14. Most of the things which the multitude admire are referred to objects
of the most general kind, those which are held together by cohesion or
natural organization, such as stones, wood, fig-trees, vines, olives. But
those which are admired by men, who are a little more reasonable, are
referred to the things which are held together by a living principle, as
flocks, herds. Those which are admired by men who are still more
instructed are the things which are held together by a rational soul, not
however a universal soul, but rational so far as it is a soul skilled in
some art, or expert in some other way, or simply rational so far as it
possesses a number of slaves. But he who values a rational soul, a soul
universal and fitted for political life, regards nothing else except
this; and above all things he keeps his soul in a condition and in an
activity comformable to reason and social life, and he co-operates to
this end with those who are of the same kind as himself.

15. Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out
of it; and of that which is coming into existence part is already
extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing the world,
just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite
duration of ages. In this flowing stream then, on which there is no
abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would
set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with
one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.
Something of this kind is the very life of every man, like the exhalation
of the blood and the respiration of the air. For such as it is to have
once drawn in the air and to have given it back, which we do every
moment, just the same is it with the whole respiratory power, which thou
didst receive at thy birth yesterday and the day before, to give it back
to the element from which thou didst first draw it.