Nicomachus,—whose admirably written books on Morals are said, indeed, to
be Aristotle’s; but I do not see why the son may not have been like his
father; but, in most cases, let us apply to Theophrastus, as long as we
attribute a little more firmness and strength to virtue than he did.

Let us, then, be content with these guides; for their successors are wiser
men, indeed, in my opinion, than the philosophers of other schools: but
still they degenerate so from these great men, that they seem to me rather
to have arisen from themselves than from them. In the first place, Strato,
the pupil of Theophrastus, called himself a natural philosopher: and
though, in truth, he is an eminent man in that line, still most of what he
said was novel; and he said very little about morals. His pupil Lyco was
rich in eloquence, but very meagre in matter. Then his pupil Aristo was a
neat and elegant writer, but still he had not that dignity which we look
for in a great philosopher: he wrote a great deal, certainly, and in a
polished style; but, somehow or other, his writings do not carry any
weight. I pass over several, and among them that learned man and pleasant
writer, Hieronymus; and I do not know why I should call him a Peripatetic,
for he defined the chief good to be freedom from pain: and he who
disagrees with me about the chief good, disagrees with me about the whole
principle of philosophy. Critolaus wished to copy the ancients; and,
indeed, he comes nearest to them in dignity, and his eloquence is
preeminent: still he adheres to the ancient doctrine. Diodorus, his pupil,
adds to honourableness freedom from pain: he, too, clings to a theory of
his own; and, as he disagrees from them about the chief good, he is hardly
entitled to be called a Peripatetic. But my friend Antiochus seems to me
to pursue the opinions of the ancients with the greatest care; and he
shows that they coincided with the doctrines of Aristotle and Polemo.

VI. My young friend Lucius, therefore, acts prudently when he wishes
chiefly to be instructed about the chief good; for when this point is once
settled in philosophy, everything is settled. For in other matters, if
anything is passed over, or if we are ignorant of anything, the
inconvenience thus produced is no greater than the importance the matter
is of in which the omission has taken place; but if one is ignorant of
what is the chief good, one must necessarily be ignorant of the true
principles of life; and from this ignorance such great errors ensue that
they cannot tell to what port to betake themselves. But when one has
acquired a knowledge of the chief ends,—when one knows what is the chief
good and the chief evil,—then a proper path of life, and a proper
regulation of all the duties of life, is found out.

There is, therefore, an object to which everything may be referred; from
which a system of living happily, which is what every one desires, may be
discovered and adopted. But since there is a great division of opinion as
to what that consists in, we had better employ the division of Carneades,
which our friend Antiochus prefers, and usually adopts. He therefore saw
not only how many different opinions of philosophers on the subject of the
chief good there were, but how many there could be. Accordingly, he
asserted that there was no art which proceeded from itself; for, in truth,
that which is comprehended by an art is always exterior to the art. There
is no need of prolonging this argument by adducing instances; for it is
evident that no art is conversant about itself, but that the art itself is
one thing, and the object which is proposed to be attained by the art
another. Since, therefore, prudence is the art of living, just as medicine
is of health, or steering of navigation, it follows unavoidably that that
also must have been established by, and must proceed from, something else.
But it is agreed among almost all people, that that object with which
prudence is conversant, and which it wishes to arrive at, ought to be
fitted and suited to nature, and to be of such a character as by itself to
invite and attract that desire of the mind which the Greeks call ὁρμή. But
as to what it is which causes this excitement, and which is so greatly
desired by nature from its first existence, it is not agreed; and, indeed,
there is a great dissension on the subject among philosophers whenever the
chief good is the subject of investigation: for the source of this whole
question which is agitated as to the chief good and evil, when men inquire
what is the extreme and highest point of either, must be traced back, and
in that will be found the primitive inducements of nature; and when it is
found, then the whole discussion about the chief good and evil proceeds
from it as from a spring.

VII. Some people consider the first desire to be a desire of pleasure, and
the first thing which men seek to ward off to be pain: others think that
the first thing wished for is freedom from pain, and the first thing
shunned, pain; and from these men others proceed, who call the first goods
natural ones; among which they reckon the safety and integrity of all
one’s parts, good health, the senses unimpaired, freedom from pain,
strength, beauty, and other things of the same sort, the images of which
are the first things in the mind, like the sparks and seeds of the
virtues. And of these three, as there is some one thing by which nature is
originally moved to feel desire, or to repel something, and as it is
impossible that there should be anything except these three things, it
follows unavoidably that every duty, whether of avoiding or of pursuing
anything, is referred to some one of these things; so that that prudence,
which we have called the art of life, is always conversant about some one
of these three things from which it derives the beginning of the whole
life: and from that which it has pronounced to be the original cause by
which nature is excited, the principle of what is right and honourable
arises; which can agree with some one of these three divisions; so that it
is honourable to do everything for the sake of pleasure, even if you do
not obtain it; or else for the sake of avoiding pain, though you may not
be able to compass that; or else of getting some one of those things which
are according to nature. And thus it comes about that there is as much
difference between the chief good and the chief evil as there is in their
natural principles. Others again, starting from the same beginning, refer
everything either to pleasure or to freedom from pain, or else to the
attainment of those primary goods which are according to nature.

Now then that we have detailed six opinions about the chief good, these
are the chief advocates of the three last-mentioned opinions,—Aristippus,
the advocate of pleasure; Hieronymus, of freedom from pain; and Carneades,
of the enjoyment of those things which we have called the principal things
in accordance with nature (though he, indeed, was not the author of this
theory, but only its advocate, for the sake of maintaining a debate). Now,
the three former were such as might possibly be true, though only one of
them was defended, and that was vehemently maintained. For no one says,
that to do everything for the sake of pleasure, or that, even though we
obtain nothing, still the very design of acting so is of itself desirable,
and honourable, and the only good; no one ever even placed the avoidance
of pain (not even if it could be avoided) among things intrinsically
desirable; but to do everything with a view to obtain the things which are
according to nature, even though we do not succeed in obtaining them, the
Stoics do affirm to be honourable, and the only thing to be desired for
its own sake, and the only good.

VIII. These, then, are six plain opinions about the chief good and the
chief evil,—two having no advocate, but four being defended. But of united
and twofold explanations of the chief good there were in all three; nor
could there be more if you examine the nature of things thoroughly. For
either pleasure can be added to honourableness, as Callipho and Dinomachus
thought; or freedom from pain, as Diodorus asserted; or the first gifts of
nature, as the ancients said, whom we call at the same time Academics and
Peripatetics. But, since everything cannot be said at once, at present
these things ought to be known, that pleasure ought to be excluded; since,
as it will presently appear, we have been born for higher purposes; and
nearly the same may be said of freedom from pain as of pleasure. Since
then we have discussed pleasure with Torquatus, and honourableness (in
which alone every good was to consist) with Cato; in the first place, the
arguments which were urged against pleasure are nearly equally applicable
to freedom from pain. Nor, indeed, need we seek for any others to reply to
that opinion of Carneades; for in whatever manner the chief good is
explained, so as to be unconnected with honourableness, in that system
duty, and virtue, and friendship, can have no place. But the union of
either pleasure or freedom from pain with honourableness, makes that very
honourableness which it wishes to embrace dishonourable; for to refer what
you do to those things, one of which asserts the man who is free from evil
to be in the enjoyment of the chief good, while the other is conversant
with the most trifling part of our nature, is rather the conduct of a man
who would obscure the whole brilliancy of honourableness—I might almost
say, who would pollute it.

The Stoics remain, who after they had borrowed everything from the
Peripatetics and Academics, pursued the same objects under different
names. It is better to reply to them all separately. But let us stick to
our present subject; we can deal with those men at a more convenient
season. But the “security” of Democritus, which is as it were a sort of
tranquillity of the mind which they all εὐθυμία, deserved to be separated
from this discussion, because that tranquillity of the mind is of itself a
happy life. What we are inquiring, however, is not what it is, but whence
it is derived. The opinions of Pyrrho, Aristo, and Herillus, have long ago
been exploded and discarded, as what can never be applicable to this
circle of discussion to which we limit ourselves, and which had no need to
have been ever mentioned; for as the whole of this inquiry is about the
chief, and what I may call the highest good and evil, it ought to start
from that point which we call suitable and adapted to nature, and which is
sought of itself for itself. Now this is wholly put out of the question by
those who deny that in those things in which there is nothing either
honourable or dishonourable, there is any reason why one thing should be
preferred to another, and who think that there is actually no difference
whatever between those things. And Herillus, if he thought that nothing
was good except knowledge, put an end to all reason for taking counsel,
and to all inquiry about duty. Thus, after we have got rid of the opinions
of the rest, as there can be no other, this doctrine of the ancients must
inevitably prevail.

IX. Therefore, after the fashion of the ancients, which the Stoics also
adopt, let us make this beginning:—Every animal loves itself, and as soon
as it is born labours to preserve itself, because this is the first desire
given to it by nature, to regulate its whole life, to preserve itself, and
to be so disposed as it best may in accordance with nature. At the
beginning it has such a confused and uncertain kind of organization that
it can only just take care of itself, whatever it is; but it does not
understand either what it is, or what its powers are, or what its nature
is. But when it has advanced a little, and begins to perceive how far
anything touches it, or has reference to it, then it begins gradually to
improve, and to comprehend itself, and to understand for what cause it has
that appetite of the mind which I have spoken of; and begins also to
desire those things which it feels to be suited to its nature, and to keep
off the contrary. Therefore, in the case of every animal, what it wishes
is placed in that thing which is adapted to its nature. And so the chief
good is to live according to nature, with the best disposition and the
most suitable to nature that can be engendered.

But since every animal has his own peculiar nature, it is plain that the
object of each must be to have his nature satisfied. For there is no
hindrance to there being some things in common to all other animals, and
some common both to men and beasts, since the nature of all is common. But
that highest and chief good and evil which we are in search of, is
distributed and divided among the different kinds of animals, each having
its own peculiar good and evil, adapted to that end which the nature of
each class of animal requires. Wherefore, when we say that the chief good
to all animals is to live according to nature, this must be understood as
if we said that they had all the same chief good. But as it may truly be
said to be common to all arts to be conversant about some science, and
that there is a separate science belonging to each art, so we may say that
it is common to all animals to live according to nature, but that there
are different natures; so that the horse has by nature one chief good, the
ox another, man another; and yet in all there is one common end; and that
is the case too, not only in animals, but also in all those things which
nature nourishes, causes to grow, and protects; in which we see that those
things which are produced out of the earth, somehow or other by their own
energy create many things for themselves which have influence on their
life and growth, and so each in their own kind they arrive at the chief
good. So that we may now embrace all such in one comprehensive statement;
and I need not hesitate to say, that every nature is its own preserver;
and has for its object, as its end and chief good, to protect itself in
the best possible condition that its kind admits of; so that it follows
inevitably that all things which flourish by nature have a similar but
still not the same end. And from this it should be understood, that the
chief and highest good to man is to live according to nature which we may
interpret thus,—to live according to that nature of a man which is made
perfect on all sides, and is in need of nothing. These things then we must
explain; and if our explanation is rather minute, you will excuse it; for
we are bound to consider the youth of our hearer, and the fact that he is
now perhaps listening to such a discourse for the first time. Certainly,
said I; although what you have said hitherto might be very properly
addressed to hearers of any age.

X. Since then, said he, we have explained the limit of those things which
are to be desired, we must next show why the facts are as I have stated
them. Wherefore, let us set out from the position which I first laid down,
which is also in reality the first, so that we may understand that every
animal loves itself. And though there is no doubt of this, (for it is a
principle fixed deep in nature itself, and is comprehended by the sense of
every one, in such a degree that if any one wished to argue against it, he
would not be listened to,) yet, that I may not pass over anything, I think
it as well to adduce some reasons why this is the case. Although, how can
any one either understand or fancy that there is any animal which hates
itself? It would be a contradiction of facts; for when that appetite of
the mind has begun designedly to attract anything to itself which is an
hindrance to it, because it is an enemy to itself,—when it does that for
its own sake, it will both hate itself and love itself, which is
impossible. It is unavoidable that, if any one is an enemy to himself, he
must think those things bad which are good, and, on the other hand, those
things good which are bad; that he must avoid those things which he ought
to seek, and seek what he ought to avoid; all which habits are indubitably
the overturning of life. For even if some people are found who seek for
halters or other modes of destruction, or, like the man in Terence, who
determined “for such a length of time to do less injury to his son,” (as
he says himself,) “until he becomes miserable,” it does not follow that
they are to be thought enemies to themselves. But some are influenced by
pain, others by desire; many again are carried away by passion, and while
they knowingly run into evils, still fancy that they are consulting their
own interests most excellently; and, therefore, they unhesitatingly say—

    That is my way; do you whate’er you must—

like men who have declared war against themselves, who like to be tortured
all day and tormented all night, and who yet do not accuse themselves of
having omitted to consult their own interests; for this is a complaint
made by those men who are dear to and who love themselves.

