For if that in which each thing finds its good is plainly more precious than that whose good it is, by your own estimation ye put yourselves below the vilest of things, when ye deem these vile things to be your good: nor does this fall out undeservedly.

Indeed, man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself; but he is brought lower than the beasts if he lose this self-knowledge.

For that other creatures should be ignorant of themselves is natural; in man it shows as a defect.

How extravagant, then, is this error of yours, in thinking that anything can be embellished by adornments not its own.

It cannot be.