"In dangerous parts, where one wayfarer out of ten meets his death, fathers and sons and brothers will counsel each other not to travel without a sufficient escort. Is not this wisdom? And there where men are also greatly in danger, in the lists of passion, in the banquet hour, not to warn them is error indeed."
Physical precautions are not alone sufficient. Man's moral nature equally requires constant watchfulness and care.
The Grand Augur, in his ceremonial robes, approached the shambles and thus addressed the pigs:—
"How can you object to die? I shall fatten you for three months. I shall discipline myself for ten days and fast for three. I shall strew fine grass, and place you bodily upon a carved sacrificial dish. Does not this satisfy you?"
Then speaking from the pigs' point of view, he continued, "It is better perhaps after all to live on bran and escape the shambles...."
"But then," added he, speaking from his own point of view, "to enjoy honour when alive one would readily die on a war-shield or in the headsman's basket."
So he rejected the pigs' point of view and adopted his own point of view. In what sense then was he different from the pigs?
Even as a pig thinks of nothing but eating, so was the Grand Augur ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for paltry fame.