The five days debate at Cicero's house in Tusculum between master and sophister.

SECT. XV. Inuring to labour, disposeth the Mind to a pa∣tient enduring of Pain.

THERE is some difference between Labour and Pain; they border indeed, but yet some∣what differ. Labour is an employment of Body or Mind, in the discharge of some toilsom Work or Office. But Pain is a rough motion in the Body, ungrateful to the Senses. The Greeks, whose Lan∣guage is more copious than ours, call both by one Name. For industrious men, they call Pains-taking∣men; we more properly Laborious; for it is one thing to labour, another thing to be pain'd. Greece sometimes at a loss for words, though thou think∣est thy self always to abound in them. It is one thing, I say, to be in Pain, another to take Pains. C. Marius was in Pain, when his swellings in the Veins of his Feet were cut. He took Pains when he march'd in sweltry weather; yet there is also some likeness between them, for (t) the being ac∣custom'd to labour, renders the enduring of Pain less dif∣ficult. Upon this ground they who made the Plat∣forms of Commonwealths in Greece, provided, that the Bodies of young men should be hardened by Labour. (u) These the Spartans extended to Women also, which in other States are treated with all tenderness, and kept within doors to save their Beauties. Now after the Ordinance of their Law-giver.

The Spartan Lasses, such nice Breeding slight, Who in Sun, Dust, and Toil, take more delight To Run, Swim the Eurotas, Foes o'recome, Than in Barbarians Pride, a fruitful Womb.

Therefore with these laborious Exercises, Pain doth also sometimes intermingle. They are thrust, smitten, flung, and they fall. So that the very labour doth bring a callous insensibility over the Pain.

(t) The being accustomed to labour, renders the enduring of Pain less difficult.] A second direction for the acquiring Patience under Pain, is an early habit of Pains taking.

(u) This the Spartans extended to Women also.] Lycurgus ordained that Boys and Girls should promiscuously wrestle in their Courts for Exercise. Plato in his Politicks much inclinable to the Spartans, allows the same upon Supposition, that the Vertues both of Men and Women are the same; which notwithstanding the Offices of both Sexes are diffe∣rent, and so should be their Education.