On Moral Virtue (5-9)

But inasmuch as philosophers do not make virtue as a whole a mean nor apply to it the term moral, we must discuss the difference, starting with first principles. Now in this world things

are of two sorts, some of them existing absolutely, others in some relation to us. Things that exist absolutely are earth, heavens, stars, sea; things that exist in relation to us are good and evil, things desirable and to be avoided, things pleasant and painful. Now reason[*] contemplates both of these, but when it is concerned merely with things which exist absolutely, it is called scientific and contemplative; and when it is engaged with those things which exist in relation to us, it is called deliberative and practical. The virtue of the latter activity is called prudence, that of the former wisdom; and prudence differs from wisdom in that when the contemplative faculty is occupied in a certain active relationship with the practical and passionate, prudence comes to subsist in accordance with reason. Therefore prudence[*] has need of chance, but wisdom has no need of it, nor yet of deliberation, to attain its proper end; for wisdom is concerned with things that remain ever the same and unchanging. And just as the geometer does not deliberate whether the triangle has its internal angles equal to two right angles, but knows it to be true (for deliberation concerns matters that are now one way, now another, not things that are sure and immutable), just so the contemplative mind has its activity concerning first principles, things that are permanent and have ever one nature incapable of mutation, and so has no occasion for deliberation. But prudence must often come down among things that are material and are full of error and confusion; it has to move in the realm of chance; to deliberate where the case is doubtful; and then at last to reduce deliberation to practice in activities in which decisions are both accompanied by and influenced by the irrational, whose impulsion they, as a matter of fact, need. The impulsion of passion springs from moral virtue; but it needs reason to keep it within moderate bounds and to prevent its exceeding or falling short of its proper season. For it is indeed true that the passionate and irrational moves sometimes too violently and swiftly, at other times more weakly and slothfully than the case demands. Therefore everything that we ever do can succeed but in one way, while it may fail in many ways[*]: for to hit the mark there is but one single, uncomplicated, way, yet it can be missed in several ways, according to whether we exceed the mean, or fall short of it. This, then, is the natural task of practical reason: to eliminate both the defects and the excesses of the passions. For wherever, through infirmity and weakness, or fear and hesitation, the impulsion yields too soon and prematurely forsakes the good,[*] there practical reason comes on the scene to incite and rekindle the impulsion; and where, again, the impulsion is borne beyond proper bounds, flowing powerfully and in disorder, there practical reason removes its violence and checks it. And thus by limiting the movement of the passions reason implants in the irrational the moral virtues, which are means between deficiency and excess. For we must not declare that every virtue comes into being by the observance of a mean, but, on the one hand, wisdom, being without any need of the irrational and arising in the activity of the mind, pure and uncontaminated by passion, is, as it were, a self-sufficing perfection and power[*] of reason, by which the most divine and blessed element of knowledge becomes possible for us; on the other hand, that virtue which is necessary to us because of our physical limitations, and needs, by Heaven, for its practical ends the service of the passions as its instrument, so to speak, and is not a destruction nor abolition of the irrational in the soul, but an ordering and regulation thereof, is an extreme as regards its power and quality, but as regards its quantity it is a mean, since it does away with what is excessive and deficient.

But since a mean [*] is capable of various interpretations (for that which is a compound is a mean between the simple uncompounded substances, as grey is of white and black; and that which contains and is contained is a mean between the contained and the container, as eight of twelve and four; and that which partakes of neither of the extremes is a mean, as the indifferent is a mean between good and bad), in none of these ways can virtue be called a mean, for it is not a mixture of the vices, nor, encompassing what falls short of due measure, is it encompassed by that which is in excess of it; nor is it entirely exempt from the impulses of the passions, wherein are found excess and deficiency. But it is a mean, and is said to be so, in a sense very like that which obtains in musical sounds and harmonies. For there the mean or mese, a properly-pitched note[*] like the neti and

the hypatê,[*] escapes the sharp highness of the one and the heavy deepness of the other; so virtue, being an activity and faculty concerned with the irrational, does away with the remissions and overstrainings of the impulse and its excesses and defects altogether, and reduces each passion to moderation and faultlessness. So, for instance, they declare courage[*] to be a mean between cowardice and rashness, of which the former is a defect, the latter an excess, of the spirited part of the soul; so, likewise, liberality is a mean between parsimony and prodigality, and gentleness between insensibility and cruelty; and temperance itself and justice are means, the latter distributing to itself in contracts neither more nor less than what is due, the former ever regulating the desires to a mean between lack of feeling and intemperance.

