# The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations/De Finibus, a Treatise on the Chief Good and Evil/Book 4

Fourth Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
I. And, when he had made an end of saying these things, I replied, Truly, O Cato, you have displayed a wonderful memory in explaining to us such a number of things, and in laying such obscure things so clearly before us. So that we must either give up having any meaning or wish contrary to what you have said, or else we must take time to deliberate: for it is not easy to learn thoroughly the principles of a school which has not only had its foundation laid, but which has even been built up with such diligence, although perhaps with some errors as to its truth, (which, however, I will not as yet dare to affirm,) but at all events with such care and accuracy. Then, said he, is that what you say, when I have seen you, in obedience to this new law, reply to the prosecutor on the same day on which he has brought forward his charge, and sum up for three hours; and then do you think that I am going to allow an adjournment in this cause? which, however, will not be conducted by you better than those which are at times entrusted to you. Wherefore, I desire that you will now apply yourself to this one, especially as it has been handled by others, and also by yourself several times; so that you cannot be at a loss for arguments or language.
I replied, I do not, in truth, venture to argue inconsiderately against the Stoics, not because I agree with them in any great degree, but I am hindered by shame; because they say so much that I hardly understand. I confess, said he, that some of our arguments are obscure; not that we make them so on purpose, but because there is some obscurity in the subjects themselves. Why, then, said I, when the Peripatetics discuss the same subjects, does not a single word occur which is not well understood? Do they discuss the same subjects? said he; or have I failed to prove to you that the Stoics differ from the Peripatetics, not in words only, but in the whole of the subject, and in every one of their opinions? But, said ​I, if, O Cato, you can establish that, I will allow you to carry me over, body and soul, to your school. I did think, said he, that I had said enough on that point; wherefore answer me on that head first, if you please; and afterwards you can advance what arguments you please. I do not think it too much, said I, if I claim to answer you on that topic as I myself please. As you will, said he; for although the other way would have been more common, yet it is only fair to allow every one to adopt his own method.
II. I think, then, said I, O Cato, that those ancient pupils of Plato, Speusippus, Aristotle and Xenocrates, and afterwards their pupils, Polemo and Theophrastus, had a system laid down with sufficient richness and eloquence of language; so that Zeno had no reason, after having been a pupil of Polemo, for deserting him and his predecessors who had established this school. And in this school I should like you to observe what you think ought to be changed, and not to wait while I am replying to everything which has been said by you. For I think that I must contend with the whole of their system, against the whole of yours.
And as these men said that we are born with the view of being generally well adapted to those virtues which are well known and conspicuous, I mean justice and temperance, and others of the same kind, all which resemble the other arts, and differ only for the better in their subject matter and way of handling;—and as they saw that we desired those very virtues in a somewhat magnificent and ardent spirit; and that we had also a certain instruction, or, I should rather say, innate desire of knowledge; and that we were born for companionship with men, and for society and communion with the human race, and that these qualities are most conspicuous in the greatest geniuses;—they divided all philosophy into three parts; and we see that this same division was retained by Zeno: and as one of these parts is that by which the manners are thought to be formed, I postpone the consideration of that part, which is, as it were, the foundation of this question. For what is the chief good I will discuss presently; but at this moment I only say that that topic which I think we shall be right in calling the civil one, and which the Greeks call πολιτικὸς, has been treated of in a dignified and copious manner by the ancient Peripatetics and Academicians ​who, agreeing in parts, differed from one another only in words.
III. How many books have these men written on the republic! how many on laws! How many precepts in art, and, more than that, how many instances of good speaking in orations have they bequeathed to us! For, in the first place, they said with the greatest degree of polish and fitness those very things which were to be argued in a subtle manner, laying down both definitions and divisions: as your friends have also done: but you have done it in a more shabby manner; while you see how brilliant their language is. In the second place, with what splendid language have they adorned that part of the subject which required ornate and impressive eloquence! how gloriously have they illustrated it! discussing justice, and fortitude, and friendship, and the method of passing life, and philosophy, and the government of the state, and temperance, not like men picking out thorns, like the Stoics, or laying bare the bones, but like men who knew how to handle great subjects elegantly, and lesser ones clearly. What, therefore, are their consolations? What are their exhortations? What also are their warnings and advice written to the most eminent men? For their practice in speaking was, like the nature of the things themselves, of a two-fold character. For whatever is made a question of, contains a controversy either as to the genus itself, without reference to persons or times; or else, with these additions, a dispute as to the fact, or the right, or the name. And therefore, they exercised themselves in both kinds; and that discipline it was which produced that great copiousness of eloquence among them in both kinds of argumentation. Now Zeno, and those who imitated him, were either unable to do much in this kind of argument, or else were unwilling, or at all events they did not do it. Although Cleanthes wrote a treatise on the art of rhetoric, and so too did Chrysippus, but still in such a manner, that if any one were to wish to be silent, he ought to read nothing else. Therefore you see how they speak. They invent new words—they abandon old established terms.