Wherefore, whenever a man is said to be but little obliged to himself, to
be a foe and enemy to himself, and in short to flee from life, it should
be understood that there is some cause of that kind lying beneath the
surface; so that it may be understood from that very instance that every
one is dear to himself. Nor is it sufficient that there has never been any
one who hated himself; but we must understand also that there is no one
who thinks that it is a matter of indifference to him in what condition he
is; for all desire of the mind will be put an end to if, as in those
things between which there is no difference we are not more inclined to
either side, so also, in the case of our own selves, we think it makes no
difference to us in what way we are affected.

XI. And this also would be a very absurd thing if any one were to say it,
namely, that a man is loved by himself in such a manner that that vehement
love is referred to some other thing, and not to that very man who loves
himself. Now when this is said in the case of friendship, of duty, or of
virtue, however it is said, it is still intelligible what is meant by it;
but in regard to our own selves, it cannot even be understood that we
should love ourselves for the sake of something else, or in a word, for
the sake of pleasure. For it is for our sakes that we love pleasure, and
not for the sake of pleasure that we love ourselves; although what can be
more evident than that every one is not only dear, but excessively dear to
himself? For who is there, or at all events how few are there, who when
death approaches, does not find

    His heart’s blood chill’d with sudden fear,
    His cheek grow pale?

and if it is a vice to dread the dissolution of nature so excessively,
(and the same thing on the same principle may be asserted of our aversion
to pain,) still the fact that nearly every one is affected in this manner,
is a sufficient proof that nature abhors destruction. And though some men
show this dread or aversion to such a degree that they are deservedly
blamed for it, still this may show us that such feelings would not be so
excessive in some people, if a moderate degree of them were not implanted
in mankind by nature.

Nor, indeed, do I mean that fear of death which is shown by those men who,
because they think that they are being deprived of the goods of life, or
because they fear some terrible events after death, or who, because they
are afraid of dying in pain, therefore shun death; for in the case of
children, who can have no such ideas or apprehensions, they often show
fear if, when playing with them, we threaten to throw them down from any
place; and even beasts, as Pacuvius says,

    Who have no cunning, or prophetic craft
    To ward off danger ere it come,

shudder when the fear of death comes before them. And, indeed, who
entertains a different opinion of the wise man himself? who, even when he
has decided that he must die, still is affected by the departure from his
family, and by the fact that he must leave the light of day. And above all
is the power of nature visible in the human race, since many endure
beggary to preserve life, and men worn out with old age are tortured with
the idea of the approach of death, and endure such things as we see
Philoctetes in the play suffer, who, while he was kept in torture by
intolerable pains, nevertheless preserved his life by the game which he
could kill with his arrows.

    He, though slow, o’ertook the swift,
    He stood and slew the flying—

as Attius says, and made himself coverings for his body by plaiting the
feathers together. I am speaking of mankind, and, indeed, generally of all
animals, though plants and trees have nearly the same nature, whether, as
is the opinion of some most learned men, because some predominant and
divine cause has implanted this power in them, or whether it is
accidental. We see those things which the earth produces preserved in
vigour by their bark and roots, which happens to animals by the
arrangement of their senses, and a certain compact conformation of limb.
And with reference to this subject, although I agree with those men who
think that all these things are regulated by nature, and that if nature
neglected to regulate them, the animals themselves could not exist, still
I grant that those who differ on this subject may think what they please,
and may either understand that when I say the nature of man I mean man
(for it makes no difference); for a man will be able to depart from
himself sooner than he can lose the desire of those things which are
advantageous to him. Rightly, therefore, have the most learned
philosophers sought the principle of the chief good in nature, and thought
that that appetite for things adapted to nature is implanted in all men,
for they are kept together by that recommendation of nature in obedience
to which they love themselves.

XII. The next thing which we must examine is, what is the nature of man,
since it is sufficiently evident that every one is dear to himself by
nature; for that is the thing which we are really inquiring about. But it
is evident that man consists of mind and body, and that the first rank
belongs to the mind, and the second to the body. In the next place we see,
also, that his body is so formed as to excel that of other animals, and
that his mind is so constituted as to be furnished with senses, and to
have excellence of intellect which the whole nature of man obeys, in which
there is a certain admirable force of reason, and knowledge, and science,
and all kinds of virtues; for the things which are parts of the body have
no authority to be compared with that possessed by the parts of the mind;
and they are more easily known. Therefore, let us begin with them.

It is evident, now, how suitable to nature are the parts of our body, and
the whole general figure, form, and stature of it; nor is there any doubt
what kind of face, eyes, ears and other features are peculiar to man. But
certainly it is necessary for them to be in good health and vigorous, and
to have all their natural movements and uses; so that no part of them
shall be absent, or disordered, or enfeebled; for nature requires
soundness. For there is a certain action of the body which has all its
motions and its general condition in a state of harmony with nature, in
which if anything goes wrong through any distortion or depravity, either
by any irregular motion or disordered condition,—as if, for instance, a
person were to walk on his hands, or to walk not forwards but
backwards,—then he would evidently appear to be flying from himself, and
to be putting off his manhood, and to hate his own nature. On which
account, also, some ways of sitting down, and some contorted and abrupt
movements, such as wanton or effeminate men at times indulge in, are
contrary to nature. So that even if that should happen through any fault
of the mind, still the nature of the man would seem to be changed in his
body. Therefore, on the contrary, moderate and equal conditions, and
affections, and habits of the body, seem to be suitable to nature. But now
the mind must not only exist, but must exist in a peculiar manner, so as
to have all its parts sound, and to have no virtue wanting: but each sense
has its own peculiar virtue, so that nothing may hinder each sense from
performing its office in the quick and ready perception of those things
which come under the senses.

XIII. But there are many virtues of the mind, and of that part of the mind
which is the chief, and which is called the intellect; but these virtues
are divided into two principal classes: one, consisting of those which are
implanted by nature, and are called involuntary; the other, of those which
depend on the will, and are more often spoken of by their proper name of
virtues; whose great excellence is attributed to the mind as a subject of
praise. Now in the former class are docility, memory, and others, nearly
all of which are called by the one name of _ingenium_, and those who
possess them are called _ingeniosi_. The other class consists of those
which are great and real virtues; which we call voluntary, such as
prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice, and others of the same kind. And
this was what might be said briefly of both mind and body; and this
statement supplies a sort of sketch of what the nature of man
requires:—and from this it is evident, since we are beloved by ourselves,
and since we wish everything both in our minds and bodies to be perfect,
that those qualities are dear to us for their own sakes, and that they are
of the greatest influence towards our living well. For he to whom
self-preservation is proposed as an object, must necessarily feel an
affection for all the separate parts of himself; and a greater affection
in proportion as they are more perfect and more praiseworthy in their
separate kinds. For that kind of life is desired which is full of the
virtues of the mind and body; and in that the chief good must unavoidably
be placed, since it ought to be of such a character as to be the highest
of all desirable things. And when we have ascertained that, there ought to
be no doubt entertained, that as men are dear to themselves for their own
sake, and of their own accord, so, also, the parts of the body and mind,
and of those things which are in the motion and condition of each, are
cultivated with a deserved regard, and are sought for their own sakes. And
when this principle has been laid down, it is easy to conjecture that
those parts of us are most desirable which have the most dignity; so that
the virtue of each most excellent part which is sought for its own sake,
is also deserving of being principally sought after. And the consequence
will be, that the virtue of the mind is preferred to the virtue of the
body, and that the voluntary virtues of the mind are superior to the
involuntary; for it is the voluntary ones which are properly called
virtues, and which are much superior to the others, as being the offspring
of reason; than which there is nothing more divine in man. In truth, the
chief good of all those qualities which nature creates and maintains, and
which are either unconnected or nearly so with the body, is placed in the
mind; so that it appears to have been a tolerably acute observation which
was made respecting the sow, that that animal had a soul given it instead
of salt to keep it from getting rotten.

XIV. But there are some beasts in which there is something resembling
virtue, such as lions, dogs, and horses; in which we see movements not of
the body only, as we do in pigs, but to a certain extent we may discern
some movements of mind. But in man the whole dominant power lies in the
mind; and the dominant power of the mind is reason: and from this proceeds
virtue, which is defined as the perfection of reason: which they think is
to be gradually developed day by day. Those things, too, which the earth
produces have a sort of gradual growth towards perfection, not very unlike
what we see in animals. Therefore we say that a vine lives, and dies; we
speak of a tree as young, or old; being in its prime, or growing old. And
it is therefore not inconsistent to speak, as in the case of animals, of
some things in plants, too, being conformable to nature, and some not: and
to say that there is a certain cultivation of them, nourishing, and
causing them to grow, which is the science and art of the farmer, which
prunes them, cuts them in, raises them, trains them, props them, so that
they may be able to extend themselves in the direction which nature points
out; in such a manner that the vines themselves, if they could speak,
would confess that they ought to be managed and protected in the way they
are. And now indeed that which protects it (that I may continue to speak
chiefly of the vine) is external to the vine: for it has but very little
power in itself to keep itself in the best possible condition, unless
cultivation is applied to it. But if sense were added to the vine, so that
it could feel desire and be moved by itself, what do you think it would
do? Would it do those things which were formerly done to it by the
vine-dresser, and of itself attend to itself? Do you not see that it would
also have the additional care of preserving its senses, and its desire for
all those things, and its limbs, if any were added to it? And so too, to
all that it had before, it will unite those things which have been added
to it since: nor will it have the same object that its dresser had, but it
will desire to live according to that nature which has been subsequently
added to it: and so its chief good will resemble that which it had before,
but will not be identical with it; for it will be no longer seeking the
good of a plant, but that of an animal. And suppose that not only the
senses are given it, but also the mind of a man, does it not follow
inevitably that those former things will remain and require to be
protected, and that among them these additions will be far more dear to it
than its original qualities? and that each portion of the mind which is
best is also the dearest? and that its chief good must now consist in
satisfying its nature, since intellect and reason are by far the most
excellent parts of it? And so the chief of all the things which it has to
desire, and that which is derived from the original recommendation of
nature, ascends by several steps, so as at last to reach the summit;
because it is made up of the integrity of the body, and the perfect reason
of the intellect.

XV. As, therefore, the form of nature is such as I have described it, if,
as I said at the beginning, each individual as soon as he is born could
know himself, and form a correct estimate of what is the power both of his
entire nature and of its separate parts, he would see immediately what
this was which we are in search of, namely, the highest and best of all
the things which we desire: nor would it be possible for him to make a
mistake in anything. But now nature is from the very beginning concealed
in a wonderful manner, nor can it be perceived nor comprehended. But as
our age advances, we gradually, or I should rather say slowly, come to a
kind of knowledge of ourselves. Therefore, that original recommendation
which is given to us by our nature, is obscure and uncertain; and that
first appetite of the mind only goes the length of wishing to secure our
own safety and soundness. But when we begin to look around us, and to feel
what we are, and in what we differ from all the other animals, then we
begin to pursue the objects for which we were born. And we see a similar
thing take place in beasts, who at first do not move from the place in
which they were born; but afterwards all move, influenced by some desire
of their own. And so we see snakes crawl, ducks swim, blackbirds fly, oxen
use their horns, scorpions their stings; and we see nature a guide to each
animal in its path of life.

