Lies, fawning speeches, and deceitful manners,1if, when these are taken away, virtue will also vanish and be lost?
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But who can complain of this, that shall remember
what he has written in his Second Book of Nature, declaring that vice was not unprofitably made for the universe? But it is meet I should set down his doctrine in his
own words, that you may understand in what place those
rank vice, and what discourses they hold of it, who accuse
Xenocrates and Speusippus for not reckoning health indifferent and riches useless. ‘Vice,’ saith he, ‘has its
limit in reference to other accidents. For it is also in
some sort according to the reason of Nature, and (as I may
so say) is not wholly useless in respect of the universe;
for otherwise there would not be any good.’ Is there then
no good among the Gods, because there is no evil? And
when Jupiter, having resolved all matter into himself, shall
be alone, other differences being taken away, will there
then be no good, because there will be no evil? But is
there melody in a choir though none in it sings faultily,
and health in the body though no member is sick: and
yet cannot virtue have its existence without vice? But as
the poison of a serpent or the gall of an hyena is to be
mixed with some medicines, was it also of necessity that
there must have been some conjunction of the wickedness
[p. 385]
of Meletus with the justice of Socrates, and the dissolute
demeanor of Cleon with the probity of Pericles? And
could not Jupiter have found a means to bring into the
world Hercules and Lycurgus, if he had not also made for
us Sardanapalus and Phalaris? It is now time for them to
say that the consumption was made for the sound constitution of men's bodies, and the gout for the swiftness of
their feet; and that Achilles would not have had a good
head of hair if Thersites had not been bald. For what
difference is there between such triflers and ravers, and
those who say that intemperance was not brought forth
unprofitably for continence, nor injustice for justice, so
that we must pray to the Gods, there may be always
wickedness,
1 Hesiod, Works and Days, 78.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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