Note 18 — Part II.

I trouble myself only with my own affairs. I understand this of the virtue spoken of by Cicero (de Officiis, I, 34), “nihil praeter suum negotium agere, nihil de alieno anquirere, minimeque esse in aliena republica curiosum.” It is the same to which Plato refers in the Timaeus, 72 A; εὖ καὶ πάλαι λέγεται τὸ πράττειν καὶ γνῶναι τὰ τε ἑαυτοῦ καὶ ἑαυτὸν σώφρονι μόνῳ προσήκειν, not in the sense of a selfish indifference to a neighbour’s welfare or the public good, but in opposition to the ways of the busybodies, who tattle and “speak things which they ought not” (1 Tim., v, 13).