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DIADUMENUS. Many things indeed are said; but at
present we shall make use only of what is most necessary.
In the first place, it is a folly to imagine that good and evil
have their existence for the sake of prudence. For good
and evil being already extant, prudence came afterwards;
as the art of physic was invented, there being already
things wholesome and unwholesome. For good and evil
are not therefore extant that there may be prudence; but
the faculty by which we judge good and evil that are
already in being is named prudence. As sight is a sense
distinguishing white from black; which colors were not
therefore made that we might have sight, but we rather
wanted sight to discern these things. Secondly, when the
world shall be set on fire (as the Stoics will have it),
there will then no evil be left, but all will then be prudent
and wise. There is therefore prudence, though there is
no evil; nor is it of necessity for evil to exist that prudence
may have a being. But supposing that prudence must
always be a knowledge of good and evil, what inconvenience would it be if, evil being taken away, prudence
should no longer subsist; but instead of this we should
have another virtue, not being the knowledge of good and
evil, but of good only? So, if black should be wholly
lost from among the colors, and any one should therefore
contend that sight is also lost, for that there is no longer
the sense of discerning black and white, what should hinder us from answering him: It is no prejudice to us, if we
have not what you call sight, but in lieu of that have
another sense and faculty, by which we apprehend colors
that are white and not white. For I indeed think that
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neither our taste would be lost, if bitter things were wanting, nor our feeling, if pain were taken away, nor prudence,
if evil had no being; but that these senses would remain,
to apprehend things sweet and grateful and those that are
not so, and prudence to be the science of things good and
not good. But let those who think otherwise take the
name to themselves, leaving us the thing.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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