Plutarch, Quomodo quis suos in virtute sentiat profectus
Frank Cole Babbitt, Ed.

Quite the same as this, or nearly the same, is the very ancient elucidation of progress found in Hesiod,¹ which sets forth that the way is no longer uphill, nor very steep, but easy and smooth and readily accomplished, as though it were made smooth by practice, and as though it brought on a light, which is to be found in the study of philosophy, and an illumination succeeding upon perplexity, errant thought, and much vacillation, which students of philosophy encounter at the outset, like persons who have left behind the land which they know and are not yet in sight of the land to which they are sailing. For having given up the common and familiar things before gaining knowledge and possession of the better, they are carried hither and thither in the [p. 415] interval, and oftentimes in the wrong direction. An illustration is the story told about Sextius, the Roman, to the effect that he had renounced his honours and offices in the State for philosophy, but, because he was impatient and found the subject difficult at the outset, he came very near throwing himself down from an upper story. A similar tale, too, they record about Diogenes ² of Sinope at the beginning of his devotion to philosophy. The Athenians were keeping holiday with public banquets and shows in the theatre and informal gatherings among themselves, and indulging in merry-making the whole night long, while Diogenes, huddled up in a corner trying to sleep, fell into some very disturbing and disheartening reflexions how he from no compulsion had entered upon a toilsome and strange mode of life, and as a result of his own act he was now sitting without part or parcel in all these good things. A moment later, however, a mouse, it is said, crept up and busied itself with the crumbs of his bread, whereupon he once more recovered his spirits, and said to himself as though rebuking himself for cowardice, ‘What are you saying, Diogenes ? Your leavings make a feast for this creature, but as for you, a man of birth and breeding, just because you cannot be getting drunk over there, reclining on soft and flowery couches, do you bewail and lament your lot ?’ Now when such fits of dejection become of infrequent occurrence and the objections and protests made by sound sense against them quickly come to our help, as though rallying after a temporary rout, and easily dissipate our depression and dismay, we may well believe that our progress rests on a firm foundation. [p. 417]