he who praises such things is frigid, he who asserts
every one of them to be a great--nay, a very great good deed--is much
more frigid. For if to endure a fly is equal to being valiant, and to
abstain from an old woman now at the edge of the grave is equal to being
temperate, there is, I think, no difference whether a virtuous man
is prized for these or for those. Moreover, in his Second Book of
Friendship, teaching that friendships are not for every fault to be
dissolved, he has these very expressions: "For it is meet that some
faults should be wholly passed by, others lightly reprehended,
others more severely, and others deemed worthy a total dissolution of
friendship." And which is more, he says in the same book, that we will
converse with some more and some less, so that some shall be more and
some less friends; and this diversity extending very far, some are
worthy of such an amity, others of a greater; and these will deserve to
be so far trusted, those not so far, and the like. For what else has
he done in these places, but shown the great diversity there is between
these things? Moreover, in his book concerning Honesty, to demonstrate
that only to be good which is honest, he uses these words: "What is
good is eligible; what is eligible is acceptable; what is acceptable is
laudable; and what is laudable is honest." And again: "What is good is
joyous; what is joyous is venerable; what is venerable is honest."
But these speeches are repugnant to himself; for either all good is
commendable, and then the abstaining chastely from an old woman is
also commendable; or all good is neither venerable nor joyous, and his
reasoning falls to the ground. For how can it possibly be frigid in
others to praise any for such things, and not ridiculous for him to
rejoice and glory in them?

Such indeed he frequently is; but in his disputations against others he
takes not the least care of speaking things contrary and dissonant to
himself. For in his books of Exhorting, reprehending Plato, who
said, that to him who has neither learned nor knows how to live it is
profitable not to live, he speaks in this manner: "For this speech
is both repugnant to itself, and not at all conclusive. For first
insinuating that it is best for us not to live, and in a sort
counselling us to die, he will excite us rather to anything else than to
be philosophers; for neither can he who does not live philosophize, nor
he who shall live long wickedly and ig