על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ד כ״זOn the Special Laws, Book IV 27
א׳
1[143] Another most admirable injunction is that nothing should be added or taken away, but all the laws originally ordained should be kept unaltered just as they were. For what actually happens, as we clearly see, is that it is the unjust which is added and the just which is taken away, for the wise legislator has omitted nothing which can give possession of justice whole and complete.
ב׳
2[144] Further he suggests also that the summit of perfection has been reached in each of the other virtues. For each of them is defective in nothing, complete in its self-wrought consummateness, so that if there be any adding or taking away, its whole being is changed and transformed into the opposite condition.
ג׳
3[145] Here is an example of what I mean. That courage, the virtue whose field of action is what causes terror, is the knowledge of what ought to be endured, is known to all who are not completely devoid of learning and culture, even if their contact with education has been but small.
ד׳
4[146] But if anyone, indulging the ignorance which comes from arrogance and believing himself to be a superior person capable of correcting what stands in no such need, ventures to add to or take from courage, he changes its likeness altogether and stamps upon it a form in which ugliness replaces beauty, for by adding he will make rashness and by taking away he will make cowardice, not leaving even the name of the courage so highly profitable to life.
ה׳
5[147] In the same way too if one adds anything small or great to the queen of virtues piety or on the other hand takes something from it, in either case he will change and transform its nature. Addition will beget superstition and subtraction will beget impiety, and so piety too is lost to sight, that sun whose rising and shining is a blessing we may well pray for, because it is the source of the greatest of blessings, since it gives the knowledge of the service of God, which we must hold as lordlier than any lordship, more royal than any sovereignty.
ו׳
6[148] Much the same may be said of the other virtues, but as it is my habit to avoid lengthy discussions by abridgement I will content myself with the aforesaid examples which will sufficiently indicate what is left unsaid.