[46]
15. Now, the men we live with are not perfect
[p. 51]
and ideally wise, but men who do very well, if there
be found in them but the semblance of virtue. I
therefore think that this is to be taken for granted,
that no one should be entirely neglected who shows
any trace of virtue; but the more a man is endowed
with these finer virtues—temperance, self-control,
and that very justice about which so much has already been said—the more he deserves to be favoured.
I do not mention fortitude, for a courageous spirit
in a man who has not attained perfection and ideal
wisdom is generally too impetuous; it is those other
virtues that seem more particularly to mark the
good man.
So much in regard to the character of the object
of our beneficence.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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