Fish kinds, greed, and the crab's cunning

For each kind the succession is unchangeable and unmixed with another nature. It is not like the mules on dry land, or the couplings of certain birds that falsify the kinds. Among fish nothing is armed with teeth only halfway, as the ox is among us and the sheep; for nothing among them chews the cud, except the scarus alone, as some report. All of them are packed thick with the sharpest points of teeth, so that their food may not slip away through prolonged chewing; for if it were not cut up quickly and sent on to the stomach, it would be dissolved in the fine dividing by the water.

The food of fish is different for different kinds, marked out according to kind. Some feed on mud; others on seaweed; others are satisfied with the plants that grow in the water. But most fish are eaters of one another, and among them the smaller is food for the larger. And if it ever happens that the one that overpowered the smaller becomes the prey of another, they are brought under the single stomach of the last one. What then do we human beings do differently in our domination of those who are weaker? How does the man differ from the last fish, who with gluttonous love of wealth hides the weak in the insatiable folds of his greed? That one had what belonged to the poor man; you took this and made it part of your own surplus. You have shown yourself more unjust than the unjust, and more greedy than the greedy. Beware lest the same end as the fish await you—some hook, or weel, or net. For certainly we too, after passing through many acts of injustice, will not escape the final punishment.

Now that I have observed in a weak animal the great cunning and treachery, I want you to flee the imitation of evildoers. The crab desires the flesh of the oyster; but the catch is hard for it to make because of the shell's covering. For nature has secured the soft flesh with an unbreakable fence. This is why it is called shell-skinned. And since two hollows fitted precisely to each other enfold the oyster, the claws of the crab are necessarily ineffective. What then does it do? When it sees the oyster in windless places warming itself with pleasure, and spreading out its folds toward the ray of the sun, then it secretly slips in a pebble and prevents the closing, and the deficiency of its power is found to be supplied by its cunning. This is the wickedness of creatures that share neither reason nor voice. But I want you, admiring the resourceful ingenuity of crabs, to refrain from harming your neighbors. Such is the one who proceeds against his brother with deceit, and attacks his neighbors in their moments of vulnerability, and revels in the misfortunes of others. Flee the imitations of those who stand condemned. Be content with what is your own. Poverty with true self-sufficiency is more precious to the wise than every enjoyment.

I would not pass over the deceit and trickery of the octopus, which takes on the color of whatever rock it clings to at any given time. So most fish, swimming without foresight, fall upon the octopus as if it were the rock, and become ready prey for the cunning creature. Such in character are those who go along with the powers that always prevail, and adapt themselves to each occasion's needs, never standing on the same fixed purpose, but easily becoming different people at different times—honoring self-control among the self-controlled, but licentious among the licentious, shifting their judgments to please each person.