Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten.
So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen,
So tagten schon Sybillen und Propheten;
Und keine Zeit, und keine Macht zerstückelt
Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt_.

The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the
most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess,
and accordingly to follow such pursuits only as will call them into
play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and
to avoid every other; consequently, to choose the position, occupation
and manner of life which are most suitable for their development.

Imagine a man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by
circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite
work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental
labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not
got,--compelled, that is, to leave unused the powers in which he is
pre-eminently strong; a man placed like this will never feel happy all
his life through. Even more miserable will be the lot of the man
with intellectual powers of a very high order, who has to leave them
undeveloped and unemployed, in the pursuit of a calling which does not
require them, some bodily labor, perhaps, for which his strength is
insufficient. Still, in a case of this kind, it should be our care,
especially in youth, to avoid the precipice of presumption, and not
ascribe to ourselves a superfluity of power which is not there.

Since the blessings described under the first head decidedly outweigh
those contained under the other two, it is manifestly a wiser course
to aim at the maintenance of our health and the cultivation of our