Miscellanies 7.3.17

Ruler, then, of himself and of what is his, possessing a firm grasp of divine understanding, he approaches the truth genuinely. For the knowledge and firm grasp of things grasped by the mind may rightly be called understanding. Its task in divine matters is to consider what the first cause is, and what that is “through which all things came into being and without which nothing came into being”; which things pervade and which contain, which are joined and which are separate, what rank each of these holds, and what power and what function each contributes. And again in human matters: what the human being himself is, what is according to nature or against nature for him, how he ought to act or be acted upon, what his virtues and his vices are, about goods and evils and things indifferent, and all that concerns courage, prudence, self-restraint, and justice, the virtue complete over all. He makes use of prudence and justice for the acquisition of wisdom, and of courage not only in enduring hardships but also in mastering pleasure and desire, grief and anger, and in general in resisting everything that leads us astray, whether by force or by some deceit. For vices and evils must not be endured but repelled, while what is fearful must be endured. Pain too, then, is found useful, in medicine, in education, and in punishment, and through it characters are corrected for the benefit of human beings.