§ i. They say those discourses, like friends,…

one soil is more suitable to a plant than another, and it thrives and grows better on such a soil, yet no situation can rob a man of his happiness or virtue or sense. It was in prison that Anaxagoras wrote his squaring of the circle, and that Socrates, even after drinking the hemlock, talked philosophically, and begged his friends to be philosophers, and was esteemed happy by them. On the other hand, Phaëthon and Tantalus, though they got up to heaven, fell into the greatest misfortunes through their folly, as the poets tell us.