Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/369

Rh of time a wise man should pass from extreme wickedness unto the supreme and highest disposition of virtue: That he had all at once and in the minute of an hour fled vice and cast it from him fully, whereof in a long time before he was not able to be rid of one little portion.

But you know full well already that those who hold such extravagant opinions as these make themselves work enough, and raise great doubts and questions about this point, namely, how a man should not perceive and feel himself when he is become wise, and be either ignorant or doubtful that this growth and increase cometh in long process of time by little and little, partly by addition of something, and partly by subtraction of other, until one arrive gently unto virtue, before he can perceive that he is going toward it. Now if there were so quick and sudden a mutation, as that he who was to-day morning most vicious should become in the evening as virtuous; and if there ever were known to happen unto any man such a change, that going to bed a very fool and so sleeping, should awake and rise a wise man, and taking his leave of yesterday's follies, errors, and deceits, say unto them:

Is it possible that such a one (I say) should be ignorant of this sudden change, and not perceive so great a difference in himself, nor feel how wisdom all at once hath thus lightened and illuminated his soul? For mine own part, I would rather think that one upon earnest prayer transformed by the power of the gods from a woman to a man (as the tale goes of Caeneus) should be ignorant of this metamorphosis, than he who of a coward, a fool, and a dissolute or loose person become hardy, wise, sober, and temperate; or being transported from a sensual and beastly life unto a divine and heavenly life, should not mark the very instant wherein such a change did befall. But well it was said in old time: That the stone is to be applied and framed unto the rule, and not the rule or square unto the stone. And they (the Stoics, I mean) who are not willing to accommodate their opinions unto the things indeed, but wrest and force against the course of nature things unto their own conceits and suppositions, have filled all philosophy with great difficulties and doubtful ambiguities; of which this is the greatest: In that they will seem to comprise all men, excepting him only whom they imagine perfect, under one and the same vice in general: which strange