Epicurean Views Of Tusculun Disputations

Note: Sources of The Text

- Translation by C.D. Yonge (1877)
       - EpicureanFriends Handbook Copy
       - Attalus copy of this text
       - Yonge Translation PDF at Archive.org
- Translation by J. E. King as part of the Loeb series.

Welcome to Episode 271 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we begin a new series of episodes, in which we will work to improve our understanding of Epicurus by going through a book by someone who opposed Epicurean philosophy: Cicero in his work Tusculun Disputations. In this book Cicero addresses many of the greatest questions in life, and while Cicero opposes Epicurus and speaks for the Stoics or Platonists, he provides us important details about the Epicurean position on many important subjects.

Cicero considered himself to be an Academic Skeptic, and he took the position that he would rather be wrong with Plato than right with Epicurus, and he would affirm as true only those things that appeared to him to be "probable," whether or not his position was consistent with a wider theory. In fact, Cicero even calls himself to task in this book, by allowing his student to point out that Cicero had in his previous book, On Ends, said a differences between the Stoics and the Aristotelians was only a matter of words, but here in Tusculun Disputations he denied that that is a small difference, and emphasized how important the distinction was.

Tusculun Disputations was composed late in Cicero's life during times which were very dark for him personally. Cicero had just suffered the death of his daughter in childbirth, and he was working under the additional accumulated stress of two failed marriages, the loss of many of his friends in the recent civil wars, and Julius Caesar's increasing centralization of political power in Rome. Cicero comments on this by writing the following:

I will send these five books also to my friend Brutus, by whom I was not only incited to write on philosophy, but, I may say, provoked. And by so doing, it is not easy to say what service I may be of to others; at all events, in my own various and acute afflictions, which surround me on all sides, I cannot find any better comfort for myself.

We don't have to read between these lines to see that one of the major reasons Cicero was writing Tusculun Disputations was to distract himself from his troubles, and – if possible – to rise above them. It's likely for this reason that we see Cicero regularly praise the hardness of the Stoics, and praise the Stoic insistence that virtue alone is required for happiness, and that the virtuous man can always be happy regardless of his circumstances.

This struggle going on within Cicero allows us to isolate and focus on questions where Epicurean philosophy differs dramatically from the Stoic/Platonic/Aristotelian consensus.

Modern Stoics to some degree have abandoned the logical gamesmanship of the ancient Stoics, but Cicero exposes their reasoning to us in all its extremes because Cicero very much wished that it were true. He very much wished that his personal troubles could be extinguished by simply appealing to virtue so as to become indifferent to the griefs that he was experiencing.

Another aspect of Stoicism that modern Stoics frequently abandon is the dedication to "Providence" and to the ideas of "Fate" that were later adopted by Judeo-Christianity to look for something divine and good even in the worst misfortunes. Likewise in Tusculun Disputations, we see Cicero straining to accept the Stoic (and even Cyreniac) teaching that we should constantly expect misfortune, but Cicero puts little effort into looking for something good for which to thank Providence or the gods for his own troubles. Cicero clearly wants to hope for an eternal life after death, so he takes even the Stoics to task for taking the position that souls survive death only for a short time. In the end Cicero recites the Stoic and Platonic arguments with much less conviction than a devoted Stoic would expect.

Through Cicero's straining to find relief in the Stoic and Platonic doctrines, we can come to see both the fundamentals of the Platonic-Stoic worldview - and how Epicurus fought against it - with much greater clarity.

Today, it can appear hard to believe that the Platonists and Stoics took their own views seriously, and so we may fail to recognize what Epicurus was saying in responding to those arguments. Most importantly of all, Tusculun Disputations makes it clear how the Stoics were saying they could defeat pain and fear, and therefore why they denounced Epicurus so strongly for rejecting their ideas.

If we look closely at each of the five questions addressed in Tusculun Disputations, and if we look for commonalities in how these opposing schools approached these questions, we can begin to see the outline of the major difference in approach.

Let's look for that difference by examining the five questions Cicero raises, and how the opposing sides line up. To get started, let's look at the questions and how Epicurus and Cicero answered in very simple terms:

• First: Is Death An Evil? (Cicero says no, and Epicurus agrees that death is not an evil, but they have very different reasons for reaching the same conclusion.)
• Second: Is Pain An Evil? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes.)
• Third: Does the Wise Man Experience Grief and Fear? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes.)
• Fourth: Does the Wise Man Experience Joy and Desire? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes.)
• Fifth: Is Virtue Sufficient For A Happy Life? (Cicero says yes, Epicurus says no.)

Now all of these questions and answers have sublteties that must be explored. But from a very high-level view we can see the difference in approach between Epicurus and the other philosophies.

Notice that the first two questions as to death and pain are phrased in a very stark way. Most of us would immediately take the position that death and pain are both undesirable, but the schools related to Stoicism focused on whether those things were "evil," or "bad in themselves." In regard to death Epicurus could agree with Cicero that the state of being dead is not something that is in itself bad or evil, but for a very different reason than that given by Stoicism and Platonism.

Whereas Cicero acknowledges the Epicurean argument that where we are not present there can be nothing bad for us, Cicero prefers the supernatural perspective of the Stoics and Platonists, athat the soul continues to exist after death in a condition that is in fact preferable to being alive, since we are no longer held back in their opinion, and encumbered by our bodies. Epicurus, of course, spends much time arguing that it is impossible for the soul to continue to exist once separated from the body, so there is no bridging this gap between them. If Cicero, Platon, Aristotle, and the Stoics are correct, then there is a supernatural force to which we can look to preserve our souls after death, and for a better future. In the Epicurean worldview, such a perspective is nothing more than wishful thinking that has many harmful effects on how we live here and now in the time that is available to us.

When we look at the difference in regard to pain, however, the question becomes not one of fact - because pain surely exists - but one of words in the way that we categorize and react to the feeling of pain. Epicurus holds that pain is given to us by Nature as guidance on what to avoid, and Epicurus unhesitatingly characterizes pleasure as good and pain as evil.

As Cicero has previously explained in his work "On Ends," and which he explains further here in Tusculun Disputations, the Platonists and Aristotelians and Stoics are devoted to a divinely-ordered universe, and to them, that which is highest and best, just like the supernatural gods, can contain nothing that is not good. Therefore all of Cicero's answers in Tusculun Disputations in regard to pain, and grief, and even to joy and delight, which they consider to be "disruptions" or "perturbations," are viewed in context with the ultimate evaluation in which happiness comes through virtue and virtue alone.

Despite his own skepticism, Cicero is able to argue with the Stoics that Virtue alone is sufficient for a happy life. In other words, if you take the Stoic position, no matter what pain and grief and trouble you may encounter, if you are virtuous, you are happy.

The framing of this question has very great implications for how we understand Epicurus. From the hyper-logical Stoic point of view, which Cicero endorses as consistent with Platonism, being "virtuous" is an all-or-nothing proposition. If you are lacking one inch from a full mile of virtue, or happiness, you are neither virtous nor happy. You are either totally virtuous, and totally happy, or you are neither virtuous nor happy. This perspective makes the perfect the enemy of what most people would consider to be the good, and it demands that the Stoic and the Platonist never admit that the wise man will experience any amount of pain, or any amount of grief and fear, or any amount of joy or delight, to detract him from his perfect state of wisdom and virtue.

This is why Cicero and the Stoics deny that the wise man - the virtous man - will ever experience any amount of pain, or any grief, or any delight.

And this logical extremism is why the Stoics twist themselves into pretzels talking about things that are preferred, and not preferred, and about things to which they are indifferent.

In Tusculun Disputations Cicero gives us these Stoic arguments, and here - in distinction from "On Ends," Cicero tells us that even the Aristotelians did not agree with the Stoics on this, and that the Aristotelians held that there are other - external - goods which are necessary for happy living.

For us in attempting to understand the Epicurean perspective, the great benefit that will come from going through Cicero's explanation of the Stoic position is that we can now see that the Stoics were playing an extremist logical word game, and that Epicurus had already identified this, and reacted against it in the work of Plato. The worst of the Stoics did not develop their arguments until after Epicurus was already dead, but Cicero and Epicurus were right to see that the foundation of the Stoic position had already been laid by Socrates and Plato.

Cicero is more than happy to call Epicurus to his side when Epicurean arguments are of assistance, as in arguing that the state of being dead cannot possibly be a bad thing, as we are not there to experience it.

Cicero also approves of other Epicurean arguments that are hard for us to understand today, and in stating them, Cicero allows us to see how Epicurus was responding to the "all-or-nothing" argument that is inherent in any supernatural-based philosophy.

Epicurus held that death is clearly not to be desired unless in unusual circumstances, and that pain and grief and fear are not only undesirable but evil, and that virtue - while necesary for a happy life - is not sufficient for happiness.

Epicurus does this by denouncing the all-or-nothing approach, and instead, Epicurus embraces the faculty of pleasure and pain as the guidance of Nature that we must enlist toward the goal of an "overall" happy life. Epicurus never claims, therefoe, that human life can never experience even a moment of pain or grief or fear.

