על המידות הטובות כ״זOn the Virtues 27
א׳
1[145] I also admire another law attuned to the harmonious choir of those above mentioned. This law forbids muzzling the ox when it treads out the corn. It is the ox who, before the deep soiled lowlands receive the seed, cleaves the furrows and sets the fields ready for heaven and the husbandman; for the husbandman that he may sow the seed in due season, for heaven that its kindly gifts of rain may be received in the deep hollows which store them up and deal them out part by part as rich nourishment to the crop, until it brings forth first the ear and then the consummation of the yearly fruit. And after that consummation the ox is again necessary for another service, to purge the sheaves and sift the refuse from the genuine and useful material.
ב׳
2[146] But since I have mentioned the kindly and benevolent injunction on behalf of the oxen when treading the corn, I will cite next the law enacted in behalf of cattle which plough the land. This is a law of the same family. It forbids the yoking together of an ox and an ass for ploughing the land, and has in view not merely the incongruity of the animals, since the ox is clean and the ass belongs to the unclean, and it is not fitting to put together creatures so alien in status, but also their disparity of strength. It takes thought for the weaker, and would not have them suffer discomfort or oppression from superior force, and although the weaker, the ass, is banished from the sacred precincts and the stronger, the ox, is accepted by the law as a victim in sacrifices where perfection is most required,
ג׳
3[147] it did not despise the weakness of the unclean, nor permit the clean to employ strength rather than justice. Those whose souls have ears can almost hear it speaking plainly in a voice loud and insistent that we should do no wrongs to men of other nations, if we can accuse them of nothing save difference of race, which is no matter for accusation, since nothing which is neither vice nor springs from vice is liable to any impeachment.