Dialogues of Love

...even the Peripatetics Followers of Aristotle, who believed that external goods like wealth were necessary to exercise certain virtues. can deny, nor is there any other difference between them, except that the Stoics A school of philosophy that taught that virtue is the only good and that external things like wealth or health are "indifferent.", through their desire for that which is more noble [contemplation], took no account of what is necessary for certain moral virtues which have need of material goods. This indeed suits very excellent men who, seeking to acquire ultimate happiness and already possessing the brightness of the sun, do not seek the light of a candle; especially since they know that such goods are most often the cause of vices rather than virtues.

But the Peripatetics, knowing that riches are not necessary for such men who are enlightened, have shown that other great virtues are inferior to those [intellectual ones], and they have demonstrated how some of those virtues are acquired by means of material goods. However, both the one and the other school concede that "negligence" is the failure to desire what is necessary—which applies to those virtues that are not possessed through intellectual contemplation.

Therefore, negligence will be the vice contrary to the greed for the superfluous (which is the other extreme), and the "sufficiency" of desiring only what is necessary is the mean between these two extremes. This sufficiency is an excellent virtue regarding the desire for useful things.

SO. Just as you have shown a virtuous mean and two vicious extremes in the desire for useful things, are there other similar means and extremes found regarding useful things that are already possessed?

PHI. Yes, they are found and are no less manifest. For the unbridled love that one has for riches already acquired or possessed is avarice, which is a vile and monstrous state original: offitio. While this usually translates as "duty" or "office," here it refers to a shameful habit or a "service" to one's own greed.. Because when the love of one's own riches is greater than is proper, it causes the preservation...