Chapter 91: TEMPERANCE

INTRODUCTION

MOST outstanding figures in history, most heroes of legend or fiction, are men of strong passions, of ambition, and of pride. They are driven by desires which tend to be limitless. Few exemplify moderation. Few stop short of excess in anger or love, or in their striving for power and pleasure. They may curb their appetites in one direction, only to indulge them without rein in another. They do not follow in all things the counsels of temperance, expressed by the ancient maxim ‘Nothing overmuch.’

Achilles is not temperate in his wrath, nor does Odysseus, for all his craft and cunning, exhibit self-control when his vanity or curiosity is at stake. The tragedies of Euripides, more perhaps than those of Sophocles and Aeschylus, embody the hubris, or pride, which is common to all tragic figures in some particular form of intemperance, such as the boundless hate of Medea or the abstemiousness of Hippolytus. One play especially, Bacchantes, takes intemperance for its central theme and sets the disciples of the Dionysiac spirit in mortal conflict with the puritans and their prohibitions. Comedy as well as tragedy flows from intemperance, as when we smile at the exaggerated sentimentality of the romantic lovers described by Cervantes and Fielding, Chaucer and Shakespeare, or find merriment in the indulgences of Sir John Falstaff, Pantagruel and Panurge, or Tristram Shandy.

The great books of history add their evidence. They make fiction seem pale by comparison with the excesses of cruelty and sensuality which, if they were not presented as fact, might be dismissed as unimaginable. Page after page of Tacitus and Gibbon often describe, in an unrelieved sequence, human debauchery, brutalities and revelries ingeniously designed to reach some new extreme in order to procure, through novelty, satisfaction for appetites already over-indulged and weary of familiar pleasures.

Nor is the historian’s panorama of intemperance limited to the uncontrolled indulgences of the few—the oriental despots described by Herodotus, or the Caesars and their retinues in the imperial court of Rome. Armies in the field and the mob formations of civilian life are depicted in wanton and riotous behavior. Whole peoples are described as being given to luxurious living or as wanting in standards of public decency. The few exceptions in antiquity, such as Spartan rigor or the chastity, if not the sobriety, of the primitive Germans, only accentuate by contrast the immoderate tenor of life in most ancient societies.

Darwin seems to think that a much greater degree of self-control characterizes modern life, both public and private, though his opinion on this score may give undue weight to the conventions so much insisted upon in England under Queen Victoria. Temperance, according to him, is a virtue peculiar to civilized life. “The greatest intemperance,” he writes, “is no reproach with savages.”

Darwin places temperance along with prudence among the “so-called self-regarding virtues, which do not obviously, though they may really, affect the welfare of the tribe” and which “have never been esteemed by savages, though now highly appreciated by civilized nations.” That Darwin has modern society in mind when he speaks of “civilized nations,” may be inferred from his remarks about the sensuality of the Greeks and Romans. This seems to be confirmed by his statement that “the hatred of indecency… which is so valuable an aid to chastity, is a modern virtue, appertaining exclusively… to civilized life.”

What may be noted here and questioned—in addition to the validity of Darwin’s comparison of modern and ancient culture—is the tendency to identify temperance with chastity, or at least with restraint, if not abstinence, in the sphere of the sexual impulses. In our day, the general notion of virtue is often restricted to the virtue of chastity, as when we use the words “virtuous woman” to signify one who is chaste, or “woman of easy virtue” to signify one who is not. But spectacles of gluttony and drunkenness, of avarice or greed, are ever present to remind us that man can be intemperate in more ways than one. Darwin’s implication of progress from licentious to moderate living may have less justification when we consider all the forms which intemperance can take.

Darwin, furthermore, seems to distinguish between courage and temperance in relation to the level or degree of civilization. Unlike temperance, courage, he thinks, is demanded by primitive as well as civilized life because it concerns the welfare of society as much as the well-being of the individual. Since “no man can be useful or faithful to his tribe without courage, this quality,” he says, “has universally been placed in the highest rank.” On the point of this comparison between the two virtues, Freud appears to disagree. Though he too considers temperance or self-control largely in the sphere of the sexual instincts, he seems to think that any form of organized social life, whether regarded as primitive or civilized, exacts certain restraints from the individual for the sake of the common good. Temperance no less than courage serves the tribe or the state.

“Civilization has been built up,” Freud writes, “under the pressure of the struggle for existence, by sacrifices in gratification of the primitive impulses, and that is to a great extent forever being re-created as each individual, successively joining the community, repeats the sacrifice of his instinctive pleasures for the common good. The sexual are amongst the most important of the instinctive forces thus utilized; they are in this way sublimated, that is to say, their energy is turned aside from its sexual goal and diverted towards other ends, no longer sexual, and socially more valuable.”

Society may depend on the temperance of its members without being able to exact temperance from them. Writers like J. S. Mill, for example, question the right of society to enforce temperance upon its members by the enactment of sumptuary laws, especially with regard to food and drink. The supposition seems to be that the intemperate man injures only himself—to do which is the prerogative of his personal liberty—whereas the unjust man injures others. We shall return to the consideration of this issue later, after we have examined the nature of temperance and its relation to other virtues, such as justice, courage, and wisdom or prudence.

IF THE POETS and the historians describe the prevalence and the range of man’s intemperance, the moralists tend to be unanimous in recommending self-control or moderation. There is hardly any variety of moral theory—whether developed in terms of law and duty or in terms of happiness and virtue, whether appealing to a priori principles or to criteria of utility empirically applied—which does not recommend the discipline of desire by reason and which does not condemn sensuality, self-indulgence, unchecked appetites, or passions run wild.

The word “temperance” itself is not always used, nor is the technical notion of virtue always implied, by those who advocate what Milton calls “the rule of not too much, by temperance taught.” For some writers, on the other hand, temperance and virtue are almost identical. They think the essence of temperance is moderation and the virtuous life is the reasonable one. It is one in which reason moderates the passions and limits the pursuit of pleasure.

For example, Freud’s theory of the reality-principle seems to reflect traditional notions of temperance. A person dominated by the pleasure-principle is infantile in character. “The transition from the pleasure-principle to the reality-principle,” he points out, “is one of the most important advances in the development of the ego.” When “the ego learns that it must inevitably go without immediate satisfaction, postpone gratification, learn to endure a degree of pain, and altogether renounce certain sources of pleasure,” it “becomes ‘reasonable,’ is no longer controlled by the pleasure-principle, but follows the reality-principle,” which seeks “a delayed and diminished pleasure, one which is assured by its realization of fact, its relation to reality.”

So, too, Spinoza’s doctrine that human bondage consists in being subject to the tyranny of the passions, whereas human freedom stems from the rule of reason, can be read as an apostrophe to temperance. Descartes’ maxim, “to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to alter my desires rather than change the order of the world,” is still another expression of the insight that peace of mind comes from self-control. Though Kant does not think temperance deserves “to be called good without qualification,” he does affirm that “moderation in the affections and passions, self-control and calm deliberation, are not only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the intrinsic worth of the person.”

IT IS MONTAIGNE who magnifies temperance beyond virtue, and makes it the measure of the sound pursuit of every sort of good, even virtue itself. Without temperance, he writes in his essay ‘Of Moderation,’ we can “corrupt things that in themselves are laudable and good; we may grasp virtue so that it becomes vicious, if we embrace it too stringently and with too violent a desire.” Montaigne opposes “those who say there is never any excess in virtue.” On the contrary, he thinks that “a man may both be too much in love with virtue, and be excessive in a just action… I love temperate and moderate natures. An immoderate zeal, even to that which is good, though it does not offend, astonishes me, and puts me to study what name to give it.”

As with virtue, so with wisdom or philosophy. He quotes Holy Writ to the effect that we should be soberly wise, not try to be wiser than befits our natures. We should not “dive into philosophy beyond the limits of profit; taken moderately, it is pleasant and useful.” There is, in short, “no pleasure so just and lawful, where intemperance and excess are not to be condemned.”

Montaigne sees temperance as augmenting the pleasure of life rather than diminishing it. He subscribes to Plato’s statement in the Laws that “the temperate life is in all things gentle, having gentle pains and gentle pleasures; whereas the intemperate life… has violent pains and pleasures, and vehement and stinging desires, and loves utterly insane; and in the temperate life the pleasures exceed the pains, but in the intemperate life the pains exceed the pleasures in greatness and number and frequency.” To overlook this, Montaigne elsewhere suggests, is to suppose that “the regimen which stops the toper before he has drunk himself drunk, the glutton before he has eaten to a surfeit, and the lecher before he has got the pox, is an enemy to pleasure.” Yet, in his love of “temperate and moderate natures,” Montaigne repeatedly counsels us to avoid being over-zealous even about temperance itself. The maxim ‘Nothing overmuch’ applies to virtue as well as to the pleasure-seeking that virtue tries to control.

