AND DISCUSSIONS.

3

the other from being too little, affected by objects of fear.Thus, too, the virtue of frugality lies half way between avariceand profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, theother in a defect, of the proper attention to the objects of self-interest. Magnanimity, in the same manner, consists in a me-dium between the excess of arrogance and the defect of pusil-lanimity, of which the one consists in too extravagant, theother in too weak, a sentiment of our own W’orth and dignity.This view is well expressed by Horace, —

Est modus in rebus; sunt certi denique fines,

Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.*

Aristotle also made virtue to consist in practical habits ; and, indoing this, he probably designed to oppose the doctrine of Plato,who seems to have been of the opinion, that just sentiments andreasonable judgments, concerning what was fit to be done or tobe avoided, were alone sufficient to constitute the most perfectvirtue. Virtue, according to Plato, might be considered as aspecies of science ; and no man, he supposed, could see clearlyand demonstratively what was right and what was wrong, withoutacting accordingly. Passion might make us act contrary todoubtful and uncertain opinions, not to plain and evident judg-ments. Aristotle, on the contrary, was of opinion, that no con-viction of the understanding merely, was capable of insuring acontrol over inveterate habits, and that good morals consistednot so much in knowledge, as in action.f

According to Zeno, the founder of the Stoical doctrines,virtue consisted in choosing and rejecting all different objectsand circumstances, according as they were by nature renderedmore or less the objects of choice or rejection ; in selecting al-ways, from among the several objects of choice presented to us,those which were most to be chosen, when we could not obtainthem all; and in selecting too, out of the several objects of re-jection offered to us, those which were least to be avoided, whenit was not in our power to avoid them all. By choosing andrejecting with this just and accurate discernment, by thus be-stowing upon every object the precise degree of attention it de-

* Sat. I. i. 106,107. ! Smith’s Moral Sentiments, Vol. II. p. 70.