their discourses and their actions are most strangely at variance; than
which nothing in my opinion can be more unbecoming: for just as if one
who professed to teach grammar should speak with impropriety, or a
master of music sing out of tune, such conduct has the worst appearance
in these men, because they blunder in the very particular with which
they profess that they are well acquainted. So a philosopher who errs
in the conduct of his life is the more infamous because he is erring in
the very thing which he pretends to teach, and, while he lays down
rules to regulate life by, is irregular in his own life.

V. _A._ Should this be the case, is it not to be feared that you are
dressing up philosophy in false colors? For what stronger argument can
there be that it is of little use than that some very profound
philosophers live in a discreditable manner?

_M._ That, indeed, is no argument at all, for as all the fields which
are cultivated are not fruitful (and this sentiment of Accius is false,
and asserted without any foundation,

The ground you sow on is of small avail;
To yield a crop good seed can never fail),

it is not every mind which has been properly cultivated that produces
fruit; and, to go on with the comparison, as a field, although it may
be naturally fruitful, cannot produce a crop without dressing, so
neither can the mind without education; such is the weakness of either
without the other. Whereas philosophy is the culture of the mind: this
it is which plucks up vices by the roots; prepares the mind for the
receiving of seeds; commits them to it, or, as I may say, sows them, in
the hope that, when come to maturity, they may produce a plentiful