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“The brave man’s colour never changes, nor
Is he much frightened,”[245]

does not take away all fear but only excessive fear, that bravery may not become recklessness, nor confidence foolhardiness. So also in regard to pleasure we must do away with excessive desire, and in regard to vengeance with excessive hatred of evil. For so in the former case one will not be apathetic but temperate, and in the latter one will not be savage or cruel but just. But if the passions were entirely removed, supposing that to be possible, reason would become in many duller and blunter, like the pilot in the absence of a storm. And no doubt it is from having noticed this that legislators try to excite in states ambition and emulation among their townsmen, and stir up and increase their courage and pugnacity against enemies 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 enthusiasm will be irresistible and invincible, such as Homer makes the gods inspire men with, as in the line,

“Thus speaking he infused great might in Hector,
The shepherd of the people.”[246]

and,

“He is not mad like this without the god,”[247]

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,[248] for a higher or nobler aim cannot be proposed in the education fit for a freeborn lad.

Footnotes:

[219] See “Meno,” p. 72, A.

[220] Omitting [Greek: hetera], which Reiske justly suspects.

[221] Reading [Greek: proton] with Wyttenbach.

[222] Homer, “Odyssey,” xix. 208-212.

[223] As in the story in “Gil Blas” of the person who, after eating a ragout of rabbit, was told it was a ragout of cat.–Book X. chapter xii.

[224] As to Amoebeus, see Athenaeus, p. 623. D.

[225] “Iliad,” xvi. 167.

[226] Generally speaking [Greek: ethos] is the habit, [Greek: ethos] the moral character generated by habit. The former is Aristotle’s [Greek: energeia], the latter his [Greek: hexis].

[227] I have adopted, it will be seen, the suggestion of Wyttenbach, “[Greek: to logismo] mutandum videtur in [Greek: ton chalinon].”

[228] Sophocles, “Oedipus Tyrannus,” 4, 5. Quoted by our author again “On Abundance of Friends,” Sec. vi.

[229] Reading with “Reiske,” [Greek: exagetai pros to epithymein ta aischra].

[230] In the “Chrysippus” of Euripides, Fragm.

[231] Compare Romans viii. 19.

[232] “Odyssey,” xii. 168, 169.

[233] This line is from Simonides, and is quoted again in “How one may be aware of one’s Progress in Virtue,” Sec. xiv.

[234] “Iliad,” vii. 93.

[235] Reading with Reiske, [Greek: eis duo].

[236] Reading [Greek: etei] with Reiske and Wyttenbach.

[237] Euripides, “Hippolytus” 385, 386.

[238] Reading with Reiske [Greek: pathesi] for [Greek: pleiosi].

[239] See “Iliad,” x. 374, sq.

[240] “Iliad,” xi. 547.

[241] “De Anaxarchi supplicio nota res. v. Menage ad Diog. Laeert. 9, 59. De Magae, reguli Cyrenarum, adversus Philemonem lenitate v. De Cohibenda Ira, Sec. ix.”– Reiske.

[242] “Celebres fuere quondam Chrysippi sex libri [Greek: peri tes kata tas lezeis anomalias], in quibus auctore Varrone, propositum habuit ostendere, similes res dissimilibus verbis et similibus dissimiles esse notatas vocabulis. v. Menage ad Diog. Laeert. 7, 192.”– Reiske.

[243] Compare “On Contentedness of Mind,” Sec. xiii.

[244] Reading with Reiske, [Greek: aporrezeien].

[245] “Iliad,” xiii. 284, 285.

[246] “Iliad,” xv. 262.

[247] “Iliad,” v. 185.

[248] Compare “That Virtue may be Taught,” Sec. ii.