ambition and emulation among their townsmen, and stir up
and increase their courage and pugnacity against enemies
^ Reading with Reiske, a.TroppijE.eiev.
^ " Iliad," xiii. 284, 285.
118 Plutarch's morals.
by the sound of trumpets and flutes. For it is not only in
poems, as Plato says, that he that is inspired by the Muses,
and as it were possessed by them, will laugh to shame the
plodding artist, but also in fighting battles passion and en-
thusiasm will be irresistible and invincible, such as Homer
makes the gods inspire men with, as in the line,
and,
*' Thus speaking he infused great might in Hector,
The shepherd of the people." 'â–
He is not mad like this withoiit the god,
as if the god had added passion to reason as an incitement
and spur. And you may see those very persons, whose
opinions I am combating, frequently urging on the young
by praises, and frequently checking them by rebukes,
though pleasure follows the one, pain the other. For
rebukes and censure produce repentance and shame, the
one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly
make use of for purposes of correction. And so Diogenes,
when Plato was being praised, said, " What has he to vaunt
of, who has been a philosopher so long, and yet never gave
pain to anyone ? " For one could not say, to use the words
of Xenocrates, that the mathematics are such handles to
philosophy as are the emotions of young men, such as shame,
desire, repentance, pleasure, pain, ambition, whereon reason
and the law laying a suitable grip succeed in putting the
young man on the right road. So that it was no bad remark
of the Lacedaemonian tutor, that he would make the boy
entrusted to his charge pleased with what was good and
displeased with what was bad,^ for a higher or nobler aim
cannot be proposed in the education fit for a freeborn lad.
HOW ONE MAY BE AWARE OF ONE'S
PROGRESS IN VIRTUE.
§ I. What amount of argument, Sossius Senecio, will
make a man know that he is improving in respect to virtue,
^ '' Hiad," XV. 262. ^ " Hiad," v. 1 85.
3 Compare " That Virtue may be Taught," § ii.
PROGRESS IN YIRTUE. 119
if his advances in it do not bring about some diminution
in folly, but vice, weighing equally with all his good inten-
tions, "acts like the lead that makes the net go down?"^
For neither in music nor grammatical knowledge could
anyone recognize any improvement, if he remained as
unskilful in them as before, and had not lost some of his
old ignorance. Nor in the case of anyone ill would medical
treatment, if it brought no relief or ease, by the disease
somewhat yielding and abating, give any perception of
improvement of health, till the opposite condition was com-
pletely brought about by the body recovering its full
strength. But just as in these cases there is no improve-
ment unless, by the abatement of what weighs them down
till they rise in the opposite scale, they recognize a
change, so in the case of those who profess philosophy no
improvement or sign of improvement can be supposed,
unless the soul lay aside and purge itself of some of its
imperfection, and if it continue altogether bad until it
become absolutely good and perfect. For indeed a wise
man cannot in a moment of time change from absolute
badness to perfect goodness, and suddenly abandon for
ever all that vice, of which he could not during a long
period of time divest himself of any portion. And yet you
know, of course, that those who maintain these views fre-
quently give themselves much trouble and bewilderment
about the difficulty, that a wise man does not perceive
that he has become wise, but is ignorant and doubtful
that in a long period of time by little and little, by remov-
ing some things and adding others, there will be a secret
and quiet improvement, and as it were passage to virtue. But
if the change were so great and sudden that the worst man
in the morning could become the best man at night, or
should the change so happen that he went to bed vicious
and woke up in the morning wise, and, having dismissed
from his mind all yesterday's follies and errors, should say,
" False dreams, away, you had no meaning then! "^
who on earth could be ignorant of so great a change
happening to himself, of virtue blazing forth so completely
^ See Erasmus, Adagia, " Eadem pensari trutina."
2 Euripides, " Iphigenia in Tauris," 569.
120 Plutarch's morals.
all at once ? I myself am of opinion that anyone, like
Caeneus,^ wlio, according, to his prayer, got changed from
a woman into a man, would sooner be ignorant of the
transformation, than that a man should become at once,
from a cowardly and senseless person with no powers of
self-control, brave and sensible and perfect master of him-
self, and should in a moment change from a brutish life to
a divine without being aware of it.
