Pagina 378 di 734

And as, on the one hand, it is a rare thing for a man to be

godlike (a term the Lacedaemonians are accustomed to use when

they admire a man exceedingly; σεῖος ἀνὴρ they call him), so the

brutish man is rare; the character is found most among

barbarians, and some cases of it are caused by disease or

maiming; also such men as exceed in vice all ordinary measures we

therefore designate by this opprobrious term. Well, we must in a

subsequent place make some mention of this disposition, and Vice

has been spoken of before: for the present we must speak of

Imperfect Self-Control and its kindred faults of Softness and

Luxury, on the one hand, and of Self-Control and Endurance on the

other; since we are to conceive of them, not as being the same

states exactly as Virtue and Vice respectively, nor again as

differing in kind.