If, then, one keeps these in mind as god-given injunctions, he will be able
easily to adapt them to all the circumstances of life, and to bear with such
circumstances intelligently, by being heedful of his own nature, and
heedful, in whatever may befall him, not to go beyond the limit of
propriety, either in being elated to boastfulness or in being humbled and
cast down to wailings and lamentations, through weakness of the spirit and
the fear of death which is implanted in us as a result of our ignorance of
what is wont to happen in life in accordance with the decree of necessity or
destiny. Excellent is the advice which the Pythagoreans
1 gave, saying :
Whatsoe'er woes by the gods' dispensation all mortals
must suffer, What be the fate you must bear, you should bear it and not
be indignant.
And the tragic poet Aeschylus
2 says :
It is the mark of just and knowing men In woes to feel
no anger at the gods;
and Euripides
3:
Of mortals he who
yields to fate we think Is wise and knows the ways of Providence
;
and in another place
4 he says :
[p. 187]
Of mortals he who bears his lot aright To me seems
noblest and of soundest sense.
