death. The deaths of generals are glorious, but philosophers usually die in their beds. But still Epicurus here mentions what, when dying, he considered great credit to himself. “I have,” says he, “a joy to counterbalance these pains.” I recognise in these words, O Epicurus, the sentiments of a philosopher, but still you forgot what you ought to have said. For, in the first place, if those things be true, in the recollection of which you say you rejoice, that is to say, if your writings and discoveries are true, then you cannot rejoice. For you have no pleasure here which you can refer to the body. But you have constantly asserted that no one ever feels joy or pain except with reference to his body. “I rejoice,” says he, “in the past.” In what that is past? If you mean such past things as refer to the body, then I see that you are counterbalancing your agonies with your reason, and not with your recollection of pleasures which you have felt in the body. But if you are referring to your mind, then your denial of there being any joy of the mind which cannot be referred to some pleasure of the body, must be false.
Why, then, do you recommend the children of Metrodorus to Hermarchus? In that admirable exercise of duty, in that excellent display of your good faith, for that is how I look upon it, what is there that you refer to the body?
XXXI. You may twist yourself about in every direction as you please, Torquatus, but you will not find in this excellent letter anything written by Epicurus which is in harmony and consistent with the rules he laid down. And so he is convicted by himself, and his writings are upset by his own virtue and goodness. For that recommendation of those children, that recollection of them, and affectionate friendship for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater evidence can we require that those things which are honourable and right are desirable of themselves for their own sake, than the sight of a dying man so anxious in the discharge of such important duties? But, as I think that letter deserving of all commendation of which I have just given you a literal translation, (although it was in no respect consistent with the general system of that philosopher,) so also I think that his will is inconsistent not only with the dignity of a philosopher, but even with his own sentiments. For he wrote often, and at great length, and sometimes with brevity and suitable language, in that book which I have just named, that death had nothing to do with us; for that whatever was dissolved was void of sensation, and whatever was void of sensation had nothing whatever to do with us. Even this might have been expressed better and more elegantly. For when he lays down the position that what has been dissolved is void of sensation, that is such an expression that it is not very plain what he means by the word dissolved. However, I understand what he really does mean. But still I ask why, when every sensation is extinguished by dissolution, that is to say, by death, and when there is nothing else whatever that has any connexion with us, he should still take such minute and diligent care to enjoin Amynomachus and Timocrates, his heirs, to furnish every year what in the opinion of Hermarchus shall be enough to keep his birthday in the month Gamelion, with all proper solemnity. And also, shall every month, on the twentieth day of the month, supply money enough to furnish a banquet for those men who have studied philosophy with him, in order that his memory, and that of Metrodorus, may be duly honoured. Now I cannot deny that these injunctions are in keeping with the character of a thoroughly accomplished and amiable man; but still I utterly deny that it is inconsistent with the wisdom of a philosopher, especially of a natural philosopher, which is the character he claims for himself, to think that there is such a day as the birthday of any one. What? Can any day which has once passed recur over again frequently. Most indubitably not; or can any day like it recur? Even that is impossible, unless it may happen after an interval of many thousand years, that there may be a return of all the stars at the same moment to the point from which they set out. There is, therefore, no such thing as anybody’s birthday. But still it is considered that there is. As if I did not know that. But even if there be, is it to be regarded after a man’s death? And is a man to give injunctions in his will that it shall be so, after he has told you all, as if with the voice of an oracle, that there is nothing which concerns us at all after death? These things are very inconsistent in a man who, in his mind, had travelled over innumerable worlds and boundless regions, which were destitute of all limits and boundaries. Did Democritus ever say such a thing as this? I will pass over every one else, and call him only as a witness whom Epicurus himself followed to the exclusion of others.
But if a day did deserve to be kept, which was it more fitting to observe, the day on which a man was born, or that on which he became wise? A man, you will say, could not have become wise unless he had been born. And, on the same principle, he could not if his grandmother had never been born.
The whole business, Torquatus, is quite out of character for a learned man to wish to have the recollection of his name celebrated with banquets after his death. I say nothing of the way in which you keep these days, and to how many jokes from witty men you expose yourselves. There is no need of quarrelling. I only say that it would have been more becoming in you to keep Epicurus’s birthday, than in him to leave injunctions in his will that it should be kept.
XXXII. However, to return to our subject, (for while we were talking of pain we digressed to that letter of his,) we may now fairly come to this conclusion. The man who is in the greatest evil, while he is in it, is not happy. But the wise man is always happy, and is also occasionally in pain.
