But in truth, if we speak of fervour of learning and diligence in
study, they gave up all their lives to philosophy; while nowadays
our contemporaries carelessly spend a few years of hot youth,
alternating with the excesses of vice, and when the passions have
been calmed, and they have attained the capacity of discerning
truth so difficult to discover, they soon become involved in
worldly affairs and retire, bidding farewell to the schools of
philosophy. They offer the fuming must of their youthful
intellect to the difficulties of philosophy, and bestow the
clearer wine upon the money-making business of life. Further, as
Ovid in the first book of the De Vetula justly complains:
The hearts of all men after gold aspire;
Few study to be wise, more to acquire:
Thus, Science! all thy virgin charms are sold,
Whose chaste embraces should disdain their gold,
Who seek not thee thyself, but pelf through thee,
Longing for riches, not philosophy.
And further on:
Thus Philosophy is seen
Exiled, and Philopecuny is queen,
which is known to be the most violent poison of learning.
How the ancients indeed regarded life as the only limit of study,
is shown by Valerius, in his book addressed to Tiberius, by many
examples. Carneades, he says, was a laborious and lifelong
soldier of wisdom: after he had lived ninety years, the same day
put an end to his life and his philosophizing. Isocrates in his
ninety-fourth year wrote a most noble work.
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