1
Homer, Il., xvii. 446-447; cf. 496 b, supra. having contemplated the mortal varieties of animals and having compared them with each other in respect to their lives and habits, cried out that nothing is More wretched than man, Of all that breathes and creeps upon the earth, awarding to man an unfortunate primacy in excess of evils. But as for us, as though acknowledging that man has won the victory in wretchedness and has been proclaimed the most miserable of animals, let us compare him with himself, dividing body and soul for competition of their individual miseries, a task not unprofitable but even quite necessary, to the end that we may learn whether it is through Fortune or through ourselves that we live more wretchedly. For while disease grows in the body through Nature, vice and depravity in the soul are first the souls own doing, and then its affliction. It will be no slight aid toward tranquillity of mind, if the worse condition be curable, being both lighter to bear and lacking intensity.
