[118]
For we cannot all have the experience of Hercules, 1
as we find it in the words of Prodicus in Xenophon:
“When Hercules was just coming into youth's
estate (the time which Nature has appointed unto
every man for choosing the path of life on which
he would enter), he went out into a desert place.
And as he saw two paths, the path of Pleasure and
the path of Virtue, he sat down and debated long
and earnestly which one it were better for him to
take.” This might, perhaps, happen to a Hercules,
“scion of the seed of Jove”; but it cannot well
happen to us; for we copy each the model he fancies,
and we are constrained to adopt their pursuits and
vocations. But usually, we are so imbued with the
teachings of our parents, that we fall irresistibly into
their manners and customs. Others drift with2
the current of popular opinion and make especial
choice of those callings which the majority find most
attractive. Some, however, as the result either of
some happy fortune or of natural ability, enter upon
the right path of life, without parental guidance.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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