When some one may exalt himself in that he is able to understand and expound the works of Chrysippus, say then to thyself: If Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing whereon to exalt himself. But I, what do I desire? Is it not to learn to understand Nature and to follow her? I inquire, then, who can expound Nature to me, and hearing that Chrysippus can, I betake myself to him. But I do not understand his writings, therefore I seek an expounder for them. And so far there is nothing exalted. But when I have found the expounder, it remaineth for me to put in practice what he declares to me, and in this alone is there anything exalted. But if I shall admire the bare exposition, what else have I made of myself than a grammarian instead of a philosopher, save, indeed, that the exposition is of Chrysippus and not of Homer? When, therefore, one may ask me to lecture on the philosophy of Chrysippus, I shall rather blush when I am not able to show forth works of a like nature and in harmony with the words. CHAPTER XXII. ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 1. The clearer be the characters in which a book is writ, the more pleasantly and conveniently shall any man read it. Thus also a man shall listen more conveniently to any discourse if it be conveyed in well-ordered and graceful words. Be it not said, then, that there is no faculty of expression, for this is the thought of a man both impious and cowardly[1]—impious, for he holds in disesteem the gracious gifts of God, as if he would take away the serviceable faculty of seeing, or of hearing, or indeed this of speaking. Did God give the eyes for nothing? And was it for nothing that He mingled in them a spirit of such might and cunning as to reach a long way off and receive the impression of visible forms—a messenger so swift and faithful? Was it for nothing that He gave the intervening air such efficacy, and made it elastic, so that being, in a manner, strained,[2] our vision should traverse it? Was it for nothing that He made Light, without which there were no benefit of any other thing?