The full essay by Plutarch is on this blog at: https://jameslongerstuff.blogspot.com/2016/06/this-down-to-earth-essay-by-plutarch.html
Below are the 'extracts' we might make use of at the Meetup Talk titled:.
‘How Can We Measure Our Progress In
Virtue (Morals) & Philosophy?’
From Plutarch’s
book: Moralia.
(Extracts Translated to English by Arthur Richard Shilleto, M.A.)
Available free in English on Amazon (Kindle):
https://www.amazon.com/Plutarchs-Morals-Plutarch-ebook/dp/B0082W83DO
(Full Plutarch essay available for free and easily
printable from:
https://jameslongerstuff.blogspot.com/2016/06/this-down-to-earth-essay-by-plutarch.html
Also, there is a more contemporary translation by
Robin Waterfield at:
https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Penguin-Classics-Plutarch/dp/0140445641
For Greek readers - This essay is available in ancient+modern Greek from
the delightful Kaktos bookshop – (Panepistimeo Street, Central Athens.) – see Book 2 of Plutarch’s Ethics at:
(Full Plutarch essay also available on this blog:
https://jameslongerstuff.blogspot.com/2016/06/this-down-to-earth-essay-by-plutarch.html )
EXTRACTS FOR TALK
§ i. What amount of argument, Sossius Senecio, will make a man know that he is improving in respect to virtue, if his advances in it do not bring about some diminution in folly, but vice, weighing equally with all his good intentions, "acts like the lead that makes the net go down?" (See endnote 249) For neither in music nor grammatical knowledge could anyone recognize any improvement, if he remained as unskilful in them as before, and had not lost some of his old ignorance. Nor in the case of anyone ill would medical treatment, if it brought no relief or ease, by the disease somewhat yielding and abating, give any perception of improvement of health, till the opposite condition was completely brought about by the body recovering its full strength. But just as in these cases there is no improvement unless, by the abatement of what weighs them down till they rise in the opposite scale, they recognize a change, so in the case of those who profess philosophy no improvement or sign of improvement can be supposed, unless the soul lay aside and purge itself of some of its imperfection, and if it continue altogether bad until it become absolutely good and perfect. For indeed a wise man cannot in a moment of time change from absolute badness to perfect goodness, and suddenly abandon for ever all that vice, of which he could not during a long period of time divest himself of any portion. And yet you know, of course, that those who maintain these views frequently give themselves much trouble and bewilderment about the difficulty, that a wise man does not perceive that he has become wise, but is ignorant and doubtful that in a long period of time by little and little, by removing some things and adding others, there will be a secret and quiet improvement, and as it were passage to virtue. But if the change were so great and sudden that the worst man in the morning could become the best man at night, or should the change so happen that he went to bed vicious and woke up in the morning wise, and, having dismissed from his mind all yesterday's follies and errors, should say, "False dreams, away, you had no meaning then!" (250) who on earth could be ignorant of so great a change happening to himself, of virtue blazing forth so completely all at once? I myself am of opinion that anyone, like Caeneus, (251) who, according, to his prayer, got changed from a woman into a man, would sooner be ignorant of the transformation, than that a man should become at once, from a cowardly and senseless person with no powers of self-control, brave and sensible and perfect master of himself, and should in a moment change from a brutish life to a divine without being aware of it.
§ v. …………………… …….. ‘Similarly they relate of Diogenes of Sinope, when he began to be a philosopher, that the Athenians were celebrating a festival, and there were public banquets and shows and mutual festivities, and drinking and revelling all night, and he, coiled up in a corner of the market-place intending to sleep, fell into a train of thought likely seriously to turn him from his purpose and shake his resolution, for he reflected that he had adopted without any necessity a toilsome and unusual kind of life, and by his own fault sat there debarred of all the good things. At that moment, however, they say a mouse stole up and began to munch some of the crumbs of his barley-cake, and he plucked up his courage and said to himself, in a railing and chiding fashion, "What say you, Diogenes? Do your leavings give this mouse a sumptuous meal, while you, the gentleman, wail and lament because you are not getting drunk yonder and reclining on soft and luxurious couches?" Whenever such depressions of mind are not frequent, and the mind when they take place quickly recovers from them, after having put them to flight as it were, and when such annoyance and distraction is easily got rid of, then one may consider one's progress in virtue as a certainty.
§ vi. And since not only the things that in themselves shake and turn them in the opposite direction are more powerful in the case of weak philosophers, but also the serious advice of friends, and the playful and jeering objections of adversaries bend and soften people, and have ere now shaken some out of philosophy altogether, it will be no slight indication of one's progress in virtue if one takes all this very calmly, and is neither disturbed nor aggravated by people who tell us and mention to us that some of our former comrades are flourishing in kings' courts, or have married wives with dowries, or are attended by a crowd of friends when they come down to the forum to solicit some office or advocateship. He that is not moved or affected by all this is already plainly one upon whom philosophy has got a right hold; for it is impossible that we should cease to be envious of what most people admire, unless the admiration of virtue was strongly implanted in us. For over-confidence may be generated in some by anger and folly, but to despise what men admire is not possible without a true and steady elevation of mind. And so people in such a condition of mind, comparing it with that of others, pride themselves on it, and say with Solon, "We would not change virtue for wealth, for while virtue abides, wealth changes hands, and now one man, now another, has it."
And Diogenes compared his shifting about from Corinth to Athens, and again from Thebes to Corinth, to the different residences of the King of Persia, as his spring residence at Susa, his winter residence at Babylon, and his summer residence in Media. And Agesilaus said of the great king, "How is he better than me, if he is not more upright?" And Aristotle, writing to Antipater about Alexander, said, "that he ought not to think highly of himself because he had many subjects, for anyone who had right notions about the gods was entitled to think quite as highly of himself." And Zeno, observing that Theophrastus was admired for the number of his pupils, said, "His choir is, I admit, larger than mine, but mine is more harmonious."
