Plutarch, De virtute morali
W. C. Helmbold, Ed.

Yet all of these men agree¹ in supposing virtue to be a certain disposition of the governing portion of the soul and a faculty engendered by reason, or rather to be itself reason which is in accord with virtue and is firm and unshaken. They also think that the passionate and irrational part of the soul is not distinguished from the rational by any difference or by its nature, but is the same part, which, indeed, they term intelligence and the governing part; it is, they say, wholly transformed and changes both during its emotional states and in the alterations brought about in accordance with an acquired disposition or condition and thus becomes both vice and virtue ; it contains nothing irrational within itself, but is called irrational whenever, by the overmastering power of our impulses, which have become strong and prevail, it is hurried on to something outrageous which contravenes the convictions of reason.² Passion, in fact, according to them, is a vicious and intemperate reason, formed from an evil [p. 25] and perverse judgement which has acquired additional violence and strength.

But it seems to have eluded all these philosophers in what way each of us is truly two-fold and composite.³ For that other two-fold nature of ours they have not discerned, but merely the more obvious one, the blend of soul and body. But that there is some element of composition, some two-fold nature and dissimilarity of the very soul within itself, since the irrational, as though it were another substance, is mingled and joined with reason by some compulsion of Nature-this, it is likely, was not unknown even to Pythagoras, if we may judge by the mans enthusiasm for the study of music, which he introduced to enchant and assuage the soul,⁴ perceiving that the soul has not every part of itself in subjection to discipline and study, and that not every part can be changed from vice by reason, but that the several parts have need of some other kind of persuasion to co-operate with them, to mould them, and to tame them, if they are not to be utterly intractable and obstinate to the teaching of philosophy.

Plato,⁵ however, comprehended clearly, firmly, and without reservation both that the soul of this universe of ours is not simple nor uncompounded nor uniform, but that, being compounded of the potentialities of sameness and otherness, in one part it is ever governed in uniformity and revolves in but one and the same order, which maintains control, yet in another part it is split into movements and circles which go in contrariety to each other and wander about, thus giving [p. 27] rise to the beginnings of differentiation and change and dissimilarity in those things which come into being and pass away on earth ; and also that the soul of man,⁶ since it is a portion or a copy of the soul of the Universe and is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe,⁷ is not simple nor subj ect to similar emotions, but has as one part the intelligent and rational, whose natural duty it is to govern and rule the individual, and as another part the passionate and irrational, the variable and disorderly, which has need of a director. This second part is again subdivided into two parts, one of which, by nature ever willing to consort with the body and to serve the body, is called the appetitive ; the other, which sometimes joins forces with this part and sometimes lends strength and vigour to reason, is called the spirited part. And Plato⁸ shows this differentiation chiefly by the opposition of the reasoning and intelligent part to the appetitive part and the spirited part, since it is by the very fact that these last are different that they are frequently disobedient and quarrel with the better part.

Aristotle⁹ at first made use of these principles to a very great extent, as is obvious from his writings. But later¹⁰ he assigned the spirited to the appetitive part, on the ground that anger is a sort of appetite [p. 29] and desire to cause pain in requital¹¹; to the end, however, he continued to treat the passionate and irrational part as distinct from the rational, not because this part is wholly irrational, as is the perceptive part of the soul, or the nutritive and vegetative part (for these parts are completely unsubmissive and deaf to reason and, so to speak, mere off-shoots of our flesh and wholly attached to the body), but though the passionate part is wanting in reason and has no reason of its own, yet otherwise it is by nature fitted to heed the rational and intelligent part, to turn toward it, to yield to it, to conform itself thereto, if it is not completely corrupted by foolish pleasure and a life of no restraint.