But what great attempts do they make? They say that this universal world is our town; accordingly, this excites those who hear such a statement. You see, now, how great ​a business you are undertaking; to make a man who lives at Circeii believe that this universal world is merely a town for himself to live in. What will be the end of this? Shall he set fire to it? He will rather extinguish it, if he has received it on fire. The next thing said is that list of titles which you briefly enumerated,—king, dictator, rich man, the only wise man; words poured out by you decorously and roundly: they well might be, for you have learnt them from the orators. But how vague and unsubstantial are those speeches about the power of virtue! which they make out to be so great that it can, by itself, secure the happiness of man. They prick us with narrow little bits of questions as with pins; and those who assent to them are not at all changed in their minds, and go away the same as they came: for matters which are perhaps true, and which certainly are important, are not handled as they ought to be, but in a more minute and petty manner.
IV. The next thing is the principle of arguing, and the knowledge of nature. For we will examine the chief good presently, as I said before, and apply the whole discussion to the explanation of it. There was, then, in those two parts nothing which Zeno wished to alter. For the whole thing, in both its divisions, is in an excellent state; for what has been omitted by the ancients in that kind of argument which is of influence in discussion? For they have both given many definitions, and have bequeathed to us titles for defining; and that important addition to definition, I mean the dividing of the subject into parts, is both done by them, and they have also left us rules to enable us to do so too; and I may say the same of contraries; from which they came to genera, and to the forms of genera. Now, they make those things which they call evident, the beginning of an argument concluded by reason: then they follow an orderly arrangement; and the conclusion at last shows what is true in the separate propositions. But what a great variety of arguments, which lead to conclusions according to reason, do they give us, and how dissimilar are they to captious questions! What shall we say of their denouncing, as it were, in many places, that we ought neither entirely to trust our senses when unsupported by reason, nor reason when unsupported by our senses; but that, at the same time, we ought to keep the line between ​the two clearly marked? What shall I say more? Were not all the precepts which the dialecticians now deliver and teach, originally discovered and established by them? And although they were very much elaborated by Chrysippus, still they were much less practised by Zeno than by the ancients. And there were several things in which he did not improve on the ancients; and some which he never touched at all. And as there are two arts by which reason and oratory are brought to complete perfection, one that of discovering, the other that of arguing,—both the Stoics and Peripatetics have handed us down this latter, but the Peripatetics alone have given us rules for the former, while the Stoics have altogether avoided it. For the men of your school never even suspected the places from which arguments might be drawn as out of magazines; but the Peripatetics taught a regular system and method.
And the consequence is, that it is not necessary for one now to be always repeating a sort of dictated lesson on the same subject, or to be afraid to go beyond one's note-books: for he who knows where everything is placed, and how he can arrive at it, even if anything be completely buried, will be able to dig it up, and will always have his wits about him in every discussion. And although men who are endowed with great abilities, attain to a certain copiousness of eloquence without any definite principles of oratory, still art is a surer guide than nature. For it is one thing to pour out words after the fashion of poets, and another to distinguish on settled principles and rules all that you say.
