Plutarch: How We May Profit from Our Enemies

Plutarch, John Hartcliffe (T) · Living the Life Series · 16 pages

From Plutarch's Morals, translated from the Greek by several hands, corrected and revised by William Watson Goodwin with an introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published there under the title “How a man may receive advantage and profit from his enemies,” in John Hartcliffe's translation. Sixteen pages, opened by a train of thoughts that lists every step of the argument. It is one of six Plutarch pieces in this section, all from the same Goodwin edition.

The train of thoughts sets the argument out as a sequence of practical inferences, and its economy is the attraction of the piece. Ill-will is always to be expected, and it is not enough that our enemies do us no harm. We may not be able to change bad men into good, but it is possible to derive good even from bad men — and the mechanism is stated exactly: an enemy, in order to discover our failings, carefully watches all our movements and affairs, which makes him an unpaid and unusually attentive observer. From that follow the lessons. Learn to be wary and circumspect; learn discretion and sobriety, and to give offence to nobody; live above reproach. When censured and accused, examine whether there is just cause, and be willing to hear the truth even from the lips of enemies. If accused unjustly, avoid even the appearance of the supposed wrong, and ask whether you gave any occasion for the false accusation. The closing counsels turn from self-examination to conduct towards the enemy himself: keep the tongue in subjection, be magnanimous and kind, indulge no malignant passion, and do not envy his success.

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