so reason, on the contrary, employs justice and moderation, setting passion and temper afar. So it is that even human examples make men gentle, as when we hear that Plato stood long over his servant with rod uplifted, correcting, as he said [Sidenote: B] himself, his own temper; or, again, as Archytas, informed of some disorderly behaviour of his workmen in the field, and feeling himself unusually irritated and harsh, did nothing, but just said, as he went away, “Well for you that I am feeling angry.” If sayings like these and anecdotes about men drain away what is rough and violent in our anger, much more when we see God, in whom is no fear nor any sort of repentance, yet reserving punishment and abiding his time, may we well become [Sidenote: C] cautious in such matters, and deem the gentleness and lofty patience which he exhibits a god-like part of virtue. By his punishment he corrects a few, by the slowness of his punishment he helps and admonishes many. VI. ‘Let us now turn our attention to a second point, which is this: All kinds of human retribution deal out pain for pain and stop there. “Suffering for the doer”[213] is their principle, and beyond it they do not go. So they follow sin like a howling pack which hunts on the heels of the offences. Whereas God, we may suppose, when he sets his hand to punish a soul that is sick, [Sidenote: D] scrutinizes its passions, if perhaps they may be bent aside, and a way opened to repentance; he fixes a time, in cases where the wickedness seated within is not absolute or inflexible. He knows how large a portion of virtue, proceeding from himself, souls carry with them when they pass to birth, how powerful within the noble principle naturally is, and how ineffaceable; that it may flower into vice contrary to nature, when nurture and company are bad and corrupting, yet is afterwards cured in some persons and recovers its own proper state. And so he [Sidenote: E] does not bring down punishment equally upon all. What is incurable he at once removes out of the life and prunes away, because, happen what may, it is injurious to others, most injurious of all to a man’s self, to consort with wickedness all his time. Where the sinful principle may be supposed to exist through ignorance of the good rather than from deliberate preference for the base, he gives them time for reformation; but if they persist, they, too, receive punishment in full; for he has no fear, we may be sure, lest they escape him at the last. Now consider how many changes take place in human character and life. And this is why that in them which changes is called “tropos” (turning) and “ethos” (_ēthos_), because habit (_ĕthos_) finds its way in so often, and masters them so mightily. I think [Sidenote: F] myself that the ancients called Cecrops “double-shaped”, not, as some say, because from a good king he became a very dragon of a tyrant, but, on the contrary, because he was, to begin