CONSIDERED IN TERMS of Aristotle’s theory that all the moral virtues consist in a mean between excess and defect, Montaigne seems to be identifying moderation with the observance of the mean, so that moderation becomes an aspect of every virtue, including temperance itself as one virtue among others. Thus the courageous man is one who fears neither too much nor too little, but is moderate with respect to peril and pain. Accordingly, a man cannot be too courageous, but only too fearless, and so rash or foolhardy.

But it may be supposed that if moderation enters into all the virtues, such virtues as temperance and courage are not distinct. Holding them to be distinct in regard to the objects with which they deal, Aquinas admits that each of the major virtues can be “taken to denote certain general conditions of virtue,” so that in a sense “they overflow into one another.” He defines temperance as “a disposition of the soul, moderating any passions or acts, so as to keep them within bounds,” and fortitude as “a disposition whereby the soul is strengthened for that which is in accord with reason, against any assaults of the passions or the toil involved in any work to be done.” So conceived, Aquinas thinks it is possible to see how temperance and fortitude are in some sense one.

The man who can curb his desires for the pleasures of touch is more able to check his daring in the face of danger, “and in this sense fortitude is said to be temperate.” The man who is able to stand firm against the dangers of death is more able to remain firm against the onslaught of pleasures, and so “temperance can be said to be brave.” Thus temperance enters into other virtues, insofar as it leads men to “observe the mean in all things,” just as fortitude enters into temperance because it strengthens men against “the enticements of pleasure” as well as against the fear of pain.

The general theory of virtue, in terms of which the several virtues are distinguished and their connections traced, is discussed in the chapter on VIRTUE AND VICE; and the special virtues to which temperance is related are considered in the chapters on COURAGE, JUSTICE, and PRUDENCE. Here we must be concerned to observe how the general conception of virtue is exemplified in the definitions of temperance given by those who, like Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, consider it to be, not the whole of virtue, but one of the major virtues and distinct from the others.

THOUGH PLATO AND ARISTOTLE do not conceive virtue in the same way, and though they diverge in analyzing particular virtues, such as justice or wisdom, and in describing how particular virtues are related to one another, they nevertheless seem to concur on a number of points in their treatment of temperance.

In the Gorgias, Callicles asserts that only those who are unable to satisfy their desire for pleasures praise temperance, and call intemperance base. But, he asks, “what could be more truly base or evil than temperance to a man… who might freely be enjoying every good and has no one to stand in his way?” And he concludes by saying that “luxury and intemperance and license, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happiness.”

In reply, Socrates tries to persuade Callicles that “instead of the intemperate and insatiate life,” one should “choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs.” He compares the intemperate man “to a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied.” By analogy with the sound and the leaky vessel, Socrates describes the temperate man as able to satisfy his limited desires, whereas the intemperate man, of boundless desire, can never pause in his search for pleasure. “If he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives,” he adds, “and now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate?”

Callicles claims to be unconvinced, but later Socrates gets him to admit that in all things—in a house or a ship, in the body or the soul—order is good, and disorder evil. He then proceeds to point out that order is the principle of health in the body and of temperance in the soul. It is in these terms that Socrates defines temperance in the Republic as “the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires.” In the human soul, he explains, “there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself.”

The words “temperance” and “self-mastery” are almost interchangeable; both signify “the rule of the better part over the worse.” Just as the courageous man is one “whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear,” so the temperate man is one in whom the “ruling principle of reason and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule.”

In somewhat similar terms, Aristotle defines temperance and courage by reference to pleasure and pain. “The man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent; and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward.” Like Plato, Aristotle makes the rational principle the source of these virtues. It is reason, or more precisely one of reason’s virtues, prudence, which determines the mean between excess and defect with regard to pleasure and pain, or fear, anger, and the other passions.

Like Freud, Aristotle regards self-indulgence as infantile or childish. Children “live at the beck and call of appetite, and it is in them that the desire for what is pleasant is strongest.” When such desire is not regulated by reason, “it will go to great lengths; for in an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable even if it tries every source of gratification.” Where Freud speaks of the pleasure-principle submitting to the reality-principle, Aristotle says, “as the child should live according to the direction of his tutor, so the appetitive element should live according to the rational principle. The appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize with the rational principle.”

According to Aristotle, temperance is concerned not with all pleasures, but “with the kind of pleasures that other animals share in, which therefore appear slavish and brutish; these are touch and taste.” Self-indulgence is a matter of reproach “because it attaches to us not as men but as animals. To delight in such things and to love them above all others is brutish.”

The endurance of pain, which is central to the nature of courage, enters into temperance incidentally. The self-indulgent man “is pained more than he ought at not getting pleasant things,” whereas the temperate man “is not pained at the absence of what is pleasant or at his abstinence from it.” But total abstinence is not temperance, any more than over-indulgence is. “The temperate man occupies a middle position” between those who have an insatiable craving for pleasure and those “who fall short with regard to pleasures and delight in them less than they should.” Such insensibility, Aristotle declares, is not human either.

When reason curbs the desire for bodily pleasures, “it is not to lessen sensual pleasure,” in the opinion of Aquinas, “but to prevent the force of concupiscence from cleaving to it immoderately. By immoderately,” he explains, “I mean going beyond the bounds of reason, as a sober person does not take less pleasure in food eaten in moderation than the glutton, but his concupiscence lingers less in such pleasures.”

Though Aquinas agrees with Aristotle in defining temperance strictly as moderation with respect to the pleasures of taste and touch, “such as the pleasures of the table or of sex,” he associates with temperance those virtues which involve moderation with respect to other pleasures.

For example, there is liberality with respect to money as an object of love or pleasure. Neither the spendthrift nor the miser is temperate. Friendliness or affability and gentleness represent temperance in the relation of a man to the pleasures of fellowship; and the virtue which Aristotle calls eutrapelia is similarly classified by Aquinas, as being a moderate indulgence in the pleasures of recreation, of sport and games, the opposites of which, in excess and defect, can be called “buffoonery” and “boorishness.” Even the pleasures of learning can be pursued intemperately, so that an undue craving for knowledge—beyond the proper limits and for the wrong reasons—is, according to Aquinas, the vice of curiosity.

THE NOTIONS OF ABSTINENCE and continence seem to be closely related to the idea of temperance. The words are often used interchangeably. But as we have seen, according to the theory of virtue as a mean between extremes of excess and defect, temperance calls for a moderate indulgence in pleasures, not abstinence from them entirely. This raises the question whether the asceticism of the religious life violates the rule of reason by a kind of immoderate withdrawal from ordinary pleasures. What to the psychoanalyst may look like pathological self-denial, or to the philosopher like a violation of nature, takes, in the eyes of the Christian theologian, the form of heroic temperance, a supernatural perfection of the virtue.

When in the religious life a man does “his utmost to strive onward to divine things,” then, according to Aquinas, in those who are “tending towards the divine similitude,” temperance is a perfecting virtue. “So far as nature allows,” it “neglects the needs of the body.” In those “who have already attained to the divine likeness, the perfect virtue of temperance” is one which “knows no earthly desires.”

Since “use of sexual union hinders the mind from giving itself wholly to the service of God,” and since “the use of venery withdraws the mind from that perfect intentness on tending to God,” the perpetual continence of the celibate life, as well as the voluntary poverty of the monastic life, seem to Aquinas “requisite for religious perfection.”

Augustine, in his Confessions, tells of the time when “I thought I should be impossibly miserable if I had to forego the embraces of a woman; and I did not think of Your mercy as a healing medicine for that weakness, because I had never tried it. I thought that continency was a matter of our own strength, and I knew that I had not the strength; for in my utter foolishness I did not know the word of Your Scripture that none can be continent unless you give it.”

Though he separated from his mistress in order to prepare for marriage, he discovered that “it was not really marriage that I wanted. I was simply a slave to lust.” He recounts the struggles which finally enabled him to turn in the other direction and to “see the austere beauty of Continence, serene and indeed joyous”; and with her, he adds, “I saw such hosts of young men and women… gray widows and women grown old in virginity, and in them all Continence herself, not barren but the fruitful mother of children, her joys, by You, Lord, her Spouse.”