And the case is similar with the human race. For infants at their first
birth lie as if they were utterly devoid of mind; but when a little
strength has been added to them, they use both their mind and their
senses, and endeavour to raise themselves up and to use their hands; and
they recognise those by whom they are being brought up; and afterwards
they are amused with those of their own age, and gladly associate with
them, and give themselves up to play, and are attracted by hearing
stories, and are fond of pleasing others with their own superfluities; and
take curious notice of what is done at home, and begin to make remarks,
and to learn; and do not like to be ignorant of the names of those whom
they see; and in their sports and contests with their fellows, they are
delighted if they win, and if they are beaten they are dejected and lose
their spirits. And we must not think that any of these things happen
without reason; for the power of man is produced in such a way by nature,
that it seems made for a perception of all excellence: and on that account
children, even without being taught, are influenced by likeness of those
virtues of which they have the seeds in themselves; for they are the
original elements of nature: and when they have acquired growth, then the
whole work of nature is accomplished. For as we have been born and created
so as to contain in ourselves the principles of doing something, and of
loving somebody, and of liberality, and of gratitude; and so as to have
minds adapted for knowledge, prudence, and fortitude, and averse to their
opposites; it is not without cause that we see in children those sparks,
as it were, of virtue which I have mentioned, by which the reason of a
philosopher ought to be kindled to follow that guide as if it were a god,
and so to arrive at the knowledge of the object of nature.

For, as I have often said already, the power of nature is discerned
through a cloud while we are of a weak age and feeble intellect; but when
our mind has made progress and acquired strength, then it recognises the
power of nature, but still in such a way that it can make more progress
still, and that it must derive the beginning of that progress from itself.

XVI. We must therefore enter into the nature of things, and see thoroughly
what it demands; for otherwise we cannot arrive at the knowledge of
ourselves. And because this precept was too important an one to be
discerned by a man, it has on that account been attributed to God. The
Pythian Apollo, then, enjoins us to know ourselves: but this knowledge is
to know the power of our mind and body, and to follow that course of life
which enjoys the circumstances in which it is placed. And since that
desire of the mind to have all the things which I have mentioned in the
most perfect manner in which nature could provide them, existed from the
beginning, we must admit, when we have obtained what we desired, that
nature consists in that as its extreme point, and that that is the chief
good: which certainly must in every case be sought for spontaneously for
its own sake, since it has already been proved, that even all its separate
parts are to be desired for their own sake. But if, in enumerating the
advantages of the body, any one should think that we have passed over
pleasure, that question may be postponed till another opportunity; for it
makes no difference with regard to the present subject of our discussion,
whether pleasure consists in those things which we have called the chief
things in accordance with nature, or whether it does not. For if, as I
indeed think, pleasure is not the crowning good of nature, it has been
properly passed over: but if that crowning good does exist in pleasure, as
some assert, then the fact does not at all hinder this idea of ours of the
chief good from being the right one. For, if to those things which are the
principal goods of nature, pleasure is added, then there will have been
added just one advantage of the body; but no change will have been made in
the original definition of the chief good which was laid down at first.

XVII. And hitherto, indeed, reason has advanced with us in such a way as
to be wholly derived from the original recommendation of nature. But now
we must pursue another kind of argument, namely, that we are moved in
these matters of our own exceeding goodwill, not only because we love
ourselves, but because there is both in the body and in the mind a
peculiar power belonging to each part of nature. And, (to begin with the
body,) do you not see that if there is anything in their limbs deformed,
or weak, or deficient, men conceal it? and take pains, and labour
earnestly, if they can possibly contrive it, to prevent that defect of the
body from being visible, or else to render it as little visible as
possible? and that they submit to great pain for the sake of curing any
such defect? in order that, even though the actual use of the limb, after
the application of the remedy, be likely to be not greater, but even less,
still the appearance of the limb may be restored to the ordinary course of
nature. In truth, as all men fancy that they are altogether desirable by
nature, and that too, not on any other account, but for their own sakes,
it follows inevitably that each part of them should be desired for its own
sake, because the whole body is sought for its own sake. What more need I
say? Is there nothing in the motion and condition of the body which nature
herself decides ought to be noticed? for instance, how a person walks or
sits, what the expression of his countenance is, what his features are; is
there nothing in all these things which we think worthy or unworthy of a
free man, as the case may be? Do we not think many men deserving of
hatred, who appear by some motion or condition to have despised the laws
and moderation of nature? And since these things are derived from the
body, what is the reason why beauty also may not fairly be said to be a
thing to be desired for its own sake?

For if we consider distortion or disfigurement of the body a thing to be
avoided for its own sake, why should we not also, and perhaps still more,
cultivate dignity of form for its own sake? And if we avoid what is
unseemly, both in the condition and motion of the body, why may we not on
the other hand pursue beauty? And we also desire health, strength, and
freedom from pain, not merely because of their utility, but also for their
own sakes. For since nature wishes to be made complete in all her parts,
she desires this condition of the body, which is most according to nature,
for its own sake: but nature is put into complete confusion if the body is
either sick, or in pain, or destitute of strength.

XVIII. Let us consider the parts of the mind, the appearance of which is
more noble; for in proportion as they are more sublime, they give a more
clear indication of their nature. So vehement a love, then, of knowledge
and science is innate in us, that no one can doubt that the nature of man
is drawn to them without being attracted by any external gain. Do we not
see how boys cannot be deterred even by stripes from the consideration and
investigation of such and such things? how, though they may be beaten,
they still pursue their inquiries, and rejoice in having acquired some
knowledge? how they delight in telling others what they have learnt? how
they are attracted by processions, and games, and spectacles of that kind,
and will endure even hunger and thirst for such an object? Can I say no
more? Do we not see those who are fond of liberal studies and arts regard
neither their health nor their estate? and endure everything because they
are charmed with the intrinsic beauty of knowledge and science? and that
they put the pleasures which they derive from learning in the scale
against the greatest care and labour? And Homer himself appears to me to
have had some such feeling as this, which he has developed in what he has
said about the songs of the Sirens: for they do not seem to have been
accustomed to attract those who were sailing by with the sweetness of
their voices, or with any novelty or variety in their song, but the
profession which they made of possessing great knowledge; so that men
clung to their rocks from a desire of learning. For thus they invite
Ulysses, (for I have translated several passages of Homer, and this among
them)—

    Oh stay, O pride of Greece! Ulysses, stay!
    Oh, cease thy course, and listen to our lay!
    Blest is the man ordain’d our voice to hear:
    Our song instructs the soul and charms the ear.
    Approach, thy soul shall into raptures rise;
    Approach, and learn new wisdom from the wise.
    We know whate’er the kings of mighty name
    Achieved at Ilium in the field of fame;
    Whate’er beneath the sun’s bright journey lies—
    Oh stay, and learn new wisdom from the wise.(49)

Homer saw that the story would not be probable if he represented so great
a man as caught by mere songs; so they promise him knowledge, which it was
not strange that a man desirous of wisdom should consider dearer than his
country. And, indeed, to wish to know everything of every kind, is natural
to the curious; but, to be attracted by the contemplation of greater
objects, to entertain a general desire for knowledge, ought to be
considered a proof of a great man.

XIX. What ardour for study do you not suppose there must have been in
Archimedes, who was so occupied in drawing some mathematical figures in
the sand, that he was not aware that his city was taken? And what a mighty
genius was that of Aristoxenus which, we see, was devoted to music? What
fondness, too, for study, must have inspired Aristophanes, to dedicate his
whole life to literature! What shall we say of Pythagoras? Why should I
speak of Plato and of Democritus, by whom, we see, that the most distant
countries were travelled over, on account of their desire for learning?
And those who are blind to this have never loved anything very worthy of
being known. And here I may say, that those who say that those studies
which I have mentioned are cultivated for the sake of the pleasures of the
mind, do not understand that they are desirable for their own sakes,
because the mind is delighted by them, without the interruption of any
ideas of utility, and rejoices in the mere fact of knowledge, even though
it may possibly produce inconvenience. But why need we seek for more
instances to prove what is so evident? For let us examine our own selves,
and inquire how the motions of the stars, and the contemplation of the
heavenly bodies, and the knowledge of all those things which are hidden
from us by the obscurity of nature, affect us; and why history, which we
are accustomed to trace back as far as possible, delights us; in the
investigation of which we go over again all that has been omitted, and
follow up all that we have begun. Nor, indeed, am I ignorant that there is
a use, and not merely pleasure, in history. What, however, will be said,
with reference to our reading with pleasure imaginary fables, from which
no utility can possibly be derived? Or to our wishing that the names of
those who have performed any great exploits, and their family, and their
country, and many circumstances besides, which are not at all necessary,
should be known to us? How shall we explain the fact, that men of the
lowest rank, who have no hope of ever performing great deeds themselves,
artisans in short, are fond of history; and that we may see that those
persons also are especially fond of hearing and reading of great
achievements, who are removed from all hope of ever performing any, being
worn out with old age?

It must, therefore, be understood, that the allurements are in the things
themselves which are learnt and known, and that it is they themselves
which excite us to learning and to the acquisition of information. And,
indeed, the old philosophers, in their fictitious descriptions of the
islands of the blessed, intimate the kind of life which the wise pass,
whom they imagine to be free from all care, requiring no cultivation or
appointments of life as necessary, and doing, and about to do nothing else
but devote their whole time to inquiring and learning and arriving at a
knowledge of nature. But we see that that is not only the delight of a
happy life, but also a relief from misery. Therefore, many men while in
the power of enemies or tyrants, many while in prison or in exile, have
relieved their sorrow by the study of literature. A great man of this
city, Demetrius Phalereus, when he had been unjustly banished from his
country, fled to Alexandria, to king Ptolemy; and, as he was very eminent
for his knowledge of this philosophy to which we are exhorting you, and
had been a pupil of Theophrastus, he wrote many admirable treatises during
the time of that unfortunate leisure of his, not, indeed, for any utility
to himself, for that was out of his reach, but the cultivation of his mind
was to him a sort of sustenance for his human nature.

I, indeed, have often heard Cnæus Aufidius, a man of prætorian rank, of
great learning, but blind, say that he was affected more by a regret for
the loss of light, than of any actual benefit which he derived from his
eyes. Lastly, if sleep did not bring us rest to our bodies, and a sort of
medicine after labour, we should think it contrary to nature, for it
deprives us of our senses, and takes away our power of action. Therefore,
if either nature were in no need of rest, or if it could obtain it by any
other means, we should be glad, since even now we are in the habit of
doing without sleep, in a manner almost contrary to nature, when we want
to do or to learn something.

XX. But there are tokens supplied by nature, still clearer, or, I may say,
entirely evident and indubitable,—more especially, indeed, in man, but
also in every animal,—that the mind is always desirous to be doing
something, and can in no condition endure perpetual rest. It is easy to
see this in the earliest age of children; for although I fear that I may
appear prolix on this subject, still all the ancient philosophers, and
especially those of our own country, have recourse to the cradle for
illustrations, because they think that in childhood they can most easily
detect the will of nature. We see, then, that even infants cannot rest;
but, when they have advanced a little, then they are delighted with even
laborious sports, so that they cannot be deterred from them even by
beating: and that desire for action grows with their growth. Therefore, we
should not like to have the slumber of Endymion given to us, not even if
we expected to enjoy the most delicious dreams; and if it were, we should
think it like death. Moreover, we see that even the most indolent men, men
of a singular worthlessness, are still always in motion both in mind and
body; and when they are not hindered by some unavoidable circumstance,
that they demand a dice-box or some game of some kind, or conversation;
and, as they have none of the liberal delights of learning, seek circles
and assemblies. Even beasts, which we shut up for our own amusement,
though they are better fed than if they were free, still do not willingly
endure being imprisoned, but pine for the free and unrestrained movements
given to them by nature. Therefore, in proportion as every one is born and
prepared for the best objects, he would be unwilling to live at all if,
being excluded from action, he were able only to enjoy the most abundant
pleasures.

For men wish either to do something as individuals, or those who have
loftier souls undertake the affairs of the state, and devote themselves to
the attainment of honours and commands, or else wholly addict themselves
to the study of learning; in which path of life they are so far from
getting pleasures, that they even endure care, anxiety and sleeplessness,
enjoying only that most excellent portion of man which may be accounted
divine in us, I mean the acuteness of the genius and intellect, and they
neither seek for pleasure nor shun labour. Nor do they intermit either
their admiration of the discoveries of the ancients, or their search after
new ones; and, as they are insatiable in their pursuit of such, they
forget everything else, and admit no low or grovelling thoughts; and such
great power is there in those studies, that we see even those who have
proposed to themselves other chief goods, which they measure by advantage
or pleasure, still devote their lives to the investigation of things, and
to the explanation of the mysteries of nature.

