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Full Idea
Seneca held that human beings owe the original acquisition of the concept of virtue to an analogy with bodily health and strength
Gist of Idea
Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength
Source
report of Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 120.5) by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.76
Book Ref
Adamson,Peter: 'Health: a history', ed/tr. Adamson,Peter [OUP 2019], p.76
A Reaction
This is an unusual view, even for a stoic, but shows how close the concepts of health and virtue were. Notice that it is strength as well as health. Plato just emphasises mental and physical harmony.
| 3053 | Pythagoras taught that virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 495 | Wisdom creates a healthy passion-free soul [Democritus] |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| 5154 | Excess and deficiency are bad for virtue, just as they are for bodily health [Aristotle] |
| 5268 | Disreputable pleasures are only pleasant to persons with diseased perception [Aristotle] |
| 5870 | Everything seeks, not a single good, but its own separate good [Aristotle] |
| 502 | Good breeding in men means having a good character [Democritus (attr)] |
| 22238 | Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable [Stoic school, by Pormann] |
| 20861 | The health of the soul is a good blend of beliefs [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| 22237 | The Greeks had a single word meaning both 'beautiful' and 'good' [Pormann] |