Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/219

Rh counsel that reason giveth; for oftentimes it falleth out that when we be sick, we send not for the best and most expert physicians, in respect of some friend, whom we favour and reverence so, as we are loth to do otherwise than he would advise us: likewise we chuse for masters and teachers of our children, not those always who are best and meetest, but such as make suit and means unto us for to be entertained; yea, and many times, when we have a cause to be tried in the law, we chuse not always the most sufficient and expert advocates or barristers for our counsel to plead for us; but for to gratify a son of some familiar friend or kinsman of our own, we commit the cause to him for to practise and learn to plead in court to our great cost and loss.

To conclude, we may see many of those that make profession of philosophy, to wit, Epicureans, Stoics, and others, how they follow this or that sect, not upon their own judgment and election; but for that they were importuned by some of their kinsfolk or friends thereto, whom they were loth to deny. Come on, then, let us long before be exercised against such gross faults in vulgar, small and common occasions of this life; as, for example, let us break ourselves from using either a barber to trim us, or a painter to draw our picture, for to satisfy the appetite of our foolish shamefacedness; from lodging also in some bad inn or hostelry where there is a better near at hand, because haply our host the good man of the house hath oftentimes saluted us kindly; but rather make we a custom of it (although there be but small difference and odds between one and another) always to chuse the better: and like as the Pythagoreans observed evermore precisely not to cross the right leg with the left, neither to take an odd number for an even, though otherwise all things else were equal and indifferent; even so are we to draw this into an ordinary practice, that when we celebrate any solemn sacrifice, or make a wedding dinner, or some great feast, we invite not him who is wont with reverence to give us the gentle greeting and good-morrow, or who seeing us a great way off useth to run unto us, rather than him whom we know to be an honest man and a well-willer of ours; for whosoever is thus inured and exercised long before shall be hardly caught and surprised; nay, rather he shall never be once assailed and set upon in weighty matters. And thus much may suffice as touching exercise and custom.

Moreover, to come unto other profitable instructions which