252 l/-110 to //-113
often he has trodden it. The third [part of] time, i.e., the future, does
not apply to dumb animals. 17. So how can their nature seem to be
perfect when they cannot make use of the past?^58 For time consists of
three parts, past, present and future. For animals the present is the
briefest and most transitory time; they rarely recall the past, and then
only when it is occasioned by the occurence of something in the present.
- Therefore, the good of a perfected nature cannot exist in an imperfect
nature, or if such a nature has it, so do plants. I do not deny that dumb
animals have great and powerful impulses towards achieving what is
according to their natures; but they are disorderly and confused. But the
good is never disorderly or confused. 19. "What, then?" you say, "are
dumb animals moved in a thoroughly confused and disorganized fashion?"
I would say that they are moved in a thoroughly confused and disorganized
fashion, if their nature were capable of orderliness; but as it is, each is
moved according to his own nature. Disorganized is [a term] reserved
for those things which can sometimes move in a non-disorganized fashion;
troubled [a term reserved] for that which can be free of care. Nothing
has a vice if it cannot have virtue; and such is the motion of dumb
animals by their very nature. 20. But to avoid detaining you any longer,
there will be a kind of good in a dumb animal, a kind of virtue, and a
kind of perfection; but there will not be good or virtue or perfection in
an absolute sense, since these properties apply only to rational animals,
to whom it has been given to know why, to what extent, and how. So
nothing which does not have reason can possess the good ....
Plutarch On Common Conceptions 1076ab
(SVF 3.246)
[11-111](1076a) ... So the third element in their conception of the gods is
that the gods are superior to men in respect to nothing so much as their
happiness and virtue. But according to Chrysippus they do not have
even this superiority, for Zeus does not surpass Dion in virtue, and Zeus
and Dion are benefitted equally by each other when one meets with a
motion of the other, since they are [both] wise. For this is the only good
which men get from the gods and the gods get from men when they
become wise. (1076b) They say that if a man is not deficient in virtue
he in no way falls short in happiness, but Zeus the saviour is no more
blessed than the unfortunate man who commits suicide because of his
bodily diseases and impairments-providing that he is wise.
- "Past time" in Latin is tempus perfectum. The pun on 'perfect' is not readily translated.