“The constitution of the soul is divided into logical, emotional and volitional. Logic governs knowledge, emotional relates to impulse and volitional governs the emotions of the soul.
When these three parts are united in one act, manifesting a complex energy, then the soul reaches confession and virtue. When rebellion separates them, then malice and disharmony appear.
- Virtue therefore contains three elements: knowledge, power and choice.
- The virtue of the soul’s logical ability is wisdom, which is a habit of consideration and judgment.
- The virtue of the thymic part is courage, i.e. the habit of enduring terrible things and resisting them.
- The virtue of the desiring part is temperance, i.e. moderation and the limitation of the pleasures that come from the body.
- The virtue of the whole soul is justice, because people do indeed become bad either through immorality or through debauchery or through natural ferocity. They harm each other because of speculation, pleasure or ambition.
- Immorality therefore more properly belongs to the rational part of the soul. While prudence is similar to good art, immorality is similar to bad art that devises tricks to act unjustly.
- Debauchery belongs to the desiring part of the soul, since continence consists in the subjugation and debauchery in the failure to subdue pleasures.
- Wildness belongs to the emotional part of the soul, because when someone is motivated by bad desires, he is satisfied not as befits a man but an animal, and this is called wildness.
- The results of these dispositions also arise from the things thanks to which they are made.
- Immorality, coming from the rational part of the soul, results in greed.
The error of the thymic part is ambition, which ends in wildness, and as the desiring part ends in pleasure, it causes debauchery.
Just as unjust actions are the result of many causes, so are just actions, because virtue is by its nature beneficial and profitable, while vice is malicious and harmful.
However, since one part of the soul leads, while the other follows, and since the virtues and the vices coexist in them, it is obvious that even as far as the virtues are concerned, some also lead and others follow, while others are composite.
Those who follow are such virtues as wisdom; those who follow are such virtues as courage and temperance; and among the composites justice is included.
The virtues therefore co-exist with the passions, so that we can call these the last elements of the first.
Of the passions, one is voluntary and the other involuntary; pleasure is voluntary and pain is involuntary.
Men who possess political virtues increase and decrease them, organizing the other parts of the soul according to that which possesses reason. The desired point of this adjustment is that the intellect should not be hindered in the performance of its proper work, either by deficiency or excess.
We adapt the least good to that which is more good, and in the world every part that is always passive exists for the sake of that which is always moving.
In the union of beings, the female exists for the sake of the male, because the latter sows, giving birth to a soul, while the former also transfers matter to that which is born.
In the soul the horse exists for the sake of the logical part.
Anger and desire are organized in relation to the first part of the soul; the first as a satellite and guardian of the body, the second as a preparer and sponsor of every necessity.
The intellect, being fixed on the superior summit of the body and having a view of that which is on all sides bright and transparent, inquires into the wisdom of true beings. This is indeed its natural function, to investigate and possess the truth and to follow those beings who are more excellent and respected than itself. Because the knowledge of the divine and most respectable things is the principle, the cause and the rule of human happiness.
The principles of all virtues are three:
- knowledge,
- strength and
- option.
- Knowledge is indeed that through which we reason and form a judgment of things
- strength is a certain physical source from which we derive our existence and which gives stability to our actions; and
- the option is, so to speak, the hand of the soul which prompts us to approach and appropriate things.
The soul is divided into the logical, the emotional and the volitional
- Reasoning ability governs knowledge,
- the emotional is related to the urge and
- the voluptuous boldly rules the emotions of the soul.
When these three parts are united in one action, manifesting a complex energy, then confession and virtue arise in the soul. When rebellion separates them, then disharmony and malice appear.
When the rational faculty prevails over the horse part of the soul, then there is prudence and temperance; prudence, when we are possessed by pains and temperance, when we are possessed by pleasures.
But when the horse parts of the soul prevail over the logical part, then softness and incontinence are caused: softness because we avoid toil and incontinence because we are overwhelmed by pleasures.
But when the best part of the soul prevails, the inferior is controlled; the first leads and the second follows, while both agree and agree, and then virtue and perfect goodness are born in the whole soul.
Also, when the desiring part of the soul follows logic, then prudence is born, when this happens with the emotional, then courage is born and when it takes place in all parts of the soul, then justice arises.
The Justice
Justice is that which separates all the vices and all the virtues of the soul from each other. Justice is like a system and organization of the parts of the soul and a perfect and supreme virtue; everything is contained in it, while the other goods of the soul cannot exist without it. That is why justice holds great power both among the gods and among men.
It contains the bond through which the whole universe is connected and also that through which gods and men are connected. Among the heavenly gods it is called Themis and among the chthonians it is called Judgment, while among men it is called Law. These are nothing more than symbols and signs that indicate that justice is the supreme virtue.
But the truth is also established from the names:
- when the logic of the soul is impaired, this disposition is called foolishness
- when the temperament is deficient, it is called insolence or cowardice;
- when the desired is lacking, incontinence.
- When logic is blunted again, we call it foolishness; when it is sharpened, audacity;
- when the desire is softened, we call it lust;
- when it is sharpened, fornication and
- overall, the combination of all, when it is not done rationally, is called evil.
- If this vice is caused by something specific, it is called stupidity;
- if it is caused by fear, cowardice; if by pleasures, debauchery; if by speculation, injustice.