The best example of this is what we have from Epicurus himself, contained in his letter to Idomeneus on the last day of his life, where Epicurus claimed that he was happy even though he was suffering sharp pain from kidney disease. Epicurus argues that despite what the body would tell us about the moment, we can view our lives as he did on that day - in total - and consider past, present, and future, and that we are justified in considering ourselves to be happy whenever we have more reason for joy than for vexation – a condition in which the wise man will always find himself even in the worst circumstances.

At the end of Tusculun Disputations we even see Cicero begrudgingly admit that "even Epicurus" could hold that we can be happy in terrible circumstances. So Cicero's own difficult circumstances appear to have made him more open to Epicurus' arguments. But Cicero could never find it within himself, at least in Tusculun Disputations, to agree that the Epicurean perspective is correct.

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Today we can't do more than introduce the subject, but having set out the goal there are several more things to point out about our upcoming episodes.

First, let's see what Joshua can tell us about additional background of this work by Cicero.

[Joshua segment]

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Let me say also that in much the same way that Lucretius' poem starts each of its five sections with a discussion of background issues, before getting to the heart of each issue, Cicero starts each of his five sections of Tusculun Disputations with background commentary about philosophy, the Latin language, and other issues. There is a lot of very interesting information in these introductions, but they can be distracting unless you are the type of person who is interested in every detail, so in most cases we will not attempt to read long sections from them.

For our purposes, however, Cicero does sometimes mention Epicurus in these tangential sections, so we will bring them out as best we can without interrupting the flow of the most important issues.

Today, for example, we're going to bring you to items of interest that aren't necessarily a part of the main argument:

• First, Cicero mentions that there was a disagreement between the Epicureans and Democritus as to the soul and death, in that Democritus apparently believed that the soul continue to exist and have perception even for a period of time after the corpse had died.
• Second, Cicero disparages the style of writing that the Epicureans used, and asserted that no one but the Epicureans themselves read the written Epicurean materials.

Closing

As we close today, for those of us who are familiar with Frances Wright's "A Few Days In Athens," it's here I think where we can see how she summarized the conflict between Epicurus and the Stoics, and had her Epicurus to say of Zeno the Stoic:

"… his severe eye looks with scorn, not pity, on the follies and vices of the world. He would annihilate them, change them to their opposite virtues, or he would leave them to their full and natural sweep. ‘Be perfect, or be as you are. I allow of no degrees of virtue, so care not for the degrees of vice. Your ruin, if it must be, let it be in all its horrors, in all its vileness; let it attract no pity, no sympathy; let it be seen in all its naked deformity, and excite the full measure of its merited abhorrence and disgust.’ Thus says the sublime Zeno, who sees only man as he should be.

Thus says the mild Epicurus, who sees man as he is: — With all his weakness, all his errors, all his sins, still owning fellowship with him, still rejoicing in his welfare, and sighing over his misfortunes; I call from my gardens to the thoughtless, the headstrong, and the idle — ‘Where do ye wander, and what do ye seek? Is it pleasure? Behold it here. Is it ease? Enter and repose.’ Thus do I court them from the table of drunkenness and the bed of licentiousness: I gently awaken their sleeping faculties, and draw the veil from their understandings….

… Thus do I win their ears and their confidence. Step by step I lead them on. I lay open the mysteries of science; I expose the beauties of art; I call the graces and the muses to my aid; the song, the lyre, and the dance. Temperance presides at the repast; innocence at the festival; disgust is changed to satisfaction; listlessness to curiosity; brutality to elegance; lust gives place to love; Bacchanalian hilarity to friendship.

Tell me not, Zeno, that the teacher is vicious who washes depravity from the youthful heart; who lays the storm of its passions, and turns all its sensibilities to good. I grant that I do not look to make men great, but to make men happy. To teach them, that in the discharge of their duties as sons, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens, lies their pleasure and their interest; — and when the sublime motives of Zeno shall cease to affect an enervated generation, the gentle persuasions of Epicurus shall still be heard and obeyed."

That's all we have time for today. There's a lot more to come as we go through Tusculun Disputations, and we'll do our best to see if we can't enlist one of Cicero's most famous allegedly pro-Stoic works to bring you the full depth and superior reasoning of Epicurean philosophy.

Thanks for your time today. As always, we invite you to come to the EpicureanFriends.com forum where we discuss this an all our podcast episodes. We'll see you again soon - bye.

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Now we begin our exploration of each of the five sections of Tusculan Disputations. Cicero includes a lot of material that is interesting but not all of equal significance, so we will skip over sections that are mainly poetry or otherwise not key to the thread of the argument. We will therefore read the following sections:

1. Part 1 -On Death - Sections I-XLIX
   1. Episode 272 V - XII
   2. Episode 273 XIII -
2. Part 2 - On Bodily Pain - Sections I - XXVII
   1. Episode 273
3. Part 3 - On Mental Upset - Sections I - XXXIV
4. Part 4 - On Passions - Sections I - XXXVIII
5. Part 5 - Is Virtue Sufficient For Happiness? - Sections I - XLII

We'll begin by reviewing some of what Epicurus said about life and death:

Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality.

[125] For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. So that the man speaks but idly who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation. For that which gives no trouble when it comes is but an empty pain in anticipation. So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

[126] But the many at one moment shun death as the greatest of evils, at another (yearn for it) as a respite from the (evils) in life. (But the wise man neither seeks to escape life) nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil. And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant.

And he who counsels the young man to live well, but the old man to make a good end, is foolish, not merely because of the desirability of life, but also because it is the same training which teaches to live well and to die well. Yet much worse still is the man who says it is good not to be born but ‘once born make haste to pass the gates of Death’.

[127] For if he says this from conviction why does he not pass away out of life? For it is open to him to do so, if he had firmly made up his mind to this. But if he speaks in jest, his words are idle among men who cannot receive them.

We must then bear in mind that the future is neither ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it, as if it will certainly not come.

Next let's read Sections V through IX of Part One.

In these sections, the student raises to the teacher the proposition: "To me death seems to be an evil.

• Cicero first argues that this means that everyone is miserable, because everyone dies.
• Cicero asks his student if he believes the stories about monsters in the underworld, and the student says of course he does not.
• Cicero then argues the Epicurean position (without crediting Epicurus for it), that when we are dead we no longer exist.
• Cicero argues that principles of logic require that a thing asserted either be true or false.
• The student retreats to the position that life is made miserable by realizing that we must die.
• Cicero tells the student that if this is so, then death delivers us from a miserable life.
• Cicero cites Epicharmus, who said that "I would not die, but even so I am not concerned that I will be dead."
• The student hears this but challenges Cicero to prove that anticipating death is not miserable. Cicero says he will prove that this is so by showing that death is not only not evil, but a good.
• Cicero goes on to explain that death is the departure of the soul from the body.

TD01 - XXXI

M. The time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies. But death is so far from being an evil, as it lately appeared to you, that I am inclined to suspect, not that there is no other thing which is an evil to man, but rather that there is nothing else which is a real good to him; if, at least, it is true, that we become thereby either Gods ourselves, or companions of the Gods. However, this is not of so much consequence, as there are some of us here who will not allow this. But I will not leave off discussing this point till I have convinced you that death can, upon no consideration whatever, be an evil.

A. How can it, after what I now know?

M. Do you ask how it can? There are crowds of arguers who contradict this; and those not only Epicureans, whom I regard very little, but, some how or other, almost every man of letters; and, above all, my favourite Dicæarchus is very strenuous in opposing the immortality of the soul: for he has written three books, which are entitled Lesbiacs, because the discourse was held at Mitylene, in which he seeks to prove that souls are mortal. The Stoics, on the other hand, allow us as long a time for enjoyment as the life [pg 318] of a raven; they allow the soul to exist a great while, but are against its eternity.

Book 1

M. I perceive you have sublime thoughts, and are eager to mount up to heaven.

XXXIV. I am not without hopes myself that such may be our fate. But admit what they assert; that the soul does not continue to exist after death.

