56. Our reason unaided (by religion) is kept in bondage like a female slave within the prison of our bodies, by the malicious fiend of false knowledge (or sophistry).
57. It is certain that whatever we see here is unreal, and yet it is a wonder, that the mass of men are led to deception by the vile body, which has injured the cause of the soul.
58. Our bodies are as fleeting as the drops of a water-fall, and they fall off in a few days like the withered leaves of trees.
59. They are as quickly dissolved as bubbles in the ocean; it is in vain therefore that it should hurl about in the whirlpool of business.
60. I have not a moment’s reliance in this body, which is ever hastening to decay; and I regard its changeful delusions as a state of dreaming.
61. Let those who have any faith in the stability of the lightning, of the autumn clouds, and in glacial castles, place their reliance in this body.
62. It has outdone all other things that are doomed to destruction in its instability and perishableness. It is moreover subject to very many evils; wherefore I have set it at naught as a straw, and thereby obtained my repose.
CHAPTER XIX.
Blemishes of Boyhood.
One receiving his birth in the unstable ocean of the world, which is disturbed by the billows of the bustle of business, has to pass his boyhood in sufferings only.
2. Want of strength and sense, and subjection to diseases and dangers, muteness and appetence, joined with longings and helplessness, are the concomitants of infancy.