In this last instance, indeed, the irrational seems, with particular clearness, to allow us to observe the difference between itself and the rational, and to show that passion is essentially quite a different thing from reason. For self-control[*] would not differ from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, as regards the pleasures and desires, if it were the same part of the soul that we naturally use for desiring as for forming judgements. But the fact is that temperance belongs to the sphere where reason guides and manages the passionate element, like a gentle animal obedient to the reins, making it yielding in its desires and willingly receptive of moderation and propriety;

but the self-controlled man, while he does indeed direct his desire by the strength and mastery of reason, yet does so not without pain, nor by persuasion, but as it plunges sideways and resists, as though with blow and curb, he forcibly subdues it and holds it in, being the while himself full of internal struggle and turmoil. Such a conflict Plato[*] portrays in his simile of the horses of the soul, where the worse horse struggles against his better yoke-fellow and at the same time disconcerts the charioteer, who is ever forced to hold out against him and with might and main to rein him in,

Lest he let fall from his hands the crimson thongs,

as Simonides[*] has it. That is the reason why they do not account self-control even a virtue[*] in the absolute sense, but less than virtue. For it is not a mean which has been produced by the harmony of the worse with the better, nor has the excess of passion in it been eliminated, nor has the desiderative part of the soul become obedient and compliant to the intelligent part, but is vexed and causes vexation and is confined by compulsion and, though living with reason, lives as in a state of rebellion against it, hostile and inimical:

The city reeks with burning incense, rings

Alike with prayers for health and cries of woe[*]

even so is the soul of the self-controlled man because of its lack of consistency and its conflict. And on the same grounds they hold that incontinence also is something less than a vice, but that intemperance is a full-fledged vice. For intemperance possesses both an evil passion and an evil reason; under the influence of the former, it is incited by desire to shameful conduct; under the influence of the latter, which, since its judgement is evil, is enlisted with the desires, intemperance loses even the perception of its errors. But incontinence,[*] with the aid of reason, preserves its power of judgement intact, yet by its passions, which are stronger than its reason, it is swept along against its judgement. That is why incontinence differs from intemperance, for in it reason is worsted by passion, whereas with intemperance reason does not even fight; in the case of incontinence reason argues against the desires as it follows them, whereas with intemperance reason guides them and is their advocate; it is characteristic of intemperance that its reason shares joyfully in the sins committed, whereas with incontinence the reason shares in them, but with reluctance; with intemperance, reason is willingly swept along into shameful conduct, whereas with incontinence, it betrays honour unwillingly.

So also the difference between them is not less manifest in their words than in their actions. These are, for instance, the sayings of intemperate persons:

What pleasure can there be, what joy, without

The golden Aphrodite? May I die

When things like these no longer comfort me.[*]

And another says,

To eat, to drink, to have one’s way in love[*]:

All other things I call accessory,

as though with all his soul he were acquiescing in pleasures and were being subverted thereby. Not less than these does he[*] who says

Leave me to die, for that is best for me,

have his judgement suffering with the same ailment as his passions.

But the sayings of incontinence are otherwise and different:

A mind I have, but Nature forces me[*];

and

Alas I from God this evil comes to men

When, knowing what is good, they do it not[*];

and

The spirit yields and can resist no more,

Like anchor-hook in sand amid the surge.[*]

Here not inaptly the poet terms an anchor-hook in sand that which is not under the control of reason, nor firmly fixed, but surrenders its judgement to the loose and soft part of the soul. Very close to this imagery are also those famous lines[*]:

I, like some ship, am tied by ropes to shore,

And when winds blow, our cables do not hold.

For here the poet calls cables the judgements which resist shameful conduct and then are broken by passion, as by a great gust of wind. Truly the intemperate man is swept along to his pleasures by his desires with sails full-spread and delivers himself over to them and steers his course directly thither; whereas the course of the incontinent man zigzags here and there, as he strives to emerge from his passion and to stave it off and is yet swept down and shipwrecked on the reef of shameful conduct. Just as Timon[*] used to lampoon Anaxarchus:

The Cynic might of Anaxarchus seemed

Steadfast and bold, wherever he wished, to spring;

Well did he know the truth, they said, and yet

Was bad: for Nature smote him with desire

And led him back from truth - ’twas Nature’s dart,

Before whom trembles many a Sophist heart.

For neither is the wise man continent, though he is temperate, nor is the fool incontinent, though he is intemperate. For the wise man takes pleasure in what is honourable, but the fool is not vexed by shamefulness. Incontinence, therefore, is the mark of a sophistic soul, which has, indeed, reason, but reason which cannot stand firm by its own just decisions.