A. Should it be so, I see that we are then deprived of the hopes of a happier life.

M. But what is there of evil in that opinion? For let the soul perish as the body: is there any pain, or indeed any feeling at all in the body after death? No one, indeed, asserts that; though Epicurus charges Democritus with saying so; but the disciples of Democritus deny it. No sense, therefore, remains in the soul; for the soul is nowhere; where, then, is the evil? for there is nothing but these two things. Is it because the mere separation of the soul and body cannot be effected without pain? but even should that be granted, how small a pain must that be! Yet I think that it is false; and that it is very often unaccompanied by any sensation at all, and sometimes even attended with pleasure: but certainly the whole must be very trifling, whatever it is, for it is instantaneous. What makes us uneasy, or rather gives us pain, is the leaving all the good things of life. But just consider, if I might not more properly say, leaving the evils of life; only there is no reason for my now occupying myself in bewailing the life of man, and yet I might, with very good reason; but what occasion is there, when what I am labouring to prove is that no one is miserable after death, to make life more miserable by lamenting over it? I have done that in the book which I wrote, in order to comfort myself as well as I could. If, then, our inquiry is after truth, death withdraws us from evil, not from good. This subject is indeed so copiously handled by Hegesias, the Cyrenaic philosopher, that he is said to have been forbid by Ptolemy from delivering his lectures in the schools, because some who heard him made away with themselves. There is too, an epigram of Callimachus,69 on Cleombrotus of Ambracia; who, without any misfortune having befallen him, as he says, threw himself [pg 321] from a wall into the sea, after he had read a boot of Plato's. The book I mentioned of that Hegesias, is called Ἀποκαρτερῶν, or “A Man who starves himself,” in which a man is represented as killing himself by starvation, till he is prevented by his friends, in reply to whom he reckons up all the miseries of human life: I might do the same, though not so fully as he, who thinks it not worth any man's while to live. I pass over others. Was it even worth my while to live, for, had I died before I was deprived of the comforts of my own family, and of the honours which I received for my public services, would not death have taken me from the evils of life, rather than from its blessings?

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?

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 Aichytas and Timaeus, 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 hojje of immortality.

A. What, will you leave me when you have raised my expectations so high 1 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 Kivrpov, 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.

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 Pansetius, 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.

XX … What kind of sight do you imagine that will be, when the whole earth is laid open to our view? and that, too, not only in its position, form, and boundaries, nor those parts of it only which are habitable, but those also that lie uncultivated, through the extremities of heat and cold to which they are exposed ; for not even now is it with our eyes that we view what we see, for the body itself has no senses ; but (as the naturalists, aye, and even the physicians assure us, who have opened our bodies, and examined them), there are certain perforated channels from the seat of the soul to the eyes, ears, and nose ; so that frequently, when either prevented by meditation, or the force of some bodily disorder, we neither hear nor see, though our eyes and ears are open, and in good condition ; so that we may easily apprehend that it is the soul itself which sees and hears, and not those parts which are, as it were, but windows to the soul ; by means of which, however, she can perceive nothing, unless she is on the spot, and exerts herself. How shall we account for the fact, that by the same power of thinking we comprehend the most different things; as colour, taste, heat, smell, and sound? which the soul could never know by her five messengers, unless everything was referred to her, and she were the sole judge of all. And we shall certainly discover these things in a more clear and perfect degree when the soul is disengaged from the body, and has arrived at that goal to which nature leads her ; for at present, notwithstanding nature has contrived, with the greatest skill, those channels which lead from the body to the soul, yet are they, in some way or other, stopped up with earthy and concrete bodies ; but when we shall be nothing but soul, then nothing will interfere to prevent our seeing everything in its real substance, and in its true character.

Book 1 - III. But let us excite those, if possible, who have had a liberal education, and are masters of an elegant style, and who philosophize with reason and method.

For there is a certain class of them who would willingly be called philosophers, whose books in our language are said to be numerous, and which I do not despise, for indeed I never read them: but still because the authors themselves declare that they write without any regularity, or method, or elegance, or ornament, I do not care to read what must be so void of entertainment. There is no one in the least acquainted with literature, who does not know the style and sentiments of that school; wherefore, since they are at no pains to express themselves well, I do not see why they should be read by anybody except by one another: let them read them, if they please, who are of the same opinions: for in the same manner as all men read Plato, and the other Socratics, with those who sprung from them, even those who do not agree with their opinions, or are very indifferent about them; but scarcely any one except their own disciples, take Epicurus, or Metrodorus, into their hands; so they alone read these Latin books, who think that the arguments contained in them are sound. But, in my opinion, whatever is published, should be recommended to the reading of every man of learning; and though we may not succeed in [pg 341] this ourselves, yet nevertheless we must be sensible that this ought to be the aim of every writer. And on this account I have always been pleased with the custom of the Peripatetics, and Academics, of disputing on both sides of the question; not solely from its being the only method of discovering what is probable on every subject, but also because it affords the greatest scope for practising eloquence; a method that Aristotle first made use of, and afterward all the Aristotelians; and in our own memory Philo, whom we have often heard, appointed one time to treat of the precepts of the rhetoricians, and another for philosophical discussion, to which custom I was brought to conform by my friends at my Tusculum; and accordingly our leisure time was spent in this manner. And therefore, as yesterday before noon, we applied ourselves to speaking; and in the afternoon went down into the Academy: the discussions which were held there I have acquainted you with, not in the manner of a narration, but in almost the very same words which were employed in the debate.

Book 2 - On Bearing Pain - IV

It is not every mind which has been properly cultivated that produces fruit;—and to go on with the comparison, as a field, although it may be naturally fruitful cannot produce a crop, without dressing, so neither can the mind, without education; such is the weakness of either without the other. Whereas philosophy is the culture of the mind: this it is which plucks up vices by the roots; prepares the mind for the receiving of [pg 343] seeds, commits them to it, or, as I may say, sows them, in the hope that, when come to maturity, they may produce a plentiful harvest. Let us proceed, then, as we begun; say, if you please, what shall be the subject of our disputation.

A. I look on pain to be the greatest of all evils.

M. What, even greater than infamy?

A. I dare not indeed assert that, and I blush to think I am so soon driven from my ground.

M. You would have had greater reason for blushing had you persevered in it; for what is so unbecoming—what can appear worse to you, than disgrace, wickedness, immorality? To avoid which, what pain is there which we ought not (I will not say to avoid shirking, but even) of our own accord to encounter, and undergo, and even to court?

A. I am entirely of that opinion; but notwithstanding that pain is not the greatest evil, yet surely it is an evil.

M. Do you perceive, then, how much of the terror of pain you have given up on a small hint?

A. I see that plainly; but I should be glad to give up more of it.

M. I will endeavour to make you do so, but it is a great undertaking, and I must have a disposition on your part, which is not inclined to offer any obstacles.

A. You shall have such: for as I behaved yesterday, so now I will follow reason wherever she leads.

VI. M. First, then, I will speak of the weakness of many philosophers, and those too of various sects; the head of whom, both in authority and antiquity, was Aristippus, the pupil of Socrates, who hesitated not to say, that pain was the greatest of all evils. And after him Epicurus easily gave into this effeminate and enervated doctrine. After him Hieronymus, the Rhodian, said, that to be without pain was the chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. The rest, with the exceptions of Zeno, Aristo, Pyrrho, were pretty much of the same opinion that you were of just now, that it was indeed an evil, but that there were many worse. When then nature herself and a certain generous feeling of virtue at once prevents you from persisting in the assertion that pain is the chief evil, and when you were driven from such an opinion when disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall philosophy, the preceptress of life, cling to this idea [pg 344] for so many ages? What duty of life, what praise, what reputation would be of such consequence that a man should be desirous of gaining it at the expense of submitting to bodily pain, when he has persuaded himself that pain is the greatest evil? On the other side, what disgrace, what ignominy, would he not submit to, that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that it was the greatest of evils? Besides, what person, if it be only true that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not only when he actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it may befal him? And who is there whom pain may not befal? so that it is clear that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy. Metrodorus, indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy, whose body is free from all disorders, and who has an assurance that it will always continue so; but who is there who can be assured of that?

VII. But Epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere, that if a wise man were to be burned, or put to the torture,—you expect, perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support himself under it with resolution! he would not yield to it, and that, by Hercules! would he very commendable, and worthy of that very Hercules whom I have just invoked: but even this will not satisfy Epicurus, that robust and hardy man! No; his wise man, even if he were in Phalaris's bull, would say, How sweet it is! how little do I regard it! What sweet? is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable? But those very men who deny pain to be an evil, are not in the habit of saying that it is agreeable to any one to be tormented; they rather say, that it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would pronounce it sweet. I do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which Epicurus uses—a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no difference, if he pleases, between Phalaris's bull, and his own bed: but I cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain. If he bears it with courage, it is sufficient; that he should rejoice in it, I do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter, against nature, hard to submit to, and to bear. Observe Philoctetes: We may allow [pg 345] him to lament, for he saw Hercules himself groaning loudly through extremity of pain on mount Œta: the arrows with which Hercules presented him, were then no consolation to him, when

The viper's bite, impregnating his veins

With poison, rack'd him with its bitter pains.

And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wishing to die,

Oh! that some friendly hand its aid would lend,

My body from this rock's vast height to send

Into the briny deep! I'm all on fire,

And by this fatal wound must soon expire.

It is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this manner, was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too.