- Consequently, virtue, when it consists in reasoning and judgment, is called prudence;
- when it consists in the endurance of terrible things, it is called courage;
- when it consists in the suppression of pleasures, it is called temperance;
- and when it is related to avoiding harm to others, it is called justice.
Consequently, obedience to virtue, according to sound logic, and deviation from it, contrary to sound logic, either tend towards decorum, or towards its opposite. Deon is what should be. It requires neither addition nor subtraction, being as it should be.
The improper is of two kinds: excess and deficiency.
- The exaggeration is the excess of the due and
- Lack is the least of what is required.
Virtue, however, is the possession of what is due.
Thus it is at the same time an extreme and a middle ground. It is middleness, because it is between excess and deficiency; it is extreme, because it accepts neither increase nor decrease, being exactly as it should be.
However, since the virtue of morality is related to the passions, of which pleasure and sorrow are supreme, it is obvious that virtue does not consist in the eradication of the passions of the soul, pleasure and sorrow, but in their harmonization. Because even health, which is a good combination of physical forces, does not lie in the removal of cold and hot, wet and dry, but in their appropriate and symmetrical combination. Because health is a symmetry of all of them. Similarly in music, harmony is not found in the exclusion of high and low tones, but in their appropriate combination. Because when these sounds are matched, then agreement arises and dissonance is eliminated. Also, the harmonious combination of hot and cold, wet and dry, causes health and destroys disease. Likewise, in the soul, when the emotional and the volitional are matched, then vices and other passions disappear and virtues and good morals are created.
The most important characteristic of moral virtue is the preference for good. Because reason and power can be used without virtue, but discretion is impossible. Because the choice shows the quality of the moral.
When logic is imposed on impulse and emotion, then it creates restraint and determination. However, when logic is dethroned by the horse part of the soul, then incontinence and softness are caused. These moods of the soul are incomplete virtues and incomplete vices. Because logic is healthy, but the horse part of the soul is sick. And as long as impulse and emotion are controlled and guided by the rational part of the soul, virtues, temperance and determination arise. However, when this is achieved by force and not voluntarily, then vices are caused.
Because virtue must do the right thing not with regret but with pleasure.
When again impulse and emotion are superior to logic, they cause softness and incontinence and vices arise. When the passions recede with sorrow and being aware of the sin, because the eye of the soul is healthy, then we have no malice. It is consequently evident that virtue must voluntarily perform the due, because the involuntary is accompanied by sorrow and fear, while the voluntary is not done without pleasure and admiration.
These are also confirmed by the cause of the division. Knowledge and the perception of things are elements of the logical part of the soul, while strength belongs to the horse part, whose element is not being able to endure toils or to dominate pleasures. Whereas the will exists in both, i.e. in the logical and the horse part of the soul, because its components are the intellect and the appetite (inclination, desire) and the intellect is a function of the logical part of the soul, while the appetite of the horse. Consequently, every virtue lies in the mutual adjustment of the parts of the soul, while the voluntary and optional are definitely elements of virtue.
Virtue is a harmonious union of the rational parts of the soul with the rational. And this union is achieved through the acceptance of the limit of what is due to pleasure and sorrow.
Because true virtue is nothing else, but the habit of what is due. Deon is what should be and non-deon is what should not be. However, what should not have two types: excess and deficiency. Excess is the most of what is due and lack is the least of what is due. However, since the deon is exactly what it should be, it can be at the extreme and in the middle. It is at the extreme, because it needs neither addition nor subtraction, while it is in the middle, because it is between excess and deficiency. The ought and the ought not have the same relationship between them that is equal to the unequal, the coordinated to the disordered and these two are the finite and the infinite. Thus the parts of the inequality have a ratio towards the middle and not between them. For example, an obtuse angle is an angle that is greater than a right angle, while an acute angle is one that is smaller than a right angle. (In a circle) the straight line is longer than the rays drawn from the center. And the longest day is that which is longer than the day of the equinox. Also, excessive heat or coldness causes diseases. The warmest is the most of normal and the coldest is the least of normal.
The same analogy applies to the soul and its mood. Audacity, for example, is an exaggeration of what is due in the face of difficulties, while cowardice is the lack of what is due. Waste again is the excess of what is due in monetary spending, while avarice is its lack. Anger is the excess of what is due to the impulse of anger, while insensitivity is the corresponding lack. The same analogy exists in the other moods of the soul.
Therefore, since virtue is the habit of the worthy, it must also be the moderation of the passions, that is, it must be neither without passions, nor with intense passions. Because the absolute lack of passion makes the soul without impulse and enthusiasm for good, while intense passions make it unaccountable.
Passion must therefore follow virtue, like the shadow and outline of images in painting. Because the vitality and delicacy and the imitation of nature are achieved mainly with the shading and the appropriate combination of colors.
The passions of the soul are something alive and exist in the impulse and enthusiasm of natural virtue. Because virtue is born with the passions and develops with them, just as beautiful harmony is produced by the bitter and the heavy sound, and the temperate is produced by the hot and the cold and the balanced by the heavy and the light. Therefore, we must not remove the passions of the soul, and such a thing is not beneficial, but we must reconcile them with reason according to the requirements of the proper and the moderate.
