[115]
32. To the two above-mentioned characters1
is added a third, which some chance or some circumstance imposes, and a fourth also, which we
assume by our own deliberate choice. Regal powers
and military commands, nobility of birth and political
office, wealth and influence, and their opposites
[p. 119]
depend upon chance and are, therefore, controlled
by circumstances. But what rôle we ourselves may2
choose to sustain is decided by our own free choice.
And so some turn to philosophy, others to the civil
law, and still others to oratory, while in case of the
virtues themselves one man prefers to excel in one,
another in another.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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