XII. But why are we angry with the poets? we may find some philosophers, those masters of virtue, who have taught that pain was the greatest of evils. But you, young man, when you said but just now that it appeared so to you, upon being asked by me what appeared greater than infamy, gave up that opinion at a word. Suppose I ask Epicurus the same question. He will answer, that a trifling degree of pain is a greater evil than the greatest infamy; for that there is no evil in infamy itself, unless attended with pain. What pain then attends Epicurus, when he says this very thing, that pain is the greatest evil; and yet nothing can be a greater disgrace to a philosopher than to talk thus. Therefore, you allowed enough when you admitted that infamy appeared to you to be a greater evil than pain. And if you abide by this admission, you will see how far pain should be resisted: and that our inquiry should be not so much whether pain be an evil; as how the mind may be fortified for resisting it. The Stoics infer from some petty quibbling arguments, that it is no evil, as if the dispute was about a word, and not about the thing itself. Why do you impose upon me, Zeno? for when you deny what appears very dreadful to me to be an evil; I am deceived, and am at a loss to know why that which appears to me to be a most miserable thing, should be no evil. The answer is, that nothing is an evil but what is base and vicious. You return to your trifling, for you do not remove what made me uneasy. I know that pain is not vice,—you need not inform me of that: but show me, that it makes no difference to me whether I am in pain or not. It has never anything to do, say you, with a happy life, for that depends upon virtue alone; but yet pain is to be avoided. If I ask, why? it is disagreeable, against nature, hard to bear, woful and afflicting.

XIX. You may inquire, perhaps, how? and such an inquiry is not amiss, for philosophy is ready with her assistance. Epicurus offers himself to you, a man far from a bad, or, I should rather say, a very good man; he advises no more than he knows. “Despise pain,” says he. Who is it saith this? Is it the same man who calls pain the greatest of all evils? It is not, indeed, very consistent in him. Let us hear what he says:—“If the pain is excessive it must needs be short.” I must have that over again, for I do not apprehend what you mean exactly by “excessive” or “short.” That is excessive, than which nothing can be greater; that is short, than which nothing is shorter. I do not regard the greatness of any pain from which, by reason of the shortness of its continuance, I shall be delivered almost before it [pg 355] reaches me. But, if the pain be as great as that of Philoctetes, it will appear great indeed to me, but yet not the greatest that I am capable of bearing; for the pain is confined to my foot: but my eye may pain me, I may have a pain in the head, or sides, or lungs, or in every part of me. It is far, then, from being excessive; therefore, says he, pain of a long continuance has more pleasure in it than uneasiness. Now I cannot bring myself to say so great a man talks nonsense; but I imagine he is laughing at us. My opinion is that the greatest pain (I say the greatest, though it may be ten atoms less than another) is not therefore short, because acute; I could name to you a great many good men who have been tormented many years with the acutest pains of the gout. But this cautious man doth not determine the measure of that greatness or of duration, so as to enable us to know what he calls excessive, with regard to pain, or short, with respect to its continuance. Let us pass him by, then, as one who says just nothing at all; and let us force him to acknowledge, notwithstanding he might behave himself somewhat boldly under his cholic and his strangury, that no remedy against pain can be had from him who looks on pain as the greatest of all evils. We must apply, then, for relief elsewhere, and nowhere better (if we seek for what is most consistent with itself) than to those who place the chief good in honesty, and the greatest evil in infamy. You dare not so much as groan, or discover the least uneasiness in their company, for virtue itself speaks to you through them.

Book 3 - On Grief Of Mind - XIII.

Do you, then, think that it can befall a wise man to be oppressed with grief, that is to say, with misery? for, as all perturbation is misery, grief is the rack itself. Lust is attended with heat, exulting joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not so divest ourselves of it as to throw it completely off, we cannot be free from misery. And it is clear that there must be grief where anything has the appearance of a present sore and oppressing evil. Epicurus is of opinion, that grief arises naturally from the imagination of any evil; so that whosoever is eye-witness of any great misfortune, if he conceives that the like may possibly befall himself, becomes sad instantly from such an idea. The Cyrenaics think that grief is not engendered by every kind of evil, but only by unexpected, unforeseen evil; and that circumstance is, indeed, of no small effect on the heightening of grief; for whatsoever comes of a sudden appears more formidable. Hence these lines are deservedly commended—

I knew my son, when first he drew his breath,

Destined by fate to an untimely death;

And when I sent him to defend the Greeks,

War was his business, not your sportive freaks.

Book 3 - On Grief of Mind - XV.

Therefore, as Terence has so well expressed what he borrowed from philosophy, shall not we, from whose fountains he drew it, say the same thing in a better manner, and abide by it with more steadiness? Hence came that steady countenance, which, according to Xantippe, her husband Socrates always had; so that she said that she never observed any difference in his looks when he went out, and when he came home. Yet the look of that old Roman, M. Crassus, who, as Lucilius says, never smiled but once in his lifetime, was not of this kind, but placid and serene, for so we are told. He, indeed, might well have had the same look at all times who never changed his mind, from which the countenance derives its expression. So that I am ready to borrow of the Cyrenaics those arms against the accidents and events of life, by means of which, by long premeditation, they break the force of all approaching evils; and at the same time, I think that those very evils themselves arise more from opinion than nature, for, if they were real, no forecast could make them lighter. But I shall speak more particularly on these matters after I have first considered Epicurus's opinion, who thinks that all people must necessarily be uneasy who believe themselves to be in any evils, let them be either foreseen and expected, or habitual to them; for, with him, evils are not the less by reason of their continuance, nor the lighter for having been foreseen; and it is folly to ruminate on evils to come, or such as, perhaps, never may come; every evil is disagreeable enough when it does come; but he who is constantly considering that some evil may befal him, is loading himself with a perpetual evil, and even should such evil never light on him, he voluntarily takes upon himself unnecessary misery, so that he is under constant uneasiness, whether he actually suffers any evil, or only thinks of it. But he makes the alleviation of grief depend on two things, a ceasing to think on evil, and a turning to the contemplation of pleasure. For he thinks that the mind may possibly be under the power of reason, and follow her directions; he forbids us, therefore, to mind trouble, and calls us off from sorrowful reflections: he throws a mist over our eyes to hinder us from the contemplation of misery. Having sounded a retreat from this statement, he drives our thoughts on again, and encourages them to view and engage the whole mind in the various pleasures with which he thinks the life of a wise man abounds, either from reflecting on the past, or from the hope of what is to come. I have said these things in my own way, the Epicureans have theirs: however, let us examine what they say; how they say it is of little consequence.

XVI. In the first place, they are wrong in forbidding men to premeditate on futurity, and blaming their wish to do so; for there is nothing that breaks the edge of grief and lightens it more, than considering, during one's whole life, that there is nothing which it is impossible should happen; or, than considering what human nature is, on what conditions life was given, and how we may comply with them. The effect of which is, that we are always grieving, but that we never do so; for whoever reflects on the nature of things, the various turns of life, and the weakness of human nature, grieves, indeed, at that reflection; but while so grieving he is, above all other times, behaving as a wise man: for he gains these two things by it; one, that while he is considering the state of human nature he is performing the especial duties of philosophy, and is provided with a triple medicine against adversity: in the first place, because he has long reflected that such things might befal him, and this reflection by itself contributes much towards lessening and weakening all misfortunes; and, secondly, because he is persuaded that we should bear all the accidents which can happen to a man, with the feelings and spirit of a man; and lastly, because he considers that what is blameable is the only evil; but it is not your fault that something has happened to you which it was impossible for man to avoid. For that withdrawing of our thoughts which he recommends when he calls us off from contemplating our misfortunes, is an imaginary action; for it is not in our power to dissemble or to forget those evils which lie heavy on us; they tear, vex, and sting us—they burn us up, and leave no breathing-time; and do you order us to forget them, (for such forgetfulness is contrary to nature,) and at the same time deprive us of the only assistance which nature affords, the being accustomed to them? for that, though it is but a slow medicine (I mean that which is brought by lapse of time), is still a very effectual one. You order me to employ my thoughts on something good, and forget my misfortunes. You would say something worthy a great philosopher, if you thought those things good which are best suited to the dignity of human nature.

XVII. Should Pythagoras, Socrates, or Plato, say to me, Why are you dejected, or sad? Why do you faint, and yield to fortune, which, perhaps, may have power to harass and disturb you, but should not quite unman you? There is great power in the virtues; rouse them if they chance to droop. Take fortitude for your guide, which will give you such spirits, that you will despise everything that can befal man, and look on it as a trifle. Add to this temperance, which is moderation, and which was just now called frugality, which will not suffer you to do anything base or bad—for what is worse or baser than an effeminate man? Not even justice will suffer you to act in this manner, though she seems to have the least weight in this affair; but still, notwithstanding, even she will inform you that you are doubly unjust when you both require what does not belong to you, inasmuch as though you who have been born mortal, demand to be placed in the condition of the immortals, and at the same time you take it much to heart that you are to restore what was lent you. What answer will you make to prudence, who informs you that she is a virtue sufficient of herself both to teach you a good life, and also to secure you a happy one? And, indeed, if she were fettered by external circumstances, and dependent on others, and if she did not originate in herself and return to herself, and also embrace everything in herself, so as to seek no adventitious aid from any quarter, I cannot imagine why she should appear deserving of such lofty panegyrics, or of being sought after with such excessive eagerness. Now, Epicurus, if you call me back to such goods as these, I will obey you, and follow you, and use you as my guide, and even forget, as you order me, all my misfortunes; and I will do this the more readily from a persuasion that they are not to be ranked amongst evils at all. But you are for bringing my thoughts over to pleasure. What pleasures? pleasures of the body, I imagine, or such as are recollected or imagined on account of the body. Is this all? Do I explain your opinion rightly? for your disciples are used to deny that we understand at all what Epicurus means. This is what he says, and what that subtle fellow, old Zeno, who is one of the sharpest of them, used, when I was attending lectures at Athens, to enforce and talk so loudly of; saying that he alone was happy who could enjoy present pleasure, and who was at the same time persuaded that he should enjoy it without pain, either during the whole or the greatest part of his life; or if, should any pain interfere, if it was very sharp, then it must be short; should it be of longer continuance, it would have more of what was sweet than bitter in it; that whosoever reflected on these things would be happy, especially if satisfied with the good things which he had already enjoyed, and if he were without fear of death, or of the Gods.

