Plutarch's Morals
enthusiasm will be irresistible and invincible, such as Homer makes the
gods inspire men with, as in the line,
"Thus speaking he infused great might in Hector,
The shepherd of the people."[246]
and,
"He is not mad like this without the god,"[247]
as if the god had added passion to reason as an incitement and spur. And
you may see those very persons, whose opinions I am combating,
frequently urging on the young by praises, and frequently checking them
by rebukes, though pleasure follows the one, pain the other. For rebukes
and censure produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the
other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of
correction. And so Diogenes, when Plato was being praised, said, "What
has he to vaunt of, who has been a philosopher so long, and yet never
gave pain to anyone?" For one could not say, to use the words of
Xenocrates, that the mathematics are such handles to philosophy as are
the emotions of young men, such as shame, desire, repentance, pleasure,
pain, ambition, whereon reason and the law laying a suitable grip
succeed in putting the young man on the right road. So that it was no
bad remark of the Lacedaemonian tutor, that he would make the boy
entrusted to his charge pleased with what was good and displeased with
what was bad,[248] for a higher or nobler aim cannot be proposed in the
education fit for a freeborn lad.
[219] See "Meno," p. 72, A.
[220] Omitting [Greek: hetera], which Reiske justly
suspects.
[221] Reading [Greek: proton] with Wyttenbach.
[222] Homer, "Odyssey," xix. 208-212.
[223] As in the story in "Gil Blas" of the person who,
after eating a ragout of rabbit, was told it was a
ragout of cat.--Book X. chapter xii.
[224] As to Amoebeus, see Athenaeus, p. 623. D.
[225] "Iliad," xvi. 167.
[226] Generally speaking [Greek: ethos] is the habit,
[Greek: ethos] the moral character generated by habit.
The former is Aristotle's [Greek: energeia], the latter
his [Greek: hexis].
[227] I have adopted, it will be seen, the suggestion of
Wyttenbach, "[Greek: to logismo] mutandum videtur in
[Greek: ton chalinon]."
[228] Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyrannus," 4, 5. Quoted by our
author again "On Abundance of Friends," Sec. vi.
[229] Reading with "Reiske," [Greek: exagetai pros to
epithymein ta aischra].
[230] In the "Chrysippus" of Euripides, Fragm.
[231] Compare Romans viii. 19.
[232] "Odyssey," xii. 168, 169.
[233] This line is from Simonides, and is quoted again
in "How one may be aware of one's Progress in Virtue," Sec.
xiv.
[234] "Iliad," vii. 93.
[235] Reading with Reiske, [Greek: eis duo].
[236] Reading [Greek: etei] with Reiske and Wyttenbach.
[237] Euripides, "Hippolytus" 385, 386.
[238] Reading with Reiske [Greek: pathesi] for [Greek:
pleiosi].
[239] See "Iliad," x. 374, sq.
[240] "Iliad," xi. 547.
[241] "De Anaxarchi supplicio nota res. v. Menage ad
Diog. Laeert. 9, 59. De Magae, reguli Cyrenarum, adversus
Philemonem lenitate v. De Cohibenda Ira, Sec.
ix."--_Reiske._
[242] "Celebres fuere quondam Chrysippi sex libri
[Greek: peri tes kata tas lezeis anomalias], in quibus
auctore Varrone, _propositum habuit ostendere, similes
res dissimilibus verbis et similibus dissimiles esse
notatas vocabulis_. v. Menage ad Diog. Laeert. 7,
192."--_Reiske._
[243] Compare "On Contentedness of Mind," Sec. xiii.
[244] Reading with _Reiske_, [Greek: aporrezeien].
[245] "Iliad," xiii. 284, 285.
[246] "Iliad," xv. 262.
[247] "Iliad," v. 185.
[248] Compare "That Virtue may be Taught," Sec. ii.
HOW ONE MAY BE AWARE OF ONE'S
PROGRESS IN VIRTUE.
Sec. I. What amount of argument, Sossius Senecio, will make a man know that
he is improving in respect to virtue, if his advances in it do not
bring about some diminution in folly, but vice, weighing equally with
all his good intentions, "acts like the lead that makes the net go
down?"[249] For neither in music nor grammatical knowledge could anyone
recognize any improvement, if he remained as unskilful in them as
before, and had not lost some of his old ignorance. Nor in the case of
anyone ill would medical treatment, if it brought no relief or ease, by
the disease somewhat yielding and abating, give any perception of
improvement of health, till the opposite condition was completely
brought about by the body recovering its full strength. But just as in
these cases there is no improvement unless, by the abatement of what
weighs them down till they rise in the opposite scale, they recognize a
change, so in the case of those who profess philosophy no improvement or
sign of improvement can be supposed, unless the soul lay aside and purge
itself of some of its imperfection, and if it continue altogether bad
until it become absolutely good and perfect. For indeed a wise man
cannot in a moment of time change from absolute badness to perfect
goodness, and suddenly abandon for ever all that vice, of which he could
not during a long period of time divest himself of any portion. And yet
you know, of course, that those who maintain these views frequently give
themselves much trouble and bewilderment about the difficulty, that a
wise man does not perceive that he has become wise, but is ignorant and
doubtful that in a long period of time by little and little, by removing
some things and adding others, there will be a secret and quiet
improvement, and as it were passage to virtue. But if the change were so
great and sudden that the worst man in the morning could become the best
man at night, or should the change so happen that he went to bed vicious
and woke up in the morning wise, and, having dismissed from his mind all
yesterday's follies and errors, should say,
"False dreams, away, you had no meaning then!"[250]
who on earth could be ignorant of so great a change happening to
himself, of virtue blazing forth so completely all at once? I myself am
of opinion that anyone, like Caeneus,[251] who, according, to his
prayer, got changed from a woman into a man, would sooner be ignorant of
the transformation, than that a man should become at once, from a
cowardly and senseless person with no powers of self-control, brave and
sensible and perfect master of himself, and should in a moment change
from a brutish life to a divine without being aware of it.
