As no Happiness, like the vital heat, must come from within. amount of clothing can of itself warm the body, so no array of external trappings can gladden the soul. The light and life of the soul is virtue; and it is inextinguishable. Vice, on the other hand, shrouds the soul in perpetual darkness. You cannot flee from it at any moment, as from a disagreeable companion, nor give it a bill of divorce at pleasure, as a cross-grained wife. It will be your fellowtraveller wherever you go by day, and it will lie down with you as your bed-fellow, wherever you are at night, till by philosophy you gain a complete victory over your unholy appetites and passions. Then you will learn to be pleased everywhere, and with everything: with wealth, as a means of usefulness, and with poverty, as freedom from care; with fame for being honoured, and with obscurity for being unenvied. 11. On Moral Virtue. This treatise is more metaphysical andcontroversial, than most of our author's moral essays. It is an) extended discussion of the distinction between moral or practical, and intellectual or contemplative virtue. Plutarch, in common with Plato and Aristotle, but in opposition to Zeno and Chrysippus maintains, that these two virtues, or kinds of virtue, are essentially distinct, having their seats in different parts or faculties of the soul. For man is not only of a two-fold nature as being compounded of body and soul; but the soul itself is two-fold, comprising a sensual and irrational, as well as an intellectual and rational part-the latter possessing reason in itself, and having a natural power or adaptation to subject the sensual, the bodily, and even the inanimate to its own dominion; the former destitute of reason, and yet having a natural susceptibility or aptitude to be governed by it. The due exercise or cultivation of the intellectual part in itself, and in the study of the universe, or of absolute existence, gives rise to contemplative virtue or science. The proper employment of the intellectual and rational powers in guiding and governing the irrational and sensual part, and in the regulation and use of all such things as exist relative to us, is the source of moral virtue or prudence. Contemplative virtue, therefore, is not subject to chance or change, whereas moral virtue is dependent on circumstances and liable to fluctuation. Contemplative virtue is incapable of excess, and consists in the highest possible exercise of reason in the highest attainable perfection of knowledge. Moral virtue is liable both to excess and defect, and consists in a proper medium between these extremes. Thus courage is the medium between cowardice and rashness; liberality between parsimony and prodigality; and so every moral virtue is a medium between the vices of too little and too much. The rational and irrational elements co-exist and cooperate in the moral virtues—the irrational to communicate impulse and motion; the rational to regulate, moderate, and confine within proper limits. Extinguish reason and there will no regulator; eradicate the passions, as the Stoics teach, and there will be nothing to regulate. Adjust the balance duly between them, and all the appetites and passions, not less than the dictates of reason and conscience, are useful in their proper places. But neither of them can, in fact, be annihilated, or identified with the other. They always do and always will co-exist in every man's breast, more or less consciously distinct-nay, opposed to each other-the one commanding or forbidding, approving or disapproving, and remonstrating, even when it can no longer command; the other obeying or disobeying, complying or rebelling, and reluctating, or too tardily following, when it submits to be led. Even in matters of opinion which are connected with practice, and wherein the passions are concerned, the judgment is disturbed and a conflict ensues; whereas, in those questions with which the passions have nothing to do—such, namely, as pertain only to the contemplative part of the soul-there is either an immediate decision, or there is at all events no conflict— only a suspense of the judgment. This proves the essential distinctness of the rational and irrational parts of the soul. And we see this distinctness, not only in the conflict, but also when they concur; since in this case they are not simultaneous in their impulses, but the one usually takes the lead, and the other follows-as when, for instance, the affections follow and obey the judgment, or the judgment on the other hand yields and submits to the affections. Moreover, we see conclusive evidence, that reason and passion reside in different seats or inhere in different parts of the soul, in that the appetites and passions so agitate and thrill the body, as in the excitements of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, pride and shame; while the operations of pure intellect, as in the solution of a mathematical problem, or the contemplation of the heavens, leave the body in a state of undisturbed tranquillity; thus evincing, that the appetites and passions are in some way more closely connected with the body than reason is. 12. That Virtue may be Taught. This short and apparently unfinished piece, is an argument chiefly analogical and a fortiori, in proof of the proposition, that virtue does not come spontaneously, without reason and without art, but that it may and should be made a matter of instruction and discipline. When all else that is valuable for the body or the mind is taught, it were absurd to suppose that virtue, the highest excellence and felicity of our nature, must be left to the development of blind nature, or still blinder chance. 13. How a Man may be sensible of his Progress in Virtue.— This admirable essay, full of the author's characteristic good sense and practical wisdom, is addressed, as are also several of Plutarch's Lives, to Sosius Senecio, thrice consul under the Emperor Trajan. At its commencement an assault is made upon the extravagant dogmas of the Stoics, which concede no medium between absolute folly and perfect wisdom, and, therefore, preclude the very idea of progress in virtue. Some of the indications of progress, which compose the remainder and the principal part of the treatise, are such as these:-Constancy in endeavours after virtue and in struggles with vice is a certain means as well as a sure sign of progress; as the traveller who makes no stops or halts, but toils on at however slow a pace, is sure at no distant day to arrive at his journey's end. Another measure of proficiency is found in the increasing firmness of our resolutions, and the growing intensity of our application to all good culture, as well as in the lover-like pain we feel at any diversion or distraction which separates us for a season from the beloved object of our pursuit. Again: the proficient in wisdom, as he will not be daunted by difficulties, drawn aside by avocations, shamed by ridicule, or deterred by danger, so will he not be allured by the superior