V. Similar things may be said about the explanation of natural philosophy, which both the Peripatetics and Stoics apply themselves to; and that not on two accounts only, as Epicurus thinks, namely, to get rid of the fears of death and of religion; but besides this, the knowledge of heavenly things imparts some degree of modesty to those who see what great moderation and what admirable order there is likewise among the gods: it inspires them also with magnanimity when they contemplate the arts and works of the gods; and justice, too, when they come to know how great is the power and wisdom, and what the will is also, of the supreme ruler and master of the world, whose reason, in accordance with nature, is called by philosophers the true and supreme law. There is in the same study of nature, an insatiable kind of ​pleasure derived from the knowledge of things; the only pleasure in which, when all our necessary actions are performed, and when we are free from business, we can live honourably, and as becomes free men. Therefore, in the whole of this ratiocination on subjects of the very highest importance, the Stoics have for the most part followed the Peripatetics; so far at all events as to admit that there are gods, and to assert that everything consists of one of four elements. But when an exceedingly difficult question was proposed, namely, whether there did not seem to be a sort of fifth nature from which reason and intelligence sprang; (in which question another was involved respecting the mind, as to what class that belonged to;) Zeno said that it was fire; and then he said a few more things—very few, in a novel manner; but concerning the most important point of all, he spoke in the same way, asserting that the universal world, and all its most important parts, were regulated by the divine intellect and nature of the gods. But as for the matter and richness of facts, we shall find the Stoics very poorly off, but the Peripatetics very rich.
What numbers of facts have been investigated and accumulated by them with respect to the genus, and birth, and limbs, and age of all kinds of animals! and in like manner with respect to those things which are produced out of the earth! How many causes have they developed, and in what numerous cases, why everything is done, and what numerous demonstrations have they laid open how everything is done! And from this copiousness of theirs most abundant and undeniable arguments are derived for the explanation of the nature of everything. Therefore, as far as I understand, there is no necessity at all for any change of name. For it does not follow that, though he may have differed from the Peripatetics in some points, he did not arise out of them. And I, indeed, consider Epicurus, as far as his natural philosophy is concerned, as only another Democritus: he alters very few of his doctrines; and I should think him so even if he had changed more: but in numerous instances, and certainly on all the most important points, he coincides with him exactly. And though the men of your school do this, they do not show sufficient gratitude to the original discoverers.
VI. But enough of this. Let us now, I beg, consider the ​chief good, which contains all philosophy, and see whether Zeno has brought forward any reason for dissenting from the original discoverers and parents of it, as I may call them. While speaking, then, on this topic—although, Cato, this summit of goods, which contains all philosophy, has been carefully explained by you, and though you have told us what is considered so by the Stoics, and in what sense it is called so—yet I also will give my explanation, in order that we may see clearly, if we can, what new doctrine has been introduced into the question by Zeno. For as preceding philosophers, and Polemo most explicitly of all, had said that the chief good was to live according to nature, the Stoics say that three things are signified by these words: one, that a man should live exercising a knowledge of those things which happen by nature; and they say that this is the chief good of Zeno, who declares, as has been said by you, that it consists in living in a manner suitable to nature: the second meaning is much the same as if it were said that a man ought to live attending to all, or nearly all, the natural and intermediate duties. But this, when explained in this manner, is different from the former. For the former is right, which you called κατόρθωμα, and it happens to the wise man alone; but this is only a duty which is begun and not perfected, and this may happen to some who are far from being wise: the third is that a man should live, enjoying all things, or at least all the most important things which are according to nature; but this does not always depend on ourselves, for it is perfected both out of that kind of life which is bounded by virtue, and out of those things which are according to nature, and which are not in our own power.
But this chief good, which is understood in the third signification of the definition, and that life which is passed in conformity with that good, can happen to the wise man alone, because virtue is connected with it. And that summit of good, as we see it expressed by the Stoics themselves, was laid down by Xenocrates and by Aristotle; and so that first arrangement of the principles of nature, with which you also began, is explained by them in almost these very words.
VII. All nature desires to be a preserver of itself, in order that it may be both safe itself, and that it may be preserved in its kind. They say that for this end arts have been invented ​to assist nature, among which that is accounted one of the most important which is the art of living so as to defend what has been given by nature, and to acquire what is wanting; and, at the same time, they have divided the nature of man into mind and body. And, as they said that each of these things was desirable for its own sake, so also they said that the virtues of each of them were desirable for their own sake. But when they extolled the mind with boundless praises, and preferred it to the body, they at the same time preferred the virtues of the mind to the goods of the body.
