Temperance had to impart stability to the impulses, but how
could the term 'temperate' be applied to a man who deserted his post
through cowardice, or who failed to return a deposit through avarice,
which is a form of injustice, or yet to one who misconducted affairs
through rashness, which falls under folly? Courage had to face
dangers and difficulties, but it was not courage unless its cause
were just. Indeed one of the ways in which courage was defined was a
virtue fighting on behalf of justice. Similarly justice put first the
assigning to each man his due, but in the act of doing so had to
bring in the other virtues. In short, it was the business of the man
of virtue to know and to do what ought to be done, for what ought to
be done implied wisdom in choice, courage in endurance, justice in
assignment and temperance in abiding by ones conviction. One virtue
never acted by itself, but always on the advice of a committee. The
obverse to this paradox--He who has one vice has all vices--was a
conclusion which the Stoics did not shrink from drawing.
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