Of Moral Virtue (6-10)

Now mean and mediocrity may be differently understood. For there is one mean which is compounded and made up of the two simple extremes, as in colors, gray, of white and black; and another, where that which contains and is contained is the medium between the containing and the contained, as, for instance, the number eight, between twelve and four. And a third sort there is also,

which participates of neither extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent. But in none of these ways can virtue be said to be a mean, or mediocrity. For neither is it a mixture of vices, nor, comprehending that which is defective and short, is it comprehended by that which runs out into excess; nor yet is it exempt from the impetuosity and sudden efforts of the passions, in which excess and defect do properly take place. But moral virtue properly doth consist in a mean or mediocrity (and so it is commonly taken), most like to that which there is in our Greek music and harmony. For, whereas there are the highest and lowest musical notes in the extremities of the scale called nete and hypate; so likewise is there in the middle thereof, between these two, another musical note, and that the sweetest of all, called mese (or mean), which does as perfectly avoid the extreme sharpness of the one as it doth the over-flatness of the other. And so also virtue, being a motion and power which is exercised about the brutal and irrational part of the soul, takes away the remission and intention—in a word, the excess and defect—of the appetites, reducing thereby every one of the passions to a due mediocrity and perfect state of rectitude.

For example, fortitude is said to be the mean between cowardice and rashness, whereof the one is a defect, as the other is an excess of the irascible faculty; liberality, between sordid parsimony on the one hand, and extravagant prodigality on the other; clemency between insensibility of injuries and its opposite, revengeful cruelty; and so of justice and temperance; the former being the mean between giving and distributing more or less than is due in all contracts, affairs, and business between man and man, and the latter a just mediocrity between a stupid apathy, touched with no sense or relish of pleasure, and dissolute softness, abandoned to all manner of sensualities.

And from this instance of temperance it is, that we are most clearly given to understand the difference between the irrational and the rational faculties of the soul, and that it so plainly appears to us that the passions and affections of the mind are quite a distinct thing from reason. For otherwise never should we be able to distinguish continence from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, in lust and pleasures, if it were one and the same faculty of the soul wherewith we reason and judge, and whereby we desire and covet. Now temperance is that whereby reason governs and manages that part of the soul which is subject to the passions (as it were some wild creature brought up by hand, and made quite tame and gentle), having gained an absolute victory over all its appetites, and brought them entirely under the dominion of it. Whereas we call it continence, when reason has indeed gained the mastery over the appetites and prevailed against them, though not without great pains and trouble, they being perverse and continuing to struggle, as not having wholly submitted themselves; so that it is not without great difficulty able to preserve its government over them, being forced to retain and hold them in, and keep them within compass, as it were, with stripes, with the bit and bridle, while the mind all the time is full of nothing but agony, contentions, and confusion. All which Plato endeavors to illustrate by a similitude of the chariot-horses of the soul, the one whereof, being more unruly, not only kicks and flings at him that is more gentle and tractable, but also thereby so troubles and disorders the driver himself, that he is forced sometimes to hold him hard in, and sometimes again to give him his head,

Lest from his hands the purple reins should slip,

as Simonides speaks.

And from hence we may see why continence is not

thought worthy to be placed in the number of perfect virtues, but is taken to be a degree under virtue. For there is not therein produced a mediocrity arising from a symphony of the worst with the better, nor are the excesses of the passions retrenched; nor yet doth the appetite become obedient and subservient to the reasonable faculties, but it both makes and feels disorder and disturbance, being repressed by violence and constraint, and (as it were) by necessity; as in a sedition or faction in a city or state, the contending parties, breathing nothing but war and destruction and ruin to one another, do yet cohabit together (it may be) within the compass of the same walls; insomuch that the soul of the incontinent person, with respect to the conflicts and incongruities therein, may very properly be compared to the city,

Where all the streets are filled with incense smoke,

And songs of triumph mixed with groans resound.

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And upon the same grounds it is, that incontinence is held to be something less than vice also, but intemperance to be a complete and perfect vice, for therein not the appetite only but reason likewise is debauched and corrupted; and as the former incites and pushes forward the desires and affections to that which is evil, so this, by making an ill judgment, is easily led to consent and agree to the soft whispers and tempting allurements of corrupt lusts and passions, and soon loseth all sense of sin and evil. Whereas incontinence preserves the judgment, by the help of reason, right and sound; but yet, by irresistible force and violence of the passions, is even against judgment drawn away. Moreover, in these respects following it differeth also from intemperance:—inasmuch as reason in that is overpowered by passion, but in this it never so much as struggleth; the incontinent person, after a noble resistance, is at last forced to submit to the tyranny of his lusts, and follow their guidance, while the intemperate approves them, and gladly goes along with and submits to them; one feels remorse for the evil he commits, while the other prides in lewdness and vice. Again, the one wilfully and of his own accord runs into sin; while the other, even against his will, is forced to abandon that which is good.

