Any man who faces death with confidence is foolish unless he can prove that the soul is altogether immortal. If he cannot, a man about to die must of necessity always fear for his soul lest the present separation of the soul from the body bring about the complete destruction of the soul. The lovers of learning know that when philosophy gets hold of their soul, it is imprisoned in and clinging to the body, and that it is forced to examine other things through it as through a cage and not by itself . . . For the uneducated, when they engage in argument about anything, give no thought to the truth . . . Nor must one, when wronged, inflict wrong in return, as the majority believe, since one must never do wrong. . .
Nothing can be advantageous unless it is right and nothing right unless it is advantageous.
The same applies to the struggle for life. Anyone may fairly seek his own advantage, but no one has a right to do so at another s expense. Surely the reputation and the glory of being a good man are too precious to be sacrificed in favor of anything at all, however valuable and desirable in appearance. Surely we are not frightened of Jupiter s anger . The highest good being of necessity homogeneous, cannot be a composite mixture of contradictory qualities.