1. Cicero, On Duties, 3.15 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 3.15. Cum autem aliquid actum est, in quo media officia compareant, id cumulate videtur esse perfectum, propterea quod volgus quid absit a perfecto, non fere intellegit; quatenus autem intellegit, nihil putat praetermissum; quod idem in poematis, in picturis usu venit in aliisque compluribus, ut delectentur imperiti laudentque ea, quae laudanda non sint, ob eam, credo, causam, quod insit in iis aliquid probi, quod capiat ignaros, qui quidem, quid in una quaque re vitii sit, nequeant iudicare; itaque, cum sunt docti a peritis, desistunt facile sententia. Haec igitur officia, de quibus his libris disserimus, quasi secunda quaedam honesta esse dicunt, non sapientium modo propria, sed cum omni hominum genere communia. | 3.15. On the other hand, when some act is performed in which we see "mean" duties manifested, that is generally regarded as fully perfect, for the reason that the common crowd does not, as a rule, comprehend how far it falls short of real perfection; but, as far as their comprehension does go, they think there is no deficiency. This same thing ordinarily occurs in the estimation of poems, paintings, and a great many other works of art: ordinary people enjoy and praise things that do not deserve praise. The reason for this, I suppose, is that those productions have some point of excellence which catches the fancy of the uneducated, because these have not the ability to discover the points of weakness in any particular piece of work before them. And so, when they are instructed by experts, they readily abandon their former opinion. The performance of the duties, then, which I am discussing in these books, is called by the Stoics a sort of second-grade moral goodness, not the peculiar property of their wise men, but shared by them with all mankind. |
|
2. Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.10, 1.1.12-1.1.13, 1.6.3, 1.6.7, 1.12.2-1.12.3, 1.12.5, 1.14, 1.14.6, 1.14.9-1.14.10, 1.16.15-1.16.16, 1.19.11-1.19.13, 1.24.1, 2.2.21-2.2.26, 2.8.1-2.8.2, 2.8.10-2.8.11, 2.14.11-2.14.13, 2.17.21-2.17.26, 2.17.31, 2.17.33, 3.12.7-3.12.12, 3.13.4, 3.13.13, 3.22.56, 3.24.31, 3.24.60, 3.24.112-3.24.117, 4.1.103, 4.4.39, 4.8.30-4.8.32 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
3. Epictetus, Fragments, 11 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
4. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 47.9-47.10, 51.4-51.6, 51.8-51.12, 56.15, 59.6-59.8, 94.1-94.3, 95.4-95.5 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
|
5. Aelius Aristides, Orations, 26.105, 50.50-50.51 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
6. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 7.91 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 7.91. These are called non-intellectual, because they do not require the mind's assent; they supervene and they occur even in bad men: for instance, health, courage. The proof, says Posidonius in the first book of his treatise on Ethics, that virtue really exists is the fact that Socrates, Diogenes, and Antisthenes and their followers made moral progress. And for the existence of vice as a fundamental fact the proof is that it is the opposite of virtue. That it, virtue, can be taught is laid down by Chrysippus in the first book of his work On the End, by Cleanthes, by Posidonius in his Protreptica, and by Hecato; that it can be taught is clear from the case of bad men becoming good. |
|
