Chapter 10

Term 1

We Praise

We praise virtue on account of its works and actions. We also praise the physically strong and swift.

If the gods were praised by our standards, it would be a mockery.

Term 2

Praise

Praise is not one of the greatest things, like happiness, but it is one of those greater, and better things.

Praise belongs to virtue and virtue's works

Giving praise is greater than receiving it.

Term 3

Praiseworthy Things

We call the virtues praiseworthy.

Term 4

What is Praisworthy

What is is praiseworthy, how, and in relation to what.

Term 5

The Law

Lawmakers punish those who do evil works, but they honour those who do good works.

It is proper to the lawmaker to judge what is voluntary and involuntary.

Laws treat everything that will direct everyone toward what is best.

It is not a difficult thing to understand the laws.

The law commands the acts of everyone, such as acts of bravery, that a man not abandon his post, not to commit adultery, neither to quarrel.

The law commands living in accord with each one of the virtues and forbides the behaviour of every kind of vice.

Every law is set out universally, but it is not always possible to dictate correctly in a universal way about some acts.

The law covers what is mostly, or most often suitable and prescribes it universally. The lawmaker, however, is not unaware that some error may arise, if his law if it is upheld rigidly for everyone. Nevertheless, it is still a good law, because it accounts for what may happen in many circumstances.

The law does not contain every thing that ought to be done, because it is not possible to set down a uniform law for some things. So it is in need of a discerning decree, which will serve the law, as he shows by the example of the rule used in the building done on Lesbos.

Whatever the law does not rule by prescription, it rules by prohibition. For example, law does not prescribe killing oneself.

Laws are everywhere made regarding voluntary agreements so that one party may be obliged to give what they agreed.

Laws envision that the fairer judge is one who receives a repayment, rather than the one owing it.

Term 6

The Law

We are in need of laws our whole life, because many are more likely to obey a dictate of necessity rather than an exhortation.

Some say that legislators and lawmakers ought to urge men for the sake of the good to virtue by offering rewards for those who are obedient by preexisting good ways of living, and meeting out punishments for those who do not obey, and banishing those entirely beyond help.

It is necessary to live according to a law that has compelling power, so that no one do evily deeds voluntarily or involuntarily.

A law is a decree that has coercive power and comes from some prudence and understanding.

The law ordering equity is not burdensome.

The Spartan state seems to be unique, or mostly, in making laws goveerning the nutrition of children and daily business. But in other states these are overlooked and each man lives as he wills.

Laws are held in cities as directions of the father in the home.

If a man wishes to make men better, whether many or few, he should become a lawmaker, because it does not belong to just any person to dispose men for the good, but to someone knowledgeable of the discipline. Just as knowing medicine pertains only to a physician.

He asks whence and how someone can become a lawmaker.

Laws are likened to works of political science.

By increasing their knowledge of laws, and collections of them, men grow in their ability to understand things related to political science and are more prepared than others.

Term 7

What is Legal

All things that are legal are just in some way.

What is legal is determined by the law, and each one of these things is just.

What is legal produces and safeguards happiness, and makes for happiness in a political community.

What is legal is whatever is setdown in law in particular instances by those who have authority, such as a law about making a sacrifice to Brasidas.

Term 8

Liberality

Liberality concerns a mean in wealth.

Liberality is more concerned with greater giving than in receiving.

Term 9

The Generous Man

The generous man is praised as in giving and receiving money, mostly in giving. He is not praised with respect to military matters, or in enjoying or restraint from pleasures, or in judicial concerns.

The man who best uses wealth is generous, which is is the subject of liberality.

Those who give more than they receive are called generous.

Those who do not take much are praised much.

Generous men are loved most, their giving makes them useful.

Generous men appear brave when they lose their money, but are fearful in the dangers of war, so fortitude does not concern this sort of bravery.

The man who does not give to whom he ought or does not give for the sake of the good, but for some other motivation, is not a generous man, but has another name.

No generous man is pained in giving, it is a necessary part of generosity.

The generous man does not accept from someone he should not, since such a man views wealth received as something to give away.

The generous man is not an asker, since it is not characteristic of one who confers benefits to receive them from others.

The generous man draws from his own personal possessions, not as a good or necessary thing, but so that he might have something to give.

The generous man will acquire good so that he might always have enough to give.

The generous man does not give to everyone, so that he has enough to give to the right person at the right time and place.

The generous man gives abundantly, so that little is left for himself. His nature is to not regard himself but look to others.

Men who inherited, not earned their wealth are more generous, because they have no experience of poverty.

It is not easy for a generous man to readily accept or hoard money, he is rather open-handed and giving. He is a man who loves money if only for giving it away.

The generous man does not give to the wrong people or at the wrong times, and so on, since then he would not be acting in accord with generosity.

The generous man spends according to his means, and on what he ought to. In this way, he differs from the prodigal who spends in excess.

The generous man gives with pleasure, and spends what he ought to indifferently on great things and little things, and accepts from whom and what he ought.

The generous man is pained, but only moderately, if he spends some amount other than what is best.

The generous man is easy with money and is able to undergo unjust things, he is more grieved if he gives the wrong amount or the wrong thing.

Generosity is not a thing measured according to the amount given, but according to the means and habit of the one giving.

Term 10

The Spartans

The Spartans did not recount the services they rendered to the Athenians, since they did not hear freely.

Term 11

The Man with the Stone

The man who lets go of a stone does so willingly, but he cannot get it back by willing it, so it is with the just man.

Term 12

The Lion

The lion does not rejoice at hearing the ox, but in eating it, when he hears it low he knows it is near.

Term 13

The Bed

All men seek after their beds, says Homer, young and growing. (Il. xxiv. 130.)

Term 14

Timbers

Warped timbers are straightened out.

Term 15

The Lustful

If a man commits adultery for the sake of some gain, he is not a lustful, but covetous. But he who does so with much lusting is more lusftul than covetous.

Amusement

In life, amusement is a kind of rest.

Someone excessive in humour, who always wishing get a laugh more than saying what is becoming or honest, is called a bomolochus. But those who neither wish to say anything amusing nor to listen with pleasure to anything, are called acrici or duri. However, those who enjoy amusements in moderation are called eutrapeli.

The amusement of a liberal man differs from that of a servile man, and that of a cultured man from that of an uncultured man.

Amusement and rest are necessary things in life.

Some amusements are pleasures sought after for their own sake.

It is an odd thing to place amusement as the end of human life.

To exert oneself and labour for the sake of amusement would be foolish, and utterly childish.

That amusement is ordered to a pursuit, as Anacharsis says, seems right. Amusement is taken as a sort of rest.