Therefore, pain is not the greatest evil. What kind of doctrine, then, is this, that goods which are past are not lost to a wise man, but that he ought not to remember past evils. First of all, is it in our power to decide what we will remember. When Simonides, or some one else, offered to Themistocles to teach him the art of memory, “I would rather,” said he, “that you would teach me that of forgetfulness; for I even now recollect what I would rather not; but I cannot forget what I should like to.” This was a very sensible answer. But still the fact is that it is the act of a very arbitrary philosopher to forbid a man to recollect. It seems to me a command very much in the spirit of your ancestor, Manlius, or even worse, to command what it is impossible for me to do. What will you say if the recollection of past evils is even pleasant? For some proverbs are more true than your dogmas. Nor does Euripides speak all when he says, I will give it you in Latin, if I can, but you all know the Greek line— Sweet is the memory of sorrows past.(41) However, let us return to the consideration of past goods. And if you were to utter such maxims as might be capable of consoling Caius Marius, and enabling him when banished, indigent, and up to his neck in a marsh, to relieve his anguish by the recollection of his past trophies, I would listen to you, and approve of all you could say. Nor, indeed, can the happiness of a philosopher be complete or continue to the end, if all the admirable discoveries which he has made, and all his virtuous actions, are to be lost by his own forgetfulness. But, in your case, you assert that the recollection of pleasures which have been felt makes life happy, and of such pleasures too, as affect the body. For if there are any other pleasures, then it is incorrect to say that all the pleasures of the mind originate in its connexion with the body.
But if pleasures felt by the body, even when they are past, can give pleasure, then I do not understand why Aristotle should turn the inscription on the tomb of Sardanapalus into so much ridicule; in which the king of Assyria boasts that he has taken with him all his lascivious pleasures. For, says Aristotle, how could those things which even while he was alive he could not feel a moment longer than while he was actually enjoying them, possibly remain to him after he was dead? The pleasure, then, of the body is lost, and flies away at the first moment, and oftener leaves behind reasons for repenting of it than for recollecting it.
Therefore, Africanus is happier when addressing his country in this manner— Cease, Rome, to dread your foes...And in the rest of his admirable boast— For you have trophies by my labour raised.
He is rejoicing here in his labours which are past. But you would bid him exult in past pleasures. He traces back his feelings to things which had never had any reference to his body. You cling to the body to the exclusion of everything else.
XXXIII. But how can that proposition possibly be maintained which you urge, namely, that all the pleasures and pains of the mind are connected inseparably with the pleasures and pains of the body? Is there, then, nothing which ever delights you, (I know whom I am addressing,) is there nothing, O Torquatus, which ever delights you for its own sake? I say nothing about dignity, honourableness, the beauty of virtue, which I have mentioned before. I will put all these things aside as of less consequence. But is there anything when you are writing, or reading a poem, or an oration, when you are investigating the history of exploits or countries, or anything in a statue, or picture, or pleasant place; in sports, in hunting, or in a villa of Lucullus, (for if I were to say of your own, you would have a loophole to escape through, saying that that had connexion with your body,) is there any of all these things, I say, which you can refer to your body, or do they not please you, if they please you at all, for their own sake?
You must either be the most obstinate of men, if you persist in referring these things, which I have just mentioned, to the body, or else you must abandon Epicurus’s whole theory of pleasure, if you admit that they have no connexion with it.
But as for your argument, that the pleasures and pains of the mind are greater than those of the body, because the mind is a partaker of three times,(42) but nothing but what is present is felt by the body; how can it possibly be allowed that a man who rejoices for my sake rejoices more than I do myself? The pleasure of the mind originates in the pleasure of the body, and the pleasure of the mind is greater than that of the body. The result, then, is, that the party who congratulates the other is more rejoiced than he whom he congratulates. But while you are trying to make out the wise man to be happy, because he is sensible of the greatest pleasures in his mind, and, indeed, of pleasures which are in all their parts greater than those which he is sensible of in his body, you do not see what really happens. For he will also feel the pains of the mind to be in every respect greater than those of the body. And so he must occasionally be miserable, whom you endeavour to represent as being always happy. Nor, indeed, will it be possible for you ever to fill up the idea of perfect and uninterrupted happiness while you refer everything to pleasure and pain.
