4. To fulfill the promise of a man’s nature is itself no common thing. For what is a man? _A living creature_, say you; _mortal, and endowed with Reason_. And from what are we set apart by Reason? _From the wild beasts._ And what others? _From sheep and the like._ Look to it, then, that thou do nothing like a wild beast, for if thou do, the man in thee perisheth, thou hast not fulfilled his promise. Look to it, that thou do nothing like a sheep, or thus too the man hath perished. _What, then, can we do as sheep?_ When we are gluttonous, sensual, reckless, filthy, thoughtless, to what are we then sunken? To sheep. What have we lost? Our faculty of Reason. And when we are contentious, and hurtful, and angry, and violent, to what are we sunken? To wild beasts. And for the rest some of us are great wild beasts, and some of us little and evil ones; whereby we may say, “Let me at least be eaten by a lion.”[1] But through all these things the promise of the man’s nature has been ruined. 5. For when is a complex proposition safe?[2] When it fulfills its promise. So that the validity of a complex proposition is when it is a complex of truths. And when is a disjunctive safe? When it fulfills its promise. And when are flutes, or a lyre, or a horse, or a dog? What marvel is it, then, if a man also is to be saved in the same way, and perish in the same way? 6. But each thing is increased and saved by the corresponding works—the carpenter by the practice of carpentry, the grammarian by the study of grammar; but if he use to write ungrammatically, it must needs be that his art shall be corrupted and destroyed. Thus, too, the works of reverence save the reverent man, and those of shamelessness destroy him. And works of faithfulness save the faithful man, and the contrary destroy him. And men of the contrary character are strengthened therein by contrary deeds; the irreverent by irreverence, the faithless by faithlessness, the reviler by reviling, the angry by anger, the avaricious by unfair giving and taking. 7. Know, that not easily shall a conviction arise in a man unless he every day speak the same things and hear the same things, and at the same time apply them unto life.