But he who would be a great man ought to regard, not himself or his interests, but what is just, whether the just act be his own or that of another.  Through a similar error men are induced to fancy that their own ignorance is wisdom, and thus we who may be truly said to know nothing, think that we know all things; and because we will not let others act for us in what we do not know, we are compelled to act amiss ourselves.  Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love, and condescend to follow a better man than himself, not allowing any false shame to stand in the way.  There are also minor precepts which are often repeated, and are quite as useful; a man should recollect them and remind himself of them.  For when a stream is flowing out, there should be water flowing in too; and recollection flows in while wisdom is departing.  Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excess either of laughter or tears, and should exhort his neighbour to do the same; he should veil his immoderate sorrow or joy, and seek to behave with propriety, whether the genius of his good fortune remains with him, or whether at the crisis of his fate, when he seems to be mounting high and steep places, the Gods oppose him in some of his enterprises.  Still he may ever hope, in the case of good men, that whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future God will lessen, and that present evils He will change for the better; and as to the goods which are the opposite of these evils, he will not doubt that they will be added to them, and that they will be fortunate.  Such should be men’s hopes, and such should be the exhortations with which they admonish one another, never losing an opportunity, but on every occasion distinctly reminding themselves and others of all these things, both in jest and earnest.

Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching the practices which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons who they ought severally to be.  But of human things we have not as yet spoken, and we must; for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods.  Pleasures and pains and desires are a part of human nature, and on them every mortal being must of necessity hang and depend with the most eager interest.  And therefore we must praise the noblest life, not only as the fairest in appearance, but as being one which, if a man will only taste, and not, while still in his youth, desert for another, he will find to surpass also in the very thing which we all of us desire,—­I mean in having a greater amount of pleasure and less of pain during the whole of life.  And this will be plain, if a man has a true taste of them, as will be quickly and clearly seen.  But what is a true taste?  That we have to learn from the argument—­the point being what is according to nature, and what is not according to nature.  One life must be compared with another, the more pleasurable with the more painful, after this manner:—­We desire to have pleasure, but we neither desire nor choose pain; and the neutral