But this is more than we can expect.

Still, we ought to make every effort to live according to this best element of our nature; for, though small in bulk, it stands exalted above the rest in power and dignity, and, being the sovereign element in man, is really The Man himself (VII.).
Next, yet only second, come the other branches of excellence: the active social life of a good citizen.

Exercises according to this branch of virtue are the natural business of man, for it is bound up with our whole nature, including body as well as mind, our appetites, and our passions, whereas the happiness of intellect is separate.
Active social virtue postulates conditions of society and external aids in considerable measure; but the life of intellect requires only the minimum of these, and is even impeded by much of them.
That perfect happiness is to be found in the philosophical life only, will appear farther when we recollect that the gods are blest and happy in the highest degree, and that this is the only mode of life suitable to them.

With the gods there can be no scope for active social virtues; for in what way can they be just, courageous, or temperate?
Neither virtuous practice nor constructive art can be predicated of the gods; what then remains, since we all assume them to live, and therefore to be in act or exercise of some kind; for no one believes them to live in a state of sleep, like Endymion.

There remains nothing except philosophical contemplation.