De Consideratione

6. Let me then put before you my rejoinder, and offer you my advice. If you give all your life and all your wisdom to action, and nothing to consideration, do I praise you? in this I praise you not. I suppose no one would who has heard Solomon's words, ‘He that hath little business shall become wise.’¹ Action itself certainly does not fare well unless preceded by consideration. If you wish to belong altogether to other people, like him who was made all things to all men,² I praise your humanity, but only on condition that it be complete. But how can it be complete if you yourself are left out? You, too, are a man. So then, in order that your humanity may be entire and complete, let your bosom, which receives all, find room for yourself also. Otherwise, according to the word of the Lord, what does it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own self?³ Wherefore, though all possess you, take care that you are one among them. Why are you alone defrauded of your reward? How long will you be ‘a wind that passeth away and cometh not again’?⁴ Will the time never come when you will in turn receive yourself among the rest? You are a debtor both to the wise and to the foolish; and are you the only one to whom you deny yourself? Wise and foolish, bond and free, rich and poor, male and female, old and young, cleric and layman, righteous and wicked, all alike share in you, all drink at the public fountain of your heart; and will you stand apart and thirst? If he is cursed who impairs his inheritance, what are we to say of him who strips himself of it altogether? By all means let your waters stream down into the streets; let men and flocks and herds drink thereof, nay let the servants of Abraham give drink even to the camels; but among the rest do you yourself drink of the water of your own well. ‘Let not a stranger’, saith the Scripture, ‘drink thereat.’⁵ Are you a stranger? To whom are you not a stranger, if you are one to yourself? In short, if a man is bad to himself, to whom is he good?⁶ So remember, I do not say always, I do not say often, but at least sometimes, to restore yourself to yourself. Among the many, or at all events after the many, do you also make use of yourself. Can I make a more liberal concession to you? For what I say, I say to spare you, not according to my strict judgement. I suppose that in this respect I am more indulgent even than the Apostle himself. ‘More, then,’ you reply, ‘than I ought to be.’ I do not deny it. But suppose the Apostle’s standard be the right one, it matters not, for I am confident you will not be satisfied with my timid outline⁷ of your duty, but will more abound. It is certainly more fitting that you should abound than that I should be too bold. I also think it safer for myself in dealing with your Majesty to err on the side of timidity than of rashness. And perhaps this is the way a wise man should be admonished if the Scripture is to be fulfilled—‘Give a wise man an opportunity and he will be still wiser’.⁸