Book 4
11
Now we should, as far as possible, endeavor after something like this in the body, too. It is impossible but that in such a composition as man, there must be a discharge of superfluous phlegm. For this reason Nature has made hands, and the nostrils themselves as channels to let out the moisture; nor can this be neglected with propriety. It was impossible but that the feet should be bemired and soiled from what they pass through. Therefore Nature has prepared water and hands. It was impossible but that some uncleanness must cleave to the teeth from eating. Therefore, she says, rinse your teeth. Why? That you may be a man, and not a wild beast, or a swine. It was impossible but that, from perspiration and the pressure of the clothes, something dirty and necessary to be cleaned should remain upon the body. For this there is water, oil, hands, towels, brushes, soap, and other necessary apparatus for its purification. But no; a smith indeed will get the rust off his iron, and have proper instruments for that purpose; and you yourself will have your plates washed before you eat, unless you are quite dirty and slovenly; but you will not wash nor purify your body. Why should I? say you. I tell you again, in the first place, that you may be like a man; and, in the next, that you may not offend those with whom you converse. Do you think it fitting to smell offensively? Be it so. But is it fitting as regards those who sit near you; who are placed at the table with you; who salute you? Either go into a desert, as you deserve, or live solitary at home, and be the only sufferer. But to what sort of character does it belong to live in a city, and behave so carelessly and inconsiderately? If Nature had trusted even a horse to your care, would you have overlooked and neglected him? Yet now, without being sensible of it, you do something like this. Consider your body as committed to you, instead of a horse. Wash it, rub it, take care that it may not be any one’s aversion, nor disgust any one. Who is not more disgusted at a foul, unwholesome-looking sloven, than at a person who has been accidentally rolled in filth? The stench of the one is adventitious, from without; but that which arises from want of care is a kind of inward putrefaction. But Socrates bathed but seldom. Yet his person looked clean, and was so agreeable and pleasing, that the most beautiful and noble youths were fond of him, and desired rather to sit by him than by those who had the finest persons. He might have omitted both bathing and washing, if he had pleased; and yet his amount of bathing had its effect. Cold water may supply the place of the warm bath. But Aristophanes calls him one of the pallid, barefooted philosophers.Clouds 103.—H. Why, so he says, too, that he walked in the air, and stole clothes from the Palaestra. Besides, all who have written of Socrates affirm quite the contrary; that he was not only agreeable in his conversation, but in his person too. And, again, they write the same of Diogenes. For we ought not to frighten the world from philosophy by the appearance of our persons; but to show our serenity of mind, as in all other ways, so in the care of our persons. See, all of you, that I have nothing; that I want nothing. Without house, without city, and an exile (if that happens to be the case), and without a home, I live more easily and prosperously than the noble and rich. Look upon my person, too, that it is not injured by coarse fare. But if any one should tell me this, bearing the habit and the visage of a condemned criminal, what god should persuade me to come near philosophy, while it renders men such figures? Heaven forbid! I would not do it, even if I was sure to become a wise man for my pains. I declare, for my own part, I would rather that a young man, on his first inclination to philosophy, should come to me finically dressed, than with his hair spoiled and dirty. For there appears in him some idea of beauty and desire of decency; and where he imagines it to be, there he applies his endeavors. One has nothing more to do but to point it out to him, and say, You seek beauty, young man, and you do well. Be assured, then, that it springs from the rational part of you. Seek it there, where the pursuits and avoidances, the desires and aversions, are concerned. Herein consists your excellence; but the paltry body is by nature clay. Why do you trouble yourself, to no purpose, about it? You will be convinced by time, if not otherwise, that it is nothing. But if he should come to me soiled and dirty, with mustaches drooping to his knees, what can I say to him; by what similitude allure him? For what has he studied which has any resemblance to beauty, that I may transfer his attention, and say that beauty is not there, but here? Would you have me tell him that beauty consists not in filth, but in reason? For has he any desire of beauty? Has he any appearance of it? Go, and argue with a hog not to roll in the mire.