And this difference between them is not to be collected only from their actions, but may as plainly also be discovered by their words. For at this rate do intemperate persons use to talk:

What mirth in life, what pleasure, what delight,

Without content in sports of Venus bright?

Were those joys past, and I for them unmeet,

Ring out my knell, bring forth my winding-sheet.

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And thus says another:

To eat, to drink, to wench are principal,

All pleasures else I accessories call;

as if from his very soul he were wholly abandoned and given up to pleasures and voluptuousness, and even over whelmed therein. And much of the same mind was he, and his judgment was as totally depraved by his passions, who said,

Let me, ye dull and formal fops, alone,

I am resolved, ’tis best to be undone.

But quite another spirit do we find running through the sayings of the incontinent:

Blame Nature only for it, blame not me,

Would she permit, I then should virtuous be,

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says one of them. And again,

Ah! ’tis decreed by Fate. We know, ’tis true,

We know those virtues, which we ne’er pursue.

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And another,

What will my swelling passions’ force assuage?

No more can I sustain this tempest’s rage,

Than anchor’s fluke, dropt on loose ground, a storm;

where not improperly he compares the fluke of an anchor dropped in loose ground to that ill-grounded, feeble, and irresolute reason, which by the vanity, weakness, and luxury of the mind is easily brought to forsake the judgment. And the like metaphor has the poet made use of happily enough in these verses:

To us, in ships moored near the shore who lie,

Though strong the cables, when the winds rise high

Cables will prove but small security;

where by the cables the poet means the judgment opposing itself against all that is evil or dishonest, which is, however, oftentimes disturbed and broken by violent and sudden gusts of the passions. For, indeed, the intemperate are borne away directly and with full sail to their pleasures; to them they deliver up themselves entirely, and thither it is they bend their whole course. While the incontinent, indirectly only, as endeavoring to sustain and repel the assaults of the passions and withstand their temptations, either is allured and as it were slides into evil, or else is plunged violently into it whether he will or no. As Timon, in his bitter way of raillery, reproaches Anaxarchus,

When first the dogged Anaxarchus strove

The power of virtue o’er his mind to prove,

Firm though he seemed, and obstinately good,

In vain th’ impulse of temper he withstood.

Nature recoiled, whatever he could do;

He saw those ills, which yet he did pursue;

In this not single, other sophists too

Felt the same force, which they could ne’er subdue.

And neither is a wise man continent, but temperate; nor a fool incontinent, but intemperate; the one taking true pleasure and delight in good, the other having no displeasure against evil. And therefore incontinence is said to be found only in a mind which is sophistical (or which barely makes a show of being governed and directed by prudence), and which has indeed the use of reason, but in so weak and faint a manner, that it is not able to persevere in that which it knows to be right.

Thus we have seen the diversity between incontinence and intemperance. And as for continence and temperance, their differences are analogous, and bear proportion to those of the other, but in contrary respects. For remorse, grief, and indignation do always accompany continence; whereas in the mind of a temperate person there is all over such an evenness, calmness, and firmness, that, seeing with what wonderful easiness and tranquillity the irrational faculties go along with reason and submit to its directions, one cannot but call to mind that of the poet:

Swift the command ran through the raging deep;

Th’ obedient waves compose themselves to sleep;

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reason having quite deadened and repressed the vehement raging and furious motions of the passions and affections. But those whose assistance Nature necessarily requires are by reason rendered so agreeable and consenting, so submissive, friendly, and co-operative in the execution of all good designs and purposes, that they neither outrun it, nor recede from it, nor behave themselves disorderly, nor ever show the least disobedience; but every appetite willingly and cheerfully pursues its dictates,

As sucking foal runs by his mother mare.

Which very much confirms what was said by Xenocrates of those who are true philosophers, namely, that they alone do that voluntarily which all others do against their wills for fear of the laws; being diverted and restrained from the pursuit of their pleasures, as a dog is frightened by a whipping or a cat scared by a noise, having regard to nothing else in the matter but their own danger.

