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It is very good advice, Measure the stone by your
rule, and not your rule by the stone. But the Stoics have
not observed it; for they, not applying principles to things,
but forcing things which have no foundation of agreement
in nature to agree to their principles, have filled philosophy
with a number of difficulties. One of the hardest to be
solved is this, that all men whatsoever (except him who
is absolutely perfect) are equally vicious. Hence is that
enigma, called progress or proficiency, which, though it has
puzzled the learned to solve, is in my opinion very foolish;
for it represents those that have advanced a little, and are
partly free from inordinate passions and distempers of mind,
to be as unhappy as those that are guilty of the most heinous enormities. And indeed the assertion is so absurd,
that their own actions are enough to confute it; for while
they maintain in their schools that Aristides and Phalaris
are equally unjust, that Brasidas and Dolon are equal cowards, and that Plato and Meletus are equally senseless, still
in all affairs of life they seem to reject and avoid the latter
of these, as too harsh and severe to be softened into compliance, but credit and quote the former in all their writings,
as persons of extraordinary worth and esteem. This is
what the Stoics assert.
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. 2.
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