But when confronted with the one way in
which this might have been done, if it was to be done at all, he
shrank from coming into close and intimate relations with me as a
pupil and listener to my discourses on philosophy, fearing the
danger suggested by mischief-makers, that he might be ensnared, and so
Dion would prove to have accomplished all his object. I endured all
this patiently, retaining the purpose with which I had come and the
hope that he might come to desire the philosophic life. But his
resistance prevailed against me.
The time of my first visit to Sicily and my stay there was taken
up with all these incidents. On a later occasion I left home and again
came on an urgent summons from Dionysios. But before giving the
motives and particulars of my conduct then and showing how suitable
and right it was, I must first, in order that I may not treat as the
main point what is only a side issue, give you my advice as to what
your acts should be in the present position of affairs; afterwards, to
satisfy those who put the question why I came a second time, I will
deal fully with the facts about my second visit; what I have now to
say is this.
He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial to
health, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's manner
of life, and if the patient is willing to obey him, he may go on to
give him other advice. But if he is not willing, I shall consider
one who declines to advise such a patient to be a man and a physician,
and one who gives in to him to be unmanly and unprofessional.
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