dividuals, and carefully review our whole life, that
we may not seem to have forgotten any kindness? Nothing then remains for
us to hope for; yet when on the very threshold, we wish to depart
from human life as full of gratitude as possible. There is in truth an
immense reward for this thing merely in doing it, and what is honourable
has great power to attract men's minds, which are overwhelmed by its
beauty and carried off their balance, enchanted by its brilliancy and
splendour. "Yet," argues our adversary, "from it many advantages take
their rise, and good men obtain a safer life and love, and the good
opinion of the better class, while their days are spent in greater
security when accompanied by innocence and gratitude."

Indeed, nature would have been most unjust had she rendered this great
blessing miserable, uncertain, and fruitless. But consider this point,
whether you would make your way to that virtue, to which it is generally
safe and easy to attain, even though the path lay over rocks and
precipices, and were beset with fierce beasts and venomous serpents. A
virtue is none the less to be desired for its own sake, because it has
some adventitious profit connected with it: indeed, in most cases the
noblest virtues are accompanied by many extraneous advantages, but it is
the virtues that lead the way, and these merely follow in their train.

XXIII. Can we doubt that the climate of this abode of the human race is
regulated by the motion of the sun and moon in their orbits? that
our bodies are sustained, the hard earth loosened, excessive moisture
reduced, and the surly bonds of winter broken by the heat of the one,
and that crops are brought to ripeness by the effectual all-pervading
warmth of the other? that the fertility of the human race corresponds
to the courses of the moon? that the sun by its revolution marks out
the year, and that the moon, moving in a smaller orbit, marks out the
months? Yet, setting aside all this, would not the sun be a sight worthy
to be contemplated and worshipped, if he did no more than rise and set?
would not the moon be worth looking at, even if it passed uselessly
through the heavens? Whose attention is not arrested by the universe
itself, when by night it pours forth its fires and glitters with
innumerable stars? Who, while he admires them, thinks of their being of
use to him? Look at that great company gliding over our heads, how they
conceal their swift motion under the sembl