Discourses: Book 4 5 : 2

Where, then, is there any longer room for contention, if a man is in such a state? Why, he is not filled with wonder at anything that happens, is he? Does anything seem strange to him? Does he not expect worse and harsher treatment from the wicked than actually befalls him? Does he not count it as gain whenever they fail to go to the limit? "So-and-so reviled you." I am greatly obliged to him for not striking me. "Yes, but he struck you too." I am greatly obliged to him for not wounding me. "Yes, but he wounded you too," I am greatly obliged to him for not killing me. For when, or from what teacher, did he learn that man is a tame animal, that he manifests mutual affection, that injustice in itself is a great injury to the unjust man? If, therefore, he has never learned this, or become persuaded of this, why shall he not follow what appears to him to be his advantage? "My neighbour has thrown stones." You have not made a mistake, have you? "No, but my crockery is broken." Are you a piece of crockery, then? No, but you are moral purpose. What, then, has been given you with which to meet this attack? If you seek to act like a wolf, you can bite back and throw more stones than your neighbour did; but if you seek to act like a man, examine your store, see what faculties you brought with you into the world. You brought no faculty of brutality, did you? No faculty of bearing grudges, did you? When, then, is a horse miserable? When he is deprived of his natural faculties. Not when he can't sing "cuckoo!" but when he can't run. And a dog? Is it when he can't fly? No, but when he can't keep the scent. Does it not follow, then, that on the same principles a man is wretched, not when he is unable to choke lions, or throw his arms about statues (for no man has brought with him from nature into this world faculties for this), but when he has lost his kindness, and his faithfulness? This is the kind of person for whom "men should come together and mourn, because of all the evils into which he has come"; not, by Zeus, "the one who is born," or "the one who has died," but the man whose misfortune it has been while he still lives to lose what is his own; not his patrimony, his paltry farm, and paltry dwelling, and his tavern, and his poor slaves (for none of these things is a man's own possession, but they all belong to others, are subservient and subject, given by their masters now to one person and now to another); but the qualities which make him a human being, the imprints which he brought with him in his mind, such as we look for also upon coins, and, if we find them, we accept the coins, but if we do not find them, we throw the coins away. "Whose imprint does this sestertius bear? Trajan's? Give it to me. Nero's? Throw it out, it will not pass, it is rotten." So also in the moral life. What imprint do his judgements bear? "He is gentle, generous, patient, affectionate." Give him to me, I accept him, I make this man a citizen, I accept him as a neighbour and a fellow-voyager. Only see that he does not have the imprint of Nero. Is he choleric, furious, querulous? "If he feels like it, he punches the heads of the people he meets." Why, then, did you call him a human being? For surely everything is not judged by its outward appearance only, is it? Why, if that is so, you will have to call the lump of beeswax an apple. No, it must have the smell of an apple and the taste of an apple; its external outline is not enough. Therefore, neither are the nose and the eyes sufficient to prove that one is a human being, but you must see whether one has the judgements that belong to a human being. Here is a man who does not listen to reason, he does not understand when he is confuted; he is an ass. Here is one whose sense of self-respect has grown numb; he is useless, a sheep, anything but a human being. Here is a man who is looking for someone whom he can kick or bite when he meets him; so that he is not even a sheep or an ass, but some wild beast.