beasts, of a bad disposition and small, whence we may say, Let me be
eaten by a lion. But in all these ways the promise of a man acting as a
man is destroyed. For when is a conjunctive (complex) proposition
maintained? When it fulfils what its nature promises; so that the
preservation of a complex proposition is when it is a conjunction of
truths. When is a disjunctive maintained? When it fulfils what it
promises. When are flutes, a lyre, a horse, a dog, preserved? (When they
severally keep their promise.) What is the wonder then if man also in
like manner is preserved, and in like manner is lost? Each man is
improved and preserved by corresponding acts, the carpenter by acts of
carpentry, the grammarian by acts of grammar. But if a man accustoms
himself to write ungrammatically, of necessity his art will be corrupted
and destroyed. Thus modest actions preserve the modest man, and immodest
actions destroy him; and actions of fidelity preserve the faithful man,
and the contrary actions destroy him. And on the other hand contrary
actions strengthen contrary characters: shamelessness strengthens the
shameless man, faithlessness the faithless man, abusive words the
abusive man, anger the man of an angry temper, and unequal receiving and
giving make the avaricious man more avaricious.

For this reason philosophers admonish us not to be satisfied with
learning only, but also to add study, and then practice. For we have
long been accustomed to do contrary things, and we put in practice
opinions which are contrary to true opinions. If then we shall not also
put in practice right opinions, we shall be nothing more than the
expositors of the opinions of others. For now who among us is not able
to discourse according to the rules of art about good and evil things
(in this fashion)? That of things some are good, and some are bad, and
some are indifferent: the good then are virtues, and the things which
participate in virtues; and the bad are the contrary; and the