Ethics 201
from the gods, according to Posidonius in book one of his On Appropriate
Actions and Hecaton in book three of On Paradoxes. And they say that
friendship exists only among virtuous men, because of their similarity.
They say that it is a sharing [or: community] of things needed for one's
life, since we treat our friends as ourselves. They declare that one's friend
is worth choosing for his own sake and that having many friends is a
good thing. And there is no friendship among base men and that no base
man has a friend. And all the imprudent are mad; for they are not prudent,
but do everything in accordance with madness, which is equivalent to
imprudence.
- The wise man does everything well, as we also say that Ismenias
plays all the flute tunes well. And everything belongs to wise men; for
the law has given them complete authority. Some things are said to belong
to the base, just as things are also said to belong to men who are unjust;
in one sense we say they belong to the state, in another sense to those
who are using them.
They say that the virtues follow on each other and that he who has
one has them all. For their theoretical principles are common, as Chrysip-
pus says in book one of his On Virtues, and Apollodorus in his Physics
in the Old Stoa, and Hecaton in book three of On Virtues. 126. For he
who has virtue has a theoretical knowledge of what is to be done and
also practises it. And what one is to do and choose is also what one is
to endure for and stand firmly by and distribute, so that if he does some
things by way of choosing and others by way of enduring and others by
way of distributing and others by standing firmly by [something], one
will be prudent and courageous and just and temperate. Each of the
virtues is demarcated by a particular sphere of relevance, such as courage
which is concerned with what is to be endured for, prudence with what
is to be done and what not and what is neither; similarly, the other
virtues revolve around their proper objects. Deliberative excellence and
understanding follow on prudence, organization and orderliness on tem-
perance, even-handedness and fairness on justice, constancy and vigour
on courage. - They believe that there is nothing in between virtue and vice,
while the Peripatetics say that [moral] progress is between virtue and
vice. For, they say, just as a stick must be either straight or crooked, so
must a man be either just or unjust and neither 'more just' nor 'more
unjust'; and the same for the other virtues. And Chrysippus says that
virtue can be lost, while Cleanthes says that it cannot be lost; [Chrysippus
says] that it can be lost owing to drunkenness and an excess of black
bile, while [Cleanthes says it] cannot, because [it consists in] secure
[intellectual] grasps; and it is worth choosing for itssake. At any