But there is another meaning of continence according to which it is condemned by the philosopher who conceives temperance as a natural virtue. The reason for Aristotle’s condemnation of continence differs from the reason he gives for his disapproval of abstinence. Abstinence—at least on the natural plane—is an immoderate denial of pleasure. Continence is opposed to temperance because it merely represents reason’s inhibition of the act prompted by a licentious desire for pleasure. It is not an habitual moderation of desire itself. Aristotle’s emphasis on habit, therefore, leads him to insist upon the distinction between temperance and continence.

“We group together the incontinent and the self-indulgent, the continent and the temperate man,” Aristotle writes, “because they are concerned somehow with the same pleasures and pain; but though they are concerned with the same objects, they are not similarly related to them.” The difference lies in the fact that a man acts continently in a particular situation when his reason is able to overcome an immoderate desire for pleasure, and incontinently when the force of his desire brushes reason aside; whereas a man not only acts temperately, but is temperate in character, when his desires are themselves habitually moderated to be in accord with reason.

The temperate man, therefore, has no need for continence. Nor is the incontinent man to be confused with the intemperate, for the latter is not convinced that his desires are inordinate. The continent man is one who, when acting against reason, knows that he is doing so. Though both the continent and the temperate man do nothing contrary to the rule of reason for the sake of bodily pleasures, the one, according to Aristotle, has bad appetites, the other is free from them.

THE CONTINENT MAN is not the only one who gives the appearance of temperance without being really temperate in character. Some men, says Aristotle, are moderate by nature—“from the very moment of birth fitted for self-control.” What appears to be temperance in them, therefore, is not, in his opinion, a virtuous habit acquired by good acts, but simply a natural capacity to control their desires or a temperamental constitution which happens not to be ridden by very strong desires. They do not deserve to be praised for their apparent self-control; neither do those who manage to be moderate about certain pleasures but give themselves free rein with respect to other desires. The miser who limits his bodily comforts in order to amass a pile of gold is hardly temperate.

Gibbon writes of the Emperor Julian that he “seldom recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true virtue is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.” Julian’s lack of temperance appears, however, not merely in the opposite extreme to which he went to express his contempt for luxury, sleeping on the ground and renouncing the decencies of dress and cleanliness. Though genuinely moderate in some things, such as his diet, he went to excess in others, overdoing his preoccupation with affairs of state and working incessantly for long hours day after day. He “considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. By this avarice of time,” Gibbon observes, “he seemed to protract the short duration of his reign.”

Temperance in a particular respect is sometimes praised as a virtue relative to a specific and limited goal. Considering the wealth of nations, Adam Smith looks upon prodigality as a major vice, and regards parsimony as an indispensable virtue. “Capitals are increased by parsimony,” he writes, “and diminished by prodigality and misconduct… Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital… By what a frugal man annually saves, he not only affords maintenance to an additional number of productive hands, for that or the ensuing year, but, like the founder of a public workhouse, he establishes as it were a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come.”

Capital funds are perverted by the prodigal. “By not confining his expenses within his income,” Smith declares, “he encroaches upon his capital… By diminishing the funds designed for the employment of productive labor, he necessarily diminishes… the quantity of that labor which adds a value to the subject upon which it is bestowed, and, consequently, the value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the whole country…. If the prodigality of some was not compensated by the frugality of others, the conduct of every prodigal, by feeding the idle with the bread of the industrious, tends not only to beggar himself, but to impoverish his country.”

From the point of view of augmenting wealth, Smith may be right in calling every prodigal “a public enemy and every frugal man a public benefactor.” Marx, however, raises the question whether thrift or parsimony represents moral virtue in the capitalist himself. He mocks the classical, or what he calls the “vulgar,” economic theory which tends to identify capital with abstinence, and, taking Adam Smith’s statement that “industry furnishes the material which saving accumulates,” he interprets saving to mean the reconversion of the greatest possible portion of surplus-value or surplus-product into capital.

For Marx the question is, in addition to being economic, a moral and psychological one. He describes the capitalist as suffering from “a Faustian conflict between the passion for accumulation and the desire for enjoyment.” His parsimony, or abstinence from certain pleasures, hardly signifies genuine temperance; for, according to Marx, the capitalist is like the hoarder who “makes a sacrifice of the lusts of the flesh to his gold fetish.” Elsewhere he says that the “boundless greed after riches…. is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.”

In Marx’s opinion the capitalist cannot even boast of personal thrift to any great extent. “The capitalist gets rich, not like the miser, in proportion to his personal labor and restricted consumption, but at the same rate as he squeezes out the labor-power of others, and enforces on the laborer abstinence from all life’s enjoyments.”

THESE CONSIDERATIONS of political economy lead us naturally back to the issue raised earlier, concerning the significance of temperance for society, or the effect of private intemperance on the public welfare.

What is the relation between temperance and justice? Aristotle answers this question in terms of his conception of general justice as including the social aspect of all the other moral virtues. To the extent that his courage or temperance can affect others or the common good, a man is required by justice to be temperate and brave. It is proper for the law, he says, to bid us do “both the acts of a brave man (e.g., not to desert our post nor take flight nor throw away our arms) and those of a temperate man (e.g., not to commit adultery nor to gratify one’s lust).”

Though he accepts Aristotle’s notion of general justice, Aquinas puts a limitation on the extent to which the positive law of the state can regulate or enforce the acts of a virtue like temperance. Because it is “framed for a multitude of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue… human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are injurious to others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained.” The point is not that some acts of temperance cannot be prescribed by law, but rather that the human law does not command every act of temperance, but only those “which are ordainable to the common good.”

The principle being clear, the problem remains extremely difficult when the question is one of regulating certain types of behavior, such as insobriety, extravagance, or adultery.

Montesquieu discusses the difficulties of administering, under the Julian law, the “punishments decreed by the Roman emperors against the incontinence of women.” He considers the advantages and disadvantages, relative to different forms of government, of sumptuary laws directed at maintaining frugality and avoiding luxury; as, for example, in Venice, where the rich were “compelled by laws to moderation” and were thus so “habituated to parsimony that none but courtesans could make them part with their money.” As for sobriety, he seems to think that the problem varies with the climate, the Mohammedan law against the drinking of wine being “improper for cold countries where the climate seems to force them to a kind of national intemperance, very different from personal inebriety…. A German drinks through custom, and a Spaniard by choice.”

The reasons which have been offered against the legal prohibition of intoxicants are many and various. To those who hold that temperance consists in moderation, not abstinence, “temperance laws” are misguided as well as misnamed. To others, like William James, “drunkenness… as teetotalers use the word, is one of the deepest functions of human nature. Half of both the poetry and tragedy of human life would vanish if alcohol were taken away.” To still others, like Mill, such sumptuary laws are wrong in principle because consumption, which they try to regulate, is a private matter.

If an individual’s intemperance injures only himself, he may be morally reprobated, but, Mill holds, he ought not to be prosecuted by law. A man who, “through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his debts,” or becomes incapable of supporting his family, “might be justly punished; but it is for the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance.” Again Mill writes: “No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to another individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of morality or law.”

OUTLINE OF TOPICS

1. The nature of temperance * 1a. The relation of temperance to virtue generally, and to the virtues of courage and justice * 1b. The relation of temperance to knowledge and prudence: the determination of the mean of temperance * 1c. Temperance and continence: the counterfeits of temperance

2. The varieties of intemperance: the related vices of sensuality, abstemiousness, cruelty, curiosity, inordinate desire

3. Temperance in relation to duty or happiness

4. The cultivation of temperance: the training of a temperate character

5. The social aspects of temperance * 5a. The temperance of rulers and citizens: intemperate conduct as inimical to the common good * 5b. The temperance of a people: luxurious indulgences; the intemperance of the mob * 5c. Laws concerning temperance: the extent to which the sphere of temperance can be regulated by law

6. The extremes of temperance and intemperance * 6a. Asceticism: heroic temperance * 6b. The Dionysiac spirit: the cult of pleasure

REFERENCES

To find the passages cited, use the numbers in heavy type, which are the volume and page numbers of the passages referred to. For example, in 4 Homer: Iliad, BK II [265-283] 12d, the number 4 is the number of the volume in the set; the number 12d indicates that the passage is in section d of page 12.

