SECTION 11.  Give mature and repeated consideration to any plan before you proceed to carry it out; and even after you have thoroughly turned it over in your mind, make some concession to the incompetency of human judgment; for it may always happen that circumstances which cannot be investigated or foreseen, will come in and upset the whole of your calculation.  This is a reflection that will always influence the negative side of the balance—­a kind of warning to refrain from unnecessary action in matters of importance—­quieta non movere. But having once made up your mind and begun your work, you must let it run its course and abide the result—­not worry yourself by fresh reflections on what is already accomplished, or by a renewal of your scruples on the score of possible danger:  free your mind from the subject altogether, and refuse to go into it again, secure in the thought that you gave it mature attention at the proper time.  This is the same advice as is given by an Italian proverb—­legala bene e poi lascia la andare—­which Goethe has translated thus:  See well to your girths, and then ride on boldly.[1]

[Footnote 1:  It may be observed, in passing, that a great many of the maxims which Goethe puts under the head of Proverbial, are translations from the Italian.]

And if, notwithstanding that, you fail, it is because human affairs are the sport of chance and error.  Socrates, the wisest of men, needed the warning voice of his good genius, or [Greek:  daimonion], to enable him to do what was right in regard to his own personal affairs, or at any rate, to avoid mistakes; which argues that the human intellect is incompetent for the purpose.  There is a saying—­which is reported to have originated with one of the Popes—­that when misfortune happens to us, the blame of it, at least in some degree, attaches to ourselves.  If this is not true absolutely and in every instance, it is certainly true in the great majority of cases.  It even looks as if this truth had a great deal to do with the effort people make as far as possible to conceal their misfortunes, and to put the best face they can upon them, for fear lest their misfortunes may show how much they are to blame.

SECTION 12.

In the case of a misfortune which has already happened and therefore cannot be altered, you should not allow yourself to think that it might have been otherwise; still less, that it might have been avoided by such and such means; for reflections of this kind will only add to your distress and make it intolerable, so that you will become a tormentor to yourself—­[Greek:  heautontimoroumeaeos].  It is better to follow the example of King David; who, as long as his son lay on the bed of sickness, assailed Jehovah with unceasing supplications and entreaties for his recovery; but when he was dead, snapped his fingers and thought no more of it.  If you are not light-hearted enough for that, you can take refuge in fatalism, and have the great truth revealed to you that everything which happens is the result of necessity, and therefore inevitable.