diff --git a/data/tlg0007/tlg093/tlg0007.tlg093.perseus-eng4.xml b/data/tlg0007/tlg093/tlg0007.tlg093.perseus-eng4.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..28216fcae --- /dev/null +++ b/data/tlg0007/tlg093/tlg0007.tlg093.perseus-eng4.xml @@ -0,0 +1,196 @@ + + + + + + + That Virtue May Be Taught + Plutarch + William Watson Goodwin + John Patrick + Perseus Project, Tufts University + Gregory Crane + + Prepared under the supervision of + Lisa Cerrato + Rashmi Singhal + Bridget Almas + + The National Endowment for the Humanities + + + Trustees of Tufts University + Medford, MA + Perseus Project + 2010-12-13 + + + + + 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 + + 1 + + The Internet Archive + + + + +

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+ + That virtue may be taught. +
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Men deliberate and dispute variously concerning virtue, whether prudence and justice and the right ordering + of one's life can be taught. Moreover, we marvel that the + works of orators, shipmasters, musicians, carpenters, and + husbandmen are infinite in number, while good men are + only a name, and are talked of like centaurs, giants, and + the Cyclops, and that as for any virtuous action that is sincere and unblamable, and manners that are without any + touch and mixture of bad passions and affections, they are + not to be found; but if Nature of its own accord should + produce any thing good and excellent, so many things of + a foreign nature mix with it (just as wild and impure productions with generous fruit) that the good is scarce discernible. Men learn to sing, dance, and read, and to be + skilful in husbandry and good horsemanship; they learn + how to put on their shoes and their garments; they have + those that teach them how to fill wine, and to dress and + cook their meat; and none of these things can be done as + they ought, unless they be instructed how to do them. + And will ye say, O foolish men! that the skill of ordering + one's life well (for the sake of which are all the rest) is not + to be taught, but to come of its own accord, without reason + and without art?

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Why do we, by asserting that virtue is not to be taught, + make it a thing that does not at all exist? For if by its + + + + being learned it is produced, he that hinders its being learned + destroys it. And now, as PlatoPlato, Clitophon, p. 407 C. says, we never heard that + because of a blunder in metre in a lyric song, therefore + one brother made war against another, nor that it put friends + at variance, nor that cities hereupon were at such enmity + that they did to one another and suffered one from another + the extremest injuries. Nor can any one tell us of a sedition raised in a city about the right accenting or pronouncing of a word,—as whether we are to say Τελχῖνας or + Τέλχινας,—nor that a difference arose in a family betwixt + man and wife about the woof and the warp in cloth. Yet + none will go about to weave in a loom or to handle a book + or a harp, unless he has first been taught, though no great + harm would follow if he did, but only the fear of making + himself ridiculous (for, as Heraclitus says, it is a piece of + discretion to conceal one's ignorance); and yet a man without instruction presumes himself able to order a family, a + wife, or a commonwealth, and to govern very well. Diogenes, seeing a youth devouring his victuals too greedily, + gave his tutor a box on the ear, and that deservedly, as + judging it the fault of him that had not taught, not of him + that had not learned better manners. And what? is it necessary to begin to learn from a boy how to eat and drink handsomely in company, as Aristophanes expresses it,— + + + + Not to devour their meat in haste, nor giggle, + Nor awkwardly their feet across to wriggle, + + Aristoph. Nub. 983. + + + + and yet are men fit to enter into the fellowship of a family, + city, married estate, private conversation, or public office, + and to manage it without blame, without any previous instruction concerning good behavior in conversation?

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When one asked Aristippus this question, What, are you + everywhere? he laughed and said, I throw away the fare + of the waterman, if I am everywhere. And why canst not + thou also answer, that the salary given to tutors is thrown + + + + away and lost, if none are the better for their discipline + and instruction. But, as nurses shape and form the body + of a child with their hands, so these masters, when the nurses + have done with them, first receive them into their charge, + in order to the forming of their manners and directing their + steps into the first tracks of virtue. To which purpose the + Lacedaemonian, that was asked what good he did to the + child of whom he had the charge, answered well: I make + good and honest things pleasant to children. These + masters also teach them to bend down their heads as they + go along, to touch salt fish with one finger only, but fresh + fish, bread, and flesh with two; thus to scratch themselves, + and thus to tuck up their garments.

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Now he that says that the art of physic may be + proper for a tetter or a whitlow, but not to be made use of + for a pleurisy, a fever, or a frenzy, in what does he differ + from him that should say that it is fit there should be schools, + and discourses, and precepts, to teach trifling and childish + things, but that all skill in greater and more manly things + comes from use without art and from accidental opportunity? For as he would be ridiculous who should say, that + one who never learned to row ought not to lay hand on the + oar, but that he might guide the helm who was never taught + it; so is he that gives leave for men to be instructed in other + arts, but not in virtue. He seems to be quite contrary to + the practice of the Scythians, who, as HerodotusSee Herod. IV. 2. tells us, + put out their servants' eyes, to prevent them from running + away; but he puts the eye of reason into these base and + slavish arts, and plucks it from virtue. But the general + Iphicrates—when Callias, the son of Chabrias, asked him, + What art thou? Art thou an archer or a targeteer, a + trooper or a foot-soldier?—answered well, I am none of + all these, but one that commands them all. He therefore + would be ridiculous that should say that the skill of drawing + + + + a bow, of handling arms, of throwing with a sling, + and of good horsemanship, might indeed be taught, but the + skill of commanding and leading an army came as it happened, one knew not how. And would not he be still + more ridiculous who should say that prudence only could + not be taught, without which all those arts are useless and + unprofitable? When she is the governess, ranking all + things in due place and order, every thing is assigned to become useful; for instance, how ungraceful would a feast + be, though all concerned were skilful and enough practised + in cookery, in dressing and serving up the meat, and in filling the wine as they ought, if all things were not well + disposed and ordered among those that waited at the + table?...

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