If now any one advancing deeply into the matter should choose to investigate it closely, he will see It is not known from what play this line comes; it is placed among the Incerta Fragmenta, No 89, by Brunck. clearly that there is no one thing so nearly related to another as independence of action. On which account there are a great many things which stand in the way of the liberty of a wicked man; covetousness of money, the desire of glory, the love of pleasure, and so on. But the virtuous man has absolutely no obstacle at all since he rises up against, and resists, and overthrows, and tramples on love, and fear, and cowardice, and pain, and all things of that kind, as if they were rivals defeated by him in the public games.

For he has learnt to disregard all the commands which those most unlawful masters of the soul seek to impose upon him, out of his admiration and desire for freedom, of which independence and spontaneousness of action are the most especial and inalienable inheritance; and by some persons the poet is praised who composed this iambic— "No man’s a slave who does not fear to die," This line is from an unknown tragedy by Euripides. Fragmenta Incerta, 848. as having had an accurate idea of the consequences of such courage; for he conceived that nothing is so calculated to enslave the mind as a fear of death, arising from an excessive desire of living.

But we must consider that not only is the man who feels no anxiety to avoid death incapable of being made a slave, but the same privilege belongs to those who are indifferent to poverty, and want of reputation, and pain, and all those other things which the generality of men look upon as evils, being themselves but evil judges of things, since they pronounce a man a slave from a computation of what things he has need of, looking at the duties which he is compelled to perform, when they ought to look rather at his free and indomitable disposition;

for the man who out of a lowly and slavish spirit submits himself to lowly and slavish actions in spite of his deliberate judgment, is really and truly a slave; but he who adapts his circumstances and actions to the present occasion, and who voluntarily and in an enduring spirit bears up against the events of fortune, not looking at any thing of human affairs as extraordinary, but having by diligent consideration fully assured himself that all divine things are honoured by eternal order and happiness; and that all mortal things are tossed about in an everlasting storm and This line is from an unknown tragedy by Euripides. Fragmenta Incerta, 848. fluctuation of affairs so as to be subject to the greatest variety of changes and vicissitudes, and who, from those considerations, bears all that can befall him with a noble courage, is at once both a philosopher and a free man.

On which account he will neither obey every one who imposes a command upon him, not even if he threatens him with insults, and tortures, and even still more formidable evils; but he will bear a gallant spirit, and will cry out in reply to such menaces— "Yes, burn and scorch my flesh, and glut your hate, Drinking my life-warm blood; for heaven’s stars Shall quit their place, and darken ’neath the earth, And earth rise up and take the place of heaven, Before you wring from me a word of flattery." This is a fragment of Euripides from the Syleus, Fr. 2.