Any fault is an unpardonable crime.

To kill an old cock, if you do not want it, is as bad as to murder your father!"[160] And these doctrines, he goes on to say, which are used by most of us merely as something to talk about, this man Cato absolutely believes, and tries to live by them.

I shall have to refer back to this when I speak of Cicero's philosophy more at length; but his common-sense crops up continually in the expressions which he uses for defending the ordinary conditions of a man's life, in opposition to that impossible superiority to mundane things which the philosophers professed to teach their pupils.

He turns to Cato and asks him questions, which he answers himself with his own philosophy: "Would you pardon nothing?
Well, yes; but not all things.
Would you do nothing for friendship?
Sometimes, unless duty should stand in the way.

Would you never be moved to pity?
I would maintain my habit of sincerity, but something must no doubt be allowed to humanity.