De Consideratione

8. But it is one thing now and then for some urgent reason to turn aside to these matters; it is another of your own accord to apply yourself to them as if they were of such importance as to deserve the earnest attention of your exalted rank. Accordingly, if I wished to speak strongly, or with perfect sincerity say all that is right, I should say all that I have said and a vast deal besides. But as things are, for the days are evil,¹ it is enough now that you have been admonished not to give yourself up altogether, nor at all times, to the active life, but to set apart some portion of your heart and of your time for consideration. But in saying this I have regard to the necessity laid upon you, not to the claims of righteousness : albeit there is no unrighteousness in yielding to necessity. For if the fitting were possible, reason unanswerably shows that piety, which is profitable for all things, should under all conceivable circumstances be distinctly preferred, and that it ought, either alone or above all else, to be studiously cultivated. Do you ask what piety is? It is leaving time for consideration. You may perhaps tell me that herein I differ from him who defines piety as ‘the worship of God’.² I do not really differ from him. If you well consider the point you will find that I have expressed his meaning in my own words, only partly, however, I admit. What is so essential to the worship of God as the practice to which He exhorts in the psalm, ‘Be still and see that I am God’?³ This certainly is the chief object of consideration. Is anything, in all respects, so influential as consideration? Does it not by a kindly anticipation create the divisions of the active life itself, in a manner rehearsing and arranging beforehand what has to be done? There must be consideration lest haply affairs which foreseen and premeditated might turn out well, may, if precipitated, be fraught with peril. I have no doubt, if you will recall the incidents, you will find that in law cases, important business of various kinds, or in weighty deliberations, you have yourself frequently had this sorrowful experience. First of all, consideration purifies the very fountain, that is the mind, from which it springs. Then it governs the affections, directs our actions, corrects excesses, softens the manners, adorns and regulates the life, and, lastly, bestows the knowledge of things divine and human alike. It is consideration that brings order out of disorder, puts in the links, pulls things together, investigates mysteries, traces the truth, weighs probabilities, exposes shams and counterfeits. It is consideration which arranges beforehand what is to be done, and ponders what is accomplished, so that nothing faulty, or needing correction, may settle in the mind. It is consideration which in prosperity feels the sting of adversity, in adversity is as though it felt not; the one is fortitude, the other is prudence.