§ vii. Whenever then, by thus comparing the advantages of virtue with external things, you get rid of envies and jealousies and those things which fret and depress the minds of many who are novices in philosophy, this also is a great indication of your progress in virtue. Another and no slight indication is a change in the style of your discourses. For generally speaking all novices in philosophy adopt most such as tend to their own glorification; some, like birds, in their levity and ambition soaring to the height and brightness of physical things; others like young puppies, as Plato says, rejoicing in tearing and biting, betake themselves to strifes and questions and sophisms; but most plunging themselves into dialectics immediately store themselves for sophistry; and some collect sentences and histories and go about (as Anacharsis said he saw the Greeks used money for no other purpose but to count it up), merely piling up and comparing them, but making no practical use of them.
Applicable here is that saying of Antiphanes, which someone applied to Plato's pupils. Antiphanes said playfully that in a certain city words were frozen directly they were spoken, owing to the great cold, and were thawed again in the summer, so that one could then hear what had been said in the winter. So he said of the words which were spoken by Plato to young men, that most of them only understood them late in life when they were become old men. And this is the condition people are in in respect to all philosophy, until the judgement gets into a sound and healthy state, and begins to adapt itself to those things which can produce character and greatness of mind, and to seek discourses whose footsteps turn inwards rather than outwards, to borrow the language of Æsop. For as Sophocles said he had first toned down the pompous style of Æschylus, then his harsh and over-artificial method, and had in the third place changed his manner of diction, a most important point and one that is most intimately connected with the character, so those who go in for philosophy, when they have passed from flattering and artificial discourses to such as deal with character and emotion, are beginning to make genuine and modest progress in virtue.
§ viii. Furthermore, take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful. And also, in studying poems or history, let nothing escape you of what is said to the point, which is likely either to correct the character or to calm the passions. For as Simonides says the bee hovers among the flowers "making the yellow honey," while others value and pluck flowers only for their beauty and fragrance, so of all that read poems for pleasure and amusement he alone that finds and gathers what is valuable seems capable of knowledge from his acquaintance with and friendship for what is noble and good. For those who study Plato and Xenophon only for their style, and cull out only what is pure and Attic, and as it were the dew and the bloom, do they not resemble people who love drugs for their smell and colour, but care not for them as anodynes or purges, and are not aware of those properties? Whereas those who have more proficiency can derive benefit not from discourses only, but from sights and actions, and cull what is good and useful, as is recorded of Æschylus and other similar kind of men. As to Æschylus, when he was watching a contest in boxing at the Isthmus, and the whole theatre cried out upon one of the boxers being beaten, he nudged with his elbow Ion of Chios, and said, "Do you observe the power of training? The beaten man holds his peace, while the spectators cry out." And Brasidas having caught hold of a mouse among some figs, being bitten by it let it go, and said to himself, "Hercules, there is no creature so small or weak that it will not fight for its life!"
And Diogenes, seeing a lad drinking water out of the palm of his hand, threw away the cup which he kept in his wallet. So much does attention and assiduous practice make people perceptive and receptive of what contributes to virtue from any source. And this is the case still more with those who mix discourses with actions, who not only, to use the language of Thucydides, "exercise themselves in the presence of danger," but also in regard to pleasures and strifes, and judgements, and advocateships, and magistrateships make a display of their opinions, or rather form their opinions by their practice. For we can no more think those philosophers who are ever learning and busy and investigating what they have got from philosophy, and then straightway publish it in the market-place or in the haunt of young men, or at a royal supper-party, any more than we give the name of physicians to those who sell drugs and mixtures. Nay rather such a sophist differs very little at all from the bird described in Homer, offering his scholars like it whatever he has got, and as it feeds its callow young from its own mouth, "though it goes ill with itself," so he gets no advantage or food from what he has got for himself.
§ ix. We must therefore see to it that our discourse be serviceable to ourselves, and that it may not appear to others to be vain-glorious or ambitious, and we must show that we are as willing to listen as to teach, and especially must we lay aside all disputatiousness and love of strife in controversy, and cease bandying fierce words with one another as if we were contending with one another at boxing, and leave off rejoicing more in smiting and knocking down one another than in learning and teaching. For in such cases moderation and mildness, and to commence arguing without quarrelsomeness and to finish without getting into a rage, and neither to be insolent if you come off best in the argument, nor dejected if you come off worst, is a sufficient sign of progress in virtue. Aristippus was an excellent example of this, when overcome in argument by the sophistry of a man, who had plenty of assurance, but was generally speaking mad or half-witted. Observing that he was in great joy and very puffed up at his victory, he said, "I who have been vanquished in the argument shall have a better night's rest than my victor."
We can also test ourselves in regard to public speaking, if we are not timid and do not shrink from speaking when a large audience has unexpectedly been got together, nor dejected when we have only a small one to harangue to, and if we do not, when we have to speak to the people or before some magistrate, miss the opportunity through want of proper preparation; for these things are recorded both of Demosthenes and Alcibiades. As for Alcibiades, though he possessed a most excellent understanding, yet from want of confidence in speaking he often broke down, and in trying to recall a word or thought that slipped his memory had to stop short. And Homer did not deny that his first line was unmetrical, though he had sufficient confidence to follow it up by so many other lines, so great was his genius. Much more then ought those who aim at virtue and what is noble to lose no opportunity of public speaking, paying very little attention to either uproar or applause at their speeches.
§ x. And not,,,,,,,,,,,,
