God forbid. But that which thou art and wast made by Nature, cleanse this; let a man be clean as a man, a woman as a woman, a child as a child. 3. For we ought not even by the aspect of the body to scare away the multitude from philosophy; but by his body, as in all other things, a philosopher should show himself cheerful, and free from troubles. _Behold, friends, how I have nothing and need nothing; behold how I am homeless and landless, and an exile_, if so it chance, _and hearthless, and yet I live more free from troubles than all the lordly and the rich. But look on my body, too; ye see that it is not the worse for my hard life._ But if one saith this to me, having the countenance and garb of a condemned criminal, what God shall persuade me to approach to philosophy which makes such men as this? God forbid! I would not, were it even to become a sage. 4. I, indeed, by the Gods, had rather a young man in his first movement towards philosophy came to me with his hair curled than disheveled and foul. For a certain impression of the beautiful is to be seen in him, and an aim at what is becoming; and to the thing wherein it seemeth to him to lie, there he applies his art. Thenceforth it only needs to show him its true place, and to say, _Young man, thou seekest the beautiful, and thou dost well. Know, then, that it flourishes there where thy Reason is; there seek it where are thy likes and dislikes, thy pursuits and avoidances, for this is what thou hast in thyself of choice and precious, but the body is by nature mud. Why dost thou spend thy labor upon it in vain? for that the body is naught, Time shall certainly teach thee, though it teach thee nothing else._ But if one come to me foul and filthy, and a mustache down to the knees, what have I to say to him? with what image or likeness can I draw him on? For with what that is like unto Beauty hath he ever busied himself, so as I may set him on another course, and say, _Not here is Beauty, but there_? Will you have me tell him, _Beauty consists not in being befouled, but in the Reason_? For doth he even seek Beauty? hath he any impression of it in his mind? Go, and reason with a hog, that he shall not roll himself in the mud. 5. Behold a youth worthy of love—behold an old man worthy to love, and to be loved in return; to whom one may commit his sons, his daughters, to be taught; to whom young men may come, if it please you—that he may deliver lectures to them on a dunghill! God forbid. Every extravagance arises from something in human nature, but this is near to being one that is not human. CHAPTER XIII. WHY WE SHOULD BEAR WITH WRONG.