Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/415

360 health, the beauty, the happiness, the good habit of the soul. We speak of a bad habit of body when its parts are in disorder and at variance with each other, and of a good habit of body when its different parts are in harmony. So vice, independently of external considerations, is the disease, the deformity, the corruption, the pollution, the slavery of the soul, in-as-much as it indicates that the intellectual system is disordered, and that those principles have usurped the government which were created only to obey: and so virtue, and, in particular, justice, is the health, the perfection, the freedom of the soul, inasmuch as it indicates that the intellectual system is well ordered, is regulated according to its nature, and that those principles are governing which were intended to govern, while those are obeying which were intended to obey. Farther, if the state of the body when diseased be such as to render life a burthen, though it may be surrounded with all the luxuries which wealth can procure, so when the state of the soul is thoroughly corrupted by injustice, it can enjoy no true happiness, no real satisfaction, although crowned with worldly honours and advantages; as Juvenal says:—

See especially the passage where Plato speaks of the rightly balanced condition of the soul, which