It is manifest then from what has been discoursed, that the soul does perceive within itself something that is firm

and immovable, totally distinct from its passions and appetites, these being what it does always oppose and is ever contending with. But some there are, nevertheless, who affirm that reason and passion do not materially differ from one another, and that there is not in the soul any faction, sedition, or dissension of two several and contending faculties, but only a shifting, conversion, or alteration of the same reason or rational faculty from one side to the other, backward and forward, which, by reason of the suddenness and swiftness of the change, is not perceptible by us; and therefore, that we do not consider that the same faculty of the soul is by nature so adapted as to be capable of both concupiscence and repentance, of anger and of fear, of being drawn to the commission of any lewdness or evil by the allurements of pleasure, and afterwards of being again retrieved from it. And as for lust, anger, fear, and such like passions, they will have them to be nothing but perverse opinions and false judgments, not arising or formed in any inferior part of the soul, peculiarly belonging to them, but being the advances and returns, or the motions forward and backward, the good likenings and more vehement efforts, and (in a word) such operations and energies of the whole rational and directive faculty as are ready to be turned this way or that with the greatest ease imaginable; like the sudden motions and irruptions in children, the violence and impetuosity whereof, by reason of their imbecility and weakness, are very fleeting and inconstant.

But these opinions are against common sense and experience; for no man ever felt such a sudden change in himself, as that whenever he chose any thing he immediately judged it fit to be chosen, or that, on the other hand, whenever he judged any thing fit to be chosen he immediately made choice of it. Neither does the lover who is convinced by reason that his amour is fit to be

broken off, and that he ought to strive against his passion, therefore immediately cease to love; nor on the other side doth he desist reasoning, and cease from being able to give a right judgment of things, even then, when, being softened and overcome by luxury, he delivers himself up a captive to his lusts. But as, while by the assistance of reason he makes opposition to the efforts of his passions, they yet continue to solicit, and at last overcome him; so likewise, when he is overcome and forced to submit to them, by the light of reason does he plainly discern and know that he has done amiss; so that neither by the passions is reason effaced and destroyed, nor yet by reason is he rescued and delivered from them; but, being tossed to and fro between the one and the other, he is a kind of neuter, and participates in common of them both. And those, methinks, who imagine that one while the directive and rational part of the soul is changed into concupiscence and lust, and that by and by reason opposes itself against them, and they are changed into that, are not much unlike them who make the sportsman and his game not to be two, but one body, which, by a nimble and dexterous mutation of itself, one while appears in the shape of the huntsman, and at another turn puts on the form of a wild beast. For as these in a plain evident matter seem to be stalk blind, so they in the other case belie even their own senses, seeing they must needs feel in themselves not merely a change or mutation of one and the same thing, but a downright struggle and quarrel between two several and distinct faculties.

But is not, say they, the deliberative power or faculty of a man often divided in itself, and distracted among several opinions contrary to one another, about that which is expedient; and yet is but one, simple, uniform thing? All this we grant to be true; but it does not reach the case we are speaking of. For that part of the soul where reason

and judgment are seated is not at variance with itself, but by one and the same faculty is conversant about different reasonings; or rather, there is but one simple power of reasoning, which employs itself on several arguments, as so many different subject-matters. And therefore it is, that no disturbance or uneasiness accompanies those reasonings or deliberations, where the passions do not at all interpose. Nor are we at any time forced, as it were, to choose any thing contrary to the dictates of our own reason, but when, as in a balance, some lurking hidden passions lay something in the scale against reason to weigh it down. And this often falls out to be the case, where it is not reasoning that is opposed to reasoning, but either ambition, or emulation, or favor, or jealousy, or fear, making a show as if there were a variance or contest between two differing reasons, according to that of Homer,

Shame in denial, in acceptance fear;[*]

and of another poet,

Hard fate to fall, but yet a glorious fate;

’Tis cowardly to live, but yet ’tis sweet.

