Where then is the great good and evil in men?  It is where the difference is.  If the difference is preserved and remains fenced round, and neither modesty is destroyed, nor fidelity, nor intelligence, then the man also is preserved; but if any of these things is destroyed and stormed like a city, then the man too perishes:  and in this consist the great things.  Alexander, you say, sustained great damage then when the Hellenes invaded and when they ravaged Troy, and when his brothers perished.  By no means; for no man is damaged by an action which is not his own; but what happened at that time was only the destruction of stork’s nests.  Now the ruin of Alexander was when he lost the character of modesty, fidelity, regard to hospitality, and to decency.  When was Achilles ruined?  Was it when Patroclus died?  Not so.  But it happened when he began to be angry, when he wept for a girl, when he forgot that he was at Troy not to get mistresses, but to fight.  These things are the ruin of men, this is being besieged, this is the destruction of cities, when right opinions are destroyed, when they are corrupted.

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On constancy (or firmness).—­The being (nature) of the good is a certain will; the being of the bad is a certain kind of will.  What, then, are externals?  Materials for the will, about which the will being conversant shall obtain its own good or evil.  How shall it obtain the good?  If it does not admire (over-value) the materials; for the opinions about the materials, if the opinions are right, make the will good:  but perverse and distorted opinions make the will bad.  God has fixed this law, and says, “If you would have anything good, receive it from yourself.”  You say, No, but I will have it from another.  Do not so:  but receive it from yourself.  Therefore when the tyrant threatens and calls me, I say, Whom do you threaten?  If he says, I will put you in chains, I say, You threaten my hands and my feet.  If he says, I will cut off your head, I reply, You threaten my head.  If he says, I will throw you into prison, I say, You threaten the whole of this poor body.  If he threatens me with banishment, I say the same.  Does he then not threaten you at all?  If I feel that all these things do not concern me, he does not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom he threatens.  Whom then do I fear? the master of what?  The master of things which are in my own power?  There is no such master.  Do I fear the master of things which are not in my power?  And what are these things to me?