On which account, O Torquatus, we must find out something else which is the chief good of man. Let us grant pleasure to the beasts, to whom you often appeal as witnesses on the subject of the chief good. What will you say, if even the beasts do many things under the guidance of their various natures, partly out of indulgence to other beasts, and at the cost of their own labour, as, for instance, it is very visible in bringing forth and rearing their young, that they have some other object in view besides their own pleasure? and partly, too, when they rejoice in running about and travelling; and some assemble in herds, in such a manner as to imitate in some degree a human state. In some species of birds we see certain indications of affection, knowledge, and memory; in many we see what even looks like a regular system of action. Shall there, then, be in beasts some images of human virtues, quite unconnected with pleasure, and shall there be no virtue in man except for the sake of pleasure? and though he is as superior as can be to all the other animals, shall we still affirm that he has no peculiar attributes given to him by nature?
XXXIV. But we, if indeed all things depend on pleasure, are greatly surpassed by beasts, for which the earth, of her own accord, produces various sorts of food, in every kind of abundance, without their taking any trouble about it; while the same necessaries are scarcely (sometimes I may even use stronger language still) supplied to us, when we seek them with great labour. Nor is it possible that I should ever think that the chief good was the same in the case of a beast and a man. For what can be the use of having so many means and appliances for the carrying out of the most excellent arts,—what can be the use of such an assemblage of most honourable pursuits, of such a crowd of virtues, if they are all got together for no other end but pleasure? As if, when Xerxes, with such vast fleets, such countless troops of both cavalry and infantry, had bridged over the Hellespont and dug through Mount Athos, had walked across the sea, and sailed(43) over the land, if, when he had invaded Greece with such irresistible violence, any one had asked him for the cause of collecting so vast an army, and waging so formidable a war, and he had replied that he wished to get some honey from Hymettus, certainly he would have been thought to have undertaken such an enterprise for an insufficient cause. And in like manner, if we were to say that a wise man, furnished and provided with numerous and important virtues and accomplishments, not, indeed, travelling like him over sea on foot, and over mountains with his fleet, but embracing the whole heaven, all the earth, and the universal sea with his mind, had nothing in view but pleasure, we might say that he, too, was taking a great deal of trouble for a little honey.
Believe me, Torquatus, we were born for more lofty and noble ends; and you may see this, not only by considering the parts of the mind, in which there is the recollection of a countless number of things, (and from thence proceed infinite conjectures as to the consequences of them, not very far differing from divination; there is also in them shame, which is the regulator of desire, and the faithful guardianship of justice, so necessary to human society, and a firm enduring contempt for pain and death, shown in the enduring of labours and the encountering of dangers.)
All these things, I say, are in the mind. But I would have you consider also the limbs and the senses, which, like the other parts of the body, will appear to you to be not only the companions of the virtues, but also their slaves. What will you say, if many things in the body itself appear to deserve to be preferred to pleasure? such as strength, health, activity, beauty? And if this is the case, how many qualities of the mind will likewise seem so? For in the mind, the old philosophers—those most learned men—thought that there was something heavenly and divine. But if the chief good consisted in pleasure, as you say, then it would be natural that we should wish to live day and night in the midst of pleasure, without any interval or interruption, while all our senses were, as it were, steeped in and influenced wholly by pleasure. But who is there, who is worthy of the name of a man, who would like to spend even the whole of one day in that kind of pleasure? The Cyrenaic philosophers, indeed, would not object. Your sect is more modest in this respect, though their’s is perhaps the more sincere.
However, let us contemplate with our minds, not, indeed, these most important arts, which are so valuable, that those who were ignorant of them were accounted useless by our ancestors; but I ask you whether you think that (I will not say Homer, or Archilochus, or Pindar, but) Phidias, or Polycletus, or Zeuxis directed the whole of their skill to cause more pleasure. Shall, then, an artist propose to himself a higher aim, with reference to the beauty of figures, than a virtuous citizen with reference to the nobleness of action? But what other cause can there be for such a blunder being so widely and extensively diffused, except that he who determines that pleasure is the chief good, deliberates not with that part of his mind in which reason and wisdom dwell, but with his desires, that is to say, with the most trifling portion of his mind. For I put the question to you yourself, if there are gods, as you think that there are, how have they the power of being happy, when they are not able to feel any pleasure in their bodies? or if they are happy, though destitute of that kind of pleasure, why do you refuse to recognize the possibility of a similar exertion of intellect on the part of a wise man?
