על עבודת האדמה כ״חOn Husbandry 28
א׳
1[124] All that is pertinent to horseman and rider, cattle-rearer and shepherd, as well as to soil-worker and husbandman, has now been said, and the differences between the members of each pair have been stated with such minuteness as was possible. It is time to turn to what comes afterwards.
ב׳
2[125] Well, the lawgiver represents the aspirant to virtue as not possessing in its completeness the science of soul-husbandry, but as having done no more than spend some labour on the elements of that science; for he says, “Noah began to be an husbandman.” Now “a beginning is half of the whole,” or “begun is half done,” as was said by the men of old, as being halfway towards the end, whereas if the end be not added as well, the very making of a beginning has many a time done many people much harm.
ג׳
3[126] It has, as we all know, happened before now that even people far from guiltless, as their mind kept turning about in perpetual change, have hit upon an idea of something wholesome, but have got no good from it; for it is possible that ere they have come to the end, a strong current of contrary tendencies has swept over them like a flood, and that wholesome idea has come to nothing.