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[18]
Those, on the other hand, who measure everything 1 by a standard of profits and personal advantage
and refuse to have these outweighed by considerations of moral rectitude are accustomed, in considering any question, to weigh the morally right against
what they think the expedient; good men are not.
And so I believe that when Panaetius stated that
people were accustomed to hesitate to do such
weighing, he meant precisely what he said—merely
that “such was their custom,” not that such was
their duty. And he gave it no approval; for it is
most immoral to think more highly of the apparently
expedient than of the morally right, or even to set
[p. 287]
these over against each other and to hesitate to
choose between them.
What, then, is it that may sometimes give room2
for a doubt and seem to call for consideration? It
is, I believe, when a question arises as to the character of an action under consideration.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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