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By it we must elevate ourselves,
and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to
think well; this is the principle of morality.

348. A thinking reed.--It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but
from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds.
By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by
thought I comprehend the world.

349. Immateriality of the soul--Philosophers who have mastered their
passions. What matter could do that?

350. The Stoics.--They conclude that what has been done once can be done
always, and that, since the desire of glory imparts some power to those whom
it possesses, others can do likewise. There are feverish movements which
health cannot imitate.

Epictetus concludes that, since there are consistent Christians, every man
can easily be so.

351. Those great spiritual efforts, which the soul sometimes assays, are
things on which it does not lay hold. It only leaps to them, not as upon a
throne, for ever, but merely for an instant.

352. The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but
by his ordinary life.

353. I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at
the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had
the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to
rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme,
but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space. But
perhaps this is only a sudden movement of the soul from one to the other
extreme, and in fact it is ever at one point only, as in the case of a
firebrand. Be it so, but at least this indicates agility if not expanse of
soul.

354. Man's nature is not always to advance; it has