Pagina 623 di 734

And the Self-Sufficiency which people speak of will attach

chiefly to the Contemplative Working: of course the actual

necessaries of life are needed alike by the man of science, and

the just man, and all the other characters; but, supposing all

sufficiently supplied with these, the just man needs people

towards whom, and in concert with whom, to practise his justice;

and in like manner the man of perfected self-mastery, and the

brave man, and so on of the rest; whereas the man of science can

contemplate and speculate even when quite alone, and the more

entirely he deserves the appellation the more able is he to do

so: it may be he can do better for having fellow-workers but

still he is certainly most Self-Sufficient.

Again, this alone would seem to be rested in for its own sake,

since nothing results from it beyond the fact of having

contemplated; whereas from all things which are objects of moral

action we do mean to get something beside the doing them, be the

same more or less.