But, as they asserted that wisdom was the guardian and regulator of the entire man, being the companion and assistant of nature, they said that the especial office of wisdom was to defend the being who consisted of mind and body,—to assist him and support him in each particular. And so, the matter being first laid down simply, pursuing the rest of the argument with more subtlety, they thought that the goods of the body admitted of an easy explanation, but they inquired more accurately into those of the mind. And, first of all, they found out that they contained the seeds of justice; and they were the first of all philosophers to teach that the principle that those which were the offspring should be beloved by their parents, was implanted in all animals by nature; and they said, also, that that which precedes the birth of offspring, in point of time,—namely, the marriage of men and women,—was a bond of union suggested by nature, and that this was the root from which the friendships between relations sprang. And, beginning with these first principles, they proceeded to investigate the origin and progress of all the virtues; by which course a great magnanimity was engendered, enabling them easily to resist and withstand fortune, because the most important events were in the power of the wise man; and a life conducted according to the precepts of the ancient philosophers was easily superior to all the changes and injuries of fortune.
But when these foundations had been laid by nature, certain great increases of good were produced,—some arising from the contemplation of more secret things, because there is a love of knowledge innate in the mind, in which also the fondness for explaining principles and for discussing them originates; and because man is the only animal which has ​any share of shame or modesty; and because he also covets union and society with other men, and takes pains in everything which he does or says, that he may do nothing which is not honourable and becoming;—these foundations being, as I have said, implanted in us by nature like so many seeds, temperance, and modesty, and justice, and all virtue, was brought to complete perfection.
VIII. You here, O Cato, have a sketch of the philosophers of whom I am speaking; and, now that I have given you this, I wish to know what reason there is why Zeno departed from their established system; and which of all their doctrines it was that he disapproved of? Did he object to their calling all nature a preserver of itself?—or to their saying that every animal was naturally fond of itself, so as to wish to be safe and uninjured in its kind?—or, as the end of all arts is to arrive at what nature especially requires, did he think that the same principle ought to be laid down with respect to the art of the entire life?—or, since we consist of mind and body, did he think that these and their excellences ought to be chosen for their own sakes?—or was he displeased with the preeminence which is attributed by the Peripatetics to the virtue of the mind?—or did he object to what they said about prudence, and the knowledge of things, and the union of the human race, and temperance, and modesty, and magnanimity, and honourableness in general? The Stoics must confess that all these things were excellently explained by the others, and that they gave no reason to Zeno for deserting their school. They must allege some other excuse.
I suppose they will say that the errors of the ancients were very great, and that he, being desirous of investigating the truth, could by no means endure them. For what can be more perverse—what can be more intolerable, or more stupid, than to place good health, and freedom from all pain, and soundness of the eyes and the rest of the senses, among the goods, instead of saying that there is no difference at all between them and their contraries? For that all those things which the Peripatetics called goods, were only things preferable, not good. And also that the ancients had been very foolish when they said that these excellences of the body were desirable for their own sake: they were to be accepted, but not to be desired. And the same might be said of all the ​other circumstances of life, which consists of nothing but virtue alone,—that that life which is rich also in the other things which are according to nature is not more to be desired on that account, but only more to be accepted; and, though virtue itself makes life so happy that a man cannot be happier, still something is wanting to wise men, even when they are most completely happy; and that they labour to repel pain, disease, and debility.
IX. Oh, what a splendid force is there in such genius, and what an excellent reason is this for setting up a new school! Go on; for it will follow,—and, indeed, you have most learnedly adopted the principle,—that all folly, and all injustice, and all other vices are alike, and that all errors are equal; and that those who have made great progress, through natural philosophy and learning, towards virtue, if they have not arrived at absolute perfection in it, are completely miserable, and that there is no difference between their life and that of the most worthless of men,—as Plato, that greatest of men, if he was not thoroughly wise, lived no better, and in no respect more happily, than the most worthless of men. This is, forsooth, the Stoic correction and improvement of the old philosophy; but it can never find any entrance into the city, or the forum, or the senate-house. For who could endure to hear a man, who professed to be a teacher of how to pass life with dignity and wisdom, speaking in such a manner—altering the names of things; and though he was in reality of the same opinion as every one else, still giving new names to the things to which he attributed just the same force that others did, without proposing the least alteration in the ideas to be entertained of them? Would the advocate of a cause, when summing up for a defendant, deny that exile or the confiscation of his client's property was an evil?—that these things were to be rejected, though not to be fled from?—or would he say that a judge ought not to be merciful?
