Now, in this law there were contained some sayings which seemed to exhort and encourage men to affect retirement and a solitary life, and to intimate that salvation and happiness were to be attained thereby; other sayings, again, seemed to encourage men unto conversation and fellowship and applying themselves to embrace human society.

Asal addicted himself wholly to retirement, and he preferred those sayings which tended thereunto, seeing that he was by nature inclined to perpetual contemplation, and searching into the meanings of things; for he had great hopes of attaining to his ends by selecting a solitary life.

Salaman, however, applied himself to conversation and human society and those sayings of the law that tended that way, because he had a natural aversion to contemplation and more subtle inquiries into things; and it occurred to him that society and company tended to drive away evil thoughts, and banished that diversity of opinions which intruded themselves into his mind and kept him from attending the motions and suggestions of evil spirits. And in the end their disagreement on this particular point caused them to depart one from another.