[43]The wise and magnanimous Pythagoreans, Platonists, Peripatetics and Stoics, among the ancients, looked to virtue as its own reward, and performed what is right, because it is right to do so. And though they firmly believed in the immortality of the soul, their conduct was not at all influenced by the hope of future reward. This great truth indeed, that virtue brings with it its own recompense, is almost at present obsolete; and it is no unusual thing to hear a man, when afflicted, exclaiming with Methodistical cant, “The many troubles that I meet, In getting to a Mercy-seat!” [44]These energies are called beneficent, because they are of a purifying character. Hence Plato in the Timæus says, that a deluge is the consequence of the Gods _purifying_ the earth by water. [45]Iamblichus a little before informs us, that Pythagoras suspected that Phalaris intended to put him to death, but at the same time knew that he was not destined to die by Phalaris. This being the case therefore, Pythagoras has no claim to fortitude in this instance, in being free from the fear of death. But he has great claim to it, when it is considered that he was in the power of a tyrant who might have caused him to suffer tortures worse than death. [46]i. e. _Humble_ (ταπεινης ουσης.) With the Pythagoreans, therefore, humility was no virtue, though in modern times it is considered to be the greatest of the virtues. With Aristotle likewise it is no virtue; for in his Nicomachean Ethics he says, “that all humble men are flatterers, and all flatterers are humble.” [47]See the Cave of Plato, in the 7th book of his Republic. [48]The original is, Μητροδωρος τε ο Θυρσου του πατρος Επιχαρμου, which Obrechtus erroneously translates, “Metrodorus Epicharmi filius Thyrsi nepos.” [49]This observation applies also to those of the present day, who, from a profound ignorance of human nature, attempt to enlighten by education the _lowest_ class of mankind. For this, as I have elsewhere observed, is an attempt to break the golden chain of beings, to disorganise society, and to render the vulgar dissatisfied with the servile situations in which God and nature intended them to be placed. See p. 73. of the introduction to my translation of Select Works of Plotinus. [50]This also is asserted, as I have before observed, in the Scholia on the 10th book of Commandine’s edition of Euclid’s Elements, p. 122. [51]Obrechtus has omitted to translate the words ηδη πρεσβυτην οντα, “being now an elderly man.” [52]In the original ακρατος, which Obrechtus very erroneously translates _impotens_. [53]i. e. To the Pythagoreans. [54]The whole of this paragraph, the greater part of which is a repetition of what has been said elsewhere, does not certainly belong to this place.