That Which Is Common To

Some Vices Miss What Is Right Because They Are Deficient, Others Because They Are Excessive, In Feelings Or In Actions, While Virtue Finds And Chooses The Mean.

For Man, When Perfected, Is The Best Of Animals, But, When Separated From Law And Justice, He Is The Worst Of All; Since Armed Injustice Is The More Dangerous, And He Is Equipped At Birth With The Arms Of Intelligence And With Moral Qualities Which He May Use For The Worst Ends. Wherefore, If He Have Not Virtue, He Is The Most Unholy And The Most Savage Of Animals, And The Most Full Of Lust And Gluttony. But Justice Is The Bond Of Men In States, And The Administration Of Justice, Which Is The Determination Of What Is Just, Is The Principle Of Order In Political Society.

To Give Away Money Is An Easy Matter And In Any Man's Power. But To Decide To Whom To Give It And How Large And When, And For What Purpose And How, Is Neither In Every Man's Power Nor An Easy Matter.

When You Have Thrown A Stone, You Cannot Afterwards Bring It Back Again, But Nevertheless You Are Responsible For Having Taken Up The Stone And Flung It, For The Origin Of The Act Was Within You. Similarly The Unjust And Profligate Might At The Outset Have Avoided Becoming So, And Therefore They Are So Voluntarily, Although When They Have Become Unjust And Profligate It Is No Longer Open To Them Not To Be So.

It Is This Simplicity That Makes The Uneducated More Effective Than The Educated When Addressing Popular Audiences-makes Them, As The Poets Tell Us, 'charm The Crowd's Ears More Finely.' Educated Men Lay Down Broad General Principles; Uneducated Men Argue From Common Knowledge And Draw Obvious Conclusions.