It is admitted that
moderation and the mean are best, and therefore it will clearly be
best to possess the gifts of fortune in moderation; for in that
condition of life men are most ready to follow rational principle. But
he who greatly excels in beauty, strength, birth, or wealth, or on the
other hand who is very poor, or very weak, or very much disgraced,
finds it difficult to follow rational principle. Of these two the
one sort grow into violent and great criminals, the others into rogues
and petty rascals. And two sorts of offenses correspond to them, the
one committed from violence, the other from roguery. Again, the middle
class is least likely to shrink from rule, or to be over-ambitious for
it; both of which are injuries to the state. Again, those who have too
much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like,
are neither willing nor able to submit to authority. The evil begins
at home; for when they are boys, by reason of the luxury in which they
are brought up, they never learn, even at school, the habit of
obedience. On the other hand, the very poor, who are in the opposite
extreme, are too degraded. So that the one class cannot obey, and
can only rule despotically; the other knows not how to command and
must be ruled like slaves. Thus arises a city, not of freemen, but
of masters and slaves, the one despising, the other envying; and
nothing can be more fatal to friendship and good fellowship in
states than this: for good fellowship springs from friendship; when
men are at enmity with one another, they would rather not even share
the same path.
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