ii2 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. m 



What, I ask, then, is the principal thing in human 

 life ? Not to have filled the seas with fleets, nor to 

 have planted the standard of the nation on the shores 

 of the Red Sea, nor, when land has been exhausted, 

 to have wandered for the injury of others over the 

 Ocean in quest of the unknown. Rather it is to have 

 grasped in mind the whole universe, and to have 

 gained what is the greatest of all victories, the mastery 

 over besetting sins. There are hosts of conquerors 

 who have had cities and nations under their power, 

 but a very few who have subdued self. What is 

 the principal thing ? I say again. To raise the 

 soul above the threats and promises of fortune ; to 



11 consider nothing as worth hoping for. For what 

 does fortune possess worth setting your heart upon ? 

 Why, as often as you lapse from converse with what 

 is divine back to what is human, your eyes will be 

 blinded just like the eyes of those who have returned 

 from bright sunlight into gross darkness. What is 

 the principal thing ? To be able to endure adver 

 sity with joyful heart ; to bear whatever betide just 

 as if it were the very thing you desired to happen. 

 For you would have felt it your duty to desire it, had 

 you known that all things happen by God s decree. 



12 Tears, complaints, lamentation, are rebellion. What 

 is the principal thing ? A heart in face of calamity 

 resolute and invincible ; an adversary, yea, a sworn 

 foe, to luxury ; neither anxious to meet nor anxious 

 to shun peril ; a heart that knows how to fashion 

 fortune to its will without waiting for her ; which 

 can go forth to face ill or good dauntless and un 

 embarrassed, paralysed neither by the tumult of the 



13 one nor the glamour of the other. What is the 

 principal thing ? Not to admit evil counsel into the 

 heart, and to lift up clean hands to heaven ; to seek 



