the circumference a hundred times as large.  Nothing will protect us from external compulsion so much as the control of ourselves; and, as Seneca says, to submit yourself to reason is the way to make everything else submit to you—­si tibi vis omnia subjicere, te subjice rationi.  Self-control, too, is something which we have in our own power; and if the worst comes to the worst, and it touches us in a very sensitive part, we can always relax its severity.  But other people will pay no regard to our feelings, if they have to use compulsion, and we shall be treated without pity or mercy.  Therefore it will be prudent to anticipate compulsion by self-control.

SECTION 16.  We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that, on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life; in a word, we must bear and forbear—­abstinere et sustinere; and if we fail to observe this rule, no position of wealth or power will prevent us from feeling wretched.  This is what Horace means when he recommends us to study carefully and inquire diligently what will best promote a tranquil life—­not to be always agitated by fruitless desires and fears and hopes for things, which, after all, are not worth very much:—­

Inter cuncta leges et percontabere doctos Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum; Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido, Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Epist.  I. xviii. 97.]

SECTION 17.  Life consists in movement, says Aristotle; and he is obviously right.  We exist, physically, because our organism is the seat of constant motion; and if we are to exist intellectually, it can only be by means of continual occupation—­no matter with what so long as it is some form of practical or mental activity.  You may see that this is so by the way in which people who have no work or nothing to think about, immediately begin to beat the devil’s tattoo with their knuckles or a stick or anything that comes handy.  The truth is, that our nature is essentially restless in its character:  we very soon get tired of having nothing to do; it is intolerable boredom.  This impulse to activity should be regulated, and some sort of method introduced into it, which of itself will enhance the satisfaction we obtain.  Activity!—­doing something, if possible creating something, at any rate learning something—­how fortunate it is that men cannot exist without that!  A man wants to use his strength, to see, if he can, what effect it will produce; and he will get the most complete satisfaction of this desire if he can make or construct something—­be it a book or a basket.  There is a direct pleasure in seeing work grow under one’s hands day by day, until at last it is finished.  This is the pleasure attaching to a work of art or a manuscript, or even mere manual labor; and, of course, the higher the work, the greater pleasure it will give.