Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/375

Rh with such assaults, certain it is and we may be bold to conclude that he is arrested (as it were) and held sure as he ought to be by philosophy. For it is not possible for any to cease affecting and loving those things which the multitude doth so highly honour and adore, unless they be such as admire nothing else in the world but virtue. For to brave it out, to contest, and make head against men is a thing incident unto some by occasion of choler, unto others by reason of folly; but to contemn and despise that which others esteem with admiration, no man is able to perform without a great measure of true and resolute magnanimity: In which respect such persons, comparing their state with others, magnify themselves, as Solon did in these words:

And Diogenes compared his peregrination and flitting from the city of Corinth to Athens, and again, his removing from Thebes to Corinth, unto the progresses and changes of abode that the great king of Persia was wont to make, who in the spring season held his court at Susis; in winter kept house at Babylon; and during summer passed the time and sojourned in Media. Agesiaus hearing upon a time the said king of Persia to be named The great king: And why (quoth he) is he greater than myself? unless it be that he is more just and righteous. And Aristotle, writing unto Antipater as touching Alexander the Great, said: That it became not him only to vaunt much and glorify himself for that his dominions were so great, but also any man else hath no less cause who is instructed in the true knowledge of the gods.

And Zeno, seeing Theophrastus in great admiration because he had many scholars: Indeed (quoth he) his auditory or quire is greater than mine, but mine accordeth better and makes sweeter harmony than his.

Whenas therefore thou hast so grounded and established in thine heart that affection unto virtue which is able to encounter and stand against all external things, when thou hast voided out of thy soul all envies, jealousies and what affections soever are wont either to tickle or to fret, or otherwise to depress and cast down the minds of many that have begun to profess philosophy; this may serve for a great argument and token that thou art well advanced forward, and hast profited much; neither