Then, is power not to be reckoned in the category of good?
Why, can that which is plainly more efficacious than anything else be esteemed a thing feeble and void of strength?
Or is renown to be thought of no account?
Nay, it cannot be ignored that the highest renown is constantly associated with the highest excellence.

And what need is there to say that happiness is not haunted by care and gloom, nor exposed to trouble and vexation, since that is a condition we ask of the very least of things, from the possession and enjoyment of which we expect delight?
So, then, these are the blessings men wish to win; they want riches, rank, sovereignty, glory, pleasure, because they believe that by these means they will secure independence, reverence, power, renown, and joy of heart.
Therefore, it is _the good_ which men seek by such divers courses; and herein is easily shown the might of Nature's power, since, although opinions are so various and discordant, yet they agree in cherishing _good_ as the end.' SONG II.
THE BENT OF NATURE.
How the might of Nature sways All the world in ordered ways, How resistless laws control Each least portion of the whole-- Fain would I in sounding verse On my pliant strings rehearse.
Lo, the lion captive ta'en Meekly wears his gilded chain; Yet though he by hand be fed, Though a master's whip he dread, If but once the taste of gore Whet his cruel lips once more, Straight his slumbering fierceness wakes, With one roar his bonds he breaks, And first wreaks his vengeful force On his trainer's mangled corse.
And the woodland songster, pent In forlorn imprisonment, Though a mistress' lavish care Store of honeyed sweets prepare; Yet, if in his narrow cage, As he hops from bar to bar, He should spy the woods afar, Cool with sheltering foliage, All these dainties he will spurn, To the woods his heart will turn; Only for the woods he longs, Pipes the woods in all his songs.
To rude force the sapling bends, While the hand its pressure lends; If the hand its pressure slack, Straight the supple wood springs back.
Phoebus in the western main Sinks; but swift his car again By a secret path is borne To the wonted gates of morn.
Thus are all things seen to yearn In due time for due return; And no order fixed may stay, Save which in th' appointed way Joins the end to the beginning In a steady cycle spinning.
III.
'Ye, too, creatures of earth, have some glimmering of your origin, however faint, and though in a vision dim and clouded, yet in some wise, notwithstanding, ye discern the true end of happiness, and so the aim of nature leads you thither--to that true good--while error in many forms leads you astray therefrom.

For reflect whether men are able to win happiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed end.

Truly, if either wealth, rank, or any of the rest, bring with them anything of such sort as seems to have nothing wanting to it that is good, we, too, acknowledge that some are made happy by the acquisition of these things.

But if they are not able to fulfil their promises, and, moreover, lack many good things, is not the happiness men seek in them clearly discovered to be a false show?
Therefore do I first ask thee thyself, who but lately wert living in affluence, amid all that abundance of wealth, was thy mind never troubled in consequence of some wrong done to thee ?' 'Nay,' said I, 'I cannot ever remember a time when my mind was so completely at peace as not to feel the pang of some uneasiness.' 'Was it not because either something was absent which thou wouldst not have absent, or present which thou wouldst have away ?' 'Yes,' said I.
'Then, thou didst want the presence of the one, the absence of the other ?' 'Admitted.' 'But a man lacks that of which he is in want ?' 'He does.' 'And he who lacks something is not in all points self-sufficing ?' 'No; certainly not,' said I.
'So wert thou, then, in the plenitude of thy wealth, supporting this insufficiency ?' 'I must have been.' 'Wealth, then, cannot make its possessor independent and free from all want, yet this was what it seemed to promise.