[46]
15. Now, the men we live with are not perfect
[p. 51]
and ideally wise, but men who do very well, if there
be found in them but the semblance of virtue. I
therefore think that this is to be taken for granted,
that no one should be entirely neglected who shows
any trace of virtue; but the more a man is endowed
with these finer virtues—temperance, self-control,
and that very justice about which so much has already been said—the more he deserves to be favoured.
I do not mention fortitude, for a courageous spirit
in a man who has not attained perfection and ideal
wisdom is generally too impetuous; it is those other
virtues that seem more particularly to mark the
good man.
So much in regard to the character of the object
of our beneficence.
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