Such, then, are the differences between incontinence and intemperance; and again between continence and temperance, these differences being the counterpart of the former. For continence is not yet free from remorse and pain and indignation; but in the soul of the temperate man there is serenity on all occasions, freedom from violent changes, and sanity, by which the irrational is harmonized and blended

with reason, when this is equipped with great persuasion and a wonderful gentleness. And you would say, as you looked at the man,

Then, indeed, ceased the gale; a windless calm

Arose; some god had laid the waves to rest,[*]

since by reason the violent, raging, and furious movements of the desires had been quenched and those movements which Nature absolutely requires had been made sympathetic, submissive, friendly, and, when the man chose a course of action, willing to co-operate, so that they did not outstrip the dictates of reason, nor fall short of them, nor misbehave, nor disobey, but so that every impulse was easily led

As new-weaned foal beside his mother runs,[*]

and confirmed the remark of Xenocrates[*] about true philosophers, that they alone do willingly what all others do unwillingly because of the law, even as dogs by a blow and cats by a noise are turned from their pleasures and regard with suspicion the danger that threatens them.

It is quite obvious, then, that there is in the soul a perception of some such distinction and difference as regards the desires, as though some force were fighting against them and contradicting them. But some affirm[*] that passion is not essentially different from reason, nor is there quarrelling between the

two and factious strife, but only a conversion of one and the same reason to its two aspects; this escapes our notice by reason of the suddenness and swiftness of the change, for we do not perceive that it is the same part of the soul with which we naturally desire and change to aversion, are angry and afraid, are swept along by pleasure to shameful conduct, and then, when the soul itself is being swept away, recover ourselves again. In fact, they say, desire and anger and fear and all such things are but perverse opinions and judgements, which do not arise in one certain part of the soul, but are inclinations and yieldings, assents and impulses of the whole directive faculty and, in a word, certain activities which may in a moment be changed this way or that, just as the sudden assaults of children[*] have an impetuosity and violence that is precarious and inconstant because of children’s weakness.

But this doctrine is, in the first place, contrary to the clear evidence of our perceptions. For no one ever perceives in himself a change from desiring to judging, nor again a change from judging to desiring; nor does the lover cease loving when he reasons that he must restrain his love and fight against it, and then give up again the process of reasoning and judging when he is softened by desire and yields to love; but both while by reason he still continues to oppose passion, he continues in the passion, and again, when mastered by passion, he plainly sees his error by the light of reason: and neither through passion has he done away with reason, nor through reason is he rid of passion, but being borne back and forth from one to the other he lies between them and

participates in both. For those who assume now that desire becomes the controlling faculty, now that it is reason which arrays itself against desire, are in the same position as those who assume the hunter and the beast to be not two,[*] but one and the same body which, by a change, is now the beast, and now becomes the hunter. For just as those persons overlook something quite plain, so these testify against the evidence of perception, which tells us that we have in these cases, not a changing of some one thing, but two things struggling and fighting against one another.

What then? they object. Is it not true that man’s deliberative faculty also is often divided and distracted toward contrary opinions regarding what is expedient, but that it is yet one and the same? Quite so, we shall say, but the process is not parallel. For the intellectual part of the soul does not here oppose itself,but, using one and the same faculty, applies itself to different lines of reasoning; or rather, there is but one single reason, which functions on things essentially different, as though on different matters. Therefore neither is pain present in reasoning where passion is absent, nor are men forced, as it were, to choose a course contrary to reason, unless indeed some emotion is furtively attached, as it were, to one pan of the balances. This, in fact, happens often: when it is not reasoning that opposes reasoning, but ambition or contentiousness or the pursuit of

favour or jealousy or fear that opposes, we think it is a difference between two reasons, as in the verse[*]:

To refuse they were ashamed, but feared to accept;

and this:

To die is dreadful, yet it brings fair fame;

Not to die is craven, yet there’s pleasure there.[*]

