BOOK VII. I. 3-5 



light is followed by a period of bondage such as 

 befalls not even the animals bred in our midst, 

 fettering all his hmbs ; and thus when succcssfuUy 

 born hc hes witli hands and feet in shackles, weep- 

 ing — tlie animal that is to lord it over all the rest, 

 and he initiates his hfe with punisliment because of 

 one fault only, the otfence of being born. Alas the 

 madness of those who think that from these begin- 

 nings they were bred to proud estate ! 



His earhest promise of strength and first grant of Man's 

 time makes him hke a four-footed animal. When ^^'^J^^^'" 

 does man begin to walk ? when to speak ? when is his divisions. 

 mouth firm enough to take food ? how long does his 

 skull throb," a mark of his being the weakest among 

 all animals ? Then his diseases, and all the cures 

 contrived against his ills — these cures also sub- 

 sequently defeatcd by new disorders ! And the fact 

 that all other creatures are aware of their own 

 nature, some using speed, others swift flight, others 

 swimming, whereas man alone knows nothing save 

 by education — neither how to speak nor how to walk 

 nor who to eat ; in short the only thing he can do by 

 natural instinct is to weep ! Consequently there have 

 been many who beheved that it were best not to be 

 born, or to be put away as soon as possible. On 

 man alone of hving creatures is bestowed grief, on 

 him alone luxury, and that in countless forms and 

 reaching every separatc part of liis frame ; he alone 

 has ambition, avarice, immeasurable appetite for 

 hfe, superstition, anxiety about burial and even 

 about what wiU happen after he is no more. No 

 creature's hfe is more precarious, none has a greater 

 lust for all enjoyments, a more confused timidity, a 

 fiercer rage, In fine, all otlicr hving creatures pass 



509 



