‘And the temperate’ (those who exercise self control), ‘because they are not inclined to wrong’. Being temperate, and their passions under strict control, they are not tempted by any licentious and illregulated desires to gratify these by wrong doing. The import and extent of the virtue of σωφροσύνη are best set forth by Plato in the Gorgias. It is the principle of order and moderation in the human composition, and is hardly distinguishable from the conception of δικαιοσύνη, the virtue that regulates the entire human machine, in the Republic. Dr Whewell in his Transl. of the Gorgias thinks that the character assigned to it by Plato is best expressed by the term ‘self-control’. ‘And those who abstain from business’, lead an easy quiet life, and don't meddle with other people's business, ‘for the same reason’. ἀπράγμων is opposed to πολυπράγμων, a meddler, or busy-body.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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