Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/48

26 nor yet from perfect benevolence and goodwill, the fellowship in joy and sorrow.

Now if it be true (as it is indeed) that they do grossly err who would abolish all love, because of foolish and wanton love: surely they do amiss who, for covetousness sake and greediness of money, do blame and condemn quite all other appetites and desires. They do (I say) as much as those who would forbid running altogether, because a man may stumble and catch a fall as he runneth: or debar shooting for that we may overshoot and miss the mark: or to condemn hearing of music, because a discord or jar is offensive to the ear. For like as in sounds, music maketh an accord and harmony, not by taking away the loud and base notes: And in our bodies physic procureth health, not by destroying heat and cold, but by a certain temperature and mixture of them both in good proportion: Even so it fareth in the soul of man, wherein reason hath the predominance and victory: namely, when by the power thereof, the passions, perturbations and motions are reduced into a kind of moderation and mediocrity. For no doubt excessive sorrow and heaviness, immeasurable joy and gladness in the soul may be aptly compared to a swelling and inflammation in the body, but neither joy nor sorrow simply in itself. And therefore Homer in this wise sentence of his:

A man of worth doth never colour change. Excessive fear in him is very strange,

doth not abolish fear altogether, but the extremity thereof; to the end that a man should not think that either valour is desperate folly, or confidence audacious temerity. And therefore in pleasures and delights, we ought likewise to cut off immoderate lust: as also in taking punishment, extreme hatred of malefactors. He that can do so shall be reputed in the one not indolent, but temperate, and in the other not bitter and cruel, but just and righteous.

Whereas let passions be rid clean away (if that were possible to be done), our reason will be found in many things more dull and idle: like as the pilot and master of a ship hath little to do if the wind be laid and no gale at all stirring. And verily (as it should seem) wise law-makers, seeing this well enough, have with great policy given occasion in cities and commonwealths of ambition and emulation among citizens one with another: and in the field against enemies devised to excite the courage of soldiers, and to whet their ire and manhood by sound of trumpets, fifes, drums, and other instruments. For not only