Too little
Neglected purpose: leave the scrap where it obstructs the model street.
Temperance
Use only the power the situation warrants, resisting the satisfaction of overwhelming an opponent.
Readiness to moderate appetites rather than let them dominate judgment.
Temperance moderates appetites rather than letting them dominate judgment. Here the appetite is for an overwhelming display of power: once you can do more, more begins to feel better. A fitting amount serves the situation. Calmly using excessive force still misses that limit, which is why Temperance differs from governing an immediate angry impulse.
Try a practice
A small heroic scene
At the model-city workshop, you bring a gigantic desk fan to clear one scrap of paper from the street. The tiny houses lean away from the demonstration. You switch it off and lift the scrap by hand. The city survives the full extent of your cleaning ambition.
An invented illustrative scene.
Temperance gives…
Temperance keeps the purpose from being swallowed by the pleasure of magnitude. Removing the scrap requires little power; the rest would disrupt the model. You can enjoy having a capacity while choosing how much of it the task warrants.
What Temperance makes possible
A hero’s strength can be expressed through precise limits as well as spectacular effects. Practice can include letting a small correction remain small, ending an argument once its purpose is met, or resisting an unnecessary flourish when influence already carries the point.
Temperance: finding the balance
A fitting response
Proportionate use: lift the scrap without disturbing the houses.
Pursued too far
Overwhelming display: use the fan at full force because the ability is impressive. The response becomes larger than the task.
A larger task may warrant more effort or capacity. Temperance judges the amount by the situation, rather than making smallness a virtue in itself.
Temperance in ordinary life
A minor correction
State the point without repeating it until the other person is overwhelmed.
An available advantage
Use the influence needed for a defensible purpose and leave room for a response.
Nearby virtues, different work
Self-Command
Self-Command checks an impulse; Temperance moderates the appetite for excess even when you are calm.
Mercy
Mercy can reduce a justified severe response; Temperance more broadly limits appetites that would dominate judgment.
Temperance and its counterfeits
Domination dressed as efficiency counterfeits Temperance when overwhelming someone is praised for getting the issue settled quickly. Temperance moderates the appetite for that satisfaction and keeps the response proportionate to its purpose.
How to cultivate Temperance
- Identify the appetite for more, beyond the task’s need.
- Choose a fitting amount before enjoying the display.
- Stop when the purpose has been met.
Try it today
In a low-stakes discussion, decide what explanation would meet the question at hand. Once you have given it, pause and let the other person respond rather than adding an impressive flourish.
Consider what the extra display would have served if you had continued.
Questions worth returning to
- What does this situation warrant?
- At what point does the response become about my satisfaction?
Keep the practice proportionate
These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.
About these practicesQuotations and further reading
Seven readings, one for each day. All remain available here. Historical arguments and fictional dialogue are identified in their source notes.
We must be very careful here …
L. Frank Baum · The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
“LET DOROTHY GO TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS” (zero-based)
Tin Woodman · Project Gutenberg 55 current HTML transcription; source typography preserved; first printing not collatedThe Woodman notices how easily the travelers could damage the small china inhabitants. The surrounding reason gives their greater physical capacity a concrete limit.
But he loves it for its elegancy, not for its austerity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays, First Series
HEROISM (zero-based)
Ralph Waldo Emerson · Project Gutenberg 2944 current HTML transcription; source typography preserved; first printing not collatedEmerson describes the hero’s Temperance as fitting form rather than a performance of severity. The point here concerns moderation’s purpose, rather than adopting his later claims about substances or diet.
But for the doctor to “employ” a driver, a footman, a page, two outriders, and a herald, would not add to his efficiency as a doctor …
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · Human Work
XVI OUR POSITION TO-DAY (zero-based)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · Project Gutenberg 64098 current HTML transcription; source typography preserved; first printing not collatedGilman’s comic entourage exceeds the service it supposedly supports. The relevant contrast is between assistance that serves a task and a display that consumes effort for the principal’s grandeur.
we shall not lose our boasted power if we defer its exercise.
Seneca · Minor Dialogues, Together with the Dialogue on Clemency
CONTENTS. (zero-based)
Seneca · 1889 George Bell and Sons; Aubrey Stewart translation; Project Gutenberg 64576 HTML display edition
Latin original, English translationSeneca challenges the urgency to demonstrate power. His surrounding acceptance of enslavement is rejected here; the particular insight concerns the choice to postpone an excessive response.
… a fine fount of admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.
George Eliot · Middlemarch
CHAPTER XIII. (zero-based)
Narrator · Project Gutenberg 145 current HTML transcription; source typography preserved; first printing not collatedThe narrator likens Bulstrode’s excessive advice to a fountain still running in the rain. Having the ability to add more does not establish that more is wanted.
Sometimes people do things merely because they cost money,—to show financial superiority,—but they do not do things merely because they do not cost money.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · Human Work
XV CONSUMPTION (II) (zero-based)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · Project Gutenberg 64098 current HTML transcription; source typography preserved; first printing not collatedGilman distinguishes meeting a need from displaying the ability to spend. Her broader economic theory is historical argument; the comparison asks what appetite the additional expenditure serves.
… it does him great honour to restrain his powers, to save many from the wrath of others, and sacrifice no one to his own.
Seneca · Minor Dialogues, Together with the Dialogue on Clemency
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE DIALOGUE OF L. ANNAEUS 380 SENECA, ADDRESSED TO NERO CAESAR. ON CLEMENCY. (zero-based)
Seneca · 1889 George Bell and Sons; Aubrey Stewart translation; Project Gutenberg 64576 HTML display edition
Latin original, English translationSeneca’s advice to a ruler makes restraint a positive use of power. The passage returns here because the superhero question concerns the capacity that could overwhelm, rather than whether an injury has been established.
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Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.