" say
they; "but as he who is not above a cubit under the superficies of the
sea is no less drowned than he who is five hundred fathom deep, so they
that are coming towards virtue are no less in vice their those that are
farther off. And as blind men are still blind, though they shall perhaps
a little after recover their sight; so these that have proceeded towards
virtue, till such time as they have attained to it, continue foolish and
wicked." But that they who are in the way towards virtue resemble not
the blind, but such as see less clearly, nor are like to those who
are drowned, but--those which swim, and that near the harbor--they
themselves testify by their actions. For they would not use counsellors
and generals and lawgivers as blind leaders, nor would they imitate
the works and actions and words and lives of some, if they saw them all
equally drowned in folly and wickedness. But leaving this, wonder at the
men in this behalf, that they are not taught by their own examples
to give up the doctrine that these men are wise being ignorant of
it themselves, and neither knowing nor being sensible that they are
recovered from being drowned and see the light, and that being gotten
above vice, they fetch breath again.

This also is against common sense, that it should be convenient for a
man who has all good things, and wants nothing requisite to felicity and
happiness, to make away himself; and much more this, that for him who
neither has nor ever shall have any good thing, but who is and ever
shall be accompanied with all adversities, difficulties, and mishaps, it
should not be fitting to quit this life unless some of the indifferent
things befall him. These laws are enacted in the Stoa; and by these they
incite many wise men to kill themselves, as if they would be thereby
more happy; and they prevent many foolish men, as if it were proper for
them to live on in misery. Although the wise man is fortunate, blessed,
every way happy, secure, and free from danger; but the vicious and
foolish man is "full, as I may say, of evils, so that there is not room
to put them in"; and yet they think that continuing in life is fit for
the latter, and departing out of it for the former. And not without
cause, says Chrysippus, for we are not to measure life by good things or
evil, but by those that are according to Nature. In this manner do they
maintain custom, and philosophize according to the common conceptions.
What do you say?--th