How a Man May Become Aware of His Progress in Virtue (intro-4)

The essay on Progress in Virtue is one of Plutarch’s polemics against the Stoics, and is directed mainly against two of the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy. The first is that the wise man alone is virtuous, and that wisdom with attendant virtue is a sudden acquisition with no preliminary stages; the second is in a way the corollary of the first, since, if a man is not perfect (i.e. wise), it may be argued that it matters little how trivial is his imperfection and whether his faults be great or small. He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all.

Against such doctrines as these Plutarch’s strong common sense revolts, and he endeavours to show not only that ethical advance is possible, but that there are plenty of signs by which it can be recognized.

The essay is addressed (or dedicated) to Q. Sosius [*] Senecio, one of Plutarch’s numerous Roman friends, who was twice consul in the early years of Trajan’s reign. It was at his request that Plutarch composed the Symposiacs, in which his name frequently appears, and to him are inscribed also the parallel lives of Theseus and Romulus, Demosthenes and Cicero, and Dion and Brutus. Plutarch had been with him much in Rome, and he had visited Plutarch in Greece. It is doubtless the same Sosius whom the younger Pliny addressed in two letters (i. 13 and iv. 4) which have come down to us. a So spelled in the best mss. of Pliny and in inscriptions.

What possible form of argument, my dear Sosius Senetio, will keep alive in a mak the consciousness that he is growing better in regard to virtue, if it is a fact that the successive stages of his progress produce no abatement of his unwisdom, but, on the contrary, vice constantly besets all progress, and with countervailing weight drags him down,

As leaden weights submerge the fisher’s net?[*]

For, by the same token, in music or grammar a man would not realize that he was making any improvement if in the process of learning he should in no wise lower the level of his ignorance about these subjects, and his lack of proficiency should all the time persist to the same degree. So, too, in the case of a sick man, a course of treatment that should not in some way effect an easing and alleviation of the malady, by making it to yield and let go its hold on him, would not afford him any perception of a change for the better until the opposite condition had been unmistakably engendered, his body having completely recovered its strength. On the contrary, just as in these cases persons make no progress unless their progress is marked by such an abatement of what is oppressing them, that, when the scale turns and they swing upward in the opposite direction, they can note the change, so too, in the study of philosophy, neither progress nor any sense of progress is to be assumed, if the soul does not put aside any of its gross stupidity and purge itself thereof, and if, up to the moment of its attaining the absolute and perfect good, it is wedded to evil which is also absolute. Why, if this be so, the wise man in a moment or a second of time changes from the lowest possible depravity to an unsurpassable state of virtue; and all his vice, of which he has not in long years succeeded in removing even a small portion, he suddenly leaves behind for ever. Yet you doubtless know that, on the other hand, the authors of such assertions make for themselves much trouble and great difficulties over the unwitting man,[*] who has as yet failed to apprehend the fact that he has become wise, but does not know, and hesitates to believe, that his advancement, which has been effected by the gradual and longcontinued process of divesting himself of some qualities and adding others, has, as walking brings one where he would be, imperceptibly and quietly brought him into virtue’s company. But if there were such a swiftness in the change and a difference so vast, that the man who was the very worst in the morning should have become the very best at evening, or should the change so come about that he who was a worthless dolt when he fell asleep should awake wise, and, having dismissed from his soul his gross stupidities and false concepts of yesterday, could exclaim:

False dreams, farewell! Ye are but naught, it seems,[*]

—who would fail to recognize that a great difference like this had been wrought in his own self, and that the light of wisdom had all at once burst upon him ? Why, it seems to me that anyone who, like Caeneus,[*] were made man from woman in answer to prayer, would sooner fail to recognize the transformation. than that anyone made temperate, wise, and brave, from being cowardly, foolish, and licentious, and transferred from a bestial to a godlike life, should for a single second not perceive what had happened to him.

Rightly has it been said:

Adjust the stone to fit The line, and not the line to fit the stone.[*]

But those who do not adjust their tenets to fit the facts, but rather try to force the facts into an unnatural agreement with their own assumptions, [*] have filled philosophy with a great number of difficulties, of which the greatest is that which would assign all men to a general category of badness with the single exception of the absolutely perfect man; the result of which is to make a puzzle out of what we call progress, since it falls but little short of the uttermost foolishness, and represents men who have been released by it from all kinds of passions and weaknesses as living in a state of equal wretchedness with those who have not yet been freed from a single one of the worst evils. Now these men really refute themselves when, in their lectures, they put the wrongdoing of Aristeides on an equality with that of Phalaris, and the cowardice of Brasidas on an equality with that of Dolon, and the hard-hearted attitude of Plato as actually not differing at all from that of Meletus; whereas in their life and practice they show an aversion for these latter men and avoid them as ruthless, but the former they seem to think are men of great worth, for they cite them with confidence in the most important matters.