§ II. That was an excellent observation, Measure the
stone by the mason's rule, not the rule by the stone.^ But
the Stoics, not applying dogmas to facts but facts to their
own preconceived opinions, and forcing things to agree
that do not by nature, have filled philosophy with many
difficulties, the greatest of which is that all men but the
perfect man are equally vicious, which has produced the
enigma called progress, one little short of extreme folly,
since it makes those who have not at once under its
guidance given up all passions and disorders equally un-
fortunate as those who have not got rid of a single vile
propensity. However they are their own confuters, for
while they lay down in the schools that Aristides was as
unjust as Phalaris, and Brasidasas great a craven as Dolon,
and Plato actually as senseless as Meletus, in life and its
affairs they turn away from and avoid one (dass as implac-
able, while they make use of the others and trust them in
most important matters as most worthy people.
§ III. But we who see that in every kind of evil, but
especially in a disordered and unsettled state of mind, there
are degrees of more and less (so that the progress made
differs in different cases, badness abating, as a shadow
flees away, under the influence of reason, which calmly
illuminates and cleanses the soul), cannot consider it un-
reasonable to think that the change will be perceived, as
people who come up out of some ravine can take note of
the progress they make upwards. Look at the case from
the following point of view first. Just as mariners sailing
with full sail over the gaping^ ocean measure the course
^ See Ovid, " Metamorphoses," xii. 189, sq.
2 See Erasmus, " Adagia," p. 1103.
3 Compare Shakspere, " Tempest," A. i. Sc. i, 63, " And gape at
widest to glut him."
PROGRESS IN VIRTUE. 121
they have made by the time they have taken and the force
of the wind, and compute their progress accordingly, so
anyone can compute his progress in philosophy by his con-
tinuous and unceasing course, by his not making many
halts on the road, and then again advancing by leaps and
bounds, but by his quiet and even and steady march forward
guided by reason. For the words of the poet, " If to a
little you keep adding a little, and do so frequently, it will
soon he a lot,"^ are not only true of the increase of money,
but are universally applicable, and especially to increase in
virtue, since reason invokes to her aid the enormous force
of habit. On the other hand the inconsistencies and dul-
nesses of some philosophers not only check advance, as it
were, on the road, but even break up the journey altogether,
since vice always attacks at its leisure and forces back
whatever yields to it.^ The mathematicians tell us that
planets, after completing their course, become stationary ;
but in philosophy there is no such intermission or stationary
position from the cessation of progress, for its nature is ever
to be moving and, as it were, to be weighed in the scales,
sometimes being overweighted by the good preponderating,
sometimes by the bad. If, therefore, imitating the oracle
given to the Amphictyones by the god, " to fight against the
people of Cirrha every day and every night,"^ you are con-
scious that night and day you ever maintain a fierce fight
against vice, not often relaxing your vigilance, or long off
your guard, or receiving as heralds to treat of peace* the
pleasures, or idleness, or stress of business, you may reason-
ably go forward to the future courageously and confidently.
§ IV. Moreover, if there be any intermissions in philo-
sophy, and yet your later studies are firmer and more con-
tinuous than your former ones, it is no bad indication that
your sloih has been expelled by labour and exercise ; for the
contrary is a bad sign, when after a short time your lapses
^ Hesiod, " Works and Days," 361, 362. Quoted again by our author,
" On Education," § 13.
^ " In via ad virtutem qui non progreditur, is non stat et manet, sed
regreditur." — Wyttenbach.
^ Adopting the reading of Hercher. See Pausanias, x. 37, where the
oracle is somewhat different.
^ For the town which parleys surrenders.
