Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
in like>
pater and of Philip and of all other persons
manner who are the children of vicious parents,
nature has implanted this predominant principle and
it is ever present with them;
is not dormant or in
operative, but they live in it and are nurtured by it;
with them it abides and it directs their actions. It is
not cruel or unreasonable if the children of these
men share their destiny. All things considered, here,
as in the healing art, what is advantageous is just,
and he would make himself ridiculous who should
affirm that in diseases of the hip=joirit it was wrong
to cauterize the thumb, and in the case of an ulcer
ated liver, to make an incision in the belly, and to
anoint the tips of the horns of cattle if their hoofs
are soft. So in the matter of punishments; he who
thinks anything else is just than what will
cure vice,
and is scandalized if the healing is affected on one party
for the sake of another, like the opening of a vein to
relieve the eyes evidently sees no farther than what
is plain to the senses. He does not take into ac
count that even a schoolmaster, when he punishes
one pupil also corrects others, and that a general
who decimates his army punishes all his soldiers.
Likewise, certain qualities, good as well as bad,
are transmitted not only from one body to an
other, but even more readily from one soul to an
other. For in the one case it seems reasonable that
the same conditions should also produce
the same
change, while in the other, the soul impelled by
motives and impulses is naturally inclined by
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