If he appears
consumptive, thin and pale, his testimony has no longer the same
authority. He must not only prove to the unlearned by showing them what
his Soul is that it is possible to be a good man apart from all that
they admire; but he must also show them, by his body, that a plain
and simple manner of life under the open sky does no harm to the body
either. "See, I am proof of this! and my body also." As Diogenes used to
do, who went about fresh of look and by the very appearance of his body
drew men's eyes. But if a Cynic is an object of pity, he seems a
mere beggar; all turn away, all are offended at him. Nor should he be
slovenly of look, so as not to scare men from him in this way either; on
the contrary, his very roughness should be clean and attractive.
CXIX
Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise certain
persons, though they themselves be evil. But to the Cynic conscience
gives this power--not arms and guards. When he knows that he has watched
and laboured on behalf of mankind: that sleep hath found him pure,
and left him purer still: that his thoughts have been the thought of
a Friend of the Gods--of a servant, yet one that hath a part in the
government of the Supreme God: that the words are ever on his lips:--
Lead me, O God, and thou, O Destiny!
as well as these:--
If this be God's will, so let it be!
Why should he not speak boldly unto his own brethren, unto his
children--in a word, unto all that are akin to him!
CXX
Does a Philosopher apply to people to come and hear him? does he not
rather, of his own nature, attract those that will be benefited
by him--like the sun that warms, the food that sustains them? What
Physician applies to men to come and be healed? (Though indeed I hear
that the Physicians at Rome do nowadays apply for patients--in my time
they were applied to.
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