ἱστορίαι Historiai
Plut. Mor., Moral Virtue 3 Of Moral Virtue, Plutarch; served verbatim
However, all these do commonly agree in this one thing, in supposing virtue to be a certain disposition and faculty of the governing and directive part of the soul, of which reason is the cause; or rather to be reason itself, when it consents to what it ought, and is firm and immutable. And they do likewise think, that that part of the soul which is the seat of the passions, and is called brutal or irrational, is not at all distinct by any physical difference from that which is rational; but that this part of the soul (which they call rational and directive), being wholly turned about and changed by its affections and by those several alterations which are wrought in it with respect either to habit or disposition, becometh either vice or virtue, without having any thing in itself that is really brutal or irrational, but is then called brutal or irrational, when by the over-ruling and prevailing violence of our appetites it is hurried on to something absurd and vicious, against the judgment of reason. For passion, according to them, is nothing else but depraved and intemperate reason, that through a perverse and vicious judgment is grown over-vehement and headstrong. Now, it seems to me, all these philosophers were perfect strangers to the clearness and truth of this point, that we every one of us are in reality twofold and compound. For, discerning only that composition in us which of the two is most evident, namely that of the soul and body, of the other they knew nothing at all. And yet that in the soul itself also there is a certain composition of two dissimilar and distinct natures, the brutal part whereof, as another body, is necessarily and physically compounded with and conjoined to reason, was, it should seem, no secret to Pythagoras himself,—as some have guessed from his having introduced the study of music amongst his scholars, for the more easy calming and assuaging the mind, as well knowing that it is not in every part of it obedient and subject to precepts and discipline, nor indeed by reason only to be recovered and retrieved from vice, but requires some other kind of persuasives to co-operate with it, to dispose it to such a temper and gentleness as that it may not be utterly intractable and obstinate to the precepts of philosophy. And Plato very strongly and plainly, without the least hesitation, maintained that the soul of the universe is neither simple, uniform, nor uncompounded; but that being mixed, as it were, and made up of that which is always the same and of that which is otherwise, in some places it is continually governed and carried about after a uniform manner in one and the same powerful and predominant order, and in other places is divided into motions and circles, one contrary to the other, unsettled and fortuitous,—whence are derived the beginnings and generation of differences in things. And so, in like manner, the soul of man, being a part or portion of that of the universe, and framed upon reasons and proportions answerable to it, cannot be simple and all of the same nature; but must have one part that is intelligent and rational, which naturally ought to have dominion over a man, and another which, being subject to passion, irrational, extravagant, and unbounded, stands in need of direction and restraint. And this last is again subdivided into two other parts; one whereof, being called corporeal, is called concupiscible, and the other, which sometimes takes part with this and sometimes with reason, and gives respectively to either of them strength and vigor, is called irascible. And that which chiefly discovers the difference between the one and the other is the frequent conflict of the intellect and reason with concupiscence and anger, it being the nature of things that are different amongst themselves to be oftentimes repugnant and disobedient to what is best of all. These principles at first Aristotle seems most to have relied upon, as plainly enough appears from what he has written. Though afterwards he confounded the irascible and concupiscible together, by joining the one to the other, as if anger were nothing but a thirst and desire of revenge. However, to the last he constantly maintained that the sensual and irrational was wholly distinct from the intellectual and rational part of the soul. Not that it is so absolutely devoid of reason as those faculties of the soul which are sensitive, nutritive, and vegetative, and are common to us with brute beasts and plants; for these are always deaf to the voice of reason and incapable of it, and may in some sort be said to derive themselves from flesh and blood, and to be inseparably attached to the body and devoted to the service thereof; but the other sensual part, subject to the sudden efforts of the passions and destitute of any reason of its own, is yet nevertheless naturally adapted to hear and obey the intellect and judgment, to have regard to it, and to submit itself to be regulated and ordered according the rules and precepts thereof, unless it happen to be utterly corrupted and vitiated by pleasure, which is deaf to all instruction, and by a luxurious way of living.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

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Of Moral Virtue, Plutarch — translated by Matthew Morgan (rev. W. W. Goodwin), 1874
Apparatus shelf + pinned Perseus TEI — Plutarch's Morals (the Moralia), ed. William W. Goodwin, five volumes · 'Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin, Ph. D.', with an introduction by R. W. Emerson; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874 (five volumes; a minority of the TEI transcriptions were keyed from the same publisher's 1878 reprint)
license: public-domain (US: the Goodwin edition is an 1874 Boston publication of a 1684-1694 translation — title pages verified on all five shelf scans at acquisition; Perseus digital editions CC BY-SA 4.0, attribution recorded per ops/corpus-staging/SOURCES.md pattern)