From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe adjective family describes being gifted or ill-suited for learning. Strong natural capacity is not the same as achieved goodness and can require especially suitable nurture.
- In StobaeusThe Republic compares gifted souls with vigorous seeds: under bad upbringing, the strongest nature may become exceptionally bad rather than remaining protected by its potential.
- In this editionKeep aptitude distinct from moral achievement and from a separate natural predisposition. Preserve the seed comparison’s conditions of nourishment, season and place.
- A place to readChapter 31 · Excerpt 110g Read how greater vigor increases the need for suitable conditions before the comparison is applied to souls and to the possibility of great good or evil.
- English renderings
- naturally gifted; well suited by nature; naturally ill suited
Meaning
The adjectives concern natural fitness or lack of fitness for an activity. They do not by themselves establish achieved virtue, settled expertise, or a capacity that works independently of education and circumstances.
Use in the book
The Republic excerpt argues that the strongest growth needs suitable nourishment and that the most gifted souls, given bad guidance, can become exceptionally bad. Its concern is the danger of powerful capacities ruined by nurture, not a guarantee that ability produces goodness. A Democritean saying calls a person who contradicts and indulges in idle talk ill suited to learning. Elsewhere Plato’s advice to teach through play seeks to reveal what each child is naturally suited for. The vocabulary thus connects capacities, conduct and educational diagnosis without reducing every aptitude to one fixed ranking of human worth.
The biological comparison reverses an expectation that superior natural strength would make nurture less important. A vigorous seed has a greater need of suitable conditions, and a strong nature can fare worse under alien nourishment. Applying that pattern to souls explains why exceptional potential may support exceptional wrongdoing when formation fails. The final question contrasts such power with a weak nature incapable of great effects in either direction. Aptitude is consequently a capacity whose outcome requires explanation, not a moral guarantee already contained in the adjective.
Places to read
- Chapter 31 · Excerpt 110g23456The most gifted souls can become especially bad through poor upbringing.
- Chapter 31 · Excerpt 732Contradiction and idle talk are said to indicate unfitness for learning.
- Chapter 31 · Excerpt 110p2Play in study helps disclose what each child is naturally suited for.
Translation in this edition
“Gifted” fits the positive adjective; “ill suited to learning” preserves the specified object of the negative one. Avoid “naturally virtuous” unless the passage itself makes that stronger claim.
εὐφυεστάτας
Attested. Chapter 31 · Excerpt 110g; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 222.
τὰς ψυχὰς φῶμεν οὕτω τὰς εὐφυεστάτας κακῆς παιδαγωγίας τυχούσας διαφερόντως κακὰς γίγνεσθαι
ἀφυὴς
Attested. Chapter 31 · Excerpt 73; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 214.
ἀφυὴς ἐς μάθησιν.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 214, 222, 224. The positive lemma is supported by its attested superlative and the negative by the adjective itself. It remains distinct from the different noun hypobolē, treated under Natural predisposition.