d age when life is on the wane: so that, whether his
children or friends are alive or not, he is equally solitary.--Worthy of
honour is he who does no injustice, and of more than twofold honour,
if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing
any; the first may count as one man, the second is worth many men,
because he informs the rulers of the injustice of others. And yet
more highly to be esteemed is he who co-operates with the rulers in
correcting the citizens as far as he can--he shall be proclaimed the
great and perfect citizen, and bear away the palm of virtue. The same
praise may be given about temperance and wisdom, and all other goods
which may be imparted to others, as well as acquired by a man for
himself; he who imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men, and he
who is willing, yet is not able, may be allowed the second place; but he
who is jealous and will not, if he can help, allow others to partake in
a friendly way of any good, is deserving of blame: the good, however,
which he has, is not to be undervalued by us because it is possessed
by him, but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of our power. Let
every man, then, freely strive for the prize of virtue, and let there be
no envy. For the unenvious nature increases the greatness of states--he
himself contends in the race, blasting the fair fame of no man; but the
envious, who thinks that he ought to get the better by defaming others,
is less energetic himself in the pursuit of true virtue, and reduces his
rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of them. And so he makes the
whole city to enter the arena untrained in the practice of virtue, and
diminishes her glory as far as in him lies. Now every man should
be valiant, but he should also be gentle. From the cruel, or hardly
curable, or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by
others, a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and
conquering, and by never ceasing to punish them; and no man who is not
of a noble spirit is able to accomplish this. As to the actions of
those who do evil, but whose evil is curable, in the first place, let us
remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will. For no
man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of evils,
and least of all in the most honourable part of himself. And the soul,
as we said, is of a truth deemed by all men the most honourable. In
the soul, then, which is the m