things, although they were neither good nor bad, he divided them,
calling some according to, and others contrary to nature. There were
others which he looked upon as placed between these two classes, and which
he called intermediate. Those which were according to nature, he taught
his disciples, deserved to be taken, and to be considered worthy of a
certain esteem. To those which were contrary to nature, he assigned a
contrary character; and those of the intermediate class he left as
neutrals, and attributed to them no importance whatever. But of those
which he said ought to be taken, he considered some worthy of a higher
estimation and others of a less. Those which were worthy of a higher
esteem, he called _preferred_; those which were only worthy of a lower
degree, he called _rejected_. And as he had altered all these things, not
so much in fact as in name, so too he defined some actions as
intermediate, lying between good deeds and sins, between duty and a
violation of duty;--classing things done rightly as good actions, and
things done wrongly (that is to say, sins) as bad actions. And several
duties, whether discharged or neglected, he considered of an intermediate
character, as I have already said. And whereas his predecessors had not
placed every virtue in reason, but had said that some virtues were
perfected by nature, or by habit, he placed them all in reason; and while
they thought that those kinds of virtues which I have mentioned above
could be separated, he asserted that that could not be done in any manner,
and affirmed that not only the practice of virtue (which was the doctrine
of his predecessors), but the very disposition to it, was intrinsically
beautiful; and that virtue could not possibly be present to any one
without his continually practising it.

And while they did not entirely remove all perturbation of mind from man,
(for they admitted that man did by nature grieve, and desire, and fear,
and become elated by joy,) but only contracted it, and reduced it to
narrow bounds; he maintained that the wise man was wholly free from all
these diseases as they might be called. And as the ancients said that
those perturbations were natural, and devoid of reason, and placed desire
in one part of the mind and reason in another, he did not agree with them
either; for he thought that all perturbations were voluntary, and were
admitted by the judgment of the opinion, and that a certain unrestrained
intemperance w