XVIII. You have here a representation of a happy life according to Epicurus, in the words of Zeno, so that there is no room for contradiction in any point. What then? Can [pg 380] the proposing and thinking of such a life make Thyestes grief the less, or Æetes's, of whom I spoke above, or Telamon's, who was driven from his country to penury and banishment? in wonder at whom men exclaimed thus:—

Is this the man surpassing glory raised?

Is this that Telamon so highly praised

By wondering Greece, at whose sight, like the sun,

All others with diminish'd lustre shone?

Now, should any one, as the same author says, find his spirits sink with the loss of his fortune, he must apply to those grave philosophers of antiquity for relief, and not to these voluptuaries: for what great abundance of good do they promise? Suppose that we allow that to be without pain is the chief good? yet that is not called pleasure. But it is not necessary at present to go through the whole: the question is, to what point are we to advance in order to abate our grief? Grant that to be in pain is the greatest evil; whosoever, then, has proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he, therefore, in immediate possession of the greatest good? Why, Epicurus, do we use any evasions, and not allow in our own words the same feeling to be pleasure, which you are used to boast of with such assurance? Are these your words or not? This is what you say in that book which contains all the doctrine of your school; for I will perform, on this occasion, the office of a translator, lest any one should imagine that I am inventing anything. Thus you speak: “Nor can I form any notion of the chief good, abstracted from those pleasures which are perceived by taste, or from what depends on hearing music, or abstracted from ideas raised by external objects visible to the eye, or by agreeable motions, or from those other pleasures which are perceived by the whole man by means of any of his senses; nor can it possibly be said that the pleasures of the mind are excited only by what is good; for I have perceived men's minds to be pleased with the hopes of enjoying those things which I mentioned above, and with the idea that it should enjoy them without any interruption from pain.” And these are his exact words, so that any one may understand what were the pleasures with which Epicurus was acquainted. Then he speaks thus, a little lower down: “I have often inquired of those who have been called wise men, what would be the [pg 381] remaining good if they should exclude from consideration all these pleasures, unless they meant to give us nothing but words? I could never learn anything from them; and unless they choose that all virtue and wisdom should vanish and come to nothing, they must say with me, that the only road to happiness lies through those pleasures which I mentioned above.” What follows is much the same, and his whole book on the chief good everywhere abounds with the same opinions. Will you, then, invite Telamon to this kind of life to ease his grief? and should you observe any one of your friends under affliction, would you rather prescribe him a sturgeon than a treatise of Socrates? or advise him to listen to the music of a water-organ rather than to Plato? or lay before him the beauty and variety of some garden, put a nosegay to his nose, burn perfumes before him, and bid him crown himself with a garland of roses and woodbines? Should you add one thing more, you would certainly wipe out all his grief.

XIX. Epicurus must admit these arguments; or he must take out of his book what I just now said was a literal translation; or rather he must destroy his whole book, for it is crammed full of pleasures. We must inquire, then, how we can ease him of his grief, who speaks in this manner:—

My present state proceeds from fortune's stings;

By birth I boast of a descent from kings;

Hence may you see from what a noble height

I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight.

What! to ease his grief, must we mix him a cup of sweet wine, or something of that kind? Lo! the same poet presents us with another sentiment somewhere else:—

I, Hector, once so great, now claim your aid.

We should assist her, for she looks out for help.

Where shall I now apply, where seek support?

Where hence betake me, or to whom resort?

No means remain of comfort or of joy,

In flames my palace, and in ruins Troy;

Each wall, so late superb, deformed nods,

And not an altar's left t' appease the gods.

You know what should follow, and particularly this:—

Of father, country, and of friends bereft,

Not one of all these sumptuous temples left;

Which, whilst the fortune of our house did stand,

With rich-wrought ceilings spoke the artist's hand.

O excellent poet! though despised by those who sing the verses of Euphorion. He is sensible that all things which come on a sudden are harder to be borne. Therefore, when he had set off the riches of Priam to the best advantage, which had the appearance of a long continuance, what does he add?—

Lo, these all perish'd in one blazing pile;

The foe old Priam of his life beguiled,

And with his blood, thy altar, Jove, defiled.

Admirable poetry! There is something mournful in the subject, as well as in the words and measure. We must drive away this grief of her's: how is that to be done? Shall we lay her on a bed of down: introduce a singer; shall we burn cedar, or present her with some pleasant liquor, and provide her something to eat? Are these the good things which remove the most afflicting grief? for you but just now said you knew of no other good. I should agree with Epicurus that we ought to be called off from grief to contemplate good things, if we could only agree upon what was good.

XX. It may be said, What! do you imagine Epicurus really meant this, and that he maintained anything so sensual? Indeed I do not imagine so, for I am sensible that he has uttered many excellent things and sentiments, and delivered maxims of great weight. Therefore, as I said before, I am speaking of his acuteness, not of his morals. Though he should hold those pleasures in contempt, which he just now commended, yet I must remember wherein he places the chief good. For he was not contented with barely saying this, but he has explained what he meant: he says, that taste, and embraces, and sports, and music, and those forms which affect the eyes with pleasure, are the chief good. Have I invented this? have I misrepresented him? I should be glad to be confuted; for what am I endeavouring at, but to clear up truth in every question? Well, but the same man says, that pleasure is at its height where pain ceases, and that to be free from all pain is the very greatest pleasure. Here are three very great mistakes in a very few words. One is, that he contradicts himself; for, but just now, he could not imagine anything good, unless the senses were in a manner tickled with some pleasure; but [pg 383] now he says that to be free from pain is the highest pleasure. Can any one contradict himself more? The next mistake is, that where there is naturally a threefold division, the first, to be pleased; next, to be in pain; the last, to be affected neither by pleasure nor pain: he imagines the first and the last to be the same, and makes no difference betwixt pleasure and a cessation of pain. The last mistake he falls into in common with some others; which is this: that as virtue is the most desirable thing, and as philosophy has been investigated with a view to the attainment of it, he has separated the chief good from virtue. But he commends virtue, and that frequently; and indeed C. Gracchus, when he had made the largest distributions of the public money, and had exhausted the treasury, nevertheless spoke much of defending the treasury. What signifies what men say, when we see what they do? That Piso, who was surnamed Frugal, had always harangued against the law that was proposed for distributing the corn, but when it had passed, though a man of consular dignity, he came to receive the corn. Gracchus observed Piso standing in the court, and asked him, in the hearing of the people, how it was consistent for him to take corn by a law he had himself opposed? “It was,” said he, “against your distributing my goods to every man as you thought proper; but, as you do so, I claim my share.” Did not this grave and wise man sufficiently show that the public revenue was dissipated by the Sempronian law? Read Gracchus's speeches, and you will pronounce him the advocate of the treasury. Epicurus denies that any one can live pleasantly who does not lead a life of virtue; he denies that fortune has any power over a wise man: he prefers a spare diet to great plenty, and maintains that a wise man is always happy. All these things become a philosopher to say, but they are not consistent with pleasure. But the reply is, that he doth not mean that pleasure: let him mean any pleasure, it must be such a one as makes no part of virtue. But suppose we are mistaken as to his pleasure, are we so too as to his pain? I maintain therefore the impropriety of language which that man uses when talking of virtue, who would measure every great evil by pain?

XXI. And indeed the Epicureans, those best of men, for there is no order of men more innocent, complain, that I take great pains to inveigh against Epicurus. We are rivals, I suppose, for some honour or distinction. I place the chief good in the mind, he in the body; I in virtue, he in pleasure; and the Epicureans are up in arms, and implore the assistance of their neighbours, and many are ready to fly to their aid. But, as for my part, I declare that I am very indifferent about the matter, and that I consider the whole discussion which they are so anxious about at an end. For what! is the contention about the Punic war? on which very subject, though M. Cato and L. Lentulus were of different opinions, still there was no difference betwixt them. But these men behave with too much heat, especially as the opinions which they would uphold are no very spirited ones, and such as they dare not plead for either in the senate, or before the assembly of the people, or before the army, or the censors: but, however, I will argue with them another time, and with such a disposition that no quarrel shall arise between us; for I shall be ready to yield to their opinions when founded on truth. Only I must give them this advice: That were it ever so true, that a wise man regards nothing but the body; or, to express myself with more decency, never does anything except what is expedient, and views all things with exclusive reference to his own advantage; as such things are not very commendable, they should confine them to their own breasts, and leave off talking with that parade of them.