But if he were speaking in the public assembly,—if Hannibal had arrived at the gates and had driven his javelin into the wall, would he deny that it was an evil to be taken prisoner, to be sold, to be slain, to lose one's country? Or could the senate, when it was voting a triumph to Africanus, have expressed itself,—Because by his virtue and good fortune . . . if there could not properly be said to be any virtue or any ​good fortune except in a wise man? What sort of a philosophy, then, is that which speaks in the ordinary manner in the forum, but in a peculiar style of its own in books? especially when, as they intimate themselves in all they say, no innovations are made by them in the facts,—none of the things themselves are changed, but they remain exactly the same, though in another manner. For what difference does it make whether you call riches, and power, and health goods, or only things preferred, as long as the man who calls them goods attributes no more to them than you do who call them things preferred? Therefore, Panætius—a noble and dignified man, worthy of the intimacy which he enjoyed with Scipio and Lælius—when he was writing to Quintus Tubero on the subject of bearing pain, never once asserted, what ought to have been his main argument, if it could have been proved, that pain was not an evil; but he explained what it was, and what its character was, and what amount of disagreeableness there was in it, and what was the proper method of enduring it; and (for he, too, was a Stoic) all that preposterous language of the school appears to me to be condemned by these sentiments of his.
X. But, however, to come, O Cato, more closely to what you have been saying, let us treat this question more narrowly, and compare what you have just said with those assertions which I prefer to yours. Now, those arguments which you employ in common with the ancients, we may make use of as admitted. But let us, if you please, confine our discussion to those which are disputed. I do please, said he: I am very glad to have the question argued with more subtlety, and, as you call it, more closely; for what you have hitherto advanced are mere popular assertions, but from you I expect something more elegant. From me? said I. However, I will try; and, if I cannot find arguments enough, I will not be above having recourse to those which you call popular.
But let me first lay down this position, that we are so recommended to ourselves by nature, and that we have this principal desire implanted in us by nature, that our first wish is to preserve ourselves. This is agreed. It follows, that we must take notice what we are, that so we may preserve ourselves in that character of which we ought to be. We are, therefore, men: we consist of mind and body,—which are ​things of a particular description,—and we ought, as our first natural desire requires, to love these parts of ourselves, and from them to establish this summit of the chief and highest good, which, if our first principles are true, must be established in such a way as to acquire as many as possible of those things which are in accordance with nature, and especially all the most important of them. This, then, is the chief good which they aimed at. I have expressed it more diffusely,—they call it briefly, living according to nature. This is what appears to them to be the chief good.
XI. Come, now let them teach us, or rather do so yourself, (for who is better able?) in what way you proceed from these principles, and prove that to live honourably (for that is the meaning of living according to virtue, or in a manner suitable to nature) is the chief good; and in what manner, or in what place, you on a sudden get rid of the body, and leave all those things which, as they are according to nature, are out of our own power; and, lastly, how you get rid of duty itself.
I ask, therefore, how it is that all these recommendations, having proceeded from nature, are suddenly abandoned by wisdom? But if it were not the chief good of man that we were inquiring into, but only that of some animal, and if he were nothing except mind (for we may make such a supposition as that, in order more easily to discover the truth), still this chief good of yours would not belong to that mind. For it would wish for good health, for freedom from pain; it would also desire the preservation of itself, and the guardianship of these qualities, and it would appoint as its own end to live according to nature, which is, as I have said, to have those things which are according to nature, either all of them, or most of them, and all the most important ones. For whatever kind of animal you make him out, it is necessary, even though he be incorporeal, as we are supposing him, still that there must be in the mind something like those qualities which exist in the body; so that the chief good cannot possibly be defined in any other manner but that which I have mentioned.
But Chrysippus, when explaining the differences between living creatures, says, that some excel in their bodies, others in their minds, some in both. And then he argues that ​there ought to be a separate chief good for each description of creature. But as he had placed man in such a class that he attributed to him excellence of mind, he determined that his chief good was not that he appeared to excel in mind, but that he appeared to be nothing else but mind.
