Verse 6. 'Nothing upon earth is without a cause.' 13. Why talent slow to study, or keen, is bestowed on the negligent. For therefore often even the slothful receives talent, that he may be more justly punished for his negligence, because he disdains to know that which he could have attained without labor. And therefore sometimes the diligent is pressed by the slowness of understanding, that he may find the greater rewards of recompense, the more he labors in the pursuit of discovery. Nothing, therefore, upon earth is without a cause, since both to the diligent slowness profits toward reward, and to the slothful swiftness grows toward punishment. To understand the things that are right, we are instructed sometimes by the zeal of labor, sometimes indeed by the pain of chastisement.