If then a man sucks up the defluxions,
I say that he is not doing the act of a man. It was impossible for a man's feet not to be made muddy and not
be soiled at all when he passes through dirty places. For
this reason nature (God) has made water and hands. It
was impossible that some impurity should not remain in
the teeth from eating: for this reason, she says, wash the
teeth. Why? In order that you may be a man and not
a wild beast or a hog. It was impossible that from the
sweat and the pressing of the clothes there should not
remain some impurity about the body which requires to
be cleaned away. For this reason water, oil, hands,
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towels, scrapers (strigils),772 nitre, sometimes all other kinds
of means are necessary for cleaning the body. You do
not act so: but the smith will take off the rust from the
iron (instruments), and he will have tools prepared for
this purpose, and you yourself wash the platter when you
are going to eat, if you are not completely impure and
dirty: but will you not wash the body nor make it clean?
Why? he replies. I will tell you again; in the first place,
that you may do the acts of a man; then, that you may
not be disagreeable to those with whom you associate.
You do something of this kind even773 in this matter, and
you do not perceive it: you think that you deserve to
stink. Let it be so: deserve to stink. Do you think
that also those who sit by you, those who recline at table
with you, that those who kiss you deserve the same?774
Either go into a desert, where you deserve to go, or live
by yourself, and smell yourself. For it is just that you
alone should enjoy your own impurity. But when you
are in a city, to behave so inconsiderately and foolishly,
to what character do you think that it belongs? If
nature had entrusted to you a horse, would you have overlooked and neglected him? And now think that you have
been entrusted with your own body as with a horse;
wash it, wipe it, take care that no man turns away from
it, that no one gets out of the way for it. But who does
not get out of the way of a dirty man, of a stinking man,
of a man whose skin is foul, more than he does out of the
way of a man who is daubed with muck? That smell is
from without, it is put upon him; but the other smell is
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from want of care, from within, and in a manner from a
body in putrefaction.
But Socrates washed himself seldomYes, but his body
was clean and fair: and it was so agreeable and sweet
that the most beautiful and the most noble loved him, and
desired to sit by him rather than by the side of those who
had the handsomest forms. It was in his power neither to
use the bath nor to wash himself, if he chose; and yet the
rare use of water had an effect. [If you do not choose to
wash with warm water, wash with cold.775 ] But Aristophanes says
Those who are pale, unshod, 'tis those I mean.
(Nubes v. 102.)
For Aristophanes says of Socrates that he also walked the
air and stole clothes from the palaestra.776 But all who
have written about Socrates bear exactly the contrary
evidence in his favour; they say that he was pleasant not
only to hear, but also to see.777 On the other hand they
write the same about Diogenes.778 For we ought not even
by the appearance of the body to deter the multitude from
philosophy; but as in other things, a philosopher should
show himself cheerful and tranquil, so also he should in
the things that relate to the body: See, ye men, that I
have nothing, that I want nothing: see how I am without
a house, and without a city, and an exile, if it happens to
be so,779 and without a hearth I live more free from
trouble and more happily than all of noble birth and than
the rich. But look at my poor body also and observe that
it is not injured by my hard way of livingBut if a man
says this to me, who has the appearance (dress) and face
of a condemned man, what God shall persuade me to
approach philosophy, if780 it makes men such persons?
Far from it; I would not choose to do so, even if I
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were going to become a wise man. I indeed would rather
that a young man, who is making his first movements
towards philosophy, should come to me with his hair
carefully trimmed than with it dirty and rough, for
there is seen in him a certain notion (appearance) of
beauty and a desire of (attempt at) that which is becoming; and where he supposes it to be, there also he
strives that it shall be. It is only necessary to show him
(what it is), and to say: Young man, you seek beauty,
and you do well: you must know then that it (is produced) grows in that part of you where you have the
rational faculty: seek it there where you have the movements towards and the movements from things, where
you have the desires towards, and the aversion from things:
for this is what you have in yourself of a superior kind;
but the poor body is naturally only earth: why do you
labour about it to no purpose? if you shall learn nothing
else, you will learn from time that the body is nothing.
But if a man comes to me daubed with filth, dirty, with a
moustache down to his knees, what can I say to him, by
what kind of resemblance can I lead him on? For about
what has he busied himself which resembles beauty, that
I may be able to change him and say, Beauty is not in
this, but in that? Would you have me to tell him, that
beauty consists not in being daubed with muck, but that
it lies in the rational part? Has he any desire of beauty?
has he any form of it in his mind? Go and talk to a hog,
and tell him not to roll in the mud.
For this reason the words of Xenocrates touched Polemon also, since he was a lover of beauty, for he entered
(the room) having in him certain incitements (ἐναύσματα)
to love of beauty, but he looked for it in the wrong
place.781 For nature has not made even the animals dirty
which live with man. Does a horse ever wallow in the
mud, or a well bred dog? But the hog, and the dirty
geese, and worms and spiders do, which are banished
furthest from human intercourse. Do you then being a
man choose to be not as one of the animals which
live with man, but rather a worm, or a spider? Will
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you not wash yourself somewhere some time in such
manner as you choose?782 Will you not wash off the dirt
from your body? Will you not come clean that those
with whom you keep company may have pleasure in
being with you? But do you go with us even into the
temples in such a state, where it is not permitted to spit
or blow the nose, being a heap of spittle and of snot?
What then? does any man (that is, do I) require you
to ornament yourself? Far from it; except to ornament
that which we really are by nature, the rational faculty,
the opinions, the actions; but as to the body only so far as
purity, only so far as not to give offence. But if you are
told that you ought not to wear garments dyed with
purple, go and daub your cloak with muck or tear it.783
But how shall I have a neat cloak? Man, you have
water; wash it. Here is a youth worthy of being loved,784
here is an old man worthy of loving and being loved in
return, a fit person for a man to intrust to him a son's
instruction, to whom daughters and young men shall come,
if opportunity shall so happen, that the teacher shall
deliver his lessons to them on a dunghill.785 Let this not
be so: every deviation comes from something which is in
man's nature; but this (deviation) is near being something not in man's nature.
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