Sayfa 918 / 1391

I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I

desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance

lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the

favour of considering temperance first.

Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your

request.

Then consider, he said.

Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the

virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and

symphony than the preceding.

How so? he asked.

Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain

pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the

saying of 'a man being his own master;' and other traces of the

same notion may be found in language.

No doubt, he said.

There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of

himself;' for the master is also the servant and the servant the

master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is

denoted.

Certainly.