The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [252]
Chapter 33
1. For just as a conflagration does not often begin in public spaces, but some lamp left neglected in a house or some burnt rubbish in a back yard causes a great flame and works public destruction,
2. So disorder in a state is not always kindled by contentions about public matters,
3. But frequently differences arising from private affairs and offences pass thence into public life and throw the whole state into confusion.
4. Therefore it behoves the statesman above all things to remedy or prevent these,
5. That some of them may not arise at all and some may be quickly ended, and others may not grow great and extend to public interests,
6. But may remain merely among the persons who are at odds with one another.
7. He should do this by noticing himself and pointing out to others that private troubles become the causes of public ones and small troubles of great ones,
8. If they are overlooked and do not in the beginning receive treatment or soothing counsel.
9. For example, at Syracuse there were two young men, intimate friends,
10. One of whom, being entrusted with his friend’s beloved for safe keeping, seduced him while the other was away;
11. Then the latter, as if to repay outrage with outrage, committed adultery with the offender’s wife.
12. Thereupon one of the elder men came forward in the senate and moved that both be banished before the state reap the result and be infected with enmity through them.
13. His motion, however, was not carried, and from this beginning disorder arose which caused great distress and overthrew the most excellent government.
14. Therefore the statesman should not despise such offences as may, like diseases in a person, spread quickly,
15. But he should take hold of them, suppress them and cure them.
16. For by attention, as Cato says, the great is made small and the small is reduced to nothing.
17. And for this there is no more persuasive device than for the statesman to show himself in his private differences mild and conciliatory,
18. Persisting without anger in his original reasons for disagreement, and treating no one with contentiousness, anger or any other passion which injects bitterness into disputes.
19. For we put soft gloves on the hands of those who compete in the boxing-school, that the contest may not have a fatal result, its blows being soft and not painful;
20. And in law suits against one’s fellow-citizens it is better to treat the causes of disagreement pure and simple in one’s pleading,
21. And not, by sharpening and poisoning matters with bad words, malice and threats, to make them incurable, great and of public importance.
22. For a man who acts with gentleness and care towards those with whom he has difficulties will find that others also yield to him;
23. And rivalries affecting public interests, if private enmities are done away with, become of slight importance and do no serious or incurable harm.
Acts
Chapter 1
1. It has been well said that we should contemplate what the great did in the past, not just out of curiosity but to educate ourselves for the present.
2. Nobility and moral beauty have an active attraction, and invite all who live in later times to nobility again;
3. Not by imitation alone, but by stimulating thought about how to live, out of the bare contemplation of how some of the great once lived.
4. It is said, and rightly: to know what was done is to know better what to do now.
5. Nothing is more fitted to interest reflective minds than accounts of the variety of circumstance in human affairs,
6. Which, whether prompting admiration for achievement or lamentation for what was suffered, always offers instruction:
7. The untroubled recollection of past endeavours has a charm of its own to those who shared them,
8. While to those who did not share them, but who look upon them with interest and sympathy, there is much to be gained.
9. And yet those of great name are never faultless. Fame either heightens or hides flaws, so that memorials of them distort them into paragons or pariahs.