Soclarus
SOCLARUS. Well, Autobulus, you may count me also as one who believes your statements; yet on comparing the ways of beasts with human customs and lives, with human actions and manner of living, I find not only many other defects in animals, but this especially: they do not explicitly aim at virtue,On animals possessing aretê see Aelian’s preface to the first book of De Natura Animal.; cf. also Mor. 986 f infra; al. for which purpose reason itself exists; nor do they make any progress in virtue or have any bent for it; so that I fail to see how Nature can have given them even elementary reason, seeing that they cannot achieve its end.
