The Consolation of Philosophy, Part 2, Part VI summary
Part 2, Part VI of 82 · Book 1: The Sorrows of Boethius · 3 min to read the part
In VI, the speaker argues that rank and power possess no goodness of their own, since wicked people hold them and rulers remain vulnerable to others. The argument extends to every gift of Fortune: outward advantages neither establish personal worth nor make their possessors good.
What happens
- Virtue gives distinction to office, while physical weakness and freedom of mind expose the limits of political power.
- A prisoner resists a tyrant, and the examples of Busiris and Regulus show that those who dominate can suffer reversal.
- The speaker argues that rank and power cannot be naturally good because wicked people possess them.
- Unlike skills with definite effects, wealth and office neither remove vice nor create personal worth.
- The speaker concludes that Fortune offers nothing inherently valuable and does not make her recipients good.
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Why does the speaker deny that rank and power are good in themselves?
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