XXXV. Read, O Torquatus, the panegyrics, not of those men who have been praised by Homer, not the encomiums passed on Cyrus, or Agesilaus, or Aristides, or Themistocles, or Philip, or Alexander; but read the praises of our own fellow-countrymen, of the heroes of your own family. You will not find any one praised on the ground of having been a cunning contriver, or procurer, of pleasure. The eulogies on their monuments signify no such thing; like this one which is at one of our gates, “In whose favour many nations unanimously agree that he was the noblest man of the nation.” Do we think that many nations judged of Calatinus, that he was the noblest man of the nation, because he was the most skilful in the devising of pleasures? Shall we, then, say that there is great hope and an excellent disposition in those young men whom we think likely to consult their own advantage, and to see what will be profitable to themselves? Do we not see what a great confusion of everything would ensue? what great disorder?
Such a doctrine puts an end to all beneficence, to all gratitude, which are the great bonds of agreement. For if you do good to any one for your own sake, that is not to be considered a kindness, but only usury; nor does any gratitude appear due to the man who has benefited another for his own sake.
But if pleasure is the dominant power, it is inevitable that all the virtues must be trampled under foot. For there are many kinds of base conduct, which, unless honourableness is naturally to have the most influence, must, or at least it is not easy to explain why they should not, overcome a wise man; and, not to go hunting for too many instances, it is quite clear, that virtue deservedly praised, must cut off all the approaches of pleasure.
Do not, now, expect any more arguments from me. Look, Torquatus, yourself, into your own mind; turn the question over in all your thoughts; examine yourself, whether you would prefer to pass your life in the enjoyment of perpetual pleasure, in that tranquillity which you have often felt, free from all pain, with the addition also of that blessing which you often speak of as an addition, but which is, in fact, an impossible one, the absence of all fear; or, while deserving well of all nations, and bearing assistance and safety to all who are in need of it, to encounter even the distresses of Hercules. For so our ancestors, even in the case of a god, called labours which were unavoidable by the most melancholy name, distresses.(44) I would require you, and compel you to answer me, if I were not afraid that you might say that Hercules himself performed those exploits, which he performed with the greatest labour for the safety of nations, for the sake of pleasure.
And when I had said this,—I know, said Torquatus, who it is that I have to thank for this; and although I might be able to do something myself, yet I am still more glad to find my friends better prepared than I am.
I suppose you mean Syro and Philodemus, excellent citizens and most learned men. You are right, said he. Come, then, said I. But it would be more fair for Triarius to give some opinion on this discussion of ours.
Indeed, said he smiling, it would be very unfair, at least on this subject: for you manage the question more gently; but this man attacks us after the fashion of the Stoics. Then Triarius said, Hereafter I will speak more boldly still: for I shall have all these arguments which I have just heard ready to my hand; and I will not begin before I see you equipped by those philosophers whom you mention.
And when this had been said, we made an end both of our walk and of our discussion.
Third Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
I. I think, Brutus, that Pleasure, if she were to speak for herself, and had not such pertinacious advocates, would yield to Virtue, as having been vanquished in the preceding book. In truth, she would be destitute of shame if she were to resist Virtue any longer, or persist in preferring what is pleasant to what is honourable, or were to contend that a tickling pleasure, as it were, of the body, and the joy arising out of it, is of more importance than dignity of mind and consistency. So that we may dismiss Pleasure, and desire her to confine herself within her own boundaries, so that the strictness of our discussions may not be hindered by her allurements and blandishments. For we have now to inquire what that chief good is which we are anxious to discover; since pleasure is quite unconnected with it, and since nearly the same arguments can be urged against those who have considered freedom from pain as the greatest of goods.
Nor, indeed, can anything be admitted to be the chief good which is destitute of virtue, to which nothing can be superior. Therefore, although in that discourse which was held with Torquatus we were not remiss, still we have now a much sharper contest before us with the Stoics. For the statements which are made about pleasure are not expressed with any great acuteness or refinement. For they who defend it are not skilful in arguing, nor have those who take the opposite side a very difficult cause to oppose. Even Epicurus himself says, that one ought not even to argue about pleasure, because the decision respecting it depends on the sensations, so that it is sufficient for us to be warned respecting it, and quite unnecessary for us to be instructed. And on this account, that previous discussion of ours was a simple one on both sides; for there was nothing involved or intricate in the discourse of Torquatus, and my own language, as it seems to me, was very clear. But you are not ignorant what a subtle, or I might rather say, thorny kind of arguing it is which is employed by the Stoics. And if it is so among the Greeks, much more so is it among us, who are forced even to invent words, and to give new names to new things. And this is what no one who is even moderately learned will wonder at, when he considers that in every art which is not in common and ordinary use, there is a great variety of new names, as appellations are forced to be given to everything about which each art is conversant.
