5. “In the first place, then (says Porphyry[37]) my reasons are not addressed to those who are occupied in illiberal arts, nor to those engaged in corporeal exercises, neither to soldiers nor sailors, neither to rhetoricians nor to those who have undertaken the duties of an active life. But I write to the man continually employed in thinking what he is, from whence he comes, and whither he ought to tend: and who, with respect to every thing pertaining to food, and other offices of life, is entirely changed from those who propose to themselves a different manner of living; for to a man of this kind alone is my present discourse addressed. Indeed, in this common state of existence, one and the same mode of persuasion cannot be addressed to the sleeper, who, if it was possible, would conciliate to himself perpetual sleep, and who, for this purpose, seeks on every side for soporiferous incentives, as to him who studies continually to drive away sleep, and to dispose every thing about him to vigilance and intellectual activity. But to the former, it is necessary to advise intoxication, surfeiting, and satiety, and to recommend a dark house; and, as the poets say, _a bed luxurious, broad, and soft_. Such a one should chuse whatever tends to produce stupor, and give birth to indolence and oblivion, whether consisting of odours, ointments, or medicaments which are accustomed to be eat or drank. But it is necessary that the intellectual man should use sober drink, unmixed with the lethargic fumes of wine; nutriment slender, and almost approaching to fasting; a lucid house, receiving a subtle air and wind; that he should be continually agitated with cares and griefs; and lastly, that he prepares for himself a small and hard bed, while thus employed in purifying his soul from the stains contracted by corporeal involution. But whether we are born for this exalted purpose, I mean for vigilant intellectual energies, allowing as small a part of our life as possible to sleep; (since we do not exist in a place where souls perpetually vigilant abide), or whether we are destined to a contrary purpose, I mean, to sleep and oblivion, would be foreign from our design to explain; and would require a longer demonstration than the limits of our work will admit.