PAGE SECTIONS: When the text is printed in one column, the letters a and b refer to the upper and lower halves of the page. For example, in 53 James: Psychology, 116a-119b, the passage begins in the upper half of page 116 and ends in the lower half of page 119. When the text is printed in two columns, the letters a and b refer to the upper and lower halves of the left-hand side of the page, the letters c and d to the upper and lower halves of the right-hand side of the page. For example, in 7 Plato: Symposium, 163b-164c, the passage begins in the lower half of the left-hand side of page 163 and ends in the upper half of the right-hand side of page 164.

AUTHOR’S DIVISIONS: One or more of the main divisions of a work (such as PART, BK, CH, SECT) are sometimes included in the reference; line numbers, in brackets, are given in certain cases; e.g., Iliad, BK II [265-283] 12d.

BIBLE REFERENCES: The references are to book, chapter, and verse. When the King James and Douay versions differ in title of books or in the numbering of chapters or verses, the King James version is cited first and the Douay, indicated by a (D), follows; e.g., OLD TESTAMENT: Nehemiah, 7:45—(D) II Esdras, 7:46.

SYMBOLS: The abbreviation “esp” calls the reader’s attention to one or more especially relevant parts of a whole reference; “passim” signifies that the topic is discussed intermittently rather than continuously in the work or passage cited.

For additional information concerning the style of the references, see the Explanation of Reference Style; for general guidance in the use of The Great Ideas, consult the Preface.

1. The nature of temperance

7 Plato: Charmides, 1a-13d esp 7b-c / Protagoras, 55a / Phaedrus, 120b-c / Phaedo, 225d / Gorgias, 275b-284d / Republic, BK III, 326c; 334a; BK IV, 347d-355a / Statesman, 605d-608d / Philebus, 627c-628a / Laws, BK I, 645d-652d; BK II, 673d-674b; BK V, 689d-690c
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK II, CH 3 [1104b4-13] 350a; CH 7 [1107b3-8] 353a; CH 8 354a-d; BK III, CH 10-12 364b-366a,c; BK VII, CH 7 [1150a9-23] 400d-401a; CH 11 [1152a15-17] 403d; CH 12 [1153a27-35] 404c-d / Rhetoric, BK I, CH 9 [1366b14-15] 609a
12 Epictetus: Discourses, BK I, CH 17 158d-161a; BK IV, CH 4 225a-228a
12 Aurelius: Meditations, BK I, SECT 16 254d-255d; BK VII, SECT 55 283b-c; BK VIII, SECT 39 288c; BK IX, SECT 7 292b
17 Plotinus: First Ennead, TR I, CH 1, 6c; CH 3, 7c-d; CH 6-7, 9c-10a
18 Augustine: City of God, BK XIX, CH 4, 511d-512a
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 59, A 4, REP 3 309a-310a; PART I-II, Q 34, A 1, REP 2 768c-769d; Q 35, A 6, REP 3 777b-778c
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 60, A 2 50d-51b; A 4, ANS and REP 3 52b-53a; A 5, ANS and REP 4 53a-54d; Q 61, AA 2-5 55c-59d; Q 63, A 4, ANS and REP 2 65d-66c; Q 65, A 1, ANS 70b-72a; PART II-II, Q 180, A 2, REP 3 608c-609c; Q 186, A 1, ANS 650c-651d
21 Dante: Divine Comedy, PURGATORY, XVII [82-139] 79b-d
22 Chaucer: Parson’s Tale, PAR 72-73 535b
25 Montaigne: Essays, 89b-91b; 165c-166a; 354a-b; 489b-490c; 540b
30 Bacon: Advancement of Learning, 78a-b
31 Spinoza: Ethics, PART IV, PROP 61 443a-b; APPENDIX, III 447b
32 Milton: Paradise Lost, BK XI [527-551] 310b-311a / Areopagitica, 390b-391a
33 Pascal: Pensées, 69-71 180b-181a
42 Kant: Fund. Prin. Metaphysic of Morals, 256b / Pref. Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 378d-379a / Judgement, 586d-587a
43 Mill: Liberty, 305c-307a
44 Boswell: Johnson, 92c
49 Darwin: Descent of Man, 313d-314b

1a. The relation of temperance to virtue generally, and to the virtues of courage and justice

5 Euripides: Suppliants [838-917] 265d-266b / Iphigenia at Aulis [543-589] 429d-430a
5 Aristophanes: Clouds [955-1104] 500a-502a
6 Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, BK I, 370a-c
7 Plato: Charmides 1a-13d / Gorgias, 284a-285a / Republic, BK II, 311c-312b; BK IV, 346a-355a; BK VIII, 407a-408a / Statesman, 605d-608d / Laws, BK I, 643a; 644b-645c; BK III, 673d-674b; BK V, 689d-690c
8 Aristotle: Topics, BK IV, CH 2 [117a26-b2] 164a; BK VI, CH 13 [150a1-15] 204c
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK I, CH 13 [1103a3-10] 348c-d; BK II, CH 2 [1104a10]-CH 3 [1104b13] 349c-350a; CH 6 351c-352d; CH 7 [1107b33-a8] 353a; CH 8 354a-d; BK III, CH 12 [1119a22-33] 365d-366a; BK V, CH 1 [1129a12-24] 377a; BK IX, CH 8 [1168b23-1169a11] 422b-d; BK X, CH 8 432d-434a passim / Politics, BK II, CH 6 [1265a28-37] 460c-d; BK VII, CH 15 [1334a11-b7] 539a-b / Rhetoric, BK I, CH 9 [1366b3-22] 608d-609a; BK II, CH 4 [1381a24-25] 627a
12 Aurelius: Meditations, BK III, SECT 6 261a-c; BK V, SECT 12 271a; BK VIII, SECT 39 288c; BK XI, SECT 10 303b-c
17 Plotinus: First Ennead, TR II, CH 3, 7c-d; CH 6-7, 9c-10a
18 Augustine: City of God, BK XIX, CH 4, 511d-512a; CH 20 523d-524a
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 59, A 4, REP 3 309a-310a; PART I-II, Q 35, A 6, REP 3 777b-778c
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, QQ 60-61 49d-59d; Q 65, AA 1-3 70b-73d; Q 66, A 1 75b-76b; A 4 78c-79b; PART III SUPPL, Q 96, A 6, REP 3-4,8-9 1058a-1061b
25 Montaigne: Essays, 89b-d
27 Shakespeare: Measure for Measure, ACT I, SC IV [48-61] 178b-c; ACT II, SC II [162-187] 183d-184a; SC IV [1-17] 184c-d
30 Bacon: Advancement of Learning, 72b; 80c-81a
32 Milton: Comus [331-489] 40b-44a / Samson Agonistes [38-59] 340b; [541-576] 351b-352a / Areopagitica, 390a-b
42 Kant: Fund. Prin. Metaphysic of Morals, 256a-b / Pref. Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 378d-379a
49 Darwin: Descent of Man, 315b-316a

1b. The relation of temperance to knowledge and prudence: the determination of the mean of temperance

APOCRYPHA: Wisdom of Solomon, 8:5-7—(D) OT, Book of Wisdom, 8:5-7
7 Plato: Charmides 1a-13d esp 7a-c / Protagoras, 61c-62a / Cratylus, 99c / Meno, 183d-184c / Phaedo, 225d-226c / Republic, BK III, 338a-339a / Sophist, 557b-d / Laws, BK IV, 679c-d / Seventh Letter, 808d-809a
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK I, CH 13 [1103a3-10] 348c-d; BK II, CH 2 [1104a10-26] 349c-d; CH 6-9 351c-355a,c esp CH 6 [1106b36-1107a2] 352c; BK V, CH 9 [1137a5-26] 385b-c; BK VI, CH 1 [1138b16-34] 387a-b; CH 5 [1140b11-19] 389b-c; CH 9 [1142a17-34] 391d-392b; CH 13 394b-d; BK VII, CH 6 [1149b24-1150a1] 400b-c; CH 8-9 401c-403a; CH 11 [1152a15-17] 403d; CH 12 [1153a27-35] 404c-d; BK X, CH 8 [1178a16-19] 432d; CH 9 [1179b4-30] 434b-c
11 Nicomachus: Arithmetic, BK I, 826d-827a
15 Tacitus: Annals, BK III, 31a-b
17 Plotinus: First Ennead, TR II, CH 6-7, 9c-10a
18 Augustine: City of God, BK XIX, CH 4, 511d-512a
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 113, A 1, REP 2 576a-d
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 56, A 2, REP 2 30c-31a; Q 57, A 5 39a-40a; Q 58, A 2 42a-43a; A 4 44a-d; Q 63, A 4, ANS and REP 2 65d-66c; Q 64, A 2 67d-68b; Q 65, A 1 70b-72a; Q 66, A 1 75b-76b; PART II-II, Q 180, A 2 608c-609c
32 Milton: Paradise Lost, BK XI [527-543] 310b-311a / Samson Agonistes [38-59] 340b / Areopagitica, 390a
33 Pascal: Pensées, 69-71 180b-181a; 382-383 238b
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK XXVIII, 259b
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK V, 346c-347a
42 Kant: Pref. Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 376d-377b
44 Boswell: Johnson, 309a-c; 404b-405c
53 James: Psychology, 14b-15a

