Of goods, some are virtues, some are not.
Prudence, then, and temperance and justice and courage and great-heartedness and strength of body and soul are virtues; joy and good spirits and confidence and wish and such things are not virtues.
Of virtues, some are kinds of knowledge of certain things and crafts, and some are not.
Prudence, then, and temperance and justice and courage are kinds of knowledge of certain things and crafts; great-heartedness and strength of body and soul are neither kinds of knowledge of certain things nor crafts.
Analogously, of bad things some are vices and some are not.
Imprudence, then, and injustice and cowardice and pusillanimity and powerlessness are vices; pain and fear and such things are not vices.
Of vices, some are kinds of ignorance of certain things and the absence of skill, some are not.
Imprudence, then, and wantonness and injustice and cowardice are kinds of ignorance of certain things and the absence of skill. Pusillanimity and powerlessness and weakness are neither kinds of ignorance nor lacks of skill.
IMAGE: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Allegory of Virtue and Nobility (c. 1748)
No comments:
Post a Comment