6. “Souls going forth from him.” The idea here is, that the human soul existed previous to its incarnation in the human body, and that it is a direct emanation from the Deity. This doctrine is fully expounded by Plato. How to establish the immortality of the soul, if it comes into existence with the body, was a serious problem with the ancients. Plutarch seems to have regarded both the soul and the body as eternal and uncreated, but the latter without form until it was united with the soul. Or we may put the case otherwise by saying that the soul, upon entering into a conscious existence, shapes the hitherto formless body into an abode for itself. He also holds that the soul consists of two parts: The one part seeks after truth and has an affection for the beautiful; the other is subject to the passions and under the dominion of error. “For which reason,” the author here assumes that the words ἔθος and ἦθος are from the same root. The former means, use and wont; the latter was originally applied to the haunts or abodes of animals; then the manners, habits, and dispositions of men. Aristotle says, ἡ δ᾽ ἠθικὴ ἐξ ἔθους περιγίνεται, ὅθεν καὶ τοῦνομα ἔσχηκε μικρὸν περικλῖνον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἤθους. (Ethical is from ἔθος, for which reason the word differs but slightly from ἤθος.) Plutarch himself says that custom is second nature. It is easy to trace the connection between a man’s acts and the psychical forces, the character, that produces them. 8. “An ill-omened deed.” It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that misfortunes fell upon those who were concerned in disturbing a swallow’s nest. 10. Near the end. The Greeks ventured to consult oracles of the dead only on rare and extraordinary occasions. They probably borrowed the custom from the East. 11. The story of Glaucus is told at length by Herodotus in the third book of his history and is often alluded to by later writers. The ethical import of the anecdote is far-reaching. 17. “Gardens of Adonis.” Shakespeare probably had these in mind when he wrote (King Henry VI. Part 1, scene sixth): “Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens, That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.” At Taenarus, the most southern point of the Peloponnesus, there was believed to be an entrance to the lower world. 22. “None more dreaded by his enemies.” To return good for good and evil for evil was a fundamental article of Greek ethics. It is more than once alluded to in the Anabasis, and is found in nearly all Greek writers. Socrates, however, takes a firm stand against the principle and maintains that whatever is intrinsically wrong can never under any circumstances become right.