על שכל אדם ישר הוא בן חורין י״דEvery Good Man is Free 14
א׳
1XIV. [92] But since some consider that the virtues of large bodies are never perfect, but merely grow and improve and then come to a halt, we must cite as evidence the lives of good individual men, which are the clearest proof of the existence of liberty.
ב׳
2[93] Calanus was an Indian by birth of the school of the gymnosophists. Regarded as possessed of endurance more than any of his contemporaries, by combining virtuous actions with laudable words he gained the admiration, not only of his fellow countrymen, but of men of other races, and, what is most singular of all, of enemy sovereigns.
ג׳
3[94] Thus Alexander of Macedon, wishing to exhibit to the Grecian world a specimen of the barbarians’ wisdom, like a copy reproducing the original picture, began by urging Calanus to travel with him from India with the prospect of winning high fame in the whole of Asia and the whole of Europe;
ד׳
4[95] and when he failed to persuade him declared that he would compel him to follow him. Calanus’s reply was as noble as it was apposite. “What shall I be worth to you, Alexander, for exhibiting to the Greeks if I am compelled to do what I do not wish to do?” What a wealth of frankness there is in the words and far more of freedom in the thought. But more durable than his spoken are his written words and in these he set on record clear signs of a spirit which could not be enslaved.
ה׳
5[96] The letter he sent to Alexander runs thus:—
“Calanus to Alexander
Your friends urge you to apply violence and compulsion to the philosophers of India. These friends, however, have never even in their dreams seen what we do. Bodies you will transport from place to place, but souls you will not compel to do what they will not do, any more than force bricks or sticks to talk. Fire causes the greatest trouble and ruin to living bodies: we are superior to this: we burn ourselves alive. There is no king, no ruler, who will compel us to do what we do not freely wish to do. We are not like those philosophers of the Greeks, who practise words for a festal assembly. With us deeds accord with words and words with deeds. Deeds pass swiftly and words have short-lived power: virtues secure to us blessedness and freedom.”
“Calanus to Alexander
Your friends urge you to apply violence and compulsion to the philosophers of India. These friends, however, have never even in their dreams seen what we do. Bodies you will transport from place to place, but souls you will not compel to do what they will not do, any more than force bricks or sticks to talk. Fire causes the greatest trouble and ruin to living bodies: we are superior to this: we burn ourselves alive. There is no king, no ruler, who will compel us to do what we do not freely wish to do. We are not like those philosophers of the Greeks, who practise words for a festal assembly. With us deeds accord with words and words with deeds. Deeds pass swiftly and words have short-lived power: virtues secure to us blessedness and freedom.”
ו׳
6[97] Protestations and judgements like these may well bring to our lips the saying of Zeno: “Sooner will you sink an inflated bladder than compel any virtuous man to do against his will anything that he does not wish.” For never will that soul surrender or suffer defeat which right reason has braced with principles firmly held.