Miscellanies 1.6.33

Readiness for seeing what is needed contributes much through preliminary exercise. The intelligible things would be exercise for the mind; and their nature is threefold, contemplated in quantities, magnitudes, and propositions. For reasoning from demonstrations implants exact conviction in the soul of the one who follows it, so that he cannot think that what has been demonstrated is otherwise, and it does not let us fall to those who creep in by deceit. In these studies, then, the soul is purified from sensible things and rekindled, so that at some time it may be able to see through to the truth. For nourishment and good education, when preserved, make good natures; and good natures, receiving such education, grow better than those before, both in other respects and in begetting, as among other living creatures too. That is why it says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and become wiser than it,” which at harvest lays up much food of every kind against the threat of winter; “or go to the bee and learn how industrious it is”; for it too, feeding on the whole meadow, produces one honeycomb.