And what use he
had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches
and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in
all variety.
(12) And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat
idle to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the
argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall
perceive I am as willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an
Alexander, or a Caesar, or an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred
years since, as any that now liveth; for it is the displaying of the
glory of learning in sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not
a humour of declaiming in any man's praises. Observe, then, the
speech he used of Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state
of one of the greatest questions of moral philosophy: whether the
enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of them, be the
greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly contented
with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition, "were
I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.
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