Ch. 5
Concerning those who plead illness.
"I am ill here," said one of the scholars. " I
will return home."
Were you never ill at home, then? Consider
whether you are doing anything here conducive to
the regulation of your Will; for if you make no improvement, it was to no purpose that you came. Go
home, then, and take care of your domestic affairs.
For if your Reason cannot be brought into conformity
to nature, your land may. You may increase you:
money, support the old age of your father, mix in
the public assemblies, and rule as badly as you have
lived, and do other such things. But if you are conscious to yourself that you are casting off some of
your wrong principles, and taking up different ones
in their room; and that you have transferred your
scheme of life from things not controllable by will to
those controllable; and that if you do sometimes cry
alas, it is not for what concerns your father or your
brother, but yourself, - why do you any longer plead
illness? Do not you know that both illness and
death must overtake us? At what employment?
The husbandman at his plough, the sailor on his
voyage. At what employment would you be taken?
For, indeed, at what employment ought you to be taken? If there is any better employment at which you
can be taken, follow that. For my own part, I would
be found engaged in nothing but in the regulation of
my own Will; how to render it undisturbed, unrestrained, uncompelled, free. I would be found studying this, that I may be able to say to God, " Have I
transgressed thy commands? Have I perverted the
powers, the senses, the instincts which thou hast
given me? Have I ever accused thee, or censured
thy dispensations? I have been ill, because it was
thy pleasure, like others; but I willingly. I have
been poor, it being thy will; but with joy. I have
not been in power, because it was not thy will; and
power I have never desired. Hast thou ever seen
me saddened because of this? Have I not always
approached thee with a cheerful countenance, prepared to execute thy commands and the indications
of thy will? Is it thy pleasure that I should depart from this assembly? I depart. I give thee all
thanks that thou hast thought me worthy to have a
snare in it with thee; to behold thy works, and to
join with thee in comprehending thy administration." Let death overtake me while I am thinking,
while I am writing, while I am reading such things
as these.
"But I shall not have my mother to hold my head
when I am ill."
Get home then to your mother; for you are most
fit to have your head held when you are ill.
"But I used at home to lie on a fine couch."
Get to this couch of yours; for you are fit to lie
upon such a one, even in health; so do not miss
doing that for which you are qualified. But what
says Socrates? As one man rejoices in the improvement of his estate, another of his horse, so do I daily
rejoice in perceiving myself to grow better. Xenophon, Mem. 1.6. - H.
" In what, - in pretty speeches? "
Use courteous words, man.
"In trifling theorems? What do they signify?
Yet, indeed, I do not see that the philosophers are
employed in anything else."
Do you think it nothing, to accuse and censure
no one, God nor man; always to carry abroad
and bring home the same countenance? These were
the things which Socrates knew; and yet he never
professed to know, or to teach anything; but if any
one wanted pretty speeches, or little theorems, he
brought him to Protagoras, to Hippias; just as, if
any one had come for potherbs, he would have taken
him to a gardener. Which of you, then, earnestly
sets his heart on this? If you had, you would bear
illness and hunger and death with cheerfulness.
If any one of you has truly loved, he knows that I
speak truth.