Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/24

 it very expedient briefly to run through the opinions of other philosophers, not so much by way of an historical narration and so an end, as that when they be once shewed and laid abroad, our opinion may both appear more plainly, and also be held more surely.

Menedemus, then, who was born in the city Eretria, abolished all plurality and difference of virtues, supposing that there was but one only virtue, and the same known by sundry names: For he said, that it was but one and the same thing which men called temperance, fortitude, and justice: like as if one should say, A reasonable creature and a man, he meaneth the selfsame thing. As for Ariston, the Chian, he was of opinion likewise, that in substance there was no more but one virtue, the which he termed by the name of health: marry, in some divers respects, there were many virtues, and those different one from another: as namely, for example, if a man should call our eyesight, when it beholdeth white things, leucothea: when it seeth black, melanthie: and so likewise in other matters. For virtue (quoth he), which concerneth and considereth what we ought either to do or not to do, beareth the name of prudence: when it ruleth and ordereth our lust or concupiscence, limiting out a certain measure and lawful proportion of time unto pleasures, it is called temperance: if it intermeddle with the commerce, contracts, and negotiation between man and man, then it is named justice: like as (to make it more plain) a knife is the same still, although it cut, now one thing and then another: and the fire, notwithstanding it worketh upon sundry matters, yet it remaineth always of one and the same nature. It seemeth also, that Zeno, the Citean, inclined in some sort to this opinion, who in defining prudence, saith, that when it doth distribute to every man his ovm, it ought to be called justice; when it is occupied in objects either to be chosen or avoided, then it is temperance; and in bearing or suffering, it should be named fortitude.

Now, they that defend and maintain this opinion of Zeno, affirm that by prudence he understandeth science or knowledge. But Chrysippus, who was of this mind, that each virtue had a peculiar quality, and according to it, ought to be defined and set down, wist not how (ere he was aware) he brought into philosophy, and as Plato saith, raised a swarm of virtues never known before, and wherewith the schools had not been acquainted. For like as of valiant he derived valour, of just, justice, of clement, clemency: so also of gracious he comes in