LAWS by Plato - Complete text

Part 2 Page 8

Ath. I suppose that courage is a part of virtue?

Meg. To be sure.

Ath. Then, now hear and judge for yourself: - Would you like to have for a fellow - lodger or neighbour a very courageous man, who had no control over himself?

Meg. Heaven forbid!

Ath. Or an artist, who was clever in his profession, but a rogue?

Meg. Certainly not.

Ath. And surely justice does not grow apart from temperance?

Meg. Impossible.

Ath. Any more than our pattern wise man, whom we exhibited as having his pleasures and pains in accordance with and corresponding to true reason, can be intemperate?

Meg. No.

Ath. There is a further consideration relating to the due and undue award of honours in states.

Meg. What is it?

Ath. I should like to know whether temperance without the other virtues, existing alone in the soul of man, is rightly to be praised or blamed?

Meg. I cannot tell.

Ath. And that is the best answer; for whichever alternative you had chosen, I think that you would have gone wrong.

Meg. I am fortunate.

Ath. Very good; a quality, which is a mere appendage of things which can be praised or blamed, does not deserve an expression of opinion, but is best passed over in silence.

Meg. You are speaking of temperance?

Ath. Yes; but of the other virtues, that which having this appendage is also most beneficial, will be most deserving of honour, and next that which is beneficial in the next degree; and so each of them will be rightly honoured according to a regular order.

Meg. True.

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