CHAPTER XXXV - How Antam Gonçalvez went to make the ransom

Summary

If I marvelled before at the endurance of John Fernandez (to wit, his living in that land and enduring what I have said), little less do I marvel at the affection which those who dwelt there came to feel for him. And albeit that his affability was very great towards all other people, I was astonished it could exist towards these, or how it could be so felt and returned by such savages; for I am assured that when he parted from the men among whom he had lived those seven months, many of them wept with regretful thought. But why do I say so, when I know that we are all sons of Adam, composed of the same elements, and that we all receive a soul as reasonable beings? True it is that, in some bodies, the instruments are not so good for producing virtues as they are in others, to whom God by His grace hath granted such power; and when men lack the first principles on which the higher ones depend, they lead a life little less than bestial. For into three modes is the life of men divided, as saith the Philosopher. The first are those who live in contemplation, leaving on one side all other worldly matters and only occupying themselves in praying and contemplating, and those he calls demi-gods. And the second are those who live in cities, improving their estates and trading one with another.