1c. Temperance and continence: the counterfeits of temperance

7 Plato: Protagoras, 59c-60a / Phaedo, 225d-226a
8 Aristotle: Topics, BK VI, CH 8 [146b24-28] 200d
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK I, CH 13 [1102b13-28] 348a-c; BK III, CH 12 [1119a35-b19] 366a,c; BK VI, CH 9 [1142a17-34] 391d-392b; CH 13 [1144b1-29] 394b-c; BK VII, CH 1-4 395a-399a esp CH 2 [1146a9-17] 396a, CH 4 [1148a4-22] 398b-c; CH 5 [1149a5-24] 399c-d; CH 6 [1149b24-1150a1] 400b-c; CH 7-9 400d-403a esp CH 9 [1151b23-1152a6] 402d-403a; CH 10 [1152a7-24] 403a-b
18 Augustine: Confessions, BK VI, PAR 20 41b-c; BK VIII, PAR 26-27 60b-c
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 98, A 2, REP 3 517d-519a
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 58, A 3, REP 2 43b-44a; Q 63, A 1 63a-64a; Q 77, AA 2-3 145d-148b; Q 109, A 10, ANS 347a-d; PART III, Q 7, A 2, REP 3 746c-747b; PART III SUPPL, Q 96, AA 3-4 1053c-1055c
22 Chaucer: Parson’s Tale, PAR 72-73 535b; PAR 77-83 540b-542b
23 Hobbes: Leviathan, PART IV, 272d
25 Montaigne: Essays, 89b-91b; 394d-395b

OLD TESTAMENT: Proverbs, 11:17; 12:10; 25:28; 31:4-5 / Ecclesiastes, 5:10-6:12—(D) Ecclesiastes, 5:9-6:11 / Isaiah, 3:16-17; 5:11-14,22-23; 28:7-8—(D) Isaias, 3:16-17; 5:11-14,22-23; 28:7-8 / Habakkuk, 2:4-5,15-17—(D) Habacuc, 2:4-5,15-17
APOCRYPHA: Ecclesiasticus, 14:5-10; 19:2; 26:8; 31:25-31—(D) OT, Ecclesiasticus, 14:5-10; 19:2-3; 26:11; 31:30-42
NEW TESTAMENT: Romans, 1:18-32 / I Corinthians, 5:9-10 / Galatians, 5:16-21 / Philippians, 3:18-19 / Colossians, 3:5,8 / II Timothy, 3:1-7 / Titus, 3:3 / James, 4:1-6 / I Peter, 4:1-5 / II Peter, 2:9-22 / I John, 2:16
4 Homer: Odyssey, BK I [366-423] 186d-187c; BK II [35-79] 188b-d; BK IX [39-61] 229b-d; [231-419] 231c-233c; BK X [210-465] 238b-240d; BK XXI [35-67] 306b-d
5 Aeschylus: Suppliant Maidens 1a-14a,c esp [980-1073] 13b-14a,c / Seven Against Thebes [653-791] 34b-35d / Eumenides [490-565] 86b-87a
5 Euripides: Medea 212a-224a,c esp [627-642] 217c / Hippolytus 225a-236d / Electra [1060-1099] 336d-337a / Bacchantes 340a-352a,c / Iphigenia at Aulis [543-589] 429d-430a
5 Aristophanes: Clouds [882-1104] 499b-502a
6 Herodotus: History, BK I, 2d-3d; 46c-d; 47c; BK III, 95a-98a; BK VII, 222c-d; BK IX, 311b-312d
6 Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, BK III, 436c-438b; BK VI, 513b
7 Plato: Phaedrus, 120b-c / Symposium, 153b-155c / Gorgias, 276b-277b / Republic, BK III, 326c-328a; 334a-c / Timaeus, 474b-d / Laws, BK IX, 751b-d / Seventh Letter, 801b-c; 806a
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK II, CH 7-8 352d-354d; BK III, CH 10-12 364b-366a,c; BK V, CH I [1129a12-24] 377a; BK VII, CH 4 398a-399a; CH 5 [1149a5-22] 399c-d; CH 7 [1150a9-23] 400d-401a; CH 8 401c-402a / Politics, BK I, CH 9 [1257b40-1258a14] 452a-b
12 Lucretius: Nature of Things, BK III [1003-1010] 43a; [1076-1084] 44a; BK IV [1058-1120] 57d-58d
12 Epictetus: Discourses, BK II, CH 10, 149d; CH 18 161a-162b; BK IV, CH 5 228a-230b
12 Aurelius: Meditations, BK II, SECT 10 257d-258a
14 Plutarch: Lucullus, 419b-420b / Dion, 783c-784a
15 Tacitus: Annals, BK I, 57b-58d; BK VI, 86a-b; BK XV, 166b-c / Histories, BK II, 230d-231a; BK III, 264b-265d
18 Augustine: Confessions, BK II, PAR 16 17c-d; BK V, PAR 4 27d-28a; BK VI, PAR 18-26 40d-43a; BK VIII, PAR 26-27 60b-c; BK X, PAR 40-60 81c-86d / Christian Doctrine, BK III, CH 18-22 664d-666c esp CH 21 665d-666b
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 98, A 2, REP 3 517d-519a
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 72, A 9 118d-119b; Q 73, A 5, REP 1-3 123a-d; Q 76, A 4, REP 2,4 143d-144d; Q 77, A 5 149a-150a; Q 88, A 5 196d-198a; Q 100, A 4, ANS 253d-255a; PART II-II, Q 46 603c-605a,c
21 Dante: Divine Comedy, HELL, V-VII 7a-10d; XI [70-90] 15d-16a; PURGATORY, XVIII [82-139] 79b-d; XIX-XXVIII 81c-96a
22 Chaucer: Troilus and Cressida, BK IV, STANZA 32-49 92b-95a / Pardoner’s Tale 374a-382b esp [12,397-593] 374a-377b, [12,829-839] 381b / Tale of Melibeus, PAR 4-7 401b-402b / Parson’s Tale, PAR 27 512a-514b; PAR 70-71 534b-535a
23 Hobbes: Leviathan, PART I, 62d-63a passim; 95c
24 Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel, BK III, 186d-193c; 195c-196b
25 Montaigne: Essays, 89b-91b; 162c-167a; 238c-d; 244d-246a; 270b-271a; 350d-354b; 503b-d; 517b-519a; 534a-c; 538a-d; 541d-543a,c
26 Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, ACT II, SC III [89-191] 178d-179d / Romeo and Juliet, ACT II, SC VI [1-15] 300c / King John, ACT III, SC I [561-598] 385c-386a / 1st Henry IV, ACT I, SC II [1-116] 435c-436c; ACT II, SC IV [438-527] 448b-449b; ACT III, SC III [172-190] 456b-c
27 Shakespeare: Hamlet, ACT I, SC V [42-91] 37b-d / Measure for Measure, ACT I, SC II [128-134] 176c / Othello, ACT V, SC II 238d-243a,c / Macbeth, ACT IV, SC III [66-100] 304a-c / Antony and Cleopatra 311a-350d esp ACT III, SC II [175-245] 320c-321b / Pericles, ACT I, SC I [64-142] 422c-423b
29 Cervantes: Don Quixote, PART I, 120b-137d
32 Milton: Paradise Lost, BK II [629-870] 125a-130a; BK V [443-450] 185a; BK VIII [500-617] 243a-245b; BK IX [990-1133] 269a-272a
36 Sterne: Tristram Shandy, 521a-b
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK XVI, 117c-d; 119a-b
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK IV, 189d-190a; BK V, 346c-347d
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 38a-b; 70c-71a; 90a-c; 138d-139b; 256c-257a; 340b-c; 389b-c
41 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 67c-d; 166a-167c passim; 169a-b
42 Kant: Pref. Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 368d-369a / Judgement, 586d-587a
43 Mill: Liberty, 303d-307a passim
46 Hegel: Philosophy of History, INTRO, 198b-199b; PART I, 233b-c; PART IV, 323a-c
47 Goethe: Faust, PART I [2073-2336] 49a-56a; [2605-4612] 63b-114b; PART II [10,039-11,383] 245a-276b
49 Darwin: Descent of Man, 315c-316a
50 Marx: Capital, 62b; 72c; 293c-294a
51 Tolstoy: War and Peace, BK I, 15b-16a; BK V, 201a-c; BK VI, 248b-250a; BK VII, 284a-285a; BK VIII, 321d-322d; BK IX, 349d-350d; EPILOGUE I, 655c-656b
52 Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov, BK I, 4a-d; BK II, 38d-39a; BK III, 50c-62a; 69c-70a; BK V, 122d-125c; BK VIII 191b,d-235d; BK XII, 370b-d; 372c-373a
53 James: Psychology, 800a-805b esp 802b-805b