XII. But in one case the chief good might rightly be placed in virtue alone, if there were any animal which consisted wholly of mind; and that, too, in such a manner that that mind had in itself nothing that was according to nature, as health is. But it cannot even be imagined what kind of thing that is, so as not to be inconsistent with itself. But if he says that some things are obscure, and are not visible because they are very small, we also admit that; as Epicurus says of pleasure, that those pleasures which are very small are often obscured and overwhelmed. But that kind has not so many advantages of body, nor any which last so long, or are so great. Therefore, in those in which obscuration follows because of their littleness, it often happens that we confess that it makes no difference to us whether they exist at all or not; just as when the sun is out, as you yourself said, it is of no consequence to add the light of a candle, or to add a penny to the riches of Crœsus. But in those matters in which so great an obscuration does not take place, it may still be the case, that the matter which makes a difference is of no great consequence. As if, when a man had lived ten years agreeably, an additional month's life of equal pleasantness were given to him, it would be good, because any addition has some power to produce what is agreeable; but if that is not admitted, it does not follow that a happiness of life is at once put an end to.
But the goods of the body are more like this instance which I have just mentioned. For they admit of additions worthy of having pains taken about them; so that on this point the Stoics appear to me sometimes to be joking, when they say that, if a bottle or a comb were given as an addition to a life which is being passed with virtue, a wise man would rather choose that life, because these additions were given to it, but yet that he would not be happier on that account. Now, is not this simile to be upset by ridicule rather than by serious discourse? For who would not be deservedly ridiculed, if he were anxious whether he had another bottle or ​not? But if any one relieves a person from any affection of the limbs, or from the pain of any disease, he will receive great gratitude. And if that wise man of yours is put on the rack of torture by a tyrant, he will not display the same countenance as if he had lost his bottle; but, as entering upon a serious and difficult contest, seeing that he will have to fight with a capital enemy, namely, pain, he will summon up all his principles of fortitude and patience, by whose assistance he will proceed to face that difficult and important battle, as I have called it.
We will not inquire, then, what is obscured, or what is destroyed, because it is something very small; but what is of such a character as to complete the whole sum of happiness. One pleasure out of many may be obscured in that life of pleasure; but still, however small an one it may be, it is a part of that life which consists wholly of pleasure. One coin is lost of the riches of Crœsus, still it is a part of his riches. Wherefore those things, too, which we say are according to nature, may be obscured in a happy life, still they must be parts of the happy life.
XIII. But if, as we ought to agree, there is a certain natural desire which longs for those things which are according to nature, then, when taken altogether, they must be considerable in amount. And if this point is established, then we may be allowed to inquire about those things at our leisure, and to investigate the greatness of them, and their excellence, and to examine what influence each has on living happily, and also to consider the very obscurations themselves, which, on account of their smallness, are scarcely ever, or I may say never, visible.
What should I say about that as to which there is no dispute? For there is no one who denies that that which is the standard to which everything is referred resembles every nature, and that is the chief thing which is to be desired. For every nature is attached to itself. For what nature is there which ever deserts itself, or any portion of itself, or any one of its parts or faculties, or, in short, any one of those things, or motions, or states which are in accordance with nature? And what nature has ever been forgetful of its original purpose and establishment? There has never been one which does not observe this law from first to last. How ​then, does it happen that the nature of man is the only one which ever abandons man, which forgets the body, which places the chief good, not in the whole man, but in a part of man? And how, as they themselves admit, and as is agreed upon by all, will it be preserved, so that that ultimate good of nature, which is the subject of our inquiry, shall resemble every nature? For it would resemble them, if in other natures also there were some ultimate point of excellence. For then that would seem to be the chief good of the Stoics. Why, then, do you hesitate to alter the principles of nature? For why do you say that every animal, the moment that it is born, is prone to feel love for itself, and is occupied in its own preservation? Why do you not rather say that every animal is inclined to that which is most excellent in itself, and is occupied in the guardianship of that one thing, and that the other natures do nothing else but preserve that quality which is the best in each of them? But how can it be the best, if there is nothing at all good besides? But if the other things are to be desired, why, then, is not that which is the chief of all desirable things inferred from the desire of all those things, or of the most numerous and important of them? as Phidias can either begin a statue from the beginning, and finish it, or he can take one which has been begun by another, and complete that.
