Pride is a master of deception: when you think you’re
occupied in the weightiest business, that’s when he has you
in his spell.
(Compare Crates on Xenocrates.)- Things ordinary people are impressed by fall into the
categories of things that are held together by simple physics
(like stones or wood), or by natural growth (figs, vines,
olives.. .). Those admired by more advanced minds are held
together by a living soul (flocks of sheep, herds of cows).
Still more sophisticated people admire what is guided by a
rational mind—not the universal mind, but one admired for
its technical knowledge, or for some other skill—or just
because it happens to own a lot of slaves.
But those who revere that other mind—the one we all
share, as humans and as citizens—aren’t interested in other
things. Their focus is on the state of their own minds—to
avoid all selfishness and illogic, and to work with others to
achieve that goal.
- Some things are rushing into existence, others out of it.
Some of what now exists is already gone. Change and flux
constantly remake the world, just as the incessant
progression of time remakes eternity.
We find ourselves in a river. Which of the things around us