XXII. What remains is the opinion of the Cyrenaics, who think that men grieve when anything happens unexpectedly. And that is, indeed, as I said before, a great aggravation of a misfortune; and I know that it appeared so to Chrysippus, “Whatever falls out unexpected is so much the heavier.” But the whole question does not turn on this; though the sudden approach of an enemy sometimes occasions more confusion than it would if you had expected him, and a sudden storm at sea throws the sailors into a greater fright than one which they have foreseen; and it is the same in many other cases. But when you carefully consider the nature of what was expected, you will find nothing more, than that all things which come on a sudden appear greater; and this upon two accounts: first of all, because you have not time to consider how great the accident is; and secondly, because you are probably persuaded that you could have [pg 385] guarded against it had you foreseen it, and therefore the misfortune, having been seemingly encountered by your own fault, makes your grief the greater. That it is so, time evinces; which, as it advances, brings with it so much mitigation, that though the same misfortunes continue, the grief not only becomes the less, but in some cases is entirely removed. Many Carthaginians were slaves at Rome, and many Macedonians when Perseus their king was taken prisoner. I saw, too, when I was a young man, some Corinthians in the Peloponnesus. They might all have lamented with Andromache,—

All these I saw…;

but they had perhaps given over lamenting themselves, for by their countenances, and speech, and other gestures, you might have taken them for Argives or Sicyonians. And I myself was more concerned at the ruined walls of Corinth, than the Corinthians themselves were, whose minds by frequent reflection and time had become callous to such sights. I have read a book of Clitomachus, which he sent to his fellow-citizens, who were prisoners, to comfort them after the destruction of Carthage; there is in it a treatise written by Carneades, which, as Clitomachus says, he had inserted into his book; the subject was, “That it appeared probable that a wise man would grieve at the state of subjection of his country,” and all the arguments which Carneades used against this proposition are set down in the book. There the philosopher applies such a strong medicine to a fresh grief, as would be quite unnecessary in one of any continuance; nor, if this very book had been sent to the captives some years after, would it have found any wounds to cure, but only scars; for grief, by a gentle progress and slow degrees, wears away imperceptibly. Not that the circumstances which gave rise to it are altered, or can be, but that custom teaches what reason should, that those things which before seemed to be of some consequence, are of no such great importance after all.

XXXII. But the principal medicine to be applied in consolation, is to maintain either that it is no evil at all, or a very inconsiderable one: the next best to that is, to speak of the common condition of life, having a view, if possible, to the state of the person whom you comfort particularly. The third is, that it is folly to wear oneself out with grief which can avail nothing. For the comfort of Cleanthes is suitable only for a wise man, who is in no need of any comfort at all; for could you persuade one in grief, that nothing is an evil but what is base, you would not only cure him of grief, but folly. But the time for such precepts is not well chosen. Besides, Cleanthes does not seem to me sufficiently aware that affliction may very often proceed from that very thing which he himself allows to be the greatest misfortune. For what shall we say? When Socrates had convinced Alcibiades, as we are told, that he had no distinctive qualifications as a man different from other people, and that in fact there was no difference betwixt him, though a man of the highest rank, and a porter; and when Alcibiades became uneasy at this, and entreated Socrates, with tears in his eyes, to make him a man of virtue, and to cure him of that mean position; what shall we say to this, Cleanthes? Was there no evil in what afflicted Alcibiades thus? What strange things does Lycon say? who, making light of grief, says that it arises from trifles, from things that affect our fortune or bodies, not from the evils of the mind. What, then—did not the grief of Alcibiades proceed from the defects and evils of the mind? I have already said enough of Epicurus's consolation.

XXXIII. Nor is that consolation much to be relied on, though it is frequently practised, and sometimes has some effect, namely, “That you are not alone in this.” — It has its effect, as I said, but not always, nor with every person; for some reject it, but much depends on the application of it; for you ought rather to show, not how men in general have been affected with such evils, but how men of sense have borne them. As to Chrysippus's method, it is certainly founded in truth; but it is difficult to apply it in time of distress. It is a work of no small difficulty to persuade a person in affliction that he grieves, merely because he thinks it right so to do. Certainly then, as in pleadings we do not state all cases alike, (if I may adopt the language of lawyers for a moment,) but adapt what we have to say to the time, to the nature of the subject under debate, and to the person; so too in alleviating grief, regard should be had to what kind of cure the party to be comforted can admit of. But, somehow or other, we have rambled from what you originally proposed. For your question was concerning a wise man, with whom nothing can [pg 397] have the appearance of evil, that is not dishonourable: or at least, anything else would seem so small an evil, that by his wisdom he would so over-match it, as to make it wholly disappear; and such a man makes no addition to his grief through opinion, and never conceives it right to torment himself above measure, nor to wear himself out with grief, which is the meanest thing imaginable. Reason, however, it seems, has demonstrated, (though it was not directly our object at the moment to inquire whether anything can be called an evil except what is base,) that it is in our power to discern, that all the evil which there is in affliction has nothing natural in it, but is contracted by our own voluntary judgment of it, and the error of opinion.

XXXIV. But the kind of affliction of which I have treated is that which is the greatest; in order that when we have once got rid of that, it may appear a business of less consequence to look after remedies for the others. For there are certain things which are usually said about poverty; and also certain statements ordinarily applied to retired and undistinguished life. There are particular treatises on banishment, on the ruin of one's country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, and on every incident that can come under the name of an evil. The Greeks divide these into different treatises and distinct books: but they do it for the sake of employment: not but that all such discussions are full of entertainment; and yet, as physicians, in curing the whole body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief in general, (still if any other deficiency exists, should poverty bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those things which I have just mentioned appear,)—there is for each its appropriate consolation: which you shall hear whenever you please. But we must have recourse again to the same original principle, that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve, when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so. When then we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, [pg 398] some slight pricking will still remain. They may indeed call this natural, provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom. But how various, and how bitter, are the roots of grief! Whatever they are, I propose, after having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up. But the principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. The Stoics define all these different feelings, and all those words which I have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as I shall make appear perhaps in another place. These are those fibres of the roots, which, as I said at first, must be traced back and cut off, and destroyed, so that not one shall remain. You say it is a great and difficult undertaking:—who denies it? But what is there of any excellency which has not its difficulty?—Yet philosophy undertakes to effect it, provided we admit its superintendence. But enough of this: the other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here, or any where else.

Book 4 - On Other Perturbations of the Mind

XXXIII. However, we may allow the poets to trifle, in whose fables we see Jupiter himself engaged in these debaucheries: but let us apply to the masters of virtue, — the philosophers who deny love to be anything carnal; and in this they differ from Epicurus, who, I think, is not much mistaken. For what is that lore of friendship? How comes it that no one is in love with a deformed young man, or a handsome old one? I am of opinion that this love of men had its rise from the Gymnastics of the Greeks, where these kinds of loves are admissible and permitted; therefore Ennius spoke well:—

The censure of this crime to those is due,

Who naked bodies first exposed to view.

Now, supposing them chaste, which I think is hardly possible, they are uneasy and distressed, and the more so because they contain and refrain themselves. But, to pass over the [pg 427] love of women, where nature has allowed more liberty, who can misunderstand the poets in their rape of Ganymede, or not apprehend what Laius says, and what he desires, in Euripides? Lastly, what have the principal poets and the most learned men published of themselves in their poems and songs? What doth Alcæus, who was distinguished in his own republic for his bravery, write on the love of young men? and as for Anacreon's poetry, it is wholly on love. But Ibycus of Rhegium appears, from his writings, to have had this love stronger on him than all the rest.

Book 5 - On Whether Virtue Alone Be Sufficient For A Happy Life

IX. This is the point which Theophrastus was unable to maintain: for after he had once laid down the position, that stripes, torments, tortures, the ruin of one's country, banishment, the loss of children, had great influence on men's living miserably and unhappily, he durst not any longer use any high and lofty expressions, when he was so low and abject in his opinion. How right he was is not the question; he certainly was consistent. Therefore I am not for objecting to consequences where the premises are admitted. But this most elegant and learned of all the philosophers, is not taken to task very severely when he asserts his three kinds of good; but he is attacked by every one for that book which he wrote on a happy life, in which book he has many arguments, why one who is tortured and racked cannot be happy. For in that book he is supposed to say, that a man who is placed on the wheel, (that is a kind of torture in use among the Greeks,) cannot attain to a completely happy life. He nowhere, indeed, says so absolutely, but what he says amounts to the same thing. Can I, then, find fault with him; after having allowed, that pains of the body are evils, that the ruin of a man's fortunes is an evil, if he should say that every good [pg 441] man is not happy, when all those things which he reckons as evils may befal a good man? The same Theophrastus is found fault with by all the books and schools of the philosophers, for commending that sentence in his Callisthenes:

Fortune, not wisdom, rules the life of man.