pleasures, honours or rewards, that attend another mode of life, to abandon the prosecution of the highest good. On the contrary, he will be conscious of a growing indifference to all such outward circumstances in comparison with the excellence of virtue, till at length he estimates himself and others solely by their moral worth; as Agesilaus, when he heard the king of Persia styled the Great King, asked, How is he greater than I, if he be not more just? Another proof of proficiency in virtue is the alteration of one's style of writing and way of managing an argument or discourse,-learning to write in a more chastened style, attending to things rather than mere words, and seeking not so much to win present admiration as to leave a permanent and useful impressionlearning also to argue for truth rather than victory, and to maintain equanimity whether the auditors be fewer or more in numbers and of greater or less distinction. True virtue needs not auditors or applauders, but sits down contented with self-approbation. Still less will she become her own herald, and trumpet her own good deeds. Such men show, that they look beyond themselves for satisfaction, that they thirst for praise, that they never were admitted near spectators of virtue, never saw her real person and presence, but only her image and shadow in a transient dream. Modesty and FOURTH SERIES, VOL. III.-30 serenity are marks of distinguished excellence. Candidates for initiation into the mysteries run together with rude clamours and boisterous vociferations; but, when admitted to the presence of the sacred rites, they attend with holy awe and religious silence. And those who frequent the schools at Athens, are first oopoí, (sages,) then piλóσopol, (lovers of wisdom,) then pýropɛs, (rhetoricians,) and finally idi@rai, (ordinary men.) Progress in virtue appears in a willingness to be admonished of our faults,-nay, an eager desire to discover them, and a frank acknowledgment of them when discovered. Diogenes said, that whoever wished to be constantly and certainly right, must get either a faithful friend or a bitter enemy to be his monitor; and Hippocrates published to the world a mistake he had made in anatomy, adding, that it ill became him whose business it was to cure others not to be able or willing to correct himself. 14. Whether Vice is sufficient to render a Man miserable.-This is manifestly a fragment, dismembered both at the beginning and the end. The question is of course answered in the affirmative. Men have laughed at racks and tortures, at losses and calamities, at all the engines of tyrants and all the storms of fortune. But Vice is an absolute and self-sufficient worker of misery, and stands in need of neither instruments nor executioners. Anger, fear, remorse and despair, have stretched tyrants themselves and the favourites of fortune upon a rack, from which there is no deliverance. 15. Whether are worse, the Passions of the Soul, or those (that is, the Diseases) of the Body.-Man is here declared, after the authority of Homer, to be the most miserable of creatures, and chiefly miserable because his better part, his soul, is subject to so many and so cruel maladies. The diseases of the soul are worse than those of the body:-1, because they are self-caused and inherent; 2, because they are less open to the view whether of the patient or his friends; 3, because he is always more or less deranged or bereft of reason; 4, because, being unconscious of his condition, he shuns the remedy and seeks that which aggravates the disease; and 5, because he is not only miserable but usually guilty, and suffers only the consequences of his own follies and sins. 16. How a Man may inoffensively Praise himself.-Offensive as self-commendation usually is, there are occasions when a man may and should make himself the subject of his own discourse-not for the sake of courting flattery, still less to obscure the merit of others, but in self-defence, or as a means of usefulness. For instance, calumny may compel us to glory in our praiseworthy actions. Thus Epaminondas, when he was arraigned before the Thebans for having prolonged his command beyond his lawful term of office, declared that he would willingly be put to death, if they would set up this accusation against him: "Epaminondas has wasted Laconia, an enemy's country, prosperously settled the affairs of Messene, and happily secured an alliance with Arcadia, against our will." Whereupon the people, smitten with admiration at his magnanimity, dismissed him with honour, without so much as putting the question to vote. Phocion also showed his greatness of mind under the unjust sentence which was pronounced upon him, when he said to one of his fellow-sufferers: "What, is it not a pleasure to thee to die with Phocion?" And Themistocles, experiencing the neglect of the populace whom he had saved, said to them: "Upon every storm, you fly to the same tree for shelter; yet when fair weather returns, you strip it of its leaves and fruit, as you go away." If in apologizing for ourselves, we can delicately interweave with our own the praises of our auditors, we are doubly secure from envy; as we see many admirable illustrations in the oration of Demosthenes for the Crown. Orators often commend themselves indirectly by lavishing encomiums on others, whose character, or conduct, or sentiments resemble their own. Those who are forced to dwell upon their own praises, are more readily excused, if they do not arrogate the merit wholly to themselves, but ascribe it partly to fortune, and partly to God. So Achilles attributed his conquests to the gods, and Zaleucus referred his laws to the wisdom of Minerva. It may seem to forestall envy, if, when we are extolled by others, we wave the credit imputed to us, while at the same time we acknowledge our claim to some less envied, yet perhaps more truly meritorious action. Thus, when Pericles, on his death-bed, was reminded by his friends of his many honours and victories, he checked them with the assurance, that his chief satisfaction was derived from the consciousness that he had never been the occasion of any of the Athenians wearing black. Nay, it may even be expedient for us sometimes to charge ourselves with some minor faults by way of obscuring a splendour that might otherwise be painful to envious eyes. Self-praise is justifiable, especially in the aged and the truly great, as a means of exciting others to a virtuous emulation, as old Nestor, by relating the achievments of his youth, inflamed ten Grecian chieftains with a burning eagerness for single combat with Hector; or for the sake of repressing an ill-grounded pride in others, as Aristotle wrote to Alexander, that not only those who have mighty empires, may think highly of themselves, but they also who have worthy thoughts and notions of the Deity; or to inspire our friends and fellow-citizens with courage amid danger, as Cyrus, though far from boastful at ordinary times, talked largely in the midst of battles and perils; or ! |