XXI. This, then, is evident, that we were born for action. But there are
several kinds of action, so that the lesser are thrown into the shade by
those more important. But those of most consequence are, first of all, as
it appears to me, and to those philosophers whose system we are at present
discussing, the consideration and knowledge of the heavens, and of those
things which are hidden and concealed by nature, but into which reason can
still penetrate. And, next to them, the management of state affairs, or a
prudent, temperate, courageous principle of government and knowledge, and
the other virtues, and such actions as are in harmony with those virtues,
which we, embracing them all in one word, call honourable; to the
knowledge and practice of which we are led by nature herself, who goes
before us as our guide, we having been already encouraged to pursue it.
For the beginnings of all things are small, but, as they proceed, they
increase in magnitude, and that naturally: for, at their first birth,
there is in them a certain tenderness and softness, so that they cannot
see or do what is best. For the light of virtue and of a happy life, which
are the two principal things to be desired, appears rather later; and much
later still in such a way that it can be plainly perceived of what
character they are.

For, admirably does Plato say, “That man is happy to whom, even in his old
age, it is allowed to arrive at wisdom and correctness of judgment.”
Wherefore, since we have said enough of the first advantages of nature, we
will now examine those which are more important, and which are later in
point of time.

Nature, then, has made and fashioned the body of man in such a manner,
that it makes some parts of him perfect at his first birth, and forms
others as he advances in age; and, at the same time, does not employ many
external or adventitious aids. But she has filled up the perfection of the
mind in the same way as that of the body; for she has adorned it with
senses suitable for the effecting of its purposes, so that it is not in
the least, or not much, in want of any assistance for strengthening
itself. But that which is most excellent and important in man it has
abandoned: although it has given him an intellect able to receive every
kind of virtue, and has implanted in him, even without instruction, a
slight knowledge of the most important things, and has begun, as it were,
to teach him, and has led him on to those elements as I may call them, of
virtue which existed in him. But it has only begun virtue itself, nothing
more. Therefore it belongs to us,—when I say to us, I mean to our art,—to
trace back the consequences to those principles which we have received,
until we have accomplished our object, which is indeed of a good deal more
consequence, and a good deal more to be desired for its own sake, than
either the senses, or those parts of the body which we have mentioned;
which the excellent perfection of the mind is so far superior to, that it
can scarcely be imagined how great the difference is. Therefore, all
honour, all admiration, all study is referred to virtue, and to those
actions which are consistent with virtue; and all those things which are
either in our minds in that state, or are done in that manner, are called
by one common name—honourable. And we shall presently see what knowledge
we have of all these things, and what is meant by the different names, and
what the power and nature of each is.

XXII. But at present we need only explain that these things which I call
honourable, (besides the fact of our living ourselves on their account,)
are also by their own nature deserving of being sought for their own sake.
Children show this, in whom nature is perceived as in a mirror. What
eagerness is there in them when contending together! how vigorous are
their contests! how elated are those who win! how ashamed those who are
beaten! how unwilling are they to be blamed! how eager to be praised! what
labours will they not endure to surpass their fellows! what a recollection
have they of those who are kind to them! how anxious are they to prove
their gratitude! and these qualities are most visible in the best
dispositions; in which all these honourable qualities which we appreciate
are filled up as it were by nature. But in children they are only
sketched.

Again, in more mature age, who is so unlike a man as not to be moved to a
dislike of baseness and approval of what is honourable? Who is there who
does not loathe a libidinous and licentious youth? who, on the contrary,
does not love modesty and constancy in that age, even though his own
interest is not at all concerned? Who does not detest Pullus Numitorius,
of Fregellæ, the traitor, although he was of use to our own republic? who
does not praise Codrus, the saviour of his city, and the daughters of
Erectheus? Who does not detest the name of Tubulus? and love the dead
Aristides? Do we forget how much we are affected at hearing or reading
when we are brought to the knowledge of anything which has been done in a
pious, or friendly, or magnanimous spirit? Why should I speak of men like
ourselves, who have been born and brought up and trained to praise and
glory? What shouts of the common people and of the unlettered crowd are
excited in the theatres when this sentence is uttered—

    I am Orestes:

and when, on the other hand, the other actor says—

    No; it is I, ’tis I who am Orestes.

But when one of them is allowed to depart by the perplexed and bewildered
king, and they demand to die together, is this scene ever acted without
being accompanied by the most violent expressions of admiration? There is
no one, then, who does not approve of and praise this disposition of mind;
by which not only no advantage is sought, but good faith is preserved even
at the expense of one’s advantage. And not only are imaginary fables, but
true histories also, and especially those of our country, full of such
instances: for we selected our most virtuous citizen to receive the Idæan
sacred vessels; we have sent guardians to kings; our generals have devoted
their lives for the safety of the republic; our consuls have warned a king
who was our greatest enemy, when he was actually approaching our walls, to
beware of poison. In our republic, a woman has been found to expiate, by a
voluntary death, a violation which was inflicted on her by force; and a
man to kill his daughter to save her from being ravished. All which
instances, and a countless host of others, prove to the comprehension of
every one that those who performed those deeds were induced to do so by
the brilliancy of virtue, forgetful of their own advantage, and that we,
when we praise those actions, are influenced by nothing but their
honourable character.

XXIII. And having briefly explained these matters, (for I have not sought
to adduce the number of examples which I might have done, because there
was no doubt on the subject,) it is shown sufficiently by these facts that
all the virtues, and that honourableness which arises from these virtues,
and clings to them, are worthy to be sought for their own sake. But in the
whole of this honourableness of which we are speaking, there is nothing so
eminent, nor so extensive in its operation, as the union of man with man,
and a certain partnership in and communication of advantages, and the
affection itself of the human race; which originating in that first
feeling according to which the offspring is loved by the parent, and the
whole house united by the bonds of wedlock and descent, creeps gradually
out of doors, first of all to one’s relations, then to one’s connexions,
then to one’s friends and neighbours, then to one’s fellow-countrymen, and
to the public friends and allies of one’s country; then it embraces the
whole human race: and this disposition of mind, giving every one his due,
and protecting with liberality and equity this union of human society
which I have spoken of, is called justice, akin to which are piety,
kindness, liberality, benevolence, courtesy, and all other qualities of
the same kind. But these, though peculiarly belonging to justice, are also
common to the other virtues.

For as the nature of man has been created such that it has a sort of
innate principle of society and citizenship, which the Greeks call
πολιτικὸν, whatever each virtue does will not be inconsistent with that
principle of common union, and that human affection and society which I
have spoken of; and justice, as she founds herself in practice on the
other virtues, will also require them, for justice cannot be maintained
except by a courageous and wise man. Honourableness itself, then, is a
thing of the same character as all this conspiracy and agreement of the
virtues which I have been speaking of; since it is either virtue itself,
or an action virtuously performed. And a life acting in harmony and
consistency with this system, and with virtue, may fairly be thought
upright and honourable, and consistent, and natural. And this union and
combination of virtues is nevertheless divided by philosophers on some
principle of their own. For though they are so joined and connected as to
be all partners with one another, and to be unable to be separated from
one another, yet each has its peculiar sphere of duty; as, for instance,
fortitude is discerned in labour and danger; temperance, in the disregard
of pleasures; prudence, in the choice of good and evil; justice, in giving
every one his due. Since, then, there is in every virtue a certain care
which turns its eyes abroad, as it were, and which is anxious about and
embraces others, the conclusion is, that friends, and brothers, and
relations, and connexions, and fellow-countrymen, and in short everybody,
since we wish the society of all mankind to be one, are to be sought after
for their own sakes. But still, of all these things and people there is
nothing of such a kind that it can be accounted the chief good. And from
this it follows, that there are found to be two kinds of goods which are
to be sought for their own sake. One kind which exists in those things in
which that chief good is brought to perfection: and they are qualities of
either the mind or body. But these things which are external, that is to
say, which are in neither mind nor body, such as friends, parents,
children, relations, or one’s country, are indeed dear to me for their own
sake, but still are not of the same class as the other kind. Nor, indeed,
could any one ever arrive at the chief good, if all those things which are
external, although desirable, were contained in the chief good.

XXIV. How then, you will say, can it be true that everything is referred
to the chief good, if friendship, and relationship, and all other external
things are not contained in the chief good? Why, on this
principle,—because we protect those things which are external with those
duties which arise from their respective kinds of virtue. For the
cultivation of the regard of a friend or a parent, which is the discharge
of a duty, is advantageous in the actual fact of its being such, inasmuch
as to discharge a duty is a good action; and good actions spring from
virtues; and wise men attend to them, using nature as a kind of guide.

But men who are not perfect, though endued with admirable talents and
dispositions, are often excited by glory, which has the form and likeness
of honourableness. But if they were to be thoroughly acquainted with the
nature of that honourableness which is wholly complete and perfect, that
one thing which is the most admirable of all things, and the most
praiseworthy, with what joy would they be filled, when they are so greatly
delighted at its outline and bare idea! For who that is given up to
pleasure, and inflamed with the conflagration of desire in the enjoyment
of those things which he has most eagerly wished for, can we imagine to be
full of such joy as the elder Africanus after he had conquered Hannibal,
or the younger one after he had destroyed Carthage? What man was there who
was so much elated with the way in which all the people flocked to the
Tiber on that day of festivity as Lucius Paullus, when he was leading in
triumph king Perses as his prisoner, who was conveyed down on the same
river?

Come now, my friend Lucius, build up in your mind the lofty excellence of
virtue, and you will not doubt that the men who are possessed of it, and
who live with a magnanimous and upright spirit, are always happy; men who
are aware that all the movements of fortune, all the changes of affairs
and circumstances, must be insignificant and powerless if ever they come
to a contest with virtue. For those things which are considered by us as
goods of the body, do indeed make up a happy life, but still not without
leaving it possible for a life to be happy without them. For so slight and
inconsiderable are those additions of goods, that as stars in the orbit of
the sun are not seen, so neither are those qualities, but they are lost in
the brilliancy of virtue. And as it is said with truth that the influence
of the advantages of the body have but little weight in making life happy,
so on the other hand it is too strong an assertion to say that they have
no weight at all: for those who argue thus appear to me to forget the
principles of nature which they themselves have contended for.

We must, therefore, allow these things some influence: provided only that
we understand how much we ought to allow them. It is, however, the part of
a philosopher, who seeks not so much for what is specious as for what is
true, neither utterly to disregard those things which those very boastful
men used to admit to be in accordance with nature; and at the same time to
see that the power of virtue, and the authority, if I may say so, of
honourableness, is so great that all those other things appear to be, I
will not say nothing, but so trivial as to be little better than nothing.
This is the language natural to a man who, on the one hand, does not
despise everything except virtue, and who, at the same time, honours
virtue with the praises which it deserves. This, in short, is a full and
perfect explanation of the chief good; and as the others have attempted to
detach different portions from the main body of it, each individual among
them has wished to appear to have established his own theory as the
victorious one.

XXV. The knowledge of things has been often extolled in a wonderful manner
by Aristotle and Theophrastus for its own sake. And Herillus, being
allured by this single fact, maintained that knowledge was the chief good,
and that there was no other thing whatever that deserved to be sought for
its own sake. Many things have been said by the ancients on the subject of
despising and contemning all human affairs. This was the one principle of
Aristo; he declared that there was nothing which ought to be avoided or
desired except vice and virtue. And our school has placed freedom from
pain among those things which are in accordance with nature. Hieronymus
has said that this is the chief good: but Callipho, and Diodorus after
him, one of whom was devoted to pleasure, and the other to freedom from
pain, could neither of them allow honourableness to be left out, which has
been especially praised by our countrymen. Moreover, even the advocates of
pleasure seek for subterfuges, and are talking of virtue whole days
together; and say that pleasure is at first only wished for; that
afterwards it, through custom, becomes a second nature, by which men are
excited to do many things without at all seeking pleasure.

The Stoics remain to be mentioned. They, indeed, have borrowed not one
idea or another from us, but have appropriated our whole system of
philosophy. And as other thieves alter the marks on the things which they
have stolen, so they, in order to be able to use our opinions as their
own, have changed the names which are like the private marks on things.
And so this school alone remains worthy of those men who study the liberal
arts, worthy of the learned, worthy of eminent men, worthy of princes,
worthy of kings.

