I. The majority of
mortals, Paulinus, 1 complain bitterly of the
spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because
even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so
swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting
ready to live. Nor is it merely the common herd and the unthinking crowd that
bemoan what is, as men deem it, an universal ill; the same feeling has called
forth complaint also from men who were famous. It was this that made the
greatest of physicians exclaim that "life is short, art is long;"
2 it was this that led Aristotle, 3 while expostulating with
Nature, to enter an indictment most unbecoming to a wise man—that, in point of
age, she has shown such favour to animals that they drag out five or ten
lifetimes, 4 but that a much shorter limit is fixed for man, though he
is born for so many and such great achievements. It is not that we have a short
space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has
been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the
very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is
squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end,
forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away
before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not
short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of
it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes
into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted
to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who
orders it properly.
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