122 Plutarch's morals.
from zeal become many and continuous, as if your zeal were
dying away. For as in tlie growth of a reed, which shoots up
from the ground finely and beautifully to an even and con-
tinuous height, though at first from its great intervals it is
hindered and baffled in its growth, and afterwards through
its weakness is discouraged by any breath of air, and
though strengthened by many and frequent joints, yet a
violent wind gives it commotion and trembling, so those who
at first make great launches out into philosophy, and after-
wards find that they are continually hindered and baffled,
and cannot perceive that they make any progress, finally
get tired of it and cry off. " But he who is as it were
winged," ^ is by his simplicity borne along to his end, and
by his zeal and energy cuts through impediments to his
progress, as merely obstacles on the road. As it is a sign
of the growth of violent love, not so much to rejoice in
the presence of the loved one, for everyone does that,
as to be distressed and grieved at his absence,^ so many
feel a liking for philosophy and seem to take a wonderful
interest in the study, but if they are diverted by other
matters and business their passion evaporates and they take
it very easily. *' But whoever is strongly smitten with love
for his darling " ^ will show his mildness and agreeableness
in the presence of and joint pursuit of wisdom with the loved
one, but if he is drawn away from him and is not in his
company you will see him in a stew and ill at ease and
peevish whether at work or leisure, and unreasonably for-
getful of his friends, and wholly impelled by his passion
for philosophy. For we ought not to rejoice at discourses
only when we hear them, as people like perfumes only when
they smell them, and not to seek or care about them in
their absence, but in the same condition as people who are
hungry and thirsty are in if torn away from food and drink,
we ought to follow after true proficiency in philosophy,
whether marriage, or wealth, or friendship, or military ser-
vice, strike in and produce a separation. For just as more
1 From Homer, " Iliad," xix. 386.
^ Compare Aristotle, Rhetoric, i. 11. kcu apx') ^^ '''ov IpujTOQ yiyvETai
avTT] Tzaaiv, orav firi fiovov Trapovrog ^aipwcrtv, aXKa kuI cnrovTog
fieiivr]fiivoi tpCJaii:
^ The line is a Fragment of Sophocles.
PROGRESS IN VIRTUE.
123
is to be got from philosophy, so much the more does what
we fail to obtain trouble ns.
§ V. Either precisely the same as this or very similar is
Hesiod's ^ very ancient definition of progress in virtue,
namely, that the road is no longer very steep or arduous,
but easy and smooth and level, its roughness being toned
down by exercise, and casting the bright light of philosophy
on doubt and error and regrets, such as trouble those who
give themselves to philosophy at the outset, like people who
leave a land they know, and do not yet descry the land they
are sailing to. For by abandoning the common and
familiar, before they know and apprehend what is better,
they frequently flounder about in the middle and are fain
to return. As they say the Roman Sextius, giving up for
philosophy all his honours and offices in Rome, being after-
wards discontented with philosophy from the difficulties he
met with in it at first, very nearly threw himself out of
window. Similarly they relate of Diogenes of Siuope,^
when he began to be a philosopher, that the Athenians
were celebrating a festival, and there were public banquets
and shows and mutual festivities, and drinking and re-
velling all night, and he, coiled up in a corner of the market-
place intending to sleep, fell into a train of thought likely
seriously to turn him from his purpose and shake his
resolution, for he reflected that he had adopted without
any necessity a toilsome and unusual kind of life, and by
his own fault sat there debarred of all the good things. At
that moment, however, they say a mouse stole up and be-
gan to munch some of the crumbs of his barley -cake, and
he plucked up his courage and said to himself, in a railing
and chiding fashion, " What say yon, Diogenes ? Do
your leavings give this mouse a sumptuous meal, while
you, the gentleman, wail and lament because you are
not getting drunk yonder and reclining on soft and
luxurious couches ? " Whenever such depressions of mind
are not frequent, and the mind when they take place quickly
recovers from them, after having put them to flight as it
were, and when such annoyance and distraction is easily
^ See Hesiod, " Works and Days," 289-292.
^ The well-known Cynic philosopher.
124 Plutarch's morals.
got rid of, then one may consider one's progress in virtue
as a certainty.
§ VI. And since not only the things that in themselves
shake and turn them in the opposite direction are more
powerful in the case of weak philosophers, but also the
serious advice of friends, and the playful and jeering objec-
tions of adversaries bend and soften people, and have ere
now shaken some out of philosophy altogether, it will be no
slight indication of one's progress in virtue if one takes
all this very calmly, and is neither disturbed nor aggravated
by people who tell us and mention to us that some of
our former comrades are flourishing in kings' courts, or
have married wives with dowries, or are attended by a
crowd of friends when they come down to the forum
to solicit some office or advocateship. He that is not
moved or affected by all this is already plainly one upon
whom philosophy has got a right hold ; for it is impossible
that we should cease to be envious of what most people
admire, unless the admiration of virtue was strongly im-
planted in us. For over- confidence may be generated in
some by anger and folly, but to despise what men admire is
not possible without a true and steady elevation of mind.
