And I will now endeavour to show further that they do
not conceive this virtue to be given by nature, or to grow spontaneously,
but to be a thing which may be taught; and which comes to a man by taking
pains. No one would instruct, no one would rebuke, or be angry with those
whose calamities they suppose to be due to nature or chance; they do not
try to punish or to prevent them from being what they are; they do but pity
them. Who is so foolish as to chastise or instruct the ugly, or the
diminutive, or the feeble? And for this reason. Because he knows that
good and evil of this kind is the work of nature and of chance; whereas if
a man is wanting in those good qualities which are attained by study and
exercise and teaching, and has only the contrary evil qualities, other men
are angry with him, and punish and reprove him--of these evil qualities one
is impiety, another injustice, and they may be described generally as the
very opposite of political virtue. In such cases any man will be angry
with another, and reprimand him,--clearly because he thinks that by study
and learning, the virtue in which the other is deficient may be acquired.
If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at
once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes
the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong,
--only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner.
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