Therefore, both dialecticians and natural philosophers use those words which are not common in the ordinary conversation of the Greeks; and geometricians, musicians, and grammarians, all speak after a peculiar fashion of their own. And even the rhetoricians, whose art is a forensic one, and wholly directed to the people, still in giving their lessons use words which are, as it were, their peculiar private property.
II. And, without dwelling on the case of these liberal and gentlemanly professions, even artisans would not be capable of exercising their trades properly if they did not use technical words, which are not understood by us, though in common use among them. Agriculture, also, which is as distant as can be from all polite refinement, still marks those matters with which it is conversant by new names. And much more is this course allowable in a philosopher; for philosophy is the art of life, and a man who is discussing that cannot borrow his language from the forum,—although there is no school of philosophers which has made so many innovations as the Stoics. Zeno too, their chief, was not so much a discoverer of new things as of new words. But if, even in that language which most people consider richer than our own, Greece has permitted the most learned men to use words not in ordinary use about subjects which are equally unusual, how much more ought the same licence to be granted to us, who are now venturing to be the very first of our countrymen to touch on such matters?
And though we have often said,—and that, too, in spite of some complaints not only of the Greeks, but of those men also who would prefer being accounted Greeks to being thought our own countrymen,—that we are so far from being surpassed by the Greeks in the richness and copiousness of our language, that we are even superior to them in that particular; we must labour to establish this point, not only in our own national arts, but in those too which we have derived from them. Although, since they have become established by habit, we may fairly consider those words as our own which, in accordance with ancient custom, we use as Latin words; such as _geometria_, _musica_,—although they could, no doubt, be translated into more genuine Latin.
Enough, however, of the names of things. But with respect to the things themselves, I am often afraid, Brutus, that I may be blamed when I am writing to you, who have made so much progress, not only in philosophy, but in the most excellent kind of philosophy. And if I wrote as if I were giving you any instruction, I should deserve to be blamed; but such conceit is far from me. Nor do I send letters to you under the idea of making you acquainted with what is thoroughly known to you before; but because I am fond of supporting myself by your name, and because also I consider you the most candid critic and judge of those studies which both you and I apply ourselves to in common. I know, therefore, that you will pay careful attention to what I write, as is your wont, and that you will decide on the dispute which took place between your uncle—a most heavenly-minded and admirable man—and myself.
For when I was at my villa near Tusculum, and was desirous to make use of some books in the library of the young Lucullus, I went one day to his house, in order to take away (as I was in the habit of doing) the books which I wanted. And when I had arrived there, I found Marcus Cato, whom I did not know to be there, sitting in the library, surrounded by a number of the books of the Stoics. For he had, as you know, a boundless desire for reading, one which was quite insatiable,—so much so, indeed, that he was not afraid of the causeless reproaches of the common people, but was accustomed to continue reading even in the senate-house itself, while the senate was assembling, without, however, at all relaxing in his attention to the affairs of the republic. And now, being in the enjoyment of complete leisure, and being surrounded by a great abundance of such treasures, he appeared to be completely gorging himself with books, if I may use such an expression about so respectable a subject. And as it so happened that neither of us expected to see the other, he at once rose up on my entrance; and, after the first salutations which are usual at such a meeting, What object has brought you here? said he; for I presume you are come from your own villa, and if I had known that you had been there, I should have come myself to see you. I only, said I, left the city yesterday after the commencement of the games, and got home in the evening. But my object in coming here was to take some books away with me; and it will be a pity, Cato, if our friend Lucullus does not some day or other become acquainted with all these treasures; for I would rather have him take delight in these books than in all the rest of the furniture of the villa. For he is a youth I am very anxious about; although, indeed, it is more peculiarly your business to take care that he shall be so educated as to do credit to his father, and to our friend Cæpio, and to you who are such a near relation of his.(45) But I myself have some right to feel an interest in him; for I am influenced by my recollection of his grandfather,—and you well know what a regard I had for Cæpio, who, in my opinion, would now be one of the first men of the city if he were alive; and I also have Lucullus himself always before my eyes,—a man not only excelling in every virtue, but connected with me both by friendship and a general resemblance of inclination and sentiment. You do well, said he, to retain a recollection of those persons, both of whom recommended their children to your care by their wills, and you are right too to be attached to this youth. And as for your calling it my peculiar business, I will not decline the office, but I claim you for my partner in the duty. I will say this also, that the boy has already shown me many indications both of modesty and of ability; but you see how young he is as yet. To be sure I do, said I; but even now he ought to receive a tincture of those accomplishments which, if he drinks of them now while he is young, will hereafter make him more ready for more important business. And so we will often talk over this matter anxiously together, and we will act in concert. However, let us sit down, says he, if you please. So we sat down.
