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Still, every one believes that they live, and therefore that they

Work because it is not supposed that they sleep their time away

like Endymion: now if from a living being you take away Action,

still more if Creation, what remains but Contemplation? So then

the Working of the Gods, eminent in blessedness, will be one apt

for Contemplative Speculation; and of all human Workings that

will have the greatest capacity for Happiness which is nearest

akin to this.

A corroboration of which position is the fact that the other

animals do not partake of Happiness, being completely shut out

from any such Working.

To the Gods then all their life is blessed; and to men in so far

as there is in it some copy of such Working, but of the other

animals none is happy because it in no way shares in

Contemplative Speculation.