226
desire and lust?’ (A.) ‘When their possessor uses them in quest of the goods of the next world, for reason and knowledge are altogether profitable; but it behoves their owner to expend them not in the quest of the goods of this world, save in so far as may be needful for gaining his livelihood and defending himself from its mischief.’ (Q.) ‘What is most worthy that a man should apply himself thereto and occupy his heart withal?’ (A.) ‘Good works.’ (Q.) ‘If a man do this, it diverts him from gaining his living: how then shall he do for his livelihood, which he cannot dispense withal?’ (A.) ‘A man’s day is four-and-twenty hours, and it behoves him to employ one [third] part thereof in seeking his living, another in prayer and rest and the remainder in the pursuit of knowledge; for a reasonable man without knowledge is as a barren land, wherein is place for neither tillage nor tree-planting nor grass. Except it be prepared for tillage and planted, no fruit will profit therein; but, if it be tilled and planted, it brings forth goodly fruits. So with the ignorant man: there is no profit in him till knowledge be planted in him: then doth he bear fruit.’ (Q.) ‘What sayst thou of knowledge without understanding?’ (A.) ‘It is as the knowledge of a brute, which hath learnt the hours of its feeding and watering and waking, but hath no reason.’ (Q.) ‘Thou hast been brief in thine answer concerning this; but I accept thy reply. Tell me, how shall I guard myself against the Sultan?’ (A.) ‘By giving him no hold over thee.’ (Q.) ‘And how can I but give him hold over me, seeing that he is set in dominion over me and that the rein of my affair is in his hand?’ (A.) ‘His dominion over thee lies in the duties thou owest him; so, if thou give him his due, he hath no [farther] dominion over thee.’ (Q.) ‘What are a vizier’s duties to his king?’ (A.) ‘Good counsel and zealous service both in public and private, right judgment, the keeping of his secrets and that he
