There are feverish movements which
health cannot imitate.
Epictetus concludes that, since there are consistent Christians, every man
can easily be so.
351. Those great spiritual efforts, which the soul sometimes assays, are
things on which it does not lay hold. It only leaps to them, not as upon a
throne, for ever, but merely for an instant.
352. The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts,
but
by his ordinary life.
353. I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at
the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who
had
the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to
rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme,
but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space. But
perhaps this is only a sudden movement of the soul from one to the other
extreme, and in fact it is ever at one point only, as in the case of a
firebrand. Be it so, but at least this indicates agility if not expanse of
soul.
354. Man's nature is
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