If Fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is
no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good
as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their
badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.
X. _Concerning Virtue and Vice._
The doctrine of Virtue and Vice depends on that of the Soul. When the
irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces Fight and
Desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the
soul tripartite, composed of Reason, Fight, and Desire. Virtue in the
region of Reason is Wisdom, in the region of Fight is Courage, in the
region of Desire it is Temperance: the virtue of the whole Soul is
Righteousness. It is for Reason to judge what is right, for Fight in
obedience to Reason to despise things that appear terrible, for Desire
to pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with Reason
desirable. When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for
righteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And
thus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among
the untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid,
another prudent and unprincipled. Indeed these qualities should not be
called Virtues when they are devoid of Reason and imperfect and found in
irrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite
elements. In Reason it is Folly, in Fight, Cowardice, in Desire,
Intemperance, in the whole soul, Unrighteousness.
The virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good
rearing and education, the vices by the opposite.
XI. _Concerning right and wrong Social Organization._[214:1]
Constitutions also depend on the tripartite nature of the Soul. The
rulers are analogous to Reason, the soldiers to Fight, the common folk
to Desires.
Where all things are done according to Reason and the best man in the
nation rules, it is a Kingdom; where more than one rule according to
Reason and Fight, it is an Aristocracy; where the government is
according to Desire and offices depend on money, that constitution is
called a Timocracy. The contraries are: to Kingdom tyranny, for Kingdom
does all things with the guidance of reason and tyranny nothing; to
Aristocracy oligarchy, when not the best people but a few of the worst
are rulers; to Timocracy democracy, when not the rich but the common
folk possess the whole power.
XII. _The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil._
The Gods being good and making all things, how do evils exist in the
world? Or perhaps it is better first to state the fact that, the Gods
being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only
comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but
only comes about by absence of light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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