Chance (6)

Intelligence is not gold or silver or repute or wealth or health or strength or beauty. What then is it? It is the something which is able to make good use of all these, and something through whose agency each of these is made pleasant, noteworthy, and profitable. Without it they are unserviceable, fruitless, and harmful, and they burden and disgrace their possessor. It is surely excellent advice that Hesiod’s [*] Prometheus gives to Epimetheus:

Never to welcome Any gifts from Zeus of Olympus, but always return them,

meaning the gifts of chance and external advantages; as if he were advising him not to play the flute if ignorant of music, nor to read if illiterate, nor to ride if unused to horses, thus advising him not to hold public office if a fool, nor to be rich if miserly, nor to marry if ruled by a woman. For not only is it true, as Demosthenes [*] has said, that undeserved success becomes a source of misconception for fools, but undeserved good fortune also becomes a source of misery for the unthinking.