Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never
understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in
valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or
inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in
all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he
must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being
ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously
enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort.

How do you mean? he said.

I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough
and ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife,--these
are his remedies. And if some one prescribes for him a course of
dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and
all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be
ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his
disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore
bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary
habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if
his constitution falls, he dies and has no more trouble.

Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art
of medicine thus far only.

Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in
his life if he were deprived of his occupation?

Quite true, he said.

But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he
has any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would
live.

He is generally supposed to have nothing to do.

Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man
has a livelihood he should practise virtue?

Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.

Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask
ourselves: Is the practice of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or
can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a
further question, whether this dieting of disorders which is an
impediment to the application of the mind t in carpentering and the
mechanical arts, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of
Phocylides?

Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the
body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic, is most inimical to
the practice of virt