And in the judgement of suits concerning business affairs the passions rush in unawares and cause the greatest waste of time. So also in the councils of kings those who speak to obtain favour are not advocating one or the other of two decisions, but are submitting to some emotion which is contrary to their calculation of what is expedient. Therefore in aristocratic states the magistrates do not allow political speakers to make passionate harangues, for reason, if not influenced by passion, inclines to a just balance toward what is right; but if passion intervenes, the part of the soul that feels pleasure and pain fights and opposes the part which forms judgements and deliberates. Otherwise, why is it that in philosophical speculations no feeling of pain is present when, under the influence of those who hold different opinions, we change our views again and again, but that Aristotle[*] himself and Democritus and Chrysippus have recanted without any dismay or pain, and even with pleasure, some of the dogmas they previously held? It is because passion has set up no opposition to the contemplative and scientific part of the soul and the irrational part remains quiet and does not meddle with these matters. Therefore reason, as soon as the truth appears, dismisses the false and gladly inclines toward the truth; for it is in reason, not in its opposite, that the faculty resides which yields to persuasion and, through persuasion, changes opinion. But with most people, their deliberations, judgements, and decisions which are to be converted into action are in a state of emotion and therefore offer obstructions and difficulties to the path of reason, for reason is checked and confused by the irrational, which, with some emotion of pleasure or fear, pain or desire, rises up to oppose it. In such cases the senses make the decision, since they have contact with both; and if, in fact, one gains the mastery, it does not destroy the other, but forces it to comply and drags it along resisting. For the lover who admonishes himself[*] uses reason against his passion, since they both exist at the same time in his soul, as it were pressing with his hand the other member, which is inflamed, and clearly perceiving that there are two distinct forces and that they are at variance. On the other hand, in those deliberations and speculations where passion is absent (and these are the sort in which the contemplative faculty most commonly engages), if they be equally balanced, no judgement has taken place, but merely a perplexity has arisen, which is a rest or suspension of intellectual activity brought about by opposing probabilities; but if the inclination falls to either side, the winning opinion has cancelled the other, with the result that there is no pain nor any opposition left. In general, when it appears that reason is opposing reason, there is no perception of them as two distinct things, but as a single thing which arises in different impressions made upon the senses. Yet when there is a struggle against reason on the part of the irrational, which, by its very nature, can neither conquer nor be conquered without pain, straightway the irrational splits the soul in two by its battling and makes the distinction between the two perfectly obvious.

It is not only from their dissension, however, but no less from their agreement, that one can perceive that the source of passion is essentially different from that of reason. For since it is equally possible to love a noble youth, well-formed by nature for virtue, and to love an evil and profligate one, and since it happens that one both becomes angry irrationally against one’s own children or parents, and angry justly on behalf of parents and children against enemies and despots; just as in the one case there is perception of struggle and dissension of passion against reason, so in the other there is perception of persuasion and agreement on the part of passion, which inclines the scales, as it were, in favour of reason and increases its power. Yet again, when a good man has lawfully married a wife, his intention is to treat her respectfully and consort with her honourably and soberly; but as time goes on, his intimacy with her has given birth to passion, when he perceives that his love and affection increases by the exercise of his reason. So again, when young men happen upon cultivated teachers, they follow them and admire them at first because of their usefulness; but later they come to feel affection for them also, and in place of familiar companions and pupils they are called lovers and are actually so. The same thing happens also in people’s relations to good magistrates in cities and good neighbours and

relatives by marriage; for in the beginning they dutifully associate with one another from some consideration of usefulness, but later they are carried unconsciously into genuine affection, reason drawing along, and aiding in the persuasion of, the passionate element. Is it not obvious that he[*] who said,

And modesty. Two kinds there are: the one

Not bad, the other burdening our homes,

has perceived in himself that this emotion often follows the lead of reason and is arrayed at reason’s side, but often, contrary to reason, by hesitations and delays ruins opportunities and actions?

But my opponents, though forced to concede in a manner these arguments because of their obvious truth, yet persist in calling shame modesty, [*] pleasure joy, and fears precautions. No one would blame them for this euphemism if they would but call these same emotions by these soft names when they attach themselves to reason, and call them by those harsher names when the emotions oppose and offer violence to reason. But when, convicted by their tears and tremblings and changes of colour, in place of grief and fear they call these emotions compunctions and perplexities and gloss over the desires with the term eagernesses, they seem to be devising casuistic, not philosophic, shifts and escapes from reality through the medium of fancy names.

And yet these very men,[*] to cite another instance, call those joys, volitions, and precautions of

theirs right sensibilities to emotion, not insensibilities, in this case using the terms correctly. For a right sensibility arises when reason does not destroy the emotion, but composes and sets it in order in the souls of temperate persons. But what it is that happens in the case of evil and incontinent persons when, though their judgement tells them to love father and mother in place of a favourite or mistress, they cannot do this; yet when their judgement bids them to love courtesan and flatterer, they immediately do that very thing? For if emotion and judgement were one, love and hate would follow upon our judgement of what we ought to love and hate; but as it is, the contrary happens: with some judgements the emotion joins forces, others it disregards. Therefore even these very men[*] affirm, since the evidence forces them to do so, that not every judgement is an emotion, but only that which sets in motion a violent and excessive impulse, thereby acknowledging that in us the faculty of judging and the faculty of feeling emotion are different, in the sense that the one is that which sets in motion, the other that which is moved. And Chrysippus himself in many places, by defining endurance and continence as states which follow the convictions of reason, is obviously forced by the evidence to acknowledge that that within us which follows is different from that which it follows when persuaded, or, on the other hand, fights against when it is not persuaded.