Now if arguments were in themselves enough to make men good, they
would justly, as Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and
such rewards should have been provided; but as things are, while
they seem to have power to encourage and stimulate the generous-minded
among our youth, and to make a character which is gently born, and a
true lover of what is noble, ready to be possessed by virtue, they are
not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness. For these
do not by nature obey the sense of shame, but only fear, and do not
abstain from bad acts because of their baseness but through fear of
punishment; living by passion they pursue their own pleasures and
the means to them, and and the opposite pains, and have not even a
conception of what is noble and truly pleasant, since they have
never tasted it. What argument would remould such people? It is
hard, if not impossible, to remove by argument the traits that have
long since been incorporated in the character; and perhaps we must
be content if, when all the influences by which we are thought to
become good are present, we get some tincture of virtue.
Now some think that we are made good by nature, others by
habituation, others by teaching. Nature's part evidently does not
depend on us, but as a result of some divine causes is present in
those who are truly fortunate; while argument and teaching, we may
suspect, are not powerful with all men, but the soul of the student
must first have been cultivated by means of habits for noble joy and
noble hatred, like earth which is to nourish the seed.
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