3. Temperance in relation to duty or happiness

OLD TESTAMENT: Proverbs, 5; 6:23-35; 7; 12:1; 20:1; 21:17; 23:20-21,27-35 / Jeremiah, 35—(D) Jeremias, 35
APOCRYPHA: Ecclesiasticus, 18:30-32; 19:1-3; 31:12-31; 37:26-31—(D) OT, Ecclesiasticus, 18:30-32; 19:1-3; 31:12-42; 37:29-34
NEW TESTAMENT: I Corinthians, 6:9-10 / I Timothy, 3:1-13 / Titus, 1:7-9; 2 passim / Hebrews, 13:4 / James, 1:12-15; 4:1-10 / I Peter, 1:13-14; 2:11; 5:8-9 / II Peter, 2:9-22 / I John, 2:15-17
5 Euripides: Hippolytus 225a-236d esp [373-430] 228b-d / Bacchantes [370-433] 343a-b / Iphigenia at Aulis [543-589] 429d-430a
7 Plato: Charmides, 7b-c / Symposium, 156d-157a / Gorgias, 275b-284d / Republic, BK IX 416a-427b passim / Laws, BK V, 689c-690c / Seventh Letter, 806a; 807a
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK X, CH 7 [1177b23-b4] 431d-432a; CH 8 432d-434a passim / Politics, BK II, CH 6 [1265a28-37] 460c-d
12 Lucretius: Nature of Things, BK I [1-61] 15a-d; BK V [1113-1135] 75c-d; [1412-1435] 79b-d
18 Augustine: Confessions, BK II, PAR 16 17c-d; BK V, PAR 4 27d-28a; BK VI, PAR 18-20 40d-41c; BK VIII, PAR 26-27 60b-c; BK X, PAR 40-60 81c-86d / City of God, BK I, CH 10, 172d; BK XIX, CH 4, 511d-513c
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 98, A 2, REP 3 517d-519a
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 63, A 4, ANS and REP 2 65d-66c; Q 77, A 5 149a-150a; Q 100, A 4, ANS 253d-255a; PART II-II, Q 46, A 2 604b-d
21 Dante: Divine Comedy, PURGATORY, XVII [82-139] 79b-d
23 Hobbes: Leviathan, PART II, 163d-164a
25 Montaigne: Essays, 71a-72a; 165c-167a; 353c-354b; 382b-383d; 540b-543a,c
30 Bacon: Advancement of Learning, 73c-d
32 Milton: Paradise Lost, BK XI [523-543] 310b-311a; BK XII [583-587] 332a / Areopagitica, 390a-b
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK V, 18d-19c
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 192b
42 Kant: Fund. Prin. Metaphysic of Morals, 256a-b / Practical Reason, 327a-d / Pref. Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 366d-367a / Judgement, 586d-587a
43 Mill: Liberty, 302d-312a passim
51 Tolstoy: War and Peace, BK XII, 577d-578a; BK XIV, 605b-d
52 Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov, BK VI, 164b-d; BK XII, 370b-d
54 Freud: Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis, 20c-d / General Introduction, 587d; 599b-d / Civilization and Its Discontents, 772c-773d; 793a-794a; 800c-801a

4. The cultivation of temperance: the training of a temperate character

OLD TESTAMENT: Job, 31:1 / Proverbs, 6:23-26; 23:20,31; 25:16
APOCRYPHA: Wisdom of Solomon, 8:5-7—(D) OT, Book of Wisdom, 8:5-7 / Ecclesiasticus passim, esp 9:3-9, 18:30-32, 19:5, 23:5-6, 25:21, 31:12-31, 37:29-31—(D) OT, Ecclesiasticus passim, esp 9:3-13, 18:30-32, 19:5, 23:5-6, 25:28, 31:12-42, 37:32-34
NEW TESTAMENT: Luke, 21:34 / Romans, 6:12-13; 13:13-14 / I Corinthians, 5:9-13; 6:18; 7:1-9; 9:24-27 / Galatians, 5:13,16,22-23 / Ephesians, 5:18 / Colossians, 3:2-8 / I Thessalonians, 4:3-5; 5:5-8 / I Timothy, 6:8-11 / II Timothy, 2:22 / Titus, 2 esp 2:11-15; 3:3-6 / James, 4:5-10 / I Peter, 1:13-14; 2:11; 4:7; 5:8-9 / I John, 2:15-17
5 Euripides: Iphigenia at Aulis [543-589] 429d-430a
5 Aristophanes: Frogs [1008-1098] 576b-577c
7 Plato: Republic, BK III, 326c-339a passim / Statesman, 605d-608d / Laws, BK I-II, 645d-663d passim; BK III, 672d-674d; BK VI, 712b; BK VII, 715b-716a; BK VIII, 737c-738c
9 Aristotle: History of Animals, BK VII, CH 1 [581b11-22] 107b / Ethics, BK II, CH 1-4 348b,d-351b; BK III, CH 12 [1119a35-b19] 366a,c; BK V, CH 1 [1129b12-24] 377a; BK X, CH 9 [1179b4-1180a33] 434b-435a / Politics, BK II, CH 9 [1269b13-1270a14] 465d-466b; BK VII, CH 17 [1336a23-24] 541b-d; BK VIII, CH 5 [1340a14-b10] 545c-546a
12 Epictetus: Discourses, BK I, CH 18 161a-162b; BK III, CH 1 175a-177c; CH 3 178d-180a; CH 12 187b-188b; CH 24-25, 208b-210d
12 Aurelius: Meditations, BK I, SECT 16 254d-255d
14 Plutarch: Lycurgus, 38a-45c / Lycurgus-Numa, 61b,d-62c / Coriolanus, 174b,d-175a
18 Augustine: Confessions, BK VI, PAR 20 41b-c; BK VIII, PAR 26-27 60b-c
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 95, A 1 226c-227c
21 Dante: Divine Comedy, PURGATORY, XVI [52-114] 77b-78a
22 Chaucer: Parson’s Tale, PAR 72-73 535b
25 Montaigne: Essays, 69d-75a passim; 534a-d
26 Shakespeare: Henry V, ACT I, SC I [22-37] 533b
30 Bacon: Advancement of Learning, 69d-70a; 78a-d; 79c-80a
32 Milton: Paradise Lost, BK XI [527-551] 310b-311a / Areopagitica, 385a-b
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK V, 346c-347d
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 32a-b; 338d-339c; 449a-c
42 Kant: Practical Reason, 356a-360d / Pref. Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, 365b-d / Judgement, 586d-587a
43 Mill: Liberty, 305b-307a
51 Tolstoy: War and Peace, BK V, 201a-c; BK VI, 248b-250a; BK XIII, 577a-578b
54 Freud: Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis, 16c / Narcissism, 407b-c / General Introduction, 573c-d; 592b-593b / New Introductory Lectures, 870a-b

5a. The temperance of rulers and citizens: intemperate conduct as inimical to the common good

