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Excerpt from Miscellanies: In Prose and Verse; Containing the Triumph of the Wise Man Over Fortune, According to the Doctrine of the Stoics and Platonists; The Creed of the Platonic Philosopher; A Panegyric on Sydenham
But there is not any thing so sacred which sacrile gions bands will not attempt to violate. Divine natures, however, are not less elevated, because there are those who will attack a magnitude placed far beyond their reach. The invulnerable is not that which may not be assaulted, but that which cannot be injured. And this is the mark by which a wise man may be known. Can it indeed be doubted, but that the power is more certainly strong which cannot be conquered, than that which cannot be attacked; for strength untried is dubious; but the force is deservedly considered as most sure which baf¿es all attacks. Hence the wise man is of a more excellent nature, if no in jury can hurt him, than if he is beyond the reach of injurious attempts. As a wise man, therefore, of this kind, is obnoxious to no injury, it is of no consequence how many darts are hurled against him, since he is not penetrable by any. Just as the hardness of certain stones is unconquerable by iron and just as some things cannot be consumed by fire, but preserve their rigour and mode of subsistence amidst surrounding ¿ames. Thus, too, rocks swelling on high break the sea, and do not exhibit any vestiges of its rage, though for so many ages they have been lashed by its waves. But it may be said, will there not be some one who will try to do an injury to the wise man?
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