Now men suppose that acting Unjustly rests entirely with themselves,
and conclude that acting Justly is therefore also easy. But this is not
really so; to have connection with a neighbour’s wife, or strike one’s
neighbour, or give the money with one’s hand, is of course easy and
rests with one’s self: but the doing these acts with certain inward
dispositions neither is easy nor rests entirely with one’s self. And in
like way, the knowing what is Just and what Unjust men think no great
instance of wisdom because it is not hard to comprehend those things of
which the laws speak. They forget that these are not Just actions,
except accidentally: to be Just they must be done and distributed in a
certain manner: and this is a more difficult task than knowing what
things are wholesome; for in this branch of knowledge it is an easy
matter to know honey, wine, hellebore, cautery, or the use of the
knife, but the knowing how one should administer these with a view to
health, and to whom and at what time, amounts in fact to being a
physician.
From this very same mistake they suppose also, that acting Unjustly is
equally in the power of the Just man, for the Just man no less, nay
even more, than the Unjust, may be able to do the particular acts; he
may be able to have intercourse with a woman or strike a man; or the
brave man to throw away his shield and turn his back and run this way
or that. True: but then it is not the mere doing these things which
constitutes acts of cowardice or injustice (except accidentally), but
the doing them with certain inward dispositions: just as it is not the
mere using or not using the knife, administering or not administering
certain drugs, which constitutes medical treatment or curing, but doing
these things in a certain particular way.
Again the abstract principles of Justice have their province among
those who partake of what is abstractedly good, and can have too much
or too little of these.[28] Now there are beings who cannot have too
much of them, as perhaps the gods; there are others, again, to whom no
particle of them is of use, those who are incurably wicked to whom all
things are hurtful; others to whom they are useful to a certain degree:
for this reason then the province of Justice is among _Men_.