And in determining of controversies about contracts between man and man, it is by the interposition of the passions that so many disputes and delays are created. So likewise in the consultations and counsels of kings, they who design to make their court incline not to one side of the question or debate rather than the other, but only accommodate themselves to their own passions, without any regard to the interest of the public. Which is the reason that in aristocratical governments the magistrates will not suffer orators in their pleadings, by declaiming and haranguing, to raise the passions and move the affections. For reason, not being disturbed or diverted by passion, tends directly to that which is honorable and just; but if the passions are once raised, there immediately follows a mighty controversy and struggle between pleasure and grief on the one hand, and reason and judgment on the other. For otherwise how comes it to pass, that in philosophical disputes and disquisitions we so often and with so little trouble are by others drawn off from our own opinions and wrought upon to change them?—and that Aristotle himself, Democritus, and Chrysippus have without any concern or regret of mind, nay even with great satisfaction to themselves, retracted some of those points which they formerly so much approved of, and were wont so stiffly to maintain? For no passions residing in the contemplative and scientifical part of the soul make any tumult or disturbance therein, and the irrational and brutal faculties remain quiet and calm, without busying themselves to intermeddle in matters of that kind. By which means it falls out, that reason no sooner comes within view of truth, but rejecting that which is false it readily embraces it; forasmuch as there is in the former what is not to be found in the other, namely, a willingness to assent and disagree as there is occasion; whereas in all deliberations had, judgments made, and resolutions taken about such things as are to be reduced into practice, and are mixed and interwoven with the passions and affections, reason meets with much opposition, and is put under great difficulties, by being stopped and interrupted in its course by the brutal faculties of the mind, throwing in its way either pleasure or fear or grief or lust, or some such like temptation or discouragement. And then the decision of these disputes belongs to sense, which is equally affected with both the one and the other; and whichsoever of them gets the mastery, the other is not thereby destroyed, but (though struggling and resisting all the while) is forced only to comply and go along with the conqueror. As an amorous person, for example, finding himself engaged in an amour he cannot approve of, has immediately recourse to his reason, to oppose the force of that against his passion, as having them both together actually subsisting in his soul, plainly discerning them to be several and distinct, and feeling a sensible conflict between the two, while he endeavors (as it were) with his hand to repress and keep down the part which is inflamed and rages so violently within him. But, on the contrary, in those deliberations and disquisitions where the passions have nothing to do, such I mean as belong properly to the contemplative part of the soul, if the reasons are equally balanced, not inclining more to one side than another, then is there no determinate judgment formed, but there remains a doubting, as if there were a rest or suspense of the understanding between two contrary opinions. But if there happen to be any inclination or determination towards one side, that prevailing must needs get the better of the other, but without any regret or obstinate opposition from it against the opinion which is received. In short, whenever the contest seems to be of reason against reason, in that case we have no manner of sense of two distinct powers, but of one simple, uniform faculty only, under different apprehensions or imaginations; but when the dispute is between the irrational part and reason, where nature has so ordered it that neither the victory nor the defeat can be had without anxiety and regret, there immediately the two contending powers divide the soul in the quarrel, and thereby make the difference and distinction between them to be most plain and evident.

And not only from their contests, but no less also from the consequences that follow thereupon, may one clearly enough discern the source and original of the passions to be different from that of reason. For since a man may set his affection upon an ingenuous and virtuously disposed child, and no less also upon one that is naughty and dissolute, and since also one may have unreasonable and indecent transports of anger against his children or his

parents, and on the contrary, may justly and unblamably be angry in their defence against their enemies and tyrants; as in the one case there is perceived a struggle and dispute of the passions against reason, so in the other may be seen a ready submission and agreement of them, running to its assistance, and lending as it were their helping hand. To illustrate this with a familiar example,—after a good man has in obedience to the laws married a convenient wife, he then in the first place comes to a resolution of conversing and cohabiting with her wisely and honestly, and of making at least a civil husband; but in process of time, custom and constant familiarity having bred within him a true passion for her, he sensibly finds that upon principles of reason his affection’ and love for her are every day more and more improved and grow upon him. So in like manner, young men having met with kind and gentle masters, to guide and inform their minds in the study of philosophy and sciences, make use of them at first for instruction only and information, but afterwards come to have such an affection for them, that from familiar companions and scholars they become their lovers and admirers, and are so accounted. And the same happens also to most men, with respect to good magistrates in the commonwealth, to their neighbors, and to their kindred; for, beginning an acquaintance upon necessity and interest, for the exchange of the common offices of intercourse and commerce with one another, they do afterwards by degrees, ere they are aware, grow to have a love and friendship for them; reason in such and the like cases having over-persuaded and even compelled the passions to take delight in and pursue what it before had approved of and consented to. As for the poet who said,

Of modesty two kinds there be;

The one we cannot blame,

The other troubleth many a house,

And doth decay the same;

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doth he not plainly hereby intimate, that he had oftentimes found by experience that this affection of the mind, by a sheepish, shamefaced backwardness, and by foolishly bashful delays against all reason, had lost him the opportunities and seasons of making his fortune, and hindered and disappointed many brave actions and noble enterprises?