And when he had said this, and then stopped to take breath for a while;
What is the matter? said he; do I not seem to have said enough in your
presence for my own defence? I replied,—Indeed, O Piso, as has often been
the case before, you have seemed to-day to have so thorough an
acquaintance with all these things, that, if we could always have the
advantage of your company, I should not think that we had much reason to
have recourse to the Greeks. Which, indeed, I have been the more pleased
with, because I recollect that Staseas, the Neapolitan, your preceptor, a
very illustrious Peripatetic, was at times accustomed to discuss these
points differently, agreeing with those men who attributed a great deal of
weight to prosperity and adversity, and to the good or evil qualities of
the body. It is as you say, he replied: but these points are argued with
much more accuracy and impressiveness by my friend Antiochus than they
used to be by Staseas. Although I do not ask what I have proved to your
satisfaction, but what I have proved to the satisfaction of this friend of
mine, the young Cicero, a pupil whom I wish to seduce from you.

XXVI. Then Lucius said,—Indeed, I quite agree with what you have said, and
I think my brother does too. Then said Piso to me: Is it so? Do you pardon
the youth? or would you rather that he should learn these things which,
when he has learnt thoroughly, he will know nothing at all? I give him
leave, said I. But do not you recollect that I am allowed to express my
approval or disapproval of what has been said by you? For who can avoid
approving of what appears to him to be probable? Can any, we said, approve
of anything of which he has not a thorough perception, comprehension, and
knowledge? There is, said I, no great dispute between us, Piso; for there
is no other reason why it appears to me that nothing can be perceived
except that the faculty of perceiving is defined in such a manner by the
Stoics that they affirm that nothing can be perceived except what is so
true that it cannot possibly be false. Therefore there is a dispute
between us and the Stoics, but none between us and the Peripatetics.
However, we may pass over this, for it would open the door to a long and
sufficiently bitter dispute.

It seemed to me that it was too hasty an assertion of yours that all wise
men were always happy. I know not how such a sentence escaped you; but
unless it is proved, I fear that the assertion which Theophrastus made
with respect to fortune, and pain, and bodily torture be true, with which
he did not consider that a happy life could possibly be joined, must be
true. For it is exceedingly inconsistent that the same person should be
happy, and afflicted with many misfortunes; and how these things can be
reconciled, I do not at all understand. Which assertion then, said he, is
it that you object to? Do you deny that the power of virtue is so great
that she can by herself be sufficient for happiness? or, if you admit
that, do you think it impossible that those persons who are possessed of
virtue may be happy, even if they are afflicted with some evils? I,
indeed, I replied, wish to attribute as much power as possible to virtue;
however, we may discuss at another time how great her power is; at present
the only question is, whether she has so much power as this, if anything
external to virtue is reckoned among the goods. But, said he, if you grant
to the Stoics that virtue alone, if it be present, makes life happy, you
grant it also to the Peripatetics; for those things which they do not
venture to call evils, but which they admit to be unpleasant and
inconvenient, and to be rejected, and odious to nature we call evils, but
slight, and, indeed, exceedingly trifling ones. Wherefore, if that man can
be happy who is among disagreeable things which ought to be rejected, he
also may be so who is among slight evils. And I say, O Piso, if there is
any one who in causes is used to have a clear insight into what the real
question is, you are the man: wherefore I beg of you to take notice; for,
hitherto, owing perhaps to my fault, you do not perceive what it is that I
am seeking. I am attending, said he; and I am waiting to see what answer
you will make to the questions that I ask.

XXVII. I will answer, said I, that I am not inquiring at present what
virtue can effect, but what is said consistently on the subject, and why
the assertions are at variance with one another. How so? said he. Because,
said I, when this pompous assertion is uttered by Zeno, as if he were an
oracle,—“Virtue requires nothing beyond herself to enable a man to live
happily”—why? said he—“Because there is no other good except what is
honourable.” I do not ask now whether that is true; I only say that what
he says is admirably consistent. Epicurus will say the same thing—“that
the wise man is always happy;” which, indeed, he is in the habit of
spouting out sometimes. And he says that this wise man, when he is being
torn to pieces with the most exquisite pains, will say, “How pleasant it
is! how I disregard it!” I will not argue with the man as to why there is
so much power in nature; I will only urge that he does not understand what
he ought to say, after he has said that pain is the greatest evil.

Now I will address the same language to you. You say that all the goods
and evils are the same that those men pronounce them to be who have never
even seen a philosopher in a picture, as the saying is—namely, health,
strength, stature, beauty, the soundness of all a man’s nails, you call
good—deformity, disease, weakness you call evils. These are all externals;
do not go on any more; but at all events you will reckon these things
among the goods, as the goods of the body which help to compose them,
namely, friends, children, relations, riches, honour, power. Take notice
that I say nothing against this. If those are evils into which a wise man
can fall, then it follows that to be a wise man is not sufficient to
secure a happy life. Indeed, said he, it is very little towards securing a
perfectly happy one, but enough for securing a tolerably happy one.

I have noticed, said he, that you made this distinction a little while
ago, and I know that our friend Antiochus used to speak in this manner.
But what can be less approved of than the idea of a person being happy,
and yet not happy enough? For when anything is enough, then whatever is
added to that is excess: and no one is too happy: and no one is happier
than a happy man. Therefore, said he, was not Quintus Metellus, who saw
three of his sons consuls, one of whom was also censor and celebrated a
triumph, and a fourth prætor; and who left them all in safety behind him,
and who saw his three daughters married, having been himself consul,
censor and augur, and having celebrated a triumph; was he not, I say, in
your opinion, (supposing him to have been a wise man,) happier than
Regulus, who being in the power of the enemy, was put to death by
sleeplessness and hunger, though he may have been equally wise?

XXVIII. Why do you ask me that? said I; ask the Stoics. What answer, then,
said he, do you suppose they will make? They will say that Metellus was in
no respect more happy than Regulus. Let us, then, said he, hear what they
have got to say. But, said I, we are wandering from our subject; for I am
not asking what is true, but what each person ought to say. I wish,
indeed, that they would say that one man is happier than another: you
should see the ruin I would make of them. For, as the chief good consists
in virtue alone, and in honourableness; and as neither virtue, as they
say, nor honourableness is capable of growth, and as that alone is good
which makes him who enjoys it necessarily happy, as that in which alone
happiness is placed cannot be increased, how is it possible that one
person can be happier than another? Do you not see how all these things
agree together? And, in truth, (for I must avow what I feel,) the mutual
dependence of all these things on one another is marvellous: the last part
corresponds to the first, the middle to each extremity, and each extremity
to the other. They see all that follows from, or is inconsistent with
them. In geometry, if you grant the premises the conclusion follows. Grant
that there is nothing good except what is honourable, and you must grant
that happiness is placed in virtue alone. Try it the other way. If you
grant this conclusion, you must grant the premises; but this is not the
case with the arguments of your school. There are three kinds of goods.
The assertions go trippingly on: he comes to the conclusion: he sticks
fast: he is in a difficulty; for he wishes to say, that nothing can be
wanting to a wise man to complete his happiness—a very honourable
sentiment, one worthy of Socrates, or even of Plato. Well, I do venture to
assert that, says he. It is impossible, unless you remodel your premises:
if poverty is an evil, no beggar can be happy be he ever so wise. But Zeno
ventured to call such a man not only happy, but also rich.

To be in pain is an evil; the man who is fastened to a cross cannot be
happy. Children are a good; childlessness is an evil. One’s country is a
good; exile is an evil. Health is a good; disease is an evil. Vigour of
body is a good; feebleness is an evil. Clear sight is a good; blindness is
an evil. But, though a man may be able to alleviate any single one of
these evils by consolation, how will he be able to endure them all? For,
suppose one person were blind, feeble, afflicted with grievous sickness,
banished, childless, in indigence, and put to the torture; what will you
call him, Zeno? Happy, says he. Will you call him most perfectly happy? To
be sure I will, says he, when I have taught him that happiness does not
admit of degrees any more than virtue, the mere possession of which makes
him happy. This seems to you incredible that he can call him perfectly
happy. What is your own doctrine? is that credible? For if you appeal to
the people, you will never convince them that a man in such a condition is
happy. If you appeal to prudent men, perhaps they will doubt as to one
point, namely, whether there is so much force in virtue that men endued
with that can be happy, even in Phalaris’s bull; but they will not doubt
at all that the Stoic language is consistent with itself and that yours is
not.

Do you then, says he, approve of the book of Theophrastus on a happy life?
We are wandering from our subject; and that I may not be too tedious—if,
said I, Piso, those things are evils, I wholly approve of it. Do not they
then, said he, seem to you to be evils? Do you ask that? said I; whatever
answer I give you, you will find yourself in embarrassment. How so? said
he. Because, if they are evils, a man who is affected with them cannot be
happy. If they are not evils, there is an end to the whole system of the
Peripatetics. And he laughing replied, I see what you are at; you are
afraid I shall carry off your pupil. You may carry him off, said I, if he
likes to follow you; for he will still be with me if he is with you.

XXIX. Listen then, said he, O Lucius; for, as Theophrastus says, I must
direct my discourse to you,—the whole authority of philosophy consists in
making life happy; for we are all inflamed with a desire of living
happily. This, both your brother and I agree upon. Wherefore we must see
whether the system of the philosophers can give us this. It promises to do
so certainly: for, unless it made that promise, why did Plato travel over
Egypt, to learn numbers and knowledge of the heavenly mysteries from
barbarian priests? Why afterwards did he go to Tarentum to Archytas; and
to the other Pythagoreans of Locri, Echecrates, Timæus, and Acrion; in
order, after he had drained Socrates to the dregs, to add the doctrine of
the Pythagoreans to his, and to learn in addition those things which
Socrates rejected? Why did Pythagoras himself travel over Egypt, and visit
the Persian Magi; why did he go on foot over so many countries of the
barbarians, and make so many voyages? Why did Democritus do the same? who,
(whether it is true or false, we will not stop to inquire,) is said to
have put out his own eyes; certainly, in order that his mind might be
abstracted from contemplation as little as possible; he neglected his
patrimony, and left his lands uncultivated, and what other object could he
have had except a happy life? And if he placed that in the knowledge of
things, still from that investigation of natural philosophy he sought to
acquire equanimity; for he called the summum bonum εὐθυμία, and very often
ἀθαμβία, that is to say, a mind free from alarm. But, although this was
well said, it was not very elegantly expressed; for he said very little
about virtue, and even what he did say, he did not express very clearly.
For it was not till after his death that these subjects were discussed in
this city, first by Socrates, and from Socrates they got entrance into the
Academy. Nor was there any doubt that all hope of living well and also
happily was placed in virtue: and when Zeno had learnt this from our
school, he began to express himself on the same subject in another manner,
as lawyers do on trials. And now you approve of this conduct in him. Will
you then say that he by changing the names of things escaped the charge of
inconsistency, and yet not allow us to do so too?

He asserts that the life of Metellus was not happier than that of Regulus,
but admits that it was preferable to it; he says it was not more to be
sought after, but still to be taken in preference; and that if one had a
choice, one would choose the life of Metellus, and reject that of Regulus.
What then he calls preferable, and worthy to be chosen in preference, I
call happier; and yet I do not attribute more importance to that sort of
life than the Stoics do. For what difference is there between us, except
that I call well-known things by well-known names, and that they seek for
new terms to express the same ideas? And so, as there is always some one
in the senate who wants an interpreter, we, too, must listen to them with
an interpreter. I call that good which is in accordance with nature; and
whatever is contrary to nature I call evil. Nor do I alone use the
definition; you do also, O Chrysippus, in the forum and at home; but in
the school you discard it. What then? Do you think that men in general
ought to speak in one way, and philosophers in another, as to the
importance of which everything is? that learned men should hold one
language, and unlearned ones another? But as learned men are agreed of how
much importance everything is, (if they were men, they would speak in the
usual fashion,) why, as long as they leave the facts alone, they are
welcome to mould the names according to their fancy.

XXX. But I come now to the charge of inconsistency, that you may not
repeat that I am making digressions; which you think exist only in
language, but which I used to consider depended on the subject of which
one was speaking. If it is sufficiently perceived (and here we have most
excellent assistance from the Stoics), that the power of virtue is so
great, that if everything else were put on the opposite side, it would not
be even visible, when all things which they admit at least to be
advantages, and to deserve to be taken, and chosen, and preferred, and
which they define as worthy of being highly estimated; when, I say, I call
these things goods which have so many names given them by the Stoics, some
of which are new, and invented expressly for them, such as _producta_ and
_reducta_, and some of which are merely synonymous; (for what difference
can it make whether you wish for a thing or choose it? that which is
chosen, and on which deliberate choice is exercised, appears to me to be
the better) still, when I have called all these things goods, the question
is merely how great goods I call them; when I say they deserved to be
wished for, the question is,—how eagerly?

