ON NOBILITY
XXXV. (187) We ought to rebuke in no measured language those who celebrate nobility of birth as the greatest of all blessings, and the cause also of great blessings, if in the first place they think those men nobly born who are sprung from persons who were rich and glorious in the days of old, when those very ancestors themselves, from whom they boast to be descended, were not made happy by their unlimited abundance; since, in truth, that which is really good does not naturally or necessarily lodge in any external thing, nor in any of the things which belong to the body, and indeed I may even say not in every part of the soul, but only in the dominant and most important portion of it. (188) For when God determined to establish this in us out of his own exceeding mercy and love for the human race, he would not find any temple upon earth more beautiful or more suited for its abode than reason: for the mind makes, as it were, an image of the good and consecrates it within itself, and if any persons disbelieve in it of those who have either never tasted wisdom at all, or else have done so only with the edges of their lips (for silver and gold, and honours, and offices, and vigour and beauty of body, resemble those men who are appointed to situations of authority and power, in order to serve virtue as if she were their queen), never having obtained a sight of the most brilliant of all lights. (189) Since, then, nobility of mind, perfectly purified by complete purifications, is the proper inheritance, we ought to call those men alone noble who are temperate and just, even though they may be of the class of domestic slaves, or may have been bought with money. But to those persons who, being sprung from virtuous parents, do themselves turn out wicked, the region of nobleness is wholly inaccessible; (190) for every bad man is destitute of a house, and destitute of a city, having been driven from his proper country, namely, virtue; which is the real, genuine country of all wise men: and ignobleness does of necessity attach itself to such a man, even though he be descended from grandfathers and great grandfathers whose lives were wholly irreproachable, since he studies to alienate himself from them and detaches himself from and removes to the greatest possible distance from real nobility in all his words and actions. (191) But moreover, besides that wicked men cannot possibly be noble, I also see that they are all of them irreconcileable enemies to nobility, inasmuch as they have destroyed the reputation which accrued to them from their ancestors, and have dimmed and extinguished all the brilliancy which did exist in their race.
XXXVI. (192) And it is for this reason, as it appears to me, that some most affectionate fathers disown and disinherit their sons, cutting them off from their homes and from their kindred, when the wickedness which is displayed in them has over-mastered the exceeding and all-pervading love which is implanted by nature in parents. (193) And the truth of this assertion of mine is easy to be seen from other circumstances also. What good could it ever be to any man that his ancestors had been endowed with ever such great acuteness of vision if he himself were deprived of his eyes? How could that fact assist him to see? Or again, supposing a person to have an impediment in his speech, how would his utterance be assisted by the fact that his parents or his grandfathers had had fine voices? And how will a man who has been emaciated and exhausted by a long and wasting disease, be assisted to recover his former strength, if the original founders of his race are, on account of their strength as athletes, enrolled among the Olympic conquerors, or the victors at any other periodical games? For their bodily infirmities will equally remain in the same condition as before, not receiving any amelioration from the successes of their relations. (194) In the same manner, just parents are of no advantage to unjust men, nor temperate parents to intemperate children, nor, in short, are ancestors of any kind of excellence of any advantage to wicked descendants; for even the laws themselves are of no advantage to those who transgress them, as they are meant to punish them, and what is it that we ought to look upon as unwritten laws, except the lives of those persons who have imitated virtue? (195) On which account, I imagine, that nobility herself, if God were to invest her with the form and organs of a man, would stand before those obstinate and unworthy descendants and speak thus: “Relationship is not measured by blood alone, where truth is the judge, but by a similarity of actions, and by a careful imitation of the conduct of your ancestors. But you have pursued an opposite line of conduct, thinking hateful such actions as are dear to me, and loving such deeds as are hateful to me; for in my eyes modesty, and truth, and moderation, and a due government of the passions, and simplicity, and innocence, are honourable, but in your opinion they are dishonourable; and to me all shameless behaviour is hateful, and all falsehood, and all immoderate indulgence of the passions, and all pride, and all wickedness. But you look upon these things as near and dear to you. (196) Why, then, do you, when by your actions you show all possible eagerness to alienate yourselves from them, sheltering yourselves under a plausible name, hypocritically pretend in words to a relationship? For I cannot endure seductive insinuations falsely put on, or any deceit; because it is easy for any persons to find out specious arguments, but it is not easy to change an evil disposition into a good one. (197) “And I, looking therefore at these facts, both now consider and shall always think those persons who have kindled sparks of enmity my enemies, and I shall look upon them with more suspicion than upon those who have been reproached openly for want of nobility; for they, indeed, have this to allege in their defence, that they have no connection at all with excellence. But you are justly liable to punishment who act thus after having been born of noble houses, and being fond of making your boast of your noble descent, and of looking upon it as your glory; for, though archetypal models of virtue have been established in close connection with, and in a manner implanted in you, you have determined to give no good impression of them yourselves. (198) But that nobility is placed only in the acquisition of virtue, and that you ought to imagine that he who has that is the only man really noble, and not the man who is born of noble and virtuous parents, is plain from many circumstances.”
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