Now we must mention what they are, and that almost everyone who makes it his aim to be thought likely to prove himself in the end as good a man as possible avoids them, in order to gain the acquirements of understanding and study. So first let us take the practice among animate beings of eating each other, which, as the story goes, has made us refrain entirely from some, while it has settled us in the lawful eating of others. Footnote 1Some
means men,
and others
means other animals.
May the men of old time be gracious to us, as they are: for we must take our leave of whatever men were the first of those we were just mentioning Footnote 2i.e. the first men who practiced the eating of flesh. ; but at any rate the making of barley-meal and flour, with the sustenance thereof, is noble and good indeed, yet it is never like to produce a perfectly wise man. For this very name of making must produce Footnote 3The word produce
is repeated here in a strained sense of declare,
indicate,
or the like. The very idea of making
implies a certain annoyance incompatible with perfect wisdom. an irksomeness in the actual things that are made. Nor can it well be husbandry of land in general: for it is not by art but by a natural gift from Heaven, it seems, that we all have the earth put into our hands. Nor again is it the fabrication of dwellings and building in general, nor the production of all sorts of appliances—smiths’ work, and the supply of carpenters’, moulders’, plaiters’, and, in fine, all kinds of implements; for this is of advantage to the public, but is not accounted for virtue. Nor again the whole practice of hunting, which although grown extensive and a matter of skilled art, gives no return of magnificence with its wisdom. Nor surely can it be divination or interpretation Footnote 4i.e. of omens, heavenly signs, etc. as a whole; for these only know what is said, but have not learnt whether it be true.
And now that we see that the acquisition of necessaries is achieved by means of art, but that no such art makes any man wise, there may be some diversion remaining after this—imitative for the most part, but in no way serious. For they imitate with many instruments, and with many imitative acts, not altogether seemly, of their very bodies, in performances both of speech and of every Muse, and in those whereof painting is mother, and whereby many and most various designs are elaborated in many sorts, moist and dry; and though a man ply his craft in these with the greatest zeal, in nothing is he rendered wise by imitation. And when all these have been performed, there may yet remain assistance, in countless forms and countless cases: the greatest and most useful is called warfare, the art of generalship; most glorified in time of need, requiring most good fortune, and assigned rather to a natural valor than to wisdom.