that it is once again set free and open to the passions. Do you investigate all these points too, as to whether they are signs of progress in virtue, or of some habit which has already a settled constancy and strength through reason.
§ xiii. Now since entire freedom from the passions is a great and divine thing, and progress in virtue seems, as we say, to consist in a certain remissness and mildness of the passions, we must observe the passions both in themselves and in reference to one another to gauge the difference: in themselves as to whether desire, and fear, and rage are less strong in us now than formerly, through our quickly extinguishing their violence and heat by reason; and in reference to one another as to whether we are animated now by modesty more than by fear, and by emulation more than by envy, and by love of glory rather than by love of riches, and generally speaking whether—to use the language of musicians—it is in the Dorian more than in the Lydian measures that we err either by excess or deficiency,38 whether we are plainer in our manner of living or more luxurious, whether we are slower in action or quicker, whether we admire men and their discourses more than we should or despise them. For as it is a good sign in diseases if they turn aside from vital parts of the body, so in the case of people who are making progress in virtue, when vice seems to shift to milder passions, it is a sign it will soon die out. When Phrynis added to the seven chords two chords more, the Ephors asked him which he preferred to let them cut off, the upper or lower ones;39 so we must cut off both above and below, if we mean to attain, to the mean and to due proportion: for progress in virtue first diminishes the excess and sharpness of the passions,
as Sophocles says.
§ xiv. I have already said that it is a very great indication of progress in virtue to transfer our judgement to action, and not to let our words remain merely words, but to make deeds of them. A manifestation of