But, if I do not attribute more importance to them when I say that they
deserve to be wished for, than you do who say they only deserve to be
chosen, and if I do not value them more highly when I call them _bona_,
than you, when you speak of them as _producta_; then all these things must
inevitably be involved in obscurity, and put out of sight, and lost amid
the rays of virtue like stars in the sunbeams. But that life in which
there is any evil cannot be happy. Then a corn-field full of thick and
heavy ears of corn is not a corn-field if you see any tares anywhere; nor
is traffic gainful if, amid the greatest gains, you incur the most
trifling loss. Do we ever act on different principles in any circumstances
of life; and will you not judge of the whole from its greatest part? or is
there any doubt that virtue is so much the most important thing in all
human affairs, that it throws all the rest into the shade?

I will venture, then, to call the rest of the things which are in
accordance with nature, goods, and not to cheat them of their ancient
title, rather than go and hunt for some new name for them; and the dignity
of virtue I will put, as it were, in the other scale of the balance.
Believe me, that scale will outweigh both earth and sea; for the whole
always has its name from that which embraces its largest part, and is the
most widely diffused. We say that one man lives merrily. Is there, then,
an end of this merry life of his if he is for a moment a little poor?

But, in the case of that Marcus Crassus, who, Lucilius says, laughed once
in his life, the fact of his having done so did not deliver him from being
called ἀγέλαστος. They call Polycrates of Samos happy. Nothing had ever
happened to him which he did not like, except that he had thrown into the
sea a ring which he valued greatly; therefore he was unhappy as to that
one annoyance; but subsequently he was happy again when that same ring was
found in the belly of a fish. But he, if he was unwise (which he certainly
was, since he was a tyrant), was never happy; if he was wise he was not
miserable, even at the time when he was crucified by Orœtes, the
lieutenant of Darius. But he had great evils inflicted on him. Who denies
that?—but those evils were overcome by the greatness of his virtue.

XXXI. Do you not grant even this to the Peripatetics, that they may say
that the life of all good, that is, of all wise men, and of men adorned
with every virtue, has in all its parts more good than evil? Who says
this? The Stoics may say so. By no means. But do not those very men who
measure everything by pleasure and pain, say loudly that the wise man has
always more things which he likes than dislikes? When, then, these men
attribute so much to virtue, who confess that they would not even lift a
finger for the sake of virtue, if it did not bring pleasure with it, what
ought we to do, who say that ever so inconsiderable an excellence of mind
is so superior to all the goods of the body, that they are put wholly out
of sight by it? For who is there who can venture to say, that it can
happen to a wise man (even if such a thing were possible) to discard
virtue for ever, with a view of being released from all pain? Who of our
school, who are not ashamed to call those things evils which the Stoics
call only bitter, would say that it was better to do anything
dishonourably with pleasure than honourably with pain? To us, indeed,
Dionysius of Heraclea appears to have deserted the Stoics in a shameful
manner, on account of the pain of his eyes; as if he had learnt from Zeno
not to be in pain when he was in pain. He had heard, but he had not
learnt, that it was not an evil, because it was not dishonourable, and
because it might be borne by a man. If he had been a Peripatetic he would,
I suppose, have adhered to his opinion, since they say that pain is an
evil. And with respect to bearing its bitterness, they give the same
precepts as the Stoics; and, indeed, your friend Arcesilas, although he
was a rather pertinacious arguer, was still on our side; for he was a
pupil of Polemo; and when he was suffering under the pain of the gout, and
Carneades, a most intimate friend of Epicurus, had come to see him, and
was going away very melancholy, said, “Stay awhile, I entreat you, friend
Carneades; for the pain does not reach here,” showing his feet and his
breast. Still he would have preferred being out of pain.

XXXII. This, then, is our doctrine, which appears to you to be
inconsistent, since, by reason of a certain heavenly, divine, and
inexpressible excellence of virtue, so great, that wherever virtue and
great, desirable, and praiseworthy exploits done by virtue are, there
misery and grief cannot be, but nevertheless labour and annoyance can be,
I do not hesitate to affirm that all wise men are always happy, but still,
that it is possible that one man may be more happy than another.

But this is exactly the assertion, Piso, said I, which you are bound to
prove over and over again; and if you establish it, then you may take with
you not only my young Cicero here, but me too. Then, said Quintus, it
appears to me that this has been sufficiently proved. I am glad, indeed,
that philosophy, the treasures of which I have been used to value above
the possession of everything else (so rich did it appear to me, that I
could ask of it whatever I desired to know in our studies),—I rejoice,
therefore, that it has been found more acute than all other arts, for it
was in acuteness that some people asserted that it was deficient. Not a
mite more so than ours, surely, said Pomponius, jestingly. But, seriously,
I have been very much pleased with what you have said; for what I did not
think could be expressed in Latin has been expressed by you, and that no
less clearly than by the Greeks, and in not less well adapted language.
But it is time to depart, if you please; and let us go to my house.

And when he had said this, as it appeared that we had discussed the
subject sufficiently, we all went into the town to the house of Pomponius.

THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS.

Introduction.

In the year A.U.C. 708, and the 62d year of Cicero’s age, his daughter,
Tullia, died in childbed; and her loss afflicted Cicero to such a degree
that he abandoned all public business, and, leaving the city, retired to
Asterra, which was a country house that he had near Antium; where, after a
while, he devoted himself to philosophical studies, and, besides other
works, he published his Treatise de Finibus, and also this Treatise called
the Tusculan Disputations, of which Middleton gives this concise
description:—

“The first book teaches us how to contemn the terrors of death, and to
look upon it as a blessing rather than an evil;

“The second, to support pain and affliction with a manly fortitude;

“The third, to appease all our complaints and uneasinesses under the
accidents of life;

“The fourth, to moderate all our other passions;

“And the fifth explains the sufficiency of virtue to make men happy.”

It was his custom in the opportunities of his leisure to take some friends
with him into the country, where, instead of amusing themselves with idle
sports or feasts, their diversions were wholly speculative, tending to
improve the mind and enlarge the understanding. In this manner he now
spent five days at his Tusculan villa in discussing with his friends the
several questions just mentioned. For, after employing the mornings in
declaiming and rhetorical exercises, they used to retire in the afternoon
into a gallery, called the Academy, which he had built for the purpose of
philosophical conferences, where, after the manner of the Greeks, he held
a school as they called it, and invited the company to call for any
subject that they desired to hear explained, which being proposed
accordingly by some of the audience became immediately the argument of
that day’s debate. These five conferences or dialogues he collected
afterwards into writing in the very words and manner in which they really
passed; and published them under the title of his Tusculan Disputations,
from the name of the villa in which they were held.

Book I. On The Contempt Of Death.

I. At a time when I had entirely, or to a great degree, released myself
from my labours as an advocate, and from my duties as a senator, I had
recourse again, Brutus, principally by your advice, to those studies which
never had been out of my mind, although neglected at times, and which
after a long interval I resumed: and now since the principles and rules of
all arts which relate to living well depend on the study of wisdom, which
is called philosophy, I have thought it an employment worthy of me to
illustrate them in the Latin tongue: not because philosophy could not be
understood in the Greek language, or by the teaching of Greek masters; but
it has always been my opinion, that our countrymen have, in some
instances, made wiser discoveries than the Greeks, with reference to those
subjects which they have considered worthy of devoting their attention to,
and in others have improved upon their discoveries, so that in one way or
other we surpass them on every point: for, with regard to the manners and
habits of private life, and family and domestic affairs, we certainly
manage them with more elegance, and better than they did; and as to our
republic, that our ancestors have, beyond all dispute, formed on better
customs and laws. What shall I say of our military affairs; in which our
ancestors have been most eminent in valour, and still more so in
discipline? As to those things which are attained not by study, but
nature, neither Greece, nor any nation, is comparable to us: for what
people has displayed such gravity, such steadiness, such greatness of
soul, probity, faith—such distinguished virtue of every kind, as to be
equal to our ancestors. In learning, indeed, and all kinds of literature,
Greece did excel us, and it was easy to do so where there was no
competition; for while amongst the Greeks the poets were the most ancient
species of learned men,—since Homer and Hesiod lived before the foundation
of Rome, and Archilochus(50) was a contemporary of Romulus,—we received
poetry much later. For it was about five hundred and ten years after the
building of Rome before Livius(51) published a play in the consulship of
C. Claudius, the son of Cæcus, and M. Tuditanus, a year before the birth
of Ennius, who was older than Plautus and Nævius.

II. It was, therefore, late before poets were either known or received
amongst us; though we find in Cato de Originibus that the guests used, at
their entertainments, to sing the praises of famous men to the sound of
the flute; but a speech of Cato’s shows this kind of poetry to have been
in no great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior, for carrying poets
with him into his province: for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius
with him into Ætolia. Therefore the less esteem poets were in, the less
were those studies pursued: though even then those who did display the
greatest abilities that way, were not very inferior to the Greeks. Do we
imagine that if it had been considered commendable in Fabius,(52) a man of
the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and
Parrbasii. Honour nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to
studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation, which
are looked upon disparagingly. The Greeks held skill in vocal and
instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is
recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man amongst
the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles some
years before was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined
the lyre when it was offered to him. For this reason musicians flourished
in Greece; music was a general study; and whoever was unacquainted with
it, was not considered as fully instructed in learning. Geometry was in
high esteem with them, therefore none were more honourable than
mathematicians; but we have confined this art to bare measuring and
calculating.

III. But on the contrary, we early entertained an esteem for the orator;
though he was not at first a man of learning, but only quick at speaking;
in subsequent times he became learned; for it is reported that Galba,
Africanus, and Lælius, were men of learning; and that even Cato, who
preceded them in point of time, was a studious man: then succeeded the
Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, and so many great orators after them, down to
our own times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the
Greeks. Philosophy has been at a low ebb even to this present time, and
has had no assistance from our own language, and so now I have undertaken
to raise and illustrate it, in order that, as I have been of service to my
countrymen, when employed on public affairs, I may, if possible, be so
likewise in my retirement; and in this I must take the more pains, because
there are already many books in the Latin language which are said to be
written inaccurately, having been composed by excellent men, only not of
sufficient learning: for indeed it is possible that a man may think well,
and yet not be able to express his thoughts elegantly; but for any one to
publish thoughts which he can neither arrange skilfully nor illustrate so
as to entertain his reader, is an unpardonable abuse of letters and
retirement: they, therefore, read their books to one another, and no one
ever takes them up but those who wish to have the same licence for
careless writing allowed to themselves. Wherefore, if oratory has acquired
any reputation from my industry, I shall take the more pains to open the
fountains of philosophy, from which all my eloquence has taken its rise.

IV. But, as Aristotle,(53) a man of the greatest genius, and of the most
various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician
Isocrates,(54) commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined
philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside my former
study of oratory, and yet to employ myself at the same time in this
greater and more fruitful art; for I have always thought, that to be able
to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important questions, was the
most perfect philosophy. And I have so diligently applied myself to this
pursuit that I have already ventured to have a school like the Greeks. And
lately when you left us, having many of my friends about me, I attempted
at my Tusculan villa what I could do in that way; for as I formerly used
to practise declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this
is now to be the declamation of my old age. I desired any one to propose a
question which he wished to have discussed: and then I argued that point
either sitting or walking, and so I have compiled the scholæ, as the
Greeks call them, of five days, in as many books. We proceeded in this
manner: when he who had proposed the subject for discussion had said what
he thought proper, I spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and
Socratic method of arguing against another’s opinion; for Socrates thought
that thus the truth would more easily be arrived at. But to give you a
better notion of our disputations, I will not barely send you an account
of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on; therefore let
the introduction be thus:—

V. _A._ To me death seems to be an evil.

_M._ What to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?

_A._ To both.

_M._ It is a misery then, because an evil?

_A._ Certainly.

_M._ Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to
die, are both miserable?

_A._ So it appears to me.

_M._ Then all are miserable?

_A._ Every one.

_M._ And, indeed, if you wish to be consistent, all that are already born,
or ever shall be, are not only miserable, but always will be so; for
should you maintain those only to be miserable, you would not except any
one living, for all must die; but there should be an end of misery in
death. But seeing that the dead are miserable, we are born to eternal
misery, for they must of consequence be miserable who died a hundred
thousand years ago; or rather, all that have ever been born.

_A._ So, indeed, I think.

