[Discussion] On the Gods and the World, Ch. X

[sdi]

Happy Wednesday, and a Happy New Year as well! All books written in 1926, including Arthur Darby Nock's 1926 translation of Sallustius, are finally in the public domain. What this means for us is that I may now excerpt his commentary in addition to his footnotes, and will try to do so where helpful.

Let's pick the puzzle-box back up, shall we?

X. Concerning Virtue and Vice.

The doctrine of Virtue and Vice depends on that of the Soul. When the irrational soul enters into the body and immediately produces Fight and Desire, the rational soul, put in authority over all these, makes the soul tripartite, composed of Reason, Fight, and Desire.* Virtue in the region of Reason is Wisdom, in the region of Fight is Courage, in the region of Desire it is Temperance: the virtue of the whole Soul is Righteousness.† It is for Reason to judge what is right, for Fight in obedience to Reason to despise things that appear terrible, for Desire to pursue not the apparently desirable, but, that which is with Reason desirable.‡ When these things are so, we have a righteous life; for righteousness in matters of property is but a small part of virtue. And thus we shall find all four virtues in properly trained men, but among the untrained one may be brave and unjust, another temperate and stupid, another prudent and unprincipled. Indeed these qualities should not be called Virtues when they are devoid of Reason and imperfect and found in irrational beings. Vice should be regarded as consisting of the opposite elements. In Reason it is Folly, in Fight, Cowardice, in Desire, Intemperance, in the whole soul, Unrighteousness.§

The virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good rearing and education, the vices by the opposite.

* Thomas Taylor calls these "reason, anger, and desire." Arthur Darby Nock calls these "reason, spirit, and desire."

† Taylor gives the four virtues as "prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice." Nock gives "wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice."

‡ That is, not to pursue base desires but instead to desire that which Reason dictates.

§ Taylor gives "folly, fear, intemperance, and injustice." Nock gives "folly, cowardice, intemperance, injustice."

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

I had not read the Taylor translation until now, using Nock. Seems like there's quite a gulf between "fight" and "spirit," the latter of which tends to more esoteric (and less combative, IMHO) connotations. Very interesting.

The discussion on virtue and vice is of interest, also, in that it sort of segues into the notions of good and evil...

[sdi]

Given "anger," "fight," "spirit," etc. I wonder if we should call that virtue "chutzpah?" 😜

In a less silly manner, perhaps "audacity" or "boldness" is better than the simple "courage?"

[sdi]

Dug it up in a dictionary: the word in question is θυμός ['thumos'], which is soul, spirit, passion, heart. The seat of one's emotional being? Rather than "courage" or even "boldness", I might even be inclined to say "confidence", here? Sureness of self?

[barefootwisdom]

I would say that it's the sense of honor or pride, which, when wounded by other people or by circumstances, inspires us to take a fierce and determined stand.

In the analogy between city and soul in Plato's Republic, this honor-loving part of the soul corresponds with the guardians who defend the city militarily.

[sdi]

The virtues are produced by the right social organization and by good rearing and education, the vices by the opposite.

This harkens back to ch. I, concerning "those who would hear about the Gods."

I was going to whine about this, but then I thought of the example of King Sharyar in the Thousand Nights and a Night: indeed, he was virtueless until he was educated, albeit in an unconventional fashion. Similarly, my education was very poor, but I suppose I'm coming around in the end: autodidacts are still educated, after a fashion!

So I think I disagree with this in the way in which Sallustius meant it, but I agree with the general principle underlying it!

[barefootwisdom]

It's worth emphasizing that, however we choose to translate them, "Reason, Fight, and Desire" are the three parts of the human soul discussed by Plato at length in the Republic, and again in the Phaedrus. In the latter dialogue we get the image of the rational/reasoning part as a charioteer, working together with the honor-loving part of the soul, represented by the more well-behaved of a pair of horses, to tame the unruly, ill-bred horse of the desiring/desiderative part of the soul.

For whatever it's worth, I find the Phaedrus to be the most intensely moving and poetically beautiful of all Plato's dialogues.

[boccaderlupo]

These are all great observations. Thank you, barefootwisdom, for making that connection to Plato.

It's indeed interesting that Sallustius tracks virtue back to social organization and education...but I guess that's indicative of social priorities of that culture more than anything else.

[barefootwisdom]

You're most welcome and thank you!

With regard to your final remark here, maybe I've been thinking in this ancient millieu for too many years now, but education doesn't surprise me at all. When I recall that the Greek term for virtue (arete) literally means "excellence," I respond, "of course education ought to make us excellent! What else is it for?"

As to social organization, it's a microcosm-macrocosm thing. Just like a excellent society needs all of its parts properly balanced, so too an excellent person needs all of his parts properly balanced. Again, of course, a legacy of Plato, and of the Republic in particular.

[sdi]

I definitely think there's a cultural component. When I think of exemplars of virtue, I think of saints, monastics, hermits. That is, to a large degree, the opposite of social organization!

[sdi]

In fact, I am reading A Day in Old Athens right now, and this is hammered home repeatedly and often, for example: [...] to live on the efforts of others and to devote oneself to public service or to letters and philosophy is the open satisfaction or the private longing of every Athenian. [...] To serve the state in any official capacity (usually without any salary attached to the office) would give the highest satisfaction to any Greek. The desire for participation in public affairs might be described as a mania.

How different than here in America, where we consider public officials with distrust and contempt—and yet, perhaps, not half so much as they deserve! Our cultural heroes are those men who go and shut themselves up in a laboratory somewhere, and finally bring back the miraculous results of their experiments or ponderings... say, a Newton or Tesla or Einstein.

[barefootwisdom]

Thanks for this. I definitely appreciate where you're coming from with this.

Which leaves me wondering: when and how did the shift happen? I'm thinking of the way that Tocqueville and others described Americans' "mania" (to use the term from your quote) for forming voluntary societies and organizations for just about every purpose under the sun. So it was not all that long ago that thinking in terms of social organization would have made sense here, too.

I agree that there's something in the current cultural moment that valorizes the atomized individual, but I guess I'm inclined to see this as one part of a larger tapestry, both in this moment, and across time. Then again, I've been marinating in these ancient thinkers for so long, that I regularly feel out of step with the majority of the people around me.

[sdi]

I was pondering this today and the best I have is speculative.

de Tocqueville was writing in the 1830's. Astrologically, that was the end of an era: the 1663 Grand Mutation was in Sagittarius, with a mighty Jupiter and a weak Saturn both notably conjunct Venus (among other aspects). The 1842 Grand Mutation which followed was in Capricorn, giving great strength to Saturn and great weakness to Jupiter, and further had no aspects to any planets whatsoever.

Given that Jupiter is the planet of organization and Saturn the planet of isolation, this certainly has the smell of moving from an era of community to an era of atomization...

[barefootwisdom]

I'll grant you the hermits, but disagree about the monks. Having interacted in the daily life of a thriving monastery for about four years, I can say that the monastic community is itself a paradigm case of complex social organization, and then the interactions between that monastery and the widers worlds (of lay co-religionists, and of the world at large) add still more layers of social complexity.

[sdi]

Thank you for saying so—I've only read about them, and never seen one in person. (And, now that I think of it, most of the monks I've read deeply about were, themselves, hermits...)

[sdi]

I am reading William Harris Stahl's translation of Macrobius' Commentary on Scipio's Dream, and he translates the three parts of the soul as "reason, emotion, and appetite." These strike me as cleaner than the cumbersome versions of Taylor, Murray, and Nock.