About equality.
The words of Philo.
As an equality of measurement is the cause of the most perfect blessings, so also a want of measure is the cause of the greatest evils, as it dissolves that most useful bond of equality.
About drunkenness.
From the same author.
Inequality is a grievous thing and the cause of differences, just as equality is free from all annoyances and contributes to unite men for advantageous ends.
From the same author.
Obedience to the law and equality are the seeds of peace, and the causes of safety and continued durability; but inequality and covetousness are excitements to war, and dissolvers of all existing things.
About evil-doers.
The words of Philo.
Those things which chastise the first, are, if men are wise, preventatives of the second.
About the eye and sight.
The words of Philo, from the treatise about the Creation of the World.
The outward senses resemble windows; for through them, as through windows, the comprehension of the objects of the outward senses enters into the mind, and again through them the mind goes out to investigate such objects. But the sight is a part of these windows, that is to say, of the outward senses, since above all others it is akin to the soul, because it is nearly connected with the most beautiful of all things, namely light, and is a servant of divine things; and, indeed, that is the sense which first opened the way to philosophy. For when the eye had beheld the motions of the sun and moon, and the periodical revolutions of the stars, and the unvarying motions of the whole host of heaven, and the indescribable order and harmony of the whole universe, and the one unerring Creator of the world, it then related what it had seen to reason, as having the supreme authority; and reason, having beheld with a still more acutely piercing eye both these things, and things of a still more sublime character in their appearance and species, and the great cause of all things, it then immediately arrived at a due conception of God, and of creation, and of providence; considering that the whole nature of all things was not brought into existence of its own accord, but that of necessity it had a creator, and a father, and a guide, and a governor, who also created it, and who also preserves everything which he has created.
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