_M._ Tell me, I beseech you, are you afraid of the three-headed Cerberus
in the shades below, and the roaring waves of Cocytus, and the passage
over Acheron, and Tantalus expiring with thirst, while the water touches
his chin; and Sisyphus,

    Who sweats with arduous toil in vain
    The steepy summit of the mount to gain?

Perhaps, too, you dread the inexorable judges, Minos and Rhadamanthus;
before whom neither L. Crassus, nor M. Antonius can defend you; and where,
since the cause lies before Grecian judges, you will not even be able to
employ Demosthenes: but you must plead for yourself before a very great
assembly. These things perhaps you dread, and therefore look on death as
an eternal evil.

VI. _A._ Do you take me to be so imbecile as to give credit to such
things?

_M._ What? do you not believe them?

_A._ Not in the least.

_M._ I am sorry to hear that.

_A._ Why, I beg?

_M._ Because I could have been very eloquent in speaking against them.

_A._ And who could not on such a subject? or, what trouble is it to refute
these monstrous inventions of the poets and painters?(55)

_M._ And yet you have books of philosophers full of arguments against
these.

_A._ A great waste of time, truly! for, who is so weak as to be concerned
about them?

_M._ If, then, there is no one miserable in the infernal regions, there
can be no one there at all.

_A._ I am altogether of that opinion.

_M._ Where, then, are those you call miserable? or what place do they
inhabit? for, if they exist at all, they must be somewhere?

_A._ I, indeed, am of opinion that they are nowhere.

_M._ Then they have no existence at all.

_A._ Even so, and yet they are miserable for this very reason, that they
have no existence.

_M._ I had rather now have you afraid of Cerberus, than speak thus
inaccurately.

_A._ In what respect?

_M._ Because you admit him to exist whose existence you deny with the same
breath. Where now is your sagacity? when you say any one is miserable, you
say that he who does not exist, does exist.

_A._ I am not so absurd as to say that.

_M._ What is it that you do say, then?

_A._ I say, for instance, that Marcus Crassus is miserable in being
deprived of such great riches as his by death; that Cn. Pompey is
miserable, in being taken from such glory and honour; and in short, that
all are miserable who are deprived of this light of life.

_M._ You have returned to the same point, for to be miserable implies an
existence; but you just now denied that the dead had any existence; if,
then, they have not, they can be nothing; and if so, they are not even
miserable.

_A._ Perhaps I do not express what I mean, for I look upon this very
circumstance, not to exist after having existed, to be very miserable.

_M._ What, more so than not to have existed at all? therefore, those who
are not yet born, are miserable because they are not; and we ourselves, if
we are to be miserable after death, were miserable before we were born:
but I do not remember that I was miserable before I was born; and I should
be glad to know, if your memory is better, what you recollect of yourself
before you were born.

VII. _A._ You are pleasant; as if I had said that those men are miserable
who are not born, and not that they are so who are dead.

_M._ You say, then, that they are so?

_A._ Yes, I say that because they no longer exist after having existed,
they are miserable.

_M._ You do not perceive, that you are asserting contradictions; for what
is a greater contradiction, than that they should be not only miserable,
but should have any existence at all, which does not exist? When you go
out at the Capene gate and see the tombs of the Calatini, the Scipios,
Servilii, and Metelli, do you look on them as miserable?

_A._ Because you press me with a word, henceforward I will not say they
are miserable absolutely, but miserable on this account, because they have
no existence.

_M._ You do not say, then, “M. Crassus is miserable,” but only “Miserable
M. Crassus.”

_A._ Exactly so.

_M._ As if it did not follow, that whatever you speak of in that manner,
either is or is not. Are you not acquainted with the first principles of
logic? for this is the first thing they lay down, Whatever is asserted,
(for that is the best way that occurs to me, at the moment, of rendering
the Greek term, ἀξίομα, if I can think of a more accurate expression
hereafter I will use it,) is asserted as being either true or false. When,
therefore, you say, “Miserable M. Crassus,” you either say this, “M.
Crassus is miserable,” so that some judgment may be made whether it is
true or false, or you say nothing at all.

_A._ Well, then, I now own that the dead are not miserable, since you have
drawn from me a concession, that they who do not exist at all, cannot be
miserable. What then? we that are alive, are we not wretched, seeing we
must die? for what is there agreeable in life, when we must night and day
reflect that, at some time or other, we must die?

VIII. _M._ Do you not, then, perceive how great is the evil from which you
have delivered human nature?

_A._ By what means?

_M._ Because, if to die were miserable to the dead, to live would be a
kind of infinite and eternal misery: now, however, I see a goal, and when
I have reached it, there is nothing more to be feared; but you seem to me
to follow the opinion of Epicharmus,(56) a man of some discernment, and
sharp enough for a Sicilian.

_A._ What opinion? for I do not recollect it.

_M._ I will tell you if I can in Latin, for you know I am no more used to
bring in Latin sentences in a Greek discourse, than Greek in a Latin one.

_A._ And that is right enough: but what is that opinion of Epicharmus?

_M._

    I would not die, but yet
    Am not concerned that I shall be dead.

_A._ I now recollect the Greek, but since you have obliged me to grant
that the dead are not miserable, proceed to convince me that it is not
miserable to be under a necessity of dying.

_M._ That is easy enough, but I have greater things in hand.

_A._ How comes that to be so easy? and what are those things of more
consequence?

_M._ Thus: because, if there is no evil after death, then even death
itself can be none; for that which immediately succeeds that is a state
where you grant that there is no evil; so that even to be obliged to die
can be no evil; for that is only the being obliged to arrive at a place
where we allow that no evil is.

_A._ I beg you will be more explicit on this point, for these subtle
arguments force me sooner to admissions than to conviction. But what are
those more important things about which you say that you are occupied?

_M._ To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a good.

_A._ I do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it, for
even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove that death
is no evil: but I will not interrupt you, I would rather hear a continued
discourse.

_M._ What, if I should ask you a question, would you not answer?

_A._ That would look like pride; but I would rather you should not ask but
where necessity requires.

IX. _M._ I will comply with your wishes, and explain as well as I can,
what you require; but not with any idea that, like the Pythian Apollo,
what I say must needs be certain and indisputable; but as a mere man,
endeavouring to arrive at probabilities by conjecture, for I have no
ground to proceed further on than probability. Those men may call their
statements indisputable who assert that what they say can be perceived by
the senses, and who proclaim themselves philosophers by profession.

_A._ Do as you please, we are ready to hear you.

_M._ The first thing, then, is to inquire what death, which seems to be so
well understood, really is; for some imagine death to be the departure of
the soul from the body; others think that there is no such departure, but
that soul and body perish together, and that, the soul is extinguished
with the body. Of those who think that the soul does depart from the body,
some believe in its immediate dissolution; others fancy that it continues
to exist for a time; and others believe that it lasts for ever. There is
great dispute even what the soul is, where it is, and whence it is
derived: with some, the heart itself (cor) seems to be the soul, hence the
expressions, _excordes_, _vecordes_, _concordes_; and that prudent Nasica,
who was twice consul, was called Corculus, _i.e._ wise-heart; and Ælius
Sextus is described as _Egregie cordatus homo, catus Æliu’ Sextus_—that
great _wise-hearted_ man, sage Ælius. Empedocles imagines the blood, which
is suffused over the heart, to be the soul; to others, a certain part of
the brain seems to be the throne of the soul; others neither allow the
heart itself, nor any portion of the brain, to be the soul; but think
either that the heart is the seat and abode of the soul; or else that the
brain is so. Some would have the soul, or spirit, to be the _anima_, as
our schools generally agree; and indeed the name signifies as much, for we
use the expressions _animam agere_, to live; _animam efflare_, to expire;
_animosi_, men of spirit; _bene animati_, men of right feeling; _exanimi
sententia_, according to our real opinion—and the very word _animus_ is
derived from _anima_. Again, the soul seems to Zeno the Stoic to be fire.

X. But what I have said as to the heart, the blood, the brain, air, or
fire being the soul, are common opinions: the others are only entertained
by individuals; and indeed there were many amongst the ancients who held
singular opinions on this subject, of whom the latest was Aristoxenus, a
man who was both a musician and a philosopher; he maintained a certain
straining of the body, like what is called harmony in music, to be the
soul; and believed that, from the figure and nature of the whole body,
various motions are excited, as sounds are from an instrument. He adhered
steadily to his system, and yet he said something, the nature of which,
whatever it was, had been detailed and explained a great while before by
Plato. Xenocrates denied that the soul had any figure, or anything like a
body; but said it was a number, the power of which, as Pythagoras had
fancied, some ages before, was the greatest in nature: his master, Plato,
imagined a three-fold soul; a dominant portion of which, that is to say,
reason, he had lodged in the head, as in a tower; and the other two parts,
namely, anger and desire, he made subservient to this one, and allotted
them distinct abodes, placing anger in the breast, and desire under the
præcordia. But Dicæarchus, in that discourse of some learned disputants,
held at Corinth, which he details to us in three books; in the first book
introduces many speakers; and in the other two he introduces a certain
Pherecrates, an old man of Phthia, who, as he said, was descended from
Deucalion; asserting, that there is in fact no such thing at all as a
soul; but that it is a name, without a meaning; and that it is idle to use
the expression, “animals,” or “animated beings;” that neither men nor
beasts have minds or souls; but that all that power, by which we act or
perceive, is equally infused into every living creature, and is
inseparable from the body, for if it were not, it would be nothing; nor is
there anything whatever really existing except body, which is a single and
simple thing, so fashioned, as to live and have its sensations in
consequence of the regulations of nature. Aristotle, a man superior to all
others, both in genius and industry (I always except Plato), after having
embraced these four known sorts of principles, from which all things
deduce their origin, imagines that there is a certain fifth nature, from
whence comes the soul; for to think, to foresee, to learn, to teach, to
invent anything, and many other attributes of the same kind, such as, to
remember, to love, to hate, to desire, to fear, to be pleased or
displeased; these, and others like them, exist, he thinks, in none of
those first four kinds: on such account he adds a fifth kind, which has no
name, and so by a new name he calls the soul ἐνδελέχια, as if it were a
certain continued and perpetual motion.

XI. If I have not forgotten anything unintentionally, these are the
principal opinions concerning the soul. I have omitted Democritus, a very
great man indeed, but one who deduces the soul from the fortuitous
concourse of small, light, and round substances; for, if you believe men
of his school, there is nothing which a crowd of atoms cannot effect.
Which of these opinions is true, some god must determine. It is an
important question for us, which has the most appearance of truth. Shall
we, then, prefer determining between them, or shall we return to our
subject?

_A._ I could wish both, if possible; but it is difficult to mix them;
therefore, if without a discussion of them we can get rid of the fears of
death, let us proceed to do so; but if this is not to be done without
explaining the question about souls, let us have that now, and the other
at another time.

_M._ I take that plan to be the best, which I perceive you are inclined
to; for reason will demonstrate that, whichever of the opinions which I
have stated is true, it must follow, then, that death cannot be an evil;
or that it must rather be something desirable, for if either the heart, or
the blood, or the brain, is the soul, then certainly the soul, being
corporeal, must perish with the rest of the body; if it is air, it will
perhaps be dissolved; if it is fire, it will be extinguished; if it is
Aristoxenus’s harmony, it will be put out of tune. What shall I say of
Dicæarchus, who denies that there is any soul? In all these opinions,
there is nothing to affect any one after death; for all feeling is lost
with life, and where there is no sensation, nothing can interfere to
affect us. The opinions of others do indeed bring us hope; if it is any
pleasure to you to think that souls, after they leave the body, may go to
heaven as to a permanent home.

_A._ I have great pleasure in that thought, and it is what I most desire;
and even if it should not be so, I should still be very willing to believe
it.

_M._ What occasion have you, then, for my assistance? am I superior to
Plato in eloquence? Turn over carefully his book that treats of the soul,
you will have there all that you can want.

_A._ I have, indeed, done that, and often; but, I know not how it comes to
pass, I agree with it whilst I am reading it, but when I have laid down
the book, and begin to reflect with myself on the immortality of the soul,
all that agreement vanishes.

_M._ How comes that? do you admit this, that souls either exist after
death, or else that they also perish at the moment of death?

_A._ I agree to that. And if they do exist, I admit that they are happy;
but if they perish, I cannot suppose them to be unhappy, because, in fact,
they have no existence at all. You drove me to that concession but just
now.

