=183. Individual character--Cicero's maxims.=--The philosophers whom we have just cited give us rules to combat and correct our temperament when it is vicious. Cicero, on the contrary, gives us others to maintain our individual character and remain true to it; and these rules are no less useful than the others. He justly observes that every man has his own inclinations which constitute his individual and original character. "Some," he says, "are more agile in the foot-race; others stronger at wrestling; these are more noble, those more graceful; Scaurus and Drusus were singularly grave; Lælius, very merry; Socrates was playful and amusing in conversation. Some are simple-minded and frank, others, like Hannibal and Fabius, more crafty. In short, there is an infinite variety of manners and differences of character without their being for that blamable."[167] Now, this is a very sensible principle of Cicero, that we ought not to go against the inclinations of our nature when they are not vicious: "_In constraining our talents We do nothing gracefully_," said the fabulist. "Let each of us then know his own disposition, and be to himself a severe judge concerning his own defects and qualities. Let us do as the players who do not always choose the finest parts, but those best suited to their talent. Æsopus[168] did not often play the part of Ajax." Cicero in this precept, "that every one should remain true to his individual character," goes so far as to justify Cato's suicide, for the reason that it accorded with his character. "Others," he says, "might be guilty in committing suicide; but in the case of Cato, he was right; it was a duty; Cato ought to have died."[169] This is carrying the rights and duties of the individual character somewhat far; but it is certain that, aside from the great general duties of humanity, which are the same for all men, each individual man has a rôle to play on earth, and this rôle is in part determined by our natural dispositions; now, we should yield to these dispositions, when they are not vicious, and should develop them.