But as for us, we observe that there are degrees in every kind of evil, and especially in the indeterminate and undefined kind that has to do with the soul. (In the same way also there are different degrees of progress produced by the abatement of baseness like a receding shadow, as reason gradually illuminates and purifies the soul.) We do not, therefore, think that consciousness of the change is unreasonable in the case of persons who are, as it were, making their way upward out of some deep gorge, but that there are ways in which it can be computed. Of these I beg you to consider the first without further preface. Just as men sailing out into the open sea calculate their run by the time elapsed in conjunction with the strength of the wind, reckoning how much distance, after spending a certain time, while carried onward by a certain force, they are likely to have accomplished; so too in philosophy a man may take for himself as a proof that he is gaining ground the uniformity and continuity of his course, which makes on the way no frequent halts, followed by leaps and bounds, but smoothly and regularly forges ahead, and goes through the course of philosophic reasoning without mishap. For the lines:

If even small upon the small you place And do this oft,[*]

are not merely well put in regard to the increase of money, but they apply to everything, and especially to advancement in virtue, since reason thereby gains the aid of constant and effective habit. But the variation and obtuseness often shown by students of philosophy not only cause delays and stoppages in their progress on the road to knowledge, but also bring about retrogressions, since vice always makes an onset on the man who yields ground by loitering, and carries him backward in the opposite direction. Mathematicians tell us that the planets, when their forward movement ceases, become for the moment stationary, but in the study of philosophy there is no intermission when progress halts, nor any such thing as remaining stationary, but Nature, being never free from motion of some sort, is wont to move up or down, as though suspended on a balance, and to be swayed by the better motives, or else under the influence of the contrary motives it moves rapidly towards what is worse. If therefore you follow the advice given by the god in the oracle, to fight the Cirrhaeans all days and all nights, and are conscious that you likewise in the daytime and the nighttime have always carried on an unrelenting warfare against vice, or at least that you have not often relaxed your vigilance nor constantly granted admission to divers pleasures, recreations, and pastimes, which are, as it were, envoys sent by vice to treat for a truce, it is then quite probable that you may go on with good courage and confidence to what still remains.

However, even though it be that intermissions occur in one’s philosophical studies, yet if the later periods of study are more constant and

long-continued than they were earlier, [*] this is no slight indication that the spirit of indifference is being expelled through industry and practice; but there is something pernicious in the opposite condition, when numerous and continued set-backs occur after no long time, as if the spirit of eagerness were withering away. We may compare a reed, the growth of which at its beginning has a very great impetus, which results in an even and continuous length, at first in long sections, since it meets with few obstacles and repulses, but later, as though for lack of breath as it gets higher up, it grows weak and weary, and is gathered up in the many frequent nodules, when the life-giving spirit meets with buffets and shocks; so with philosophy, those who at the outset engage in long excursions into its realms and later meet with a long series of obstacles and distractions without becoming aware of any change toward the better, finally get wearied out, and give up. But a man of the other type is again given wings [*] by the help he gets as he is carried onward, and by the strength and eagerness born of successful accomplishment brushes aside pretences as though they were a hindering crowd in his path. In the same way that an indication of the beginning of love is to be found, not in the taking delight in the presence of the loved one (for this is usual), but in feeling a sting of pain when separated; just so are many allured by philosophy and seem to take hold of the task of learning with high aspirations, but if they are forced by other business and occupations to leave it, all that excitement of theirs subsides and they no longer care. But

He in whose heart the prick of youthful love [*]

is planted may appear to you moderate and mild while present at philosophical discussions; but when he is separated and apart from them, behold him ardent and troubled, and dissatisfied with all business and occupations, and, cherishing the mere recollection, he is driven about like an irrational being by his yearning towards philosophy. For we ought not to enjoy being present at discussions as we enjoy the presence of perfumes, and then when we are removed from them not seek after them or even feel uneasy; but we ought in our periods of separation to experience a sensation akin in a way to hunger and thirst, and so be led to cleave to what makes for real progress, whether it chance to be a wedding or wealth or the duties of friendship or military service that causes the temporary parting. For the greater the acquisition from philosophy is, the more annoyance there is in being cut off from it.