And so people in such a condition of mind, comparing it with
that of others, pride themselves on it, and say with Solon,
" We would not change virtue for wealth, for while virtue
abides, wealth changes hands, and now one man, now another,
has it."^ And Diogenes compared his shifting about from
Corinth to Athens, and again from Thebes to Corinth, to
the different residences of the King of Persia, as his spring
residence at Susa, his winter residence at Babylon, and his
summer residence in Media. And Agesilaus said of the
great king, " How is he better than me, if he is not more
upright ? " And Aristotle, writing to Antipater about
Alexander, said, " that he ought not to think highly of
himself because he had many subjects, for anyone who had
right notions about the gods was entitled to think quite
as highly of himself." And Zeno, observing that Theo-
phratus was admired for the number of his pupils,^ said,
1 Bergk. fr. 15. Compare Homer, "Iliad," vi. 339. viicr] S' tTra/iEifiEraL
drSpag.
2 We ai-e told by Diogenes Laertius, v. 37, that Theophrastus had
2,000 hearers sometimes at once.
PROGRESS IN YIRTUE. 125
" His choir is, I admit, larger than mine, but mine is more
harmonious."
§ Yii. Whenever then, by thus comparing the advantages
of virtne with external things, yon get rid of envies and
jealousies and those things which fret and depress the minds
of many who are novices in philosophy, this also is a great
indication of your progress in virtue. Another and no slight
indication is a change in the style of yonr discourses. For
generally speaking all novices in philosophy adopt most such
as tend to their own glorification ; some, like birds, in their
levity and ambition soaring to the height and brightness of
physical things ; others like young puppies, as Plato ^ says,
rejoicing in tearing and biting, betake themselves to strifes
and questions and sophisms ; but most plunging themselves
into dialectics immediately store themselves for sophistry ;
and some collect sentences ^ and histories and go about (as
Anacharsis said he saw the Greeks used money for no other
purpose but to count it up), merely piling up and comparing
them, but making no practical use of them. Applicable
here is that saying of Antiphanes, which someone applied
to Plato's pupils. Antiphanes said playfully that in a
certain city words were frozen directly they were spoken,
owing to the great cold, and were thawed again in the
summer, so that one could then hear what had been said in
the winter. So he said of the words which were spoken by
Plato to young men, that most of them only understood
them late in life when they were become old men. And
this is the condition people are in in respect to all philoso-
phy, until the judgement gets into a sound and healthy state,
and begins to adapt itself to those things which can produce
character and greatness of mind, and to seek discourses
whose footsteps turn inwards rather than outwards, to
borrow the language of ^sop.^ For as Sophocles said he
had first toned down the pompous style of -^schylus, then
his harsh and over-artificial method, and had in the third
1 " Republic," vii. p. 539, B.
2 Sentences borrowed from some author or other, such as we still
possess from the hands of Hermogenes and Aphthonius ; compare the
collection of bon-mots of Greek courtesans in Athenaeus.
^ A reference to -^sop's Fable, Aicjv kuI 'AXwtt?/^. Cf. Horace,
" Epistles," i. i. 73-75.
126 Plutarch's morals.
place changed his manner of diction, a most important point
and one that is most intimately connected with the
character, so those who go in for philosophy, when they
have passed from flattering and artificial discourses to such
as deal with character and emotion, are beginning to make
genuine and modest progress in virtue.