Sec. II. That was an excellent observation, Measure the stone by the
mason's rule, not the rule by the stone.[252] But the Stoics, not
applying dogmas to facts but facts to their own preconceived opinions,
and forcing things to agree that do not by nature, have filled
philosophy with many difficulties, the greatest of which is that all men
but the perfect man are equally vicious, which has produced the enigma
called progress, one little short of extreme folly, since it makes those
who have not at once under its guidance given up all passions and
disorders equally unfortunate as those who have not got rid of a single
vile propensity. However they are their own confuters, for while they
lay down in the schools that Aristides was as unjust as Phalaris, and
Brasidas as great a craven as Dolon, and Plato actually as senseless as
Meletus, in life and its affairs they turn away from and avoid one class
as implacable, while they make use of the others and trust them in most
important matters as most worthy people.
Sec. III. But we who see that in every kind of evil, but especially in a
disordered and unsettled state of mind, there are degrees of more and
less (so that the progress made differs in different cases, badness
abating, as a shadow flees away, under the influence of reason, which
calmly illuminates and cleanses the soul), cannot consider it
unreasonable to think that the change will be perceived, as people who
come up out of some ravine can take note of the progress they make
upwards. Look at the case from the following point of view first. Just
as mariners sailing with full sail over the gaping[253] ocean measure
the course they have made by the time they have taken and the force of
the wind, and compute their progress accordingly, so anyone can compute
his progress in philosophy by his continuous and unceasing course, by
his not making many halts on the road, and then again advancing by leaps
and bounds, but by his quiet and even and steady march forward guided by
reason. For the words of the poet, "If to a little you keep adding a
little, and do so frequently, _it will soon be a lot_,"[254] are not
only true of the increase of money, but are universally applicable, and
especially to increase in virtue, since reason invokes to her aid the
enormous force of habit. On the other hand the inconsistencies and
dulnesses of some philosophers not only check advance, as it were, on
the road, but even break up the journey altogether, since vice always
attacks at its leisure and forces back whatever yields to it.[255] The
mathematicians tell us that planets, after completing their course,
become stationary; but in philosophy there is no such intermission or
stationary position from the cessation of progress, for its nature is
ever to be moving and, as it were, to be weighed in the scales,
sometimes being overweighted by the good preponderating, sometimes by
the bad. If, therefore, imitating the oracle given to the Amphictyones
by the god, "to fight against the people of Cirrha every day and every
night,"[256] you are conscious that night and day you ever maintain a
fierce fight against vice, not often relaxing your vigilance, or long
off your guard, or receiving as heralds to treat of peace[257] the
pleasures, or idleness, or stress of business, you may reasonably go
forward to the future courageously and confidently.
Sec. IV. Moreover, if there be any intermissions in philosophy, and yet
your later studies are firmer and more continuous than your former ones,
it is no bad indication that your sloth has been expelled by labour and
exercise; for the contrary is a bad sign, when after a short time your
lapses from zeal become many and continuous, as if your zeal were dying
away. For as in the growth of a reed, which shoots up from the ground
finely and beautifully to an even and continuous height, though at first
from its great intervals it is hindered and baffled in its growth, and
afterwards through its weakness is discouraged by any breath of air, and
though strengthened by many and frequent joints, yet a violent wind
gives it commotion and trembling, so those who at first make great
launches out into philosophy, and afterwards find that they are
continually hindered and baffled, and cannot perceive that they make any
progress, finally get tired of it and cry off. "But he who is as it were
winged,"[258] is by his simplicity borne along to his end, and by his
zeal and energy cuts through impediments to his progress, as merely
obstacles on the road. As it is a sign of the growth of violent love,
not so much to rejoice in the presence of the loved one, for everyone
does that, as to be distressed and grieved at his absence,[259] so many
feel a liking for philosophy and seem to take a wonderful interest in
the study, but if they are diverted by other matters and business their
passion evaporates and they take it very easily. "But whoever is
strongly smitten with love for his darling"[260] will show his mildness
and agreeableness in the presence of and joint pursuit of wisdom with
the loved one, but if he is drawn away from him and is not in his
company you will see him in a stew and ill at ease and peevish whether
at work or leisure, and unreasonably forgetful of his friends, and