The Anonymus Iamblichi argues how a man brings wisdom, courage, eloquence, or virtue as a whole to the highest end. First he must be born so — that is given to fortune — then, already in his own power, become a desirer of fine and good things, hard-working, a very early learner, and one who remains with them a long time. If even one of these is missing, nothing can be finished to the peak. Reputation must be practised from youth, evenly, not now one way and then another; sudden wealth or wisdom men will not gladly accept, because they think they are being robbed of honour.
Virtue from many deeds cannot be brought to an end by a late start in a short time. Use the finished good for lawful things; used for the unjust it is the worst of all. The man who aims at the whole of virtue should be most beneficial to the most people — not by giving money (he will have to be bad in collecting it) but by aiding the laws and the just, which settle and hold cities. Lawlessness produces the greatest harms at once, and tyranny, so great an evil, comes from nothing other than anomia: whoever thinks a tyrant arises from something else, and that men lose freedom by force, reasons badly.
Pistelli’s edition (p. 95 ff.) is the hosted text. The slot is that Classical argument that law holds the city.
Also published as PDF.