But we admit also that God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-operate with Him (compare the saying, that chance is the name of the unknown cause).

Lastly, while we acknowledge that God and chance govern mankind and provide the conditions of human action, experience will not allow us to deny a place to art.

We know that there is a use in having a pilot, though the storm may overwhelm him; and a legislator is required to provide for the happiness of a state, although he will pray for favourable conditions under which he may exercise his art.
BOOK V.Hear now, all ye who heard the laws about Gods and ancestors: Of all human possessions the soul is most divine, and most truly a man's own.

For in every man there are two parts--a better which rules, and an inferior which serves; and the ruler is to be preferred to the servant.
Wherefore I bid every one next after the Gods to honour his own soul, and he can only honour her by making her better.

A man does not honour his soul by flattery, or gifts, or self-indulgence, or conceit of knowledge, nor when he blames others for his own errors; nor when he indulges in pleasure or refuses to bear pain; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, because he fears the world below, which, far from being an evil, may be the greatest good; nor when he prefers beauty to virtue--not reflecting that the soul, which came from heaven, is more honourable than the body, which is earth-born; nor when he covets dishonest gains, of which no amount is equal in value to virtue;--in a word, when he counts that which the legislator pronounces evil to be good, he degrades his soul, which is the divinest part of him.