OLD TESTAMENT: Leviticus, 10:8-11 / Deuteronomy, 17:15-17; 21:18-21 / Proverbs, 31:4-5 / Ecclesiastes, 10:16-17 / Isaiah, 5:22-23; 28:1-9; 56:9-12—(D) Isaias, 5:22-23; 28:1-9; 56:9-12 / Amos, 6
APOCRYPHA: Ecclesiasticus, 47:19-21—(D) OT, Ecclesiasticus, 47:21-23
NEW TESTAMENT: I Timothy, 3:1-13 / James, 4:1-3
5 Sophocles: Ajax [1052-1070] 152a-b
5 Euripides: Suppliants [838-917] 265d-266b / Phoenician Maidens [452-593] 382a-383a / Iphigenia at Aulis [543-589] 429d-430a
5 Aristophanes: Clouds [882-1104] 499b-502a / Frogs [1008-1098] 576b-577c / Lysistrata [387-425] 588a-b
6 Herodotus: History, BK I, 2d-3d; BK III, 95a-98a; BK VII, 222c-d; BK IX, 311b-312d
6 Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, BK VI, 513a-d; 516c
7 Plato: Republic, BK III, 318a-319a; BK III, 326c-339a; BK IV, 346a-355a; BK VIII, 407a-408a; 409d-411d; BK IX, 416a-418c / Critias, 481a; 485b-c / Statesman, 605d-608d / Laws, BK III, 669b-671a; 672d-676c; BK IV, 679c-d; BK VIII, 733b-d; BK IX, 751b-d / Seventh Letter, 801b-c; 806d-807a
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK IX, CH 8 [1168b23-1169a11] 422b-d / Politics, BK I, CH 13 454a-455a,c; BK II, CH 5 [1263b7-14] 458d; CH 6 [1265a28-37] 460c-d; CH 9 [1269b13-1270a14] 465d-466b; BK III, CH 4 [1277a16-29] 474d-475a; BK VII, CH 5 [1326b26-37] 530d-531a; CH 15 [1334a11-36] 539a-b / Rhetoric, BK I, CH 9 [1366b3-15] 608d-609a
12 Epictetus: Discourses, BK II, CH 10, 149c-d; BK III, CH 7, 184a
12 Aurelius: Meditations, BK I, SECT 16 254d-255d
14 Plutarch: Lycurgus 32a-48d esp 48b-c / Lysander, 361b-d / Agesilaus, 489d-490b / Alexander, 549d-551c / Cato the Younger, 621c-622b / Cleomenes, 661a-d / Demosthenes, 699c-700a
15 Tacitus: Annals, BK I, 57b-58d; BK VI, 86a-b; BK XV, 166b-c / Histories, BK II, 230d-231a
21 Dante: Divine Comedy, HELL, XIX 26d-28b; PURGATORY, XIX-XX 81c-85a
24 Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel, BK I, 133b-140b
25 Montaigne: Essays, 436c-438b
26 Shakespeare: Richard III, ACT III, SC VII [1-80] 129d-130c / 1st Henry IV, ACT II, SC I [1-21] 437d-438a; ACT III, SC II [11-161] 453a-454c / 2nd Henry IV, ACT IV, SC V [97-184] 495b-496b; ACT V, SC II [122-145] 499b / Henry V, ACT I, SC I [24-69] 533b-c
27 Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, ACT V, SC I 133b-134c; SC II [190-197] 136d-137a / Measure for Measure, ACT I, SC I [31-54] 178b-c; ACT II, SC II [162-187] 183d-184a; SC IV [1-17] 184c-d; [111-187] 185d-186c; ACT III, SC I [275-296] 192b / Macbeth, ACT IV, SC III [1-139] 303b-304d / Pericles, ACT I, SC I-II 421d-425a
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK II, 8d-9a,c; BK III, 10a; 10c-11a; BK V, 18d-19d; 23a-b; BK VI, 37d-38b; BK VIII, 51a-53a; BK XII, 94d-95b; BK XIX, 262a-b
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK II, 146a-148c; 149d-150a; BK V, 346c-347d
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 35a-39c passim; 55c-56a; 138d-140c passim; 256c-257a; 338d-340c; 448c-449b
43 FEDERALIST: NUMBER 1, 29d-30c; NUMBER 37, 118a; NUMBER 62, 190b; NUMBER 63, 192c-d
43 Mill: Liberty, 302d-312a passim
44 Boswell: Johnson, 393a-c
46 Hegel: Philosophy of Right, PART III, PAR 185 64b-d
49 Darwin: Descent of Man, 315c-316a; 325b-327a passim
54 Freud: General Introduction, 452c-d; 573c

5b. The temperance of a people: luxurious indulgences; the intemperance of the mob

OLD TESTAMENT: Exodus, 16:1-3 / Numbers, 11 / Isaiah, 3:16-26—(D) Isaias, 3:16-26 / Ezekiel, 7:17-27—(D) Ezechiel, 7:17-27 / Amos, 6
5 Euripides: Orestes [682-716] 400d-401a; [866-956] 402d-403d
6 Herodotus: History, BK I, 46c-d; 47c; BK IX, 305d-306a; 314a,c
6 Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, BK I, 370a-c; BK II, 400c-401a; BK III, 436c-438b
7 Plato: Republic, BK III, 318a-319a; BK III, 326c-328b; BK IV, 342a-d; BK VIII, 408b-411d
9 Aristotle: Politics, BK II, CH 9 [1269b13-1270a14] 465d-466b
14 Plutarch: Lycurgus 32a-48d esp 36b-37b / Lycurgus-Numa 61b,d-64a,c esp 62a-b / Agis, 648b,d-649b
15 Tacitus: Annals, BK III, 57b-58d / Histories, BK I, 197d-199b; 204b-d; 206b; 210d-212b; 213d-214b; BK II, 222b-c; 232d-233a; 238d-239c; BK III, 264b-265d; BK IV, 277c-d
18 Augustine: City of God, BK I, CH 30-33 147b-149a
25 Montaigne: Essays, 54b-d
26 Shakespeare: 2nd Henry VI, ACT IV 56a-64d / 2nd Henry IV, ACT I, SC III [85-110] 473d-474a
27 Shakespeare: Coriolanus, ACT I, SC I [1-225] 351a-353d
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK III, 10a; BK V, 18d-19d; BK VII, 44a-47a; BK VIII, 51a-52c; BK XVI, 118a-b
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK V, 346c-347d
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 90a-c; 92c-d; 216a-c; 509b-510d
41 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 94d; 397c-398a; 551b-552d
43 Mill: Representative Government, 329c
44 Boswell: Johnson, 210d-211b
46 Hegel: Philosophy of History, INTRO, 198b-199b; PART IV, 316c-d
52 Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov, BK VI, 164b-165c
53 James: Psychology, 719a-720a
54 Freud: Group Psychology, 666a-668c passim; 670d-671c / Civilization and Its Discontents, 787b

5c. Laws concerning temperance: the extent to which the sphere of temperance can be regulated by law

OLD TESTAMENT: Exodus, 20:14,17 / Leviticus, 10:8-11; 18:22-23 / Deuteronomy, 5:18,21; 21:18-21; 23:17
NEW TESTAMENT: Matthew, 5:27-28
5 Euripides: Bacchantes [215-369] 341d-343a
7 Plato: Gorgias, 283a-285a / Republic, BK IV, 348a-d / Laws, BK I-II, 643a-663d esp BK I, 663b-d; BK III, 675c-676b; BK VI, 708c-709a; 712b; BK VII, 713c-716b esp 713c; 718c-720d; BK VIII, 731d-738c
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK II, CH 1 348b,d-349b passim, esp [1103a2-6] 349a; BK V, CH 1 [1129b12-24] 377a; BK X, CH 9 [1179b4-1180b33] 434b-435a / Politics, BK II, CH 9 [1269b13-1270a14] 465d-466b; BK VII, CH 17 [1336a23-b24] 541b-d
14 Plutarch: Lycurgus 32a-48d esp 36b-37b / Lycurgus-Numa, 61b,d-62c / Lysander, 361c-d
15 Tacitus: Annals, BK II, 31a-b; BK III, 57b-58d
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 96, AA 2-3 231c-233a; Q 100, AA 2-7 252b-259c; A 11, ANS and REP 3 263c-264d; Q 108, A 3, REP 1 334a-336b
21 Dante: Divine Comedy, PURGATORY, XVI [85-114] 77d-78a
25 Montaigne: Essays, 131b-132a
27 Shakespeare: Measure for Measure, ACT II, SC I [225-270] 181a-c; ACT III, SC I [91-128] 190c-d
30 Bacon: Advancement of Learning, 54a-b
32 Milton: Areopagitica, 390a-b; 393a-395b
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK V, 18b,d-19d; BK VII, 44d-48a; 49a-50c; BK XII, 86b; 87c-88a; BK XIV, 105c-106b; BK XVI, 119d
38 Rousseau: Social Contract, BK IV, 434b-435a
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK II, 150a; BK IV, 211a-b; BK V, 346c-347d
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 100c-101b
41 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 93d-94a
42 Kant: Intro. Metaphysic of Morals, 383a-b; 389a-b
43 CONSTITUTION OF THE U.S.: AMENDMENTS, XVIII 19c-d; XXI 20c
43 FEDERALIST: NUMBER 12, 58b-c
43 Mill: Liberty, 292b-293b; 302d-312a passim, esp 309d-310c; 314a-316b
44 Boswell: Johnson, 301c-d
54 Freud: Group Psychology, 690b-c

