The study of Moral Philosophy is to be begun with Aristotle, whose books to Nicomachus are the best.

"Your reader, says he, must give you in a small compass what the ablest interpreters have said.

It is also necessary to be acquainted with the sentiments of the different sects of Philosophers; for without that knowledge you will be much at a loss in reading the Ancients, and profit little by them." To unbend after this serious study, some other short and agreeable books that have a relation to it may be read: such as _Ecclesiasticus_, the _Wisdom of Solomon_, _Theognis_, _Phocilides_, the _Golden Verses ascribed to Pythagoras_, _Epictetus's Enchiridion_, _Hierocles_, and the _Commentaries of Arrian_; not omitting the _Characters of Theophrastus_.
What the Poets have written on Morality may also be perused; with some select Tragedies of Euripides, _Terence's Comedies_, and _Horace's Epistles_.

Young people and grown persons admire different things in these writings: the beauty of the style pleases the first: the others learn by them to know men.

To these works may be added _Cicero's Offices_, a piece not enough esteemed, purely because it is in the hands of every one; some of _Seneca's Epistles_, the Tragedies that go under his name; and the best of Plutarch's smaller pieces.