_M._ How, then, can you, or why do you, assert that you think that death
is an evil, when it either makes us happy, in the case of the soul
continuing to exist, or, at all events, not unhappy, in the case of our
becoming destitute of all sensation.

XII. _A._ Explain, therefore, if it is not troublesome to you, first, if
you can, that souls do exist after death; secondly, should you fail in
that, (and it is a very difficult thing to establish,) that death is free
from all evil; for I am not without my fears that this itself is an evil;
I do not mean the immediate deprivation of sense, but the fact that we
shall hereafter suffer deprivation.

_M._ I have the best authority in support of the opinion you desire to
have established, which ought, and generally has, great weight in all
cases. And first, I have all antiquity on that side, which the more near
it is to its origin and divine descent, the more clearly, perhaps, on that
account did it discern the truth in these matters. This very doctrine,
then, was adopted by all those ancients, whom Ennius calls in the Sabine
tongue, Casci, namely, that in death there was a sensation, and that, when
men departed this life, they were not so entirely destroyed as to perish
absolutely. And this may appear from many other circumstances, and
especially from the pontifical rites and funeral obsequies, which men of
the greatest genius would not have been so solicitous about, and would not
have guarded from any injury by such severe laws, but from a firm
persuasion that death was not so entire a destruction as wholly to abolish
and destroy everything, but rather a kind of transmigration, as it were,
and change of life, which was, in the case of illustrious men and women,
usually a guide to heaven, while in that of others, it was still confined
to the earth, but in such a manner as still to exist. From this, and the
sentiments of the Romans,

    In heaven Romulus with Gods now lives;

as Ennius saith, agreeing with the common belief; hence, too Hercules is
considered so great and propitious a god amongst the Greeks, and from them
he was introduced among us, and his worship has extended even to the very
ocean itself. This is how it was that Bacchus was deified, the offspring
of Semele; and from the same illustrious fame we receive Castor and Pollux
as gods, who are reported not only to have helped the Romans to victory in
their battles, but to have been the messengers of their success. What
shall we say of Ino, the daughter of Cadmus? is she not called Leucothea
by the Greeks, and Matuta by us? Nay more; is not the whole of heaven (not
to dwell on particulars) almost filled with the offspring of men?

Should I attempt to search into antiquity, and produce from thence what
the Greek writers have asserted, it would appear that even those who are
called their principal gods, were taken from among men up into heaven.

XIII. Examine the sepulchres of those which are shown in Greece;
recollect, for you have been initiated, what lessons are taught in the
mysteries; then will you perceive how extensive this doctrine is. But they
who were not acquainted with natural philosophy, (for it did not begin to
be in vogue till many years later,) had no higher belief than what natural
reason could give them; they were not acquainted with the principles and
causes of things; they were often induced by certain visions, and those
generally in the night, to think that those men, who had departed from
this life, were still alive. And this may further be brought as an
irrefragable argument for us to believe that there are gods,—that there
never was any nation so barbarous, nor any people in the world so savage,
as to be without some notion of gods: many have wrong notions of the gods,
for that is the nature and ordinary consequence of bad customs, yet all
allow that there is a certain divine nature and energy. Nor does this
proceed from the conversation of men, or the agreement of philosophers; it
is not an opinion established by institutions or by laws; but, no doubt,
in every case the consent of all nations is to be looked on as a law of
nature. Who is there, then, that does not lament the loss of his friends,
principally from imagining them deprived of the conveniences of life? Take
away this opinion, and you remove with it all grief; for no one is
afflicted merely on account of a loss sustained by himself. Perhaps we may
be sorry, and grieve a little; but that bitter lamentation, and those
mournful tears, have their origin in our apprehensions that he whom we
loved is deprived of all the advantages of life, and is sensible of his
loss. And we are led to this opinion by nature, without any arguments or
any instruction.

XIV. But the greatest proof of all is, that nature herself gives a silent
judgment in favour of the immortality of the soul, inasmuch as all are
anxious, and that to a great degree, about the things which concern
futurity;—

    One plants what future ages shall enjoy,

as Statius saith in his Synephebi. What is his object in doing so, except
that he is interested in posterity? Shall the industrious husbandman,
then, plant trees the fruit of which he shall never see? and shall not the
great man found laws, institutions, and a republic? What does the
procreation of children imply—and our care to continue our names—and our
adoptions—and our scrupulous exactness in drawing up wills—and the
inscriptions on monuments, and panegyrics, but that our thoughts run on
futurity? There is no doubt but a judgment may be formed of nature in
general, from looking at each nature in its most perfect specimens; and
what is a more perfect specimen of a man, than those are who look on
themselves as born for the assistance, the protection, and the
preservation of others? Hercules has gone to heaven; he never would have
gone thither, had he not, whilst amongst men, made that road for himself.
These things are of old date, and have, besides, the sanction of universal
religion.

XV. What will you say? what do you imagine that so many and such great men
of our republic, who have sacrificed their lives for its good, expected?
Do you believe that they thought that their names should not continue
beyond their lives? None ever encountered death for their country, but
under a firm persuasion of immortality! Themistocles might have lived at
his ease; so might Epaminondas; and, not to look abroad and amongst the
ancients for instances, so might I myself. But, somehow or other, there
clings to our minds a certain presage of future ages; and this both exists
most firmly and appears most clearly, in men of the loftiest genius and
greatest souls. Take away this, and who would be so mad as to spend his
life amidst toils and dangers? I speak of those in power. What are the
poet’s views but to be ennobled after death? What else is the object of
these lines—

    Behold old Ennius here, who erst
    Thy fathers’ great exploits rehearsed?

He is challenging the reward of glory from those men whose ancestors he
himself had ennobled by his poetry. And in the same spirit he says in
another passage—

    Let none with tears my funeral grace, for I
    Claim from my works an immortality.

Why do I mention poets? the very mechanics are desirous of fame after
death. Why did Phidias include a likeness of himself in the shield of
Minerva, when he was not allowed to inscribe his name on it? What do our
philosophers think on the subject? do not they put their names to those
very books which they write on the contempt of glory? If, then, universal
consent is the voice of nature, and if it is the general opinion
everywhere, that those who have quitted this life are still interested in
something; we also must subscribe to that opinion. And if we think that
men of the greatest abilities and virtue see most clearly into the power
of nature, because they themselves are her most perfect work; it is very
probable that, as every great man is especially anxious to benefit
posterity, there is something of which he himself will be sensible after
death.

XVI. But as we are led by nature to think there are gods, and as we
discover, by reason, of what description they are, so, by the consent of
all nations, we are induced to believe that our souls survive; but where
their habitation is, and of what character they eventually are, must be
learned from reason. The want of any certain reason on which to argue has
given rise to the idea of the shades below, and to those fears, which you
seem, not without reason, to despise: for as our bodies fall to the
ground, and are covered with earth (_humus_), from whence we derive the
expression to be interred (_humari_), that has occasioned men to imagine
that the dead continue, during the remainder of their existence, under
ground; which opinion has drawn after it many errors, which the poets have
increased; for the theatre, being frequented by a large crowd, among which
are women and children, is wont to be greatly affected on hearing such
pompous verses as these—

    Lo! here I am, who scarce could gain this place,
    Through stony mountains and a dreary waste;
    Through cliffs, whose sharpen’d stones tremendous hung,
    Where dreadful darkness spread itself around:

and the error prevailed so much, though indeed at present it seems to me
to be removed, that although men knew that the bodies of the dead had been
burned, yet they conceived such things to be done in the infernal regions
as could not be executed or imagined without a body; for they could not
conceive how disembodied souls could exist; and, therefore, they looked
out for some shape or figure. This was the origin of all that account of
the dead in Homer. This was the idea that caused my friend Appius to frame
his Necromancy; and this is how there got about that idea of the lake of
Avernus, in my neighbourhood,—

    From whence the souls of undistinguish’d shape,
    Clad in thick shade, rush from the open gate
    Of Acheron, vain phantoms of the dead.

And they must needs have these appearances speak, which is not possible
without a tongue, and a palate, and jaws, and without the help of lungs
and sides, and without some shape or figure; for they could see nothing by
their mind alone, they referred all to their eyes. To withdraw the mind
from sensual objects, and abstract our thoughts from what we are
accustomed to, is an attribute of great genius: I am persuaded, indeed,
that there were many such men in former ages: but Pherecydes(57) the
Syrian is the first on record who said that the souls of men were
immortal; and he was a philosopher of great antiquity in the reign of my
namesake Tullus. His disciple Pythagoras greatly confirmed this opinion,
who came into Italy in the reign of Tarquin the Proud: and all that
country which is called Great Greece was occupied by his school, and he
himself was held in high honour, and had the greatest authority: and the
Pythagorean sect was for many ages after in such great credit, that all
learning was believed to be confined to that name.

XVII. But I return to the ancients. They scarcely ever gave any reason for
their opinion but what could be explained by numbers or definitions. It is
reported of Plato, that he came into Italy to make himself acquainted with
the Pythagoreans; and that when there, amongst others, he made an
acquaintance with Archytas(58) and Timæus,(59) and learned from them all
the tenets of the Pythagoreans; and that he not only was of the same
opinion with Pythagoras concerning the immortality of the soul, but that
he also brought reasons in support of it; which, if you have nothing to
say against it, I will pass over, and say no more at present about all
this hope of immortality.

_A._ What, will you leave me when you have raised my expectations so high?
I had rather, so help me Hercules! be mistaken with Plato, whom I know how
much you esteem, and whom I admire myself from what you say of him, than
be in the right with those others.

_M._ I commend you; for, indeed, I could myself willingly be mistaken in
his company. Do we, then, doubt, as we do in other cases, (though I think
here is very little room for doubt in this case, for the mathematicians
prove the facts to us,) that the earth is placed in the midst of the
world, being as it were a sort of point, which they call a κέντρον,
surrounded by the whole heavens; and that such is the nature of the four
principles, which are the generating causes of all things, that they have
equally divided amongst them the constituents of all bodies; moreover that
earthy and humid bodies are carried at equal angles, by their own weight
and ponderosity, into the earth and sea; that the other two parts consist
one of fire and the other of air? As the two former are carried by their
gravity and weight into the middle region of the world; so these, on the
other hand, ascend by right lines into the celestial regions; either
because, owing to their intrinsic nature, they are always endeavouring to
reach the highest place, or else because lighter bodies are naturally
repelled by heavier; and as this is notoriously the case, it must
evidently follow, that souls, when once they have departed from the body,
whether they are animal, (by which term I mean capable of breathing,) or
of the nature of fire, must mount upwards: but if the soul is some number,
as some people assert, speaking with more subtlety than clearness, or if
it is that fifth nature, for which it would be more correct to say that we
have not given a name to, than that we do not correctly understand
it—still it is too pure and perfect, not to go to a great distance from
the earth. Something of this sort, then, we must believe the soul to be,
that we may not commit the folly of thinking that so active a principle
lies immerged in the heart or brain; or, as Empedocles would have it, in
the blood.

XVIII. We will pass over Dicæarchus,(60) with his contemporary and
fellow-disciple Aristoxenus,(61) both indeed men of learning. One of them
seems never even to have been affected with grief, as he could not
perceive that he had a soul; while the other is so pleased with his
musical compositions, that he endeavours to show an analogy betwixt them
and souls. Now, we may understand harmony to arise from the intervals of
sounds, whose various compositions occasion many harmonies; but I do not
see how a disposition of members, and the figure of a body without a soul,
can occasion harmony; he had better, learned as he is, leave these
speculations to his master Aristotle, and follow his own trade, as a
musician; good advice is given him in that Greek proverb,—

    Apply your talents where you best are skill’d.

I will have nothing at all to do with that fortuitous concourse of
individual light and round bodies, notwithstanding Democritus insists on
their being warm, and having breath, that is to say, life. But this soul,
which is compounded of either of the four principles from which we assert
that all things are derived, is of inflamed air, as seems particularly to
have been the opinion of Panætius, and must necessarily mount upwards; for
air and fire have no tendency downwards, but always ascend; so should they
be dissipated, that must be at some distance from the earth; but should
they remain, and preserve their original state, it is clearer still that
they must be carried heavenward; and this gross and concrete air, which is
nearest the earth, must be divided and broken by them; for the soul is
warmer, or rather hotter than that air, which I just now called gross and
concrete; and this may be made evident from this consideration,—that our
bodies, being compounded of the earthy class of principles, grow warm by
the heat of the soul.

XIX. We may add, that the soul can the more easily escape from this air,