For, whereas external goods have a limit, like any other instrument,
and all things useful are of such a nature that where there is too
much of them they must either do harm, or at any rate be of no use, to
their possessors, every good of the soul, the greater it is, is also
of greater use, if the epithet useful as well as noble is
appropriate to such subjects. No proof is required to show that the
best state of one thing in relation to another corresponds in degree
of excellence to the interval between the natures of which we say that
these very states are states: so that, if the soul is more noble
than our possessions or our bodies, both absolutely and in relation to
us, it must be admitted that the best state of either has a similar
ratio to the other. Again, it is for the sake of the soul that goods
external and goods of the body are eligible at all, and all wise men
ought to choose them for the sake of the soul, and not the soul for
the sake of them.
Let us acknowledge then that each one has just so much of
happiness as he has of virtue and wisdom, and of virtuous and wise
action. God is a witness to us of this truth, for he is happy and
blessed, not by reason of any external good, but in himself and by
reason of his own nature. And herein of necessity lies the
difference between good fortune and happiness; for external goods come
of themselves, and chance is the author of them, but no one is just or
temperate by or through chance.
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