which is proposed to them; and this is the reason why such acts are named
Catorthoseis or right acts, which word signifies that they proceed by the
right road.

15. None of these things ought to be called a man's which do not belong
to a man, as man. They are not required of a man, nor does man's nature
promise them, nor are they the means of man's nature attaining its end.
Neither then does the end of man lie in these things, nor yet that which
aids to the accomplishment of this end, and that which aids towards this
end is that which is good. Besides, if any of these things did belong to
man, it would not be right for a man to despise them and to set himself
against them; nor would a man be worthy of praise who showed that he did
not want these things, nor would he who stinted himself in any of them be
good, if indeed these things were good. But now the more of these things
a man deprives himself of, or of other things like them, or even when he
is deprived of any of them, the more patiently he endures the loss, just
in the same degree he is a better man.

16. Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of
thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a
continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a
man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace;
well then, he can also live well in a palace. And again, consider that
for whatever purpose each thing has been constituted, for this it has
been constituted, and towards this it is carried; and its end is in that
towards which it is carried; and where the end is, there also is the
advantage and the good of each thing. Now the good for the reasonable
animal is society; for that we are made for society has been shown above.
Is it not plain that the inferior exists for the sake of the superior?
But the things which have life are superior to those which have not life,