On Sobriety 8

¹The state of rest and the state of motion differ from each other. While the former is static, the latter is dynamic and is of two kinds, one passing from point to point, the other revolving round a fixed place. Habit is akin to rest, as activity is to motion. ²These remarks might be made more intelligible by a suitable illustration. The carpenter, the painter, the husbandman, the musician and those who practise the other arts may be unoccupied and not employing any of the activities which belong to their arts, yet none the less we are accustomed to call them by the aforesaid names, because they have the knowledge and experience which they have acquired in their respective professions. ³But there are times when the carpenter takes and carves a piece of timber, or the painter after mixing the proper colours delineates on the canvas the forms which he has in mind, or the husbandman ploughs furrows in the land and drops the seed into them, and plants sprigs and suckers from the trees, and also supplies by watering and irrigation the nourishment so necessary to his plants, and sets his hand to all the other works of husbandry. Again there are times when the musician adjusts his metre and rhythm and any form of melody to his flute or harp or any other instrument, or he may perhaps use the natural without the handmade instrument and adapt his voice to all the notes of the gamut. At such times or when each of the other kinds of craftsmen takes his work in hand, we necessarily supplement the first set of names, which are based on the several kinds of knowledge, by others corresponding to them. We speak not only of carpenters, but of practising carpentry, not only of painters but of painting, not only of husbandmen, but of farming, not only of musicians, but of flute-playing, harp-playing, singing or some similar performance. ⁴Now which of the two categories is the subject of praise or blame? Surely those who are actually engaged in doing something. They it is whose success or failure entail respectively praise or blame. Those who possess the knowledge and nothing more, and are not actually doing anything remain in peace and find in their inactivity the privilege of security.