They say, never did philosopher assert anything so languid. They are right, indeed, in that: but I do not apprehend anything could be more consistent: for if there are so many good things that depend on the body, and so many foreign to it that depend on chance and fortune, is it inconsistent to say that fortune, which governs everything, both what is foreign and what belongs to the body, has greater power than counsel. Or would we rather imitate Epicurus? who is often excellent in many things which he speaks, but quite indifferent how consistent he may be, or how much to the purpose he is speaking. He commends spare diet, and in that he speaks as a philosopher; but it is for Socrates or Antisthenes to say so, and not for one who confines all good to pleasure. He denies that any one can live pleasantly unless he lives honestly, wisely, and justly. Nothing is more dignified than this assertion, nothing more becoming a philosopher, had he not measured this very expression of living honestly, justly, and wisely, by pleasure. What could be better than to assert that fortune interferes but little with a wise man? But does he talk thus, who after he has said that pain is the greatest evil, or the only evil, might himself be afflicted with the sharpest pains all over his body, even at the time he is vaunting himself the most against fortune? And this very thing, too, Metrodorus has said, but in better language: “I have anticipated you, Fortune; I have caught you, and cut off every access, so that you cannot possibly reach me.” This would be excellent in the mouth of Aristo the Chian, or Zeno the Stoic, who held nothing to be an evil but what was base; but for you, Metrodorus, to anticipate the approaches of fortune, who confine all that is good to your bowels and marrow,—for you to say so, who define the chief good by a strong constitution of body, and a well assured hope of its continuance,—for you to cut off every access of fortune? Why, you may instantly be deprived of that good. Yet the simple are taken with these propositions, and a vast crowd is led away by such sentences to become their followers.

X. But it is the duty of one who would argue accurately, to consider not what is said, but what is said consistently. As in that very opinion which we have adopted in this discussion, namely, that every good man is always happy; it is clear what I mean by good men: I call those both wise and good men, who are provided and adorned with every virtue. Let us see, then, who are to be called happy. I imagine, indeed, that those men are to be called so, who are possessed of good without any alloy of evil: nor is there any other notion connected with the word that expresses happiness, but an absolute enjoyment of good without any evil. Virtue cannot attain this, if there is anything good besides itself: for a crowd of evils would present themselves, if we were to allow poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss of friends, acute pains of the body, the loss of health, weakness, blindness, the ruin of one's country, banishment, slavery, to be evils: for a wise man may be afflicted by all these evils, numerous and important as they are, and many others also may be added; for they are brought on by chance, which may attack a wise man: but if these things are evils, who can maintain that a wise man is always happy, when all these evils may light on him at the same time? I therefore do not easily agree with my friend Brutus, nor with our common masters, nor those ancient ones, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, who reckon all that I have mentioned above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man is always happy; nor can I allow them, because they are charmed with this beautiful and illustrious title, which would very well become Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, to persuade my mind, that strength, health, beauty, riches, honours, power, with the beauty of which they are ravished, are contemptible, and that all those things which are the opposites of these are not to be regarded. Then might they declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multitude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasion them any apprehensions; and that they have everything within themselves, and that there is nothing whatever which they consider as good but what is within their own power. Nor can I by any means allow the same person, who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and evil, to make use of these expressions, which can only become a great and exalted man. Struck with which glory, up starts [pg 443] Epicurus, who, with submission to the Gods, thinks a wise man always happy. He is much charmed with the dignity of this opinion, but he never would have owned that, had he attended to himself: for what is there more inconsistent, than for one who could say that pain was the greatest or the only evil, to think also that a wise man can possibly say in the midst of his torture, How sweet is this! We are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking.

XXVI. A. What, when in torments and on the rack?

M. Do you imagine I am speaking of him as laid on roses and violets? Is it allowable even for Epicurus (who only puts on the appearance of being a philosopher, and who himself assumed that name for himself,) to say, (though as matters stand, I commend him for his saying,) that a wise man might at all times cry out, though he be burned, tortured, cut to pieces, “How little I regard it!” Shall this be said by one who defines all evil as pain, and measures every good by pleasure; who could ridicule whatever we call either honourable or base, and could declare of us that we were employed about words, and uttering mere empty sounds; and that nothing is to be regarded by us, but as it is perceived to be smooth or rough by the body? What, shall such a man as this, as I said, whose understanding is little superior to the beasts, be at liberty to forget himself; and not only to despise fortune, when the whole of his good and evil is in the power of fortune, but to say, that he is happy in the most racking torture, when he had actually declared pain to be not only [pg 458] the greatest evil, but the only one? Nor did he take any trouble to provide himself with those remedies which might have enabled him to bear pain; such as firmness of mind, a shame of doing anything base, exercise, and the habit of patience, precepts of courage, and a manly hardiness: but he says that he supports himself on the single recollection of past pleasures, as if any one, when the weather was so hot as that he was scarcely able to bear it, should comfort himself by recollecting that he was once in my country Arpinum, where he was surrounded on every side by cooling streams: for I do not apprehend how past pleasures can allay present evils. But when he says that a wise man is always happy, who would have no right to say so if he were consistent with himself, what may they not do, who allow nothing to be desirable, nothing to be looked on as good but what is honourable? Let, then, the Peripatetics and old Academics follow my example, and at length leave off muttering to themselves; and openly and with a clear voice let them be bold to say, that a happy life may not be inconsistent with the agonies of Phalaris's bull.

XXX. These then are the opinions, as I think, that are held and defended: the first four are simple ones; “that nothing is good but what is honest,” according to the Stoics: "nothing good but pleasure," as Epicurus maintains: “nothing good but a freedom from pain,” as Hieronymus111 asserts: “nothing good but an enjoyment of the principal, or all, or the greatest goods of nature,” as Carneades maintained against the Stoics:—these are simple, the others are mixed propositions. Then there are three kinds of goods; the greatest being those of the mind, the next best those of the body, the third are external goods, as the Peripatetics call them, and the old Academics differ very little from them. Dinomachus112 and Callipho113 have coupled pleasure with honesty: but Diodorus,114 the Peripatetic, has joined indolence to honesty. These are the opinions that have some footing; for those of Aristo,115 Pyrrho,116 Herillus,117 and of some others, are quite out [pg 462] of date. Now let us see what weight these men have in them, excepting the Stoics, whose opinion I think I have sufficiently defended; and indeed I have explained what the Peripatetics have to say; excepting that Theophrastus, and those who followed him, dread and abhor pain in too weak a manner. The others may go on to exaggerate the gravity and dignity of virtue, as usual; and then, after they have extolled it to the skies, with the usual extravagance of good orators, it is easy to reduce the other topics to nothing by comparison, and to hold them up to contempt. They who think that praise deserves to be sought after, even at the expense of pain, are not at liberty to deny those men to be happy, who have obtained it. Though they may be under some evils, yet this name of happy has a very wide application.

XXXI. For even as trading is said to be lucrative, and farming advantageous, not because the one never meets with any loss, nor the other with any damage from the inclemency of the weather, but because they succeed in general: so life may be properly called happy, not from its being entirely made up of good things, but because it abounds with these to a great and considerable degree. By this way of reasoning, then, a happy life may attend virtue even to the moment of execution; nay, may descend with her into Phalaris's bull, according to Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, Polemon; and will not be gained over by any allurements to forsake her. Of the same opinion will Calliphon and Diodorus be: for they are both of them such friends to virtue, as to think that all things should be discarded and far removed that are incompatible with it. The rest seem to be more hampered with these doctrines, but yet they get clear of them; such as Epicurus, Hieronymus, and whoever else thinks it worth while to defend the deserted Carneades: for there is not one of them who does not think the mind to be judge of those goods, and able sufficiently to instruct him how to despise what has the appearance only of good or evil. For what seems to you to be the case with Epicurus, is the case also with Hieronymus and Carneades, and indeed with all the rest of them: for who is there who is not sufficiently prepared against death and pain? I will begin, with your leave, with him whom we call soft and voluptuous. What! does he seem to you to be afraid of death or pain, when he calls the day of [pg 463] his death happy; and who, when he is afflicted by the greatest pains, silences them all by recollecting arguments of his own discovering? And this is not done in such a manner as to give room for imagining that he talks thus wildly from some sudden impulse: but his opinion of death is, that on the dissolution of the animal, all sense is lost; and what is deprived of sense is, as he thinks, what we have no concern at all with. And as to pain too, he has certain rules to follow then: if it be great, the comfort is, that it must be short; if it be of long continuance, then it must be supportable. What then? Do those grandiloquent gentlemen state anything better than Epicurus, in opposition to these two things which distress us the most? And as to other things, do not Epicurus and the rest of the philosophers seem sufficiently prepared? Who is there who does not dread poverty? And yet no true philosopher ever can dread it.

