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Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious for a
long time, it pleased God that there should also arise a Western
empire, which, though later in time, should be more illustrious in
extent and greatness. And, in order that it might overcome the
grievous evils which existed among other nations, He purposely granted
it to such men as, for the sake of honor, and praise, and glory,
consulted well for their country, in whose glory they sought their
own, and whose safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their own,
suppressing the desire of wealth and many other vices for this one
vice, namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest perception
who recognizes that even the love of praise is a vice; nor has this
escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who says, "You're
bloated by ambition? take advice: Yon book will ease you if you read
it thrice."
And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with the desire
of repressing the passion for domination: "Rule an ambitious spirit,
and thou hast A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join To distant
Gades Lybia, and thus Shouldst hold in service either
Carthaginian."
Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by the power of the
Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety, or by the love of
intelligible beauty, but by desire of human praise, or, at all
events, restrain them better by the love of such praise, are not
indeed yet holy, but only less base. Even Tully was not able to
conceal this fact; for, in the same books which he wrote, De
Republica, when speaking concerning the education of a chief of the
state, who ought, he says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to say
that their ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through
desire of glory. So far, therefore, from resisting this vice, they
even thought that it ought to be excited and kindled up, supposing that
that would be beneficial to the republic. But not even in his books on
philosophy does Tully dissimulate this poisonous opinion, for he there
avows it more clearly than day. For when he is speaking of those
studies which are to be pursued with a view to the true good, and not
with the vainglorious desire of human praise, he introduces the
following universal and general statement: "Honor nourishes the
arts, and all are stimulated to the prosecution of studies by glory;
and those pursuits are always neglected which are generally
discredited."
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