Now wisdom is like this: for wisdom is not herself the parent of man, but she has received him after he has been commenced by nature. And without regard to her, she ought to complete that work of her's, as an artist would complete a statue. What kind of man, then, is it that nature has commenced? and what is the office and task of wisdom? What is it that ought to be finished and completed by her? If there is nothing to be made further in man, except some kind of motion of the mind, that is to say, reason, then it follows, that the ultimate object is to mould the life according to virtue. For the perfection of reason is virtue. If there is nothing but body, then the chief goods must be good health, freedom from pain, beauty, and so on. The question at this moment is about the chief good of man.
XIV. Why do we hesitate, then, to inquire as to his whole nature, what has been done? For as it is agreed by all, that the whole duty and office of wisdom is to be occupied about ​the cultivation of man, some (that you may not think that I am arguing against none but the Stoics) bring forward opinions in which they place the chief good among things of a kind which are wholly out of our own power, just as if they were speaking of one of the brute beasts; others, on the contrary, as if man had no body at all, so entirely exclude everything from their consideration except the mind, (and this, too, while the mind itself, in their philosophy, is not some unintelligible kind of vacuum, but something which exists in some particular species of body,) that even that is not content with virtue alone, but requires freedom from pain. So that both these classes do the same thing, as if they neglected the left side of a man, and took care only of the right; or as if they (as Herillus did) attended only to the knowledge of the mind itself, and passed over all action. For it is but a crippled system which all those men set up who pass over many things, and select some one in particular to adhere to. But that is a perfect and full system which those adopt who, while inquiring about the chief good of man, pass over in their inquiry no part either of his mind or body, so as to leave it unprotected. But your school, O Cato, because virtue holds, as we all admit, the highest and most excellent place in man, and because we think those who are wise men, perfect and admirable men, seeks entirely to dazzle the eyes of our minds with the splendour of virtue. For in every living creature there is some one principal and most excellent thing, as, for instance, in horses and dogs; but those must be free from pain and in good health. Therefore, you do not seem to me to pay sufficient attention to what the general path and progress of nature is. For it does not pursue the same course in man that it does in corn, (which, when it has advanced it from the blade to the ear, it leaves and considers the stubble as nothing,) and leave him as soon as it has conducted him to a state of reason. For it is always taking something additional, without ever abandoning what it has previously given. Therefore, it has added reason to the senses; and when it has perfected his reason, it still does not abandon the senses.
As if the culture of the vine, the object of which is to cause the vine, with all its parts, to be in the best possible condition, (however that is what we understand it to be, for ​one may, as you often do yourselves, suppose anything for the purpose of illustration,) if, then, that culture of the vine be in the vine itself, it would, I presume, desire everything else which concerns the cultivation of the vine, to be as it has been before. But it would prefer itself to every separate part of the vine, and it would feel sure that nothing in the vine was better than itself. In like manner sense, when it has been added to nature, protects it indeed, but it also protects itself. But when reason is also added, then it is placed in a position of such predominant power, that all those first principles of nature are put under its guardianship. Therefore it does not abandon the care of those things over which it is so set, that its duty is to regulate the entire life: so that we cannot sufficiently marvel at their inconsistency. For they assert that the natural appetite, which they call ὁρμὴ, and also duty, and even virtue herself, are all protectors of those things which are according to nature. But when they wish to arrive at the chief good, they overleap everything, and leave us two tasks instead of one—namely, to choose some things and desire others, instead of including both under one head.
XV. But now you say that virtue cannot properly be established, if those things which are external to virtue have any influence on living happily. But the exact contrary is the case. For virtue cannot possibly be introduced, unless everything which it chooses and which it neglects is all referred to one general end. For if we entirely neglect ourselves, we then fall into the vices and errors of Ariston, and shall forget the principles which we have attributed to virtue itself. But if we do not neglect those things, and yet do not refer them to the chief good, we shall not be very far removed from the trivialities of Herillus. For we shall have to adopt two different plans of conduct in life: for he makes out that there are two chief goods unconnected with each other; but if they were real goods, they ought to be united; but at present they are separated, so that they never can be united. But nothing can be more perverse than this. Therefore, the fact is exactly contrary to your assertion: for virtue cannot possibly be established firmly, unless it maintains those things which are the principles of nature as having an influence on the object. For we have been looking ​for a virtue which should preserve nature, not for one which should abandon it. But that of yours, as you represent it, preserves only one part, and abandons the rest.