Now, as for those who make all sins and faults to be equal, to examine whether in other matters they have not also departed from the truth is not at this time and in this place seasonable; since they seem not herein only, but in most things else, to advance unreasonable paradoxes against common sense and experience. For according to

them, all our passions and affections are so many faults and whosoever grieves, fears, or desires, commits sin. But, with their leave, nothing is more visible and apparent than the mighty difference in those and all other passions, according as we are more or less affected with them. For will any man say that the fear of Dolon was no more than that of Ajax, who, being forced to give way before the enemy,

Sometimes retreated back, then faced about,

And step by step retired at once, and fought?

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Or compare the grief of Plato for the death of Socrates to the sorrow and anguish of mind which Alexander felt, when, for having murdered Clitus, he attempted to lay violent hands upon himself. For our grief is commonly increased and augmented above measure by sudden and unexpected accidents. And that which surprises us on the sudden, contrary to our hope and expectation, is much more uneasy and grievous than that which is either foreseen, or not very unlikely to happen; as must needs fall out in the case of those who, expecting nothing more than to see the happiness, advancement, and glory of a friend or a kinsman, should hear of his being put to the most exquisite tortures, as Parmenio did of his son Philotas. And who will ever say that the anger of Magas against Philemon can bear any proportion to the rage of Nicocreon against Anaxarchus? The occasion given was in both cases the same, each of them having severally been bitterly reproached and reviled by the other. For whereas Nicocreon caused Anaxarchus to be broken to pieces and brayed in a mortar with iron pestles, Magas only commanded the executioner to lay the edge of the naked sword upon the neck of Philemon, and so dismissed him. And therefore Plato called anger the nerves of the mind; because, as it may swell and be made more intense by sourness and ill-nature, so may it be slackened and remitted by gentleness and good-nature.

But to elude these and such like objections, they will not allow these intense and vehement efforts of the passions to be according to judgment, or so to proceed from it as if that were therein faulty; but they call them cessations, contractions, and extensions or diffusions, which by the irrational part are capable of being increased or diminished. But that there are also differences of judgment is most plain and evident; for some there are who take poverty to be no evil at all, others who look upon it as a great evil, and others again who esteem it to be the greatest evil and worst thing in the world, insomuch that rather than endure it they would dash themselves in pieces against the rocks, or cast themselves headlong into the sea. And among those who reckon death to be an evil, some are of that opinion, in regard only that it deprives us of the enjoyment of the good things of the world, as others are with respect to the eternal torments and horrible punishments under ground in hell. As for bodily health, some love it no otherwise than as it is agreeable to Nature, and very convenient and useful; while others value it as the most sovereign good, in comparison whereof they make no reckoning of riches or children, no, nor of sceptres and crowns,

Which make men equal to the Gods above.

Nor will they, in fine, allow even virtue itself to signify any thing or be of any use, without good health. So that hence it sufficiently appears that, in the judgments men make of things, they may be mistaken and very faulty with respect to both the extremes of too much and too little; but I shall pursue this argument no farther in this place.

Thus much may, however, fairly be assumed from what has already been said on this head, that even they themselves do allow a plain difference between the judgment

and the irrational faculties, by means whereof, they say, the passions become greater and more violent; and so, while they cavil and contend about names and words, they give up the very cause to those who maintain the irrational part of the soul, which is the seat of the passions, to be several and distinct from that faculty by which we reason and make a judgment of things. And indeed Chrysippus, in those books which he wrote of Anomology,—after he has told us that anger is blind, not discerning oftentimes those things which are plain and conspicuous, and as frequently casting a mist upon such things as were before clear and evident,—proceeds a little farther in this manner: For, says he, the passions, being once raised, not only reject and drive away reason and those things which appear otherwise than they would have them, but violently push men forward to actions that are contrary to reason. And then he makes use of the testimony of Menander, saying,

What have I done? Where has my soul been strayed?

Would she not stay to see herself obeyed,

But let me act what I abhorred but now?

And again the same Chrysippus a little after says: Every rational creature is by Nature so disposed as to use reason in all things, and to be governed by it; but yet oftentimes it falls out that we dispose and reject it, being carried away by another more violent and over-ruling motion. In these words he plainly enough acknowledges what uses in such a case to happen on acccount of the difference and contest between the passions and reason. And upon any other ground it would be ridiculous (as Plato says) to suppose a man to be sometimes better than himself, and sometimes again worse; one while to be his own master, and another while his own slave.