Pagina 310 di 734

From this very same mistake they suppose also, that acting

Unjustly is equally in the power of the Just man, for the Just

man no less, nay even more, than the Unjust, may be able to do

the particular acts; he may be able to have intercourse with a

woman or strike a man; or the brave man to throw away his shield

and turn his back and run this way or that. True: but then it is

not the mere doing these things which constitutes acts of

cowardice or injustice (except accidentally), but the doing them

with certain inward dispositions: just as it is not the mere

using or not using the knife, administering or not administering

certain drugs, which constitutes medical treatment or curing, but

doing these things in a certain particular way.