§ VIII. Furthermore, take care, in reading the writings of
philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not
attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more
by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable
and solid and useful. And also, in studying poems or
history, let nothing escape you of what is said to the point,
which is likely either to correct the character or to calm
the passions. For as Simonides says the bee hovers among
the flowers *' making the yellow honey," ^ while others value
and pluck flowers only for their beauty and fragrance,
so of all that read poems for pleasure and amusement he
alone that finds and gathers what is valuable seems capable
of knowledge from his acquaintance with and friendship
for what is noble and good.^ For those who study Plato
and Xenophon only for their style, and cull out only what
is pure and Attic, and as it were the dew and the bloom, do
they not resemble people who love drugs for their smell
and colour, but care not for them as anodynes or purges,
and are not aware of those properties ? Whereas those who
have more proficiency can derive benefit not from dis-
courses only, but from sights and actions, and cull what is
good and useful, as is recorded of ^schylus and other
similar kind of men. As to ^schylus, when he was
watching a contest in boxing at the Isthmus, and the whole
theatre cried out upon one of the boxers being beaten, he
nudged with his elbow Ion of Chios, and said, " Do you
observe the power of training ? The beaten man holds his
peace, while the spectators cry out." And Brasidas having
caught hold of a mouse among some figs, being bitten by it
let it go, and said to himself, " Hercules, there is no
creature so small or weak that it will not fight for its life !"
^ This passage is alluded to also in " On Love to one's Offspring,
ii.
' Madvig's text.
PROGRESS IN YIRTUE. 127
And Diogenes, seeing a lad drinking watei- out of the palm
of his hand, threw away the cup which he kept in his
wallet. So much does attention and assiduous practice
make people perceptive and receptive of what contributes
to virtue from any source. And this is the case still more
with those who mix discourses with actions, who not only,
to use the language of Thucydides,^ " exercise themselves
in the presence of danger," but also in regard to pleasures
and strifes, and judgements, and advocateships, and magis-
trateships make a display of their opinions, or rather form
their opinions by their practice. For we can no more think
those philosophers who are ever learning and busy and in-
vestigating what they have got from philosophy, and then
straightway publish it in the market-place or in the haunt
of young men, or at a royal supper-party, any more than we
give the name of physicians to those who sell drugs and
mixtures. Nay rather such a sophist differs very little at
all from the bird described in Homer,^ offering his scholars
like it whatever he has got, and as it feeds its callow young
from its own mouth, " though it goes ill with itself," so
he gets no advantage or food from what he has got for
himself.
§ IX. We must therefore see to it that our discourse be
serviceable to ourselves, and that it may not appear to
others to be vain-glorious or ambitious, and we must show
that we are as willing to listen as to teach, and especially
must we lay aside all disputatiousness and love of strife
in controversy, and cease bandying fierce words with one
another as if we were contending with one another at
boxing, and leave off rejoicing more in smiting and knock-
ing down one another than in learning and teaching. For
in such cases moderation and mildness, and to commence
arguing without quarrelsomeness and to finish without get-
ting into a rage, and neither to be insolent if you come off
best in the argument, nor dejected if you come off worst, is
a sufficient sign of progress in virtue. Aristippus was an ex-
cellent example of this, when overcome in argument by the
1 Thucydides, i. 18.
2 Homer, " Iliad," ix. 323, 324. Quoted also in " On Love to One's
Offspring," § ii.
128 Plutarch's morals.
sophistry of a man, who had plenty of assurance, but was
generally speaking mad or half-witted. Observing that he
was in great joy and very puffed up at his victory, he said,
"I who have been vanquished in the argument shall have
a better night's rest than my victor." We can also test
ourselves in regard to public speaking, if we are not timid
and do not shrink from speaking when a large audience has
unexpectedly been got together, nor dejected when we have
only a small one to harangue to, and if we do not, when we
have to speak to the people or before some magistrate, miss
the opportunity through, want of proper preparation ; for
these things are recorded both of Demosthenes and Alci-
biades. AsforAlcibiades, though hepossessedamost excellent
understanding, yet from want of confidence in speaking he
often broke down, and in trying to recall a word or thougbt
that slipped his memory had to stop short. ^ And Homer
did not deny that his first line was unmetrical," though he
had sufficient confidence to follow it up by so many other
lines, so great was his genius. Much more then ought
those who aim at virtue and what is noble to lose no
opportunity of public speaking, paying very little attention
to either uproar or applause at their speeches.
§ X. And not only ought each to see to his discourses
but also to his actions whether he regards utility more
than show, and truth more than display. For if a genuine
love for youth or maiden seeks no witnesses, but is con-
tent to enjoy its delights privately, far more does it become
the philosopher and lover of the beautiful, who is con-
versant with virtue through his actions, to pride himself on
his silence, and not to need people to praise or listen to
him. As that man who called his maid in the house, and