De Virtutibus

And, besides this, by this commandment he points out that it is right not to look only at the present, but also by the acuteness of the reasoning powers to survey the future afar off as from a watch-tower, since nothing remains long in the same condition, but everything is subject to alternations and variations; so that it is natural that those who have for a while been enemies, when they have sent heralds and made overtures towards reconciliation, should again become friends in the bonds of peace.

And it would be a wicked thing to deprive one’s friends of necessary food, who have probably stored up nothing which can be of use to them because of the uncertainty of the future. For this was an admirable saying which [*]( This idea is deservedly reprobated by Cicero, De Amic. xvi. "We shall be able to arrive at another definition of true friendship when we have first mentioned what Scipio was accustomed to blame with great indignation. He used to say that no sentence more hostile to friendship, or more at variance with every correct notion of it, could possibly be found, than that one of the man who said that it became a man always to form a friendship with the idea that he might some day or other hate his friend. And he said that he could never be induced to believe that this, as some people fancied, had been said by Bias, who was accounted one of the seven wise men, but he looked upon it as the saying of some profligate or ambitious man, or of some one who referred everything to the preservation of his own powers." ) was in vogue [*]( Deuteronomy xx. 19.) [*]( This idea is deservedly reprobated by Cicero, De Amic. xvi. "We shall be able to arrive at another definition of true friendship when we have first mentioned what Scipio was accustomed to blame with great indignation. He used to say that no sentence more hostile to friendship, or more at variance with every correct notion of it, could possibly be found, than that one of the man who said that it became a man always to form a friendship with the idea that he might some day or other hate his friend. And he said that he could never be induced to believe that this, as some people fancied, had been said by Bias, who was accounted one of the seven wise men, but he looked upon it as the saying of some profligate or ambitious man, or of some one who referred everything to the preservation of his own powers." )

And cities also should act upon this principle, providing in peace the things which will be necessary in time of war, and in time of war the things which will be desirable in peace, and abstaining from placing such implicit, boundless confidence in their allies, as if they could never possibly change so as to become their enemies; nor, on the other hand, exhibiting such distance towards their enemies as if they would never be able to bring them over to reconciliation and peace.

Moreover, if nothing is to be done in favour of one’s enemies because of any hope of reconciliation, still, at all events, no plant is an enemy, but all plants are at peace with and useful to one. And those which produce eatable fruit are exceedingly necessary, as their fruit is either actual food or equivalent to food. And why should men be excited to enmity against things which are not hostile, cutting them down, or burning them, or tearing them up by the roots; things which nature herself has brought to perfection by streams of water, and by the admirable temperature of the summer, so that they contribute annual revenues to mankind as subjects to their kings?

Moses, therefore, as a good superintendant, exerted all care to implant, not only in animals, but also in plants, invincible strength and vigour, and especially in such as produce eatable fruit, since they are worthy of more care, and are not of equal

for he commands the young plants to be nursed carefully for the space of three years, while the husbandman prunes away the superfluous off-shoots, in order that the trees may not be weighed down and exhausted by them, in which case the fruit borne by them would become small and weak through insufficiency of nourishment, and he must also dig round it and clear the ground, in order that no injurious plant may grow near it, so as to hinder its growth. And he does not allow the fruit to be gathered out of season at any one’s pleasure, not only because, if that were done, it would be imperfect and produced from imperfect trees (for so also animals which are not perfect themselves cannot produce a perfect offspring), but also because the young plants themselves would be injured, and would in a manner be bowed down and kept as creepers on the earth, by being prevented from shooting up into straight and stout trunks.

Accordingly, many husbandmen at the commencement of the spring watch their young trees, in order at once to destroy whatever fruit they show before it gets to any growth or comes to any size, from fear lest, if it be suffered to remain on, it may bring weakness to the parent tree. For it might happen, if some one did not take care beforehand, when the tree ought to bring fruit to perfection, that it will either bear none at all, or not be able to ripen any, being completely weakened by having been allowed to satiate itself with bearing before its proper time, just as old vine-stems when weighed down, are exhausted both in root and trunk.