6. The extremes of temperance and intemperance

6a. Asceticism: heroic temperance

OLD TESTAMENT: Genesis, 39:7-21 / Exodus, 24:18; 34:28 / Numbers, 6:1-21 / Judges, 13:1-7 / I Kings, 19:4-8—(D) III Kings, 19:4-8
NEW TESTAMENT: Matthew, 4:1-11; 19:12 / Mark, 1:12-13 / Luke, 1:5-17 esp 1:15; 4:1-13 / I Corinthians, 7:36-38; 9:24-27 / I Timothy, 4:1-10
5 Euripides: Hippolytus 225a-236d
7 Plato: Laws, BK VIII, 737c-738c
12 Epictetus: Discourses, BK III, CH 15 190a-191a
17 Plotinus: First Ennead, TR I, CH 5 8c-9a; CH 7 9c-10a; TR IV, CH 14 18a-c; TR VI, CH 6 24a-c
18 Augustine: Confessions, BK II, PAR 3 9b-c; BK VIII, PAR 26-27 60b-c / City of God, BK I, CH 16-18 139c-140d / Christian Doctrine, BK I, CH 24 630c-631a
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 64, A 1, REP 3 66d-67c; PART II-II, Q 184, A 3 630d-632c; A 6 634c-636a; Q 186, AA 1-4 650c-656b; AA 7-8 658d-660a; PART III SUPPL, Q 96, A 5 1055c-1058a
22 Chaucer: Second Nun’s Tale 463b-471b
24 Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel, BK I, 152a-d
25 Montaigne: Essays, 111a-b; 120d-121d; 165c-167a; 350d-351b; 353c-354b; 425c-426b
26 Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost, ACT I, SC I [1-162] 254a-256a / Midsummer-Night’s Dream, ACT I, SC I [67-78] 353a-b
29 Cervantes: Don Quixote, PART I, 81b-91d
32 Milton: Comus 33a-56b esp [659-813] 48a-51b
33 Pascal: Provincial Letters, 64b-65b
38 Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws, BK V, 19a; BK VI, 38b; BK XXV, 210a-b
39 Smith: Wealth of Nations, BK V, 347a-d
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 191d-193c; 338d-340c passim; 593b,d-599a
42 Kant: Practical Reason, 327a-d
44 Boswell: Johnson, 283a
46 Hegel: Philosophy of History, PART I, 224b-d; 228b; PART IV, 340d-341a
52 Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov, BK IV, 85a-87b
54 Freud: General Introduction, 624a-c / Civilization and Its Discontents, 773c

6b. The Dionysiac spirit: the cult of pleasure

OLD TESTAMENT: Ecclesiastes, 8:15 / Isaiah, 22:13—(D) Isaias, 22:13 / Amos, 6:3-6
APOCRYPHA: Wisdom of Solomon, 2 esp 2:1-9—(D) OT, Book of Wisdom, 2 esp 2:1-9
4 Homer: Odyssey, BK X [210-465] 238b-240d
5 Euripides: Alcestis [782-802] 244a / Bacchantes 340a-352a,c / Cyclops [139-174] 441c-d; [495-589] 444d-445d
5 Aristophanes: Acharnians [241-279] 458a-b
6 Herodotus: History, BK II, 77a-b
6 Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, BK II, 400d-401a
7 Plato: Seventh Letter, 801b-c
9 Aristotle: Ethics, BK I, CH 5 [1095b14-21] 340d; BK III, CH 12 [1119a35-b19] 366a,c; BK VII, CH 14 [1154b2-15] 405d-406a
14 Plutarch: Alcibiades, 161d-162b / Lucullus, 419b-420b / Alexander, 572b-d / Demetrius, 732d-733a; 747b / Antony 748a-779d esp 751b-c, 755d-756c, 757c-758c / Antony-Demetrius, 780c-d / Dion, 783c-784a
15 Tacitus: Annals, BK III, 57b-58d; BK VI, 86a-b; BK XI, 103b-c; 107b-c; 108b-c; BK XIV, 145a-d; BK XV, 166b-c
19 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I, Q 18, A 2, REP 2 105c-106b
20 Aquinas: Summa Theologica, PART I-II, Q 179, A 2, REP 1,3 607a-c
24 Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel, BK I, 7a-8c; 60c-66b; BK IV, 234a-235a
25 Montaigne: Essays, 28b-d; 406a-408b
26 Shakespeare: 1st Henry IV, ACT I, SC II [1-116] 435c-436c; ACT II, SC IV [438-527] 448b-449b / 2nd Henry IV, ACT III, SC II [200-234] 485d-486a; [321-359] 486d-487a
40 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 38a-b; 60a-c; 649d-650b
41 Gibbon: Decline and Fall, 174c-175c
42 Kant: Intro. Metaphysic of Morals, 387b-388a
43 Mill: Utilitarianism, 447b-449c
46 Hegel: Philosophy of History, PART II, 228b-c
47 Goethe: Faust, PART I [3835-4222] 93b-103a
51 Tolstoy: War and Peace, BK VIII, 321d-322d; 334d-335a
52 Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov, BK I, 4a-d; BK III 46a-82a,c passim

CROSS-REFERENCES

For:

The general theory of virtue in its bearing on temperance, and for discussions bearing on the nature of temperance, see DESIRE 6a; EMOTION 4b(1); MIND 9b-9c; PLEASURE AND PAIN 8a; VIRTUE AND VICE 1, 1c, 5a-5c.
Temperance in relation to knowledge and to other virtues, see COURAGE 4; PRUDENCE 3a, 3d; VIRTUE AND VICE 1b-1c, 2a(1), 3a-3b.
Other discussions of continence, see PRUDENCE 3d; VIRTUE AND VICE 1e.
The consideration of extreme forms of intemperance, see DESIRE 7a-7a(3); INFINITY 6a; SIN 4c; WEALTH 10e(3).
Other discussions which show the relation of temperance to duty and happiness, see HAPPINESS 2b(3); VIRTUE AND VICE 1d, 6a.
The problems involved in training a temperate character, see EDUCATION 4a-4d; PUNISHMENT 3a; VIRTUE AND VICE 4a-4d(4); and for the extent to which temperance can be regulated by law, see LAW 6d; PLEASURE AND PAIN 9; VIRTUE AND VICE 4d(3).
The issue concerning asceticism and self-denial, see DESIRE 6b; PLEASURE AND PAIN 7b; RELIGION 3d; VIRTUE AND VICE 8f-8g; WEALTH 10e(2).
Another consideration of the Dionysiac or Bacchic spirit, see PLEASURE AND PAIN 4d, 7b.

ADDITIONAL READINGS

Listed below are works not included in Great Books of the Western World, but relevant to the idea and topics with which this chapter deals. These works are divided into two groups: I. Works by authors represented in this collection. II. Works by authors not represented in this collection.

For the date, place, and other facts concerning the publication of the works cited, consult the Bibliography of Additional Readings which follows the last chapter of The Great Ideas.

Plutarch, “Of Curiosity, or an Over-Busy Inquisitiveness into Things Impertinent,” in Moralia
Augustine. Of Continence
Aquinas. Summa Theologica, PART II-II, QQ 141-170
A. Smith. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, PART VI, SECT III

II.

Cicero. De Officiis (On Duties)
Horace. Satires, BK II (2)
Bernard of Clairvaux. On Consideration
Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion, BK III, CH 10
Spenser. The Faerie Queene, BK II
H. More. An Account of Virtue (Enchiridion Ethicum), BK II, CH 7, 9; BK III, CH 8
Bossuet. Traité de la concupiscence
Mandeville. The Fable of the Bees
J. Butler. Fifteen Sermons upon Human Nature
Franklin. Poor Richard’s Almanack
Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Idea, VOL I, BK IV
T. H. Green. Prolegomena to Ethics, BK III, CH 5
Nietzsche. Thus Spake Zarathustra
—. The Genealogy of Morals, III
Weber. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, CH 4-5
Hildebrand. In Defense of Purity
Mersch. Love, Marriage and Chastity
Vann. On Being Human
Huizinga. In the Shadow of Tomorrow

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