III. Then Cato said: But now, what books in the world are they that you are looking for here, when you have such a library at home? I want, said I, some of the Aristotelian Commentaries, which I know are here; and I came to carry them off, to read when I have leisure, which is not, as you know, very often the case with me. How I wish, said he, that you had an inclination towards our Stoic sect; for certainly it is natural for you, if it ever was so for any one, to think nothing a good except virtue. May I not, I replied, rejoin that it would be natural for you, as your opinion in reality is the same as mine, to forbear giving new names to things? for our principles are the same,—it is only our language that is at variance.
Indeed, said he, our principles are not the same at all; for I can never agree to your calling anything desirable except what is honourable, and to your reckoning such things among the goods,—and, by so doing, extinguishing honourableness, which is, as it were, the light of virtue, and utterly upsetting virtue herself. Those are all very fine words, said I, O Cato; but do you not see that all those pompous expressions are shared by you in common with Pyrrho and Aristo, who think all things equal? And I should like to know what your opinion of them is. Mine? said he; do you want to know what I think of them? I think that those men whom we have either heard of from our ancestors, or seen ourselves, to be good, brave, just, and moderate in the republic,—those who, following nature herself, without any particular learning or system, have done many praiseworthy actions, have been educated by nature herself better than they could have been educated by philosophy, if they had adopted any other philosophy except that which ranks nothing whatever among the goods except what is honourable, and nothing among the evils except what is disgraceful. As for all other systems of philosophy, they differ entirely in their estimate of good and evil; but still I consider no one of them which classes anything destitute of virtue among either the goods or the evils, as being of any use to men, or as uttering any sentiment by which we may become better; but I think that they all tend rather to deprave nature herself. For if this point be not conceded, that that alone is good which is honourable, it follows that it must be impossible to prove that life is made happy by virtue. And if that be the case, then I do not see why any attention should be bestowed on philosophy; for if a wise man can be miserable, then of a truth I do not consider that virtue, which is accounted so glorious and memorable a thing, of any great value.
IV. All that you have been saying, Cato, I replied, you might say if you agreed with Pyrrho or Aristo; for you are not ignorant that they consider that honourableness not only the chief good, but also (as you yourself maintain) the only good. And if this is the case, the consequence which I see you aim at follows necessarily, that all wise men are always happy. Do you then praise these men, and do you think that we ought to follow their opinion? By no means, said he; for as this is a peculiar attribute of virtue to make its selection of those things which are in accordance with nature, those who have made all things equal in such a manner as to consider all things on either side perfectly indifferent, so as to leave no room for any selection, have utterly put an end to virtue. You say right, said I; but I ask you whether you, too, must not do the same thing, when you say that there is nothing good which is not right and honourable, and so put an end to all the difference between other things? That would be the case, said he, if I did put an end to it; but I deny the fact—I leave it. How so, said I? If virtue alone,—if that thing alone which you call honourable, right, praiseworthy, and creditable, (for it will be more easily seen what is the character that you ascribe to it, if it be pointed out by many words tending to the same point,)—if, I say, that is the sole good, what else will there be for you to follow? And, on the other hand, if nothing is evil except what is disgraceful, dishonourable, unbecoming, wrong, flagitious, and base, (to make this also manifest by giving it many names,) what else will there be which you can say ought to be avoided?
I will not, said he, reply to each point of your question, as you are not, as I suspect, ignorant of what I am going to say, but seeking rather to find something to carp at in my brief answer: I will rather, since we have plenty of time, explain to you, unless you think it foreign to the subject, the whole opinion of Zeno and the Stoics on the matter. Very far from foreign to the subject, said I; indeed, your explanations will be of great service in elucidating to me the points about which I am inquiring.
Let us try, then, said he, although this system of the Stoics has in it something rather difficult and obscure; for, as formerly, when these