Chapter VI.
How the weak are easily moved.
For
those who are not yet
settled in the line which they have taken up are often, when they hear
some praised for different interests and virtues, so excited by the
praise of them that they try forthwith to imitate their method: and in
this human weakness is sure to expend its efforts to no purpose. For it
is an impossibility for one and the same man to excel at once in all
those good deeds which I enumerated above. And if anyone is anxious
equally to affect them all, he is quite sure to come to this; viz.,
that while he pursues them all, he will not thoroughly
succeed in any one, and will lose more than he
will gain from this changing and shifting about. For in many ways men
advance towards God, and so each man should complete that one which he
has once fixed upon, never changing the course of his purpose, so that
he may be perfect in whatever line of life his may be.