XXXIII. You see, I imagine, how Epicurus has divided his kinds of desires, not very acutely perhaps, but yet usefully: saying, that they are “partly natural and necessary; partly natural, but not necessary; partly neither. That those which are necessary may be supplied almost for nothing; for that the things which nature requires are easily obtained.” As to the second kind of desires, his opinion is, that any one may easily either enjoy or go without them. And with regard to the third, since they are utterly frivolous, being neither allied to necessity nor nature, he thinks that they should be entirely rooted out. On this topic a great many arguments are adduced by the Epicureans; and those pleasures which they do not despise in a body, they disparage one by one, and seem rather for lessening the number of them: for as to wanton pleasures, on which subject they say a great deal, these, say they, are easy, common, and within any one's reach; and they think that if nature requires them, they are not to be estimated by birth, condition, or rank, but by shape, age, and person: and that it is by no means difficult [pg 465] to refrain from them, should health, duty, or reputation require it; but that pleasures of this kind may be desirable, where they are attended with no inconvenience, but can never be of any use. And the assertions which Epicurus makes with respect to the whole of pleasure, are such as show his opinion to be that pleasure is always desirable, and to be pursued merely because it is pleasure; and for the same reason pain is to be avoided, because it is pain. So that a wise man will always adopt such a system of counterbalancing as to do himself the justice to avoid pleasure, should pain ensue from it in too great a proportion; and will submit to pain, provided the effects of it are to produce a greater pleasure: so that all pleasurable things, though the corporeal senses are the judges of them, are still to be referred to the mind, on which account the body rejoices, whilst it perceives a present pleasure; but that the mind not only perceives the present as well as the body, but foresees it, while it is coming, and even when it is past will not let it quite slip away. So that a wise man enjoys a continual series of pleasures, uniting the expectation of future pleasure to the recollection of what he has already tasted. The like notions are applied by them to high living; and the magnificence and expensiveness of entertainments are deprecated, because nature is satisfied at a small expense.

XXXVII. If, then, honour and riches have no value, what is there else to be afraid of? Banishment, I suppose; which is looked on as the greatest evil. Now, if the evil of banishment proceeds not from ourselves, but from the froward disposition of the people, I have just now declared how contemptible it is. But if to leave one's country be miserable, the provinces are full of miserable men; very few of the settlers in which ever return to their country again. But exiles are deprived of their property! What, then! has there not been enough said on bearing poverty? But with regard to banishment, if we examine the nature of things, not the ignominy of the name, how little does it differ from constant travelling? in which some of the most famous philosophers have spent their whole life: as Xenocrates, Crantor, Arcesilas, Lacydes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Carneades, Panætius, Clitomachus, Philo, Antiochus, Posidonius, and innumerable others; who from their first setting out never [pg 469] returned home again. Now what ignominy can a wise man be affected with (for it is of such a one that I am speaking) who can be guilty of nothing which deserves it; for there is no occasion to comfort one who is banished for his deserts. Lastly, they can easily reconcile themselves to every accident who measure all their objects and pursuits in life by the standard of pleasure; so that in whatever place that is supplied, there they may live happily. Thus what Teucer said may be applied to every case:

Wherever I am happy, is my country.

Socrates, indeed, when he was asked where he belonged to, replied, “The world;” for he looked upon himself as a citizen and inhabitant of the whole world. How was it with T. Altibutius? Did he not follow his philosophical studies with the greatest satisfaction at Athens, although he was banished? which, however, would not have happened to him, if he had obeyed the laws of Epicurus, and lived peaceably in the republic. In what was Epicurus happier, living in his own country, than Metrodorus who lived at Athens? Or did Plato's happiness exceed that of Xenocrates, or Polemo, or Arcesilas? Or is that city to be valued much, that banishes all her good and wise men? Demaratus, the father of our king Tarquin, not being able to bear the tyrant Cypselus, fled from Corinth to Tarquinii, settled there, and had children. Was it, then, an unwise act in him to prefer the liberty of banishment to slavery at home?

XXXVIII. Besides the emotions of the mind, all griefs and anxieties are assuaged by forgetting them, and turning our thoughts to pleasure. Therefore, it was not without reason that Epicurus presumed to say that a wise man abounds with good things, because he may always have his pleasures: from whence it follows, as he thinks, that that point is gained, which is the subject of our present inquiry, that a wise man is always happy. What! though he should be deprived of the senses of seeing and hearing? Yes; for he holds those things very cheap. For, in the first place, what are the pleasures of which we are deprived by that dreadful thing, blindness? For though they allow other pleasures to be confined to the senses, yet the things which are perceived by the sight do not depend wholly on the [pg 470] pleasure the eyes receive; as is the case when we taste, smell, touch, or hear; for, in respect of all these senses, the organs themselves are the seat of pleasure; but it is not so with the eyes. For it is the mind which is entertained by what we see; but the mind may be entertained in many ways, even though we could not see at all. I am speaking of a learned and a wise man, with whom to think is to live. But thinking in the case of a wise man does not altogether require the use of his eyes in his investigations; for if night does not strip him of his happiness, why should blindness, which resembles night, have that effect? For the reply of Antipater the Cyrenaic, to some women who bewailed his being blind, though it is a little too obscene, is not without its significance. “What do you mean?” saith he; “do you think the night can furnish no pleasure?” And we find by his magistracies and his actions, that old Appius119 too, who was blind for many years, was not prevented from doing whatever was required of him, with respect either to the republic or his own affairs. It is said, that C. Drusus's house was crowded with clients. When they, whose business it was, could not see how to conduct themselves, they applied to a blind guide.

XL. Now, as to the evil of being deaf: M. Crassus was a little thick of hearing; but it was more uneasiness to him that he heard himself ill spoken of, though, in my opinion, he did not deserve it. Our Epicureans cannot understand Greek, nor the Greeks Latin: now, they are deaf reciprocally as to each other's language, and we are all truly deaf with regard to those innumerable languages which we do not understand. They do not hear the voice of the harper; but then they do not hear the grating of a saw when it is setting, or the grunting of a hog when his throat is being cut, nor the roaring of the sea when they are desirous of rest. And if they should chance to be fond of singing, they ought in the first place to consider that many wise men lived happily before music was discovered; besides, they may have more pleasure in reading verses than in hearing them sung. Then, as I before referred the blind to the pleasures of hearing, so I may the deaf to the pleasures of sight: moreover, whoever can converse with himself doth not need the conversation of another. But suppose all these misfortunes to meet in one person: suppose him blind and deaf,—let him be afflicted with the sharpest pains of body, which, in the first place, generally of themselves make an end of him; still, should they continue so long, and the pain be so exquisite, that we should be unable to assign any reason for our being so afflicted,—still, why, good Gods! should we be under any difficulty? For there is a retreat at hand: death is that retreat—a shelter where we shall for ever be insensible. Theodoras said to Lysimachus, [pg 473] who threatened him with death, “It is a great matter, indeed, for you to have acquired the power of a Spanish fly!” When Perses entreated Paulus not to lead him in triumph, “That is a matter which you have in your own power,” said Paulus. I said many things about death in our first day's disputation, when death was the subject; and not a little the next day, when I treated of pain; which things if you recollect, there can be no danger of your looking upon death as undesirable, or at least it will not be dreadful.

That custom which is common among the Grecians at their banquets should, in my opinion, be observed in life:—Drink, say they, or leave the company: and rightly enough; for a guest should either enjoy the pleasure of drinking with others, or else not stay till he meets with affronts from those that are in liquor. Thus, those injuries of fortune which you cannot bear, you should flee from.

XLI. This is the very same which is said by Epicurus and Hieronymus. Now, if those philosophers, whose opinion it is that virtue has no power of itself, and who say that the conduct which we denominate honourable and laudable is really nothing, and is only an empty circumstance set off with an unmeaning sound, can nevertheless maintain that a wise man is always happy, what, think you, may be done by the Socratic and Platonic philosophers. Some of these allow such superiority to the goods of the mind, as quite to eclipse what concerns the body and all external circumstances. But others do not admit these to be goods; they make everything depend on the mind: whose disputes Carneades used, as a sort of honorary arbitrator, to determine. For, as what seemed goods to the Peripatetics were allowed to be advantages by the Stoics, and as the Peripatetics allowed no more to riches, good health, and other things of that sort, than the Stoics, when these things were considered according to their reality, and not by mere names, his opinion was that there was no ground for disagreeing. Therefore, let the philosophers of other schools see how they can establish this point also. It is very agreeable to me that they make some professions worthy of being uttered by the mouth of a philosopher, with regard to a wise man's having always the means of living happily.

XLII. But as we are to depart in the morning, let us [pg 474] remember these five days' discussions; though, indeed, I think I shall commit them to writing: for how can I better employ the leisure which I have, of whatever kind it is, and whatever it be owing to? and I will send these five books also to my friend Brutus, by whom I was not only incited to write on philosophy, but, I may say, provoked. And by so doing, it is not easy to say what service I may be of to others; at all events, in my own various and acute afflictions, which surround me on all sides, I cannot find any better comfort for myself.

THE END

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