Sect. 13.--The method I should use in distributive
justice, I often observe in commutative; and keep a
geometrical proportion in both, whereby becoming
equable to others, I become unjust to myself, and
supererogate in that common principle, "Do unto
others as thou wouldst be done unto thyself." I was
not born unto riches, neither is it, I think, my star to
be wealthy; or if it were, the freedom of my mind, and
frankness of my disposition, were able to contradict and
cross my fates: for to me avarice seems not so much a
vice, as a deplorable piece of madness; to conceive our-
selves urinals, or be persuaded that we are dead, is not
so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of
hellebore,<100> as this. The opinions of theory, and posi-
tions of men, are not so void of reason, as their practised
conclusions. Some have held that snow is black, that
the earth moves, that the soul is air, fire, water; but
all this is philosophy: and there is no delirium, if we
do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of
avarice.
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