Bravery, therefore, and patience are necessary for labour, philosophy
for rest, and temperance and justice in both; but these chiefly in
time of peace and rest; for war obliges men to be just and temperate;
but the enjoyment of pleasure, with the rest of peace, is more apt to
produce insolence; those indeed who are easy in their circumstances,
and enjoy everything that can make them happy, have great occasion for
the virtues of temperance and justice. Thus if there are, as the poets
tell us, any inhabitants in the happy isles, to these a higher degree
of philosophy, temperance, and justice will be necessary, as they live
at their ease in the full plenty of every sensual pleasure. It is
evident, therefore, that these virtues are necessary in every state
that would be happy or worthy; for he who is worthless can never enjoy
real good, much less is he qualified to be at rest; but can appear
good only by labour and being at war, but in peace and at rest the
meanest of creatures. For which reason virtue should not be cultivated
as the Lacedaemonians did; for they did not differ from others in
their opinion concerning the supreme good, but in [1334b] imagining
this good was to be procured by a particular virtue; but since there
are greater goods than those of war, it is evident that the enjoyment
of those which are valuable in themselves should be desired, rather
than those virtues which are useful in war; but how and by what means
this is to be acquired is now to be considered.
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