“For when I reflect with myself upon the cause of your change of mind [so he addresses his former associate], I cannot believe, as the vulgar herd will suppose, that it has anything to do with reasons of health or strength, inasmuch as you yourself were used to assert that the fleshless diet is more consonant to healthfulness and to an even and proportionate endurance of philosophic toils (σύμμετρον ὑπομονὴν τῶν περὶ φιλοσοφίαν πόνων), and experience fully proved the truth of your conviction. Whether then it was through some other fallacy or delusion, or through a later notion that this or that diet makes no difference to the intellectual powers, or whether it was from the fear of incurring odium by opposition to orthodox customs, or what the reason may have been, I am unable to conjecture.” He expresses his hope, or rather his belief, that, at least, the lapse was not due in this case to natural intemperance, or regret for the gluttonous habits (λαιμαργίας) of flesh-eating. He then proceeds to quote and refute the fallacies of the ordinary systems and sects, and, in particular, the objections of one Clodius, a Neapolitan, who had published a treatise against Pythagoreanism. He professes that he does not hope to influence those who are engaged in sordid and selfish, or in sanguinary, pursuits. Rather he addresses himself to the man “Who considers what he is, whence he came, and whither he ought to tend; and who, in what pertains to the nourishment of the body and other necessary concerns, is of really thoughtful and earnest mind--who resolves that he shall not be led astray and governed by his passions. And let such a man tell me whether a rich flesh diet is more easily procured, or incites less to the indulgence of irregular passions and appetites, than a light vegetable dietary. But if neither he, nor a physician, nor, indeed, any reasonable man whosoever, dares to affirm this, why do we persist in oppressing ourselves with gross feeding? And why do we not, together with that luxurious indulgence, throw off the encumbrances and snares which attend it? “It is not from those who have lived on innocent foods that murderers, tyrants, robbers, and sycophants have come, but from eaters of flesh. The necessaries of life are few and easily procured, without violation of justice, liberty, or peace of mind; whereas luxury obliges those ordinary souls who take delight in it to covet riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their time, to ruin their health, and to renounce the satisfaction of an upright conscience.”