[ 13 ] When we have meat before us and such eatables,we receive the impression, that this is the dead body of afish, and this is the dead body of a bird or a pig; andagain, that this Falernian is only a little grape juice, andthis purple robe some sheeps wool dyed with the bloodof a shell-fish; such then are these impressions, and theyreach the things themselves and penetrate them, and sowe see what kind of things they are. Just in the same wayought we to act all through life, and where there arethings which appear most worthy of our approbation, weought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessnessand strip them of all the words by which they are exalted.For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason,and when thou art most sure that thou art employedabout things worth thy pains, it is then that it cheats theemost. Consider then what Crates says of Xenocrateshimself.
[ 14 ] Most of the things which the multitude admireare referred to objects of the most general kind, thosewhich are held together by cohesion or natural organiza- tion, such as stones, wood, fig-trees, vines, olives. But those which are admired by men, who are a little more reasonable, are referred to the things which are held to- gether by a living principle, as flocks, herds. Those which are admired by men who are still more instructed are the things which are held together by a rational soul, not however a universal soul, but rational so far as it is a soul skilled in some art, or expert in some other way, or simply rational so far as it possesses a number of slaves.
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