Book 2
5
Only when we are viewed as isolated individuals. I will allow that it is natural for the foot (for instance) to be clean. But if you take it as a foot, and not as a mere isolated thing, it will be fit that it should walk in the dirt, and tread upon thorns; and sometimes that it should even be cut off, for the good of the whole; otherwise it is no longer a foot. We should reason in some such manner concerning ourselves. Who are you? A man. If then, indeed, you consider yourself isolatedly, it is natural that you should live to old age, should be prosperous and healthy; but if you consider yourself as a man, and as a part of the whole, it will be fit, in view of that whole, that you should at one time be sick; at another, take a voyage, and be exposed to danger; sometimes be in want; and possibly die before your time. Why, then, are you displeased? Do not you know that otherwise, just as the other ceases to be a foot, so you are no longer a man? For what is a man? A part of a commonwealth; first and chiefly of that which includes both gods and men; and next, of that to which you immediately belong, which is a miniature of the universal city.
5
What, then; must I, at one time, go before a tribunal; must another, at another time, be scorched by a fever; another be exposed to the sea; another die; another be condemned?
5
Yes; for it is impossible, in such a body, in such a world, and among such companions, but that some one or other of us must meet with such circumstances. Your business, then, is simply to say what you ought, to order things as the case requires. After this comes some one and says, pronounce that you have acted unjustly. Much good may it do you; I have done my part. You are to look to it, whether you have done yours; for you may as well understand that there is some danger in that quarter also.
