Book 4, Chapter 13

“Just as in the body there are disease, infirmity, and defect, so there are in the soul. They call a corruption of the whole body disease; disease accompanied by weakness, infirmity; and a lack of harmony among the body’s parts, producing crooked, twisted, or misshapen limbs, a defect.

29 “Thus the first two, disease and infirmity, arise from a shock and disturbance to the body’s overall health, whereas a defect is evident in itself even when health is unimpaired. In the soul, however, we can distinguish disease from infirmity only in thought. Viciousness is a disposition or condition that is inconsistent and at odds with itself throughout life. Thus one kind of corruption of belief produces disease and infirmity; the other produces inconsistency and internal conflict. For not every vice involves conflicts of equal force. The disposition of people who are not far from wisdom is indeed at odds with itself so long as it remains unwise, but it is not twisted or deformed. Diseases and infirmities are parts of viciousness, but whether disturbances are also parts of it is a question.

30 “For vices are abiding conditions, disturbances shifting ones, so that they cannot be parts of abiding conditions. And just as the analogy with the body touches the nature of the soul in bad things, so it does in good things. The body’s chief qualities are beauty, strength, health, firmness, and speed; these exist in the soul as well. <Just as> a harmonious balance in the body, when the elements of which we consist agree with one another, is called health, so the soul is said to be healthy when its judgments and beliefs agree. This is the soul’s virtue, which some call temperance itself; others call it something that obeys temperance’s precepts and follows it, without any distinctive character of its own. But whichever it is, they hold that it exists only in the wise person. There is, however, a kind of mental health that even an unwise person may possess, when the treatment and purging of physicians remove a disturbance of the mind.

31 “And just as a fitting arrangement of the body’s limbs, together with a certain charm of coloring, is called beauty, so in the soul the evenness and consistency of beliefs and judgments, together with a certain firmness and stability, is called beauty, whether it follows virtue or contains virtue’s very essence. Similarly, the soul’s powers resemble the body’s strength, sinews, and effectiveness, and are named in similar terms. The body’s speed is called swiftness, and this same quality is also praised in intelligence, because the mind runs through many things in a short time.”

“Just as the body can have disease, illness, and defect, so can the mind. They call a breakdown of the whole body a disease; disease accompanied by weakness, an illness; and a lack of agreement between the body’s parts, a defect. This last produces crooked limbs, distortion, and deformity.

29 “Disease and illness, the first two conditions, result from a shock and disruption affecting the body’s health as a whole. A defect can show up independently, even without any loss of health. With the mind, however, separating illness from disease is something we can do only conceptually. Defectiveness means an established state or disposition marked throughout life by inconsistency and disagreement with itself. So one corruption of belief gives rise to illness and disease; the other shows inconsistency and opposition. These conflicts aren’t equally severe in every defect. A person close to wisdom still has an internally divided disposition while unwise, but not a twisted or misshapen one. Illnesses and diseases belong within defectiveness. Whether disturbances do too remains open to question.

30 “A defect stays in place as a condition, whereas a disturbance moves. A moving thing can’t be a component of conditions that stay in place. Our bodily comparison reaches the mind’s good qualities as well as its bad ones. Beauty, strength, health, firmness, and speed are the body’s main advantages; each has a mental counterpart. Physical health means a balanced combination in which our constituent elements fit together. Mental health similarly means agreement among beliefs and judgments. That is a virtue of mind. Some identify it with self-control; others say it follows self-control, complying with its directions and having no independent character. Either way, they reserve it for the wise. There’s another sort of mental health, though, available even to the unwise: doctors can clear away a disturbed mental state by treatment and purging.

31 “In bodily beauty, the limbs fit together in suitable proportions and the coloring has a pleasing quality. Mental beauty consists instead in judgments and beliefs that remain even and consistent, with firmness and stability. This either follows virtue or includes virtue’s own power. We also speak of mental strength in terms corresponding to bodily strength, sinews, and effectiveness. Quickness is our name for bodily speed. It’s a merit we praise in intellectual ability too, since the mind can cover a great many subjects very rapidly.”