And, indeed, if the custom of man could speak, this would be its language. That its first beginnings were, as it were, beginnings of desire that it might preserve itself in that nature in which it had been born. For it had not yet been sufficiently explained what nature desired above all things. Let it therefore be explained. What else then will be understood but that no part of nature is to be neglected? And if there is nothing in it besides reason, then the chief good must be in virtue alone. But if there is also body, then will that explanation of nature have caused us to abandon the belief which we held before the explanation. Is it, then, being in a manner suitable to nature to abandon nature? As some philosophers do, when having begun with the senses they have seen something more important and divine, and then abandoned the senses; so, too, these men, when they had beheld the beauty of virtue developed in its desire for particular things, abandoned everything which they had seen for the sake of virtue herself, forgetting that the whole nature of desirable things was so extensive that it remained from beginning to end; and they do not understand that they are taking away the very foundations of these beautiful and admirable things.
XVI. Therefore, all those men appear to me to have made a blunder who have pronounced the chief good to be to live honourably. But some have erred more than others,—Pyrrho above all, who, having fixed on virtue as the chief good, refuses to allow that there is anything else in the world deserving of being desired; and, next to him, Aristo, who did not, indeed, venture to leave nothing else to be desired, but who introduced influence, by which a wise man might be excited, and desire whatever occurred to his mind, and whatever even appeared so to occur. He was more right than Pyrrho, inasmuch as he left man some kind of desire; but worse than the rest, inasmuch as he departed wholly from nature: but the Stoics, because they place the chief good in virtue alone, resemble these men: but inasmuch as they seek for a principle of duty, they are superior to Pyrrho; and as they do not admit the desire of those objects which offer ​themselves to the imagination, they are more correct than Aristo; but, inasmuch as they do not add the things which they admit to be adopted by nature, and to be worthy of being chosen for their own sakes, to the chief good, they here desert nature, and are in some degree not different from Aristo: for he invented some strange kinds of occurrences; but these men recognise, indeed, the principles of nature, but still they disconnect them from the perfect and chief good; and when they put them forward, so that there may be some selection of things, they appear to follow nature; but when they deny that they have any influence in making life happy, they again abandon nature.
And hitherto I have been showing how destitute Zeno was of any good reason for abandoning the authority of previous philosophers: now let us consider the rest of his arguments; unless, indeed, O Cato, you wish to make any reply to what I have been saying, or unless we are getting tedious. Neither, said he; for I wish this side of the question to be completely argued by you; nor does your discourse seem to me to be at all tedious. I am glad to hear it, I replied; for what can be more desirable for me than to discuss the subject of virtue with Cato, who is the most virtuous of men in every point? But, first of all, remark that that imposing sentiment of yours, which brings a whole family after it, namely, that what is honourable is the only good, and that to live honourably is the chief good, will be shared in common with you by all who define the chief good as consisting in virtue alone; and, as to what you say, that virtue cannot be formed if anything except what is honourable is included in the account, the same statement will be made by those whom I have just named. But it appeared to me to be fairer, advancing from one common beginning, to see where Zeno, while disputing with Polemo, from whom he had learnt what the principles of nature were, first took his stand, and what the original cause of the controversy was; and not to stand on their side, who did not even allow that their own chief good was derived from nature, and to employ the same arguments which they did, and to maintain the same sentiments.
XVII. But I am very far from approving this conduct of yours, that when you have proved, as you imagine, that that ​alone is good which is honourable, then say again that it is necessary that beginnings should be put forward which are suitable and adapted to nature; by a selection from which virtue might be called into existence. For virtue ought not to have been stated to consist in selection, so that that very thing which was itself the chief good, was to acquire something besides itself; for all things which are to be taken, or chosen, or desired, ought to exist in the chief good, so that he who has attained that may want nothing more. Do you not see how evident it is to those men whose chief good consists in pleasure, what they ought to do and what they ought not? so that no one of them doubts what all their duties ought to regard, what they ought to pursue, or avoid. Let this, then, be the chief good which is now defended by me; it will be evident in a moment what are the necessary duties and actions. But you, who set before yourselves another end except what is right and honourable, will not be able to find out where your principle of duty and action is to originate.
Therefore you are all of you seeking for this, and so are those who say that they pursue whatever comes into their mind and occurs to them; and you return to nature. But nature will fairly reply to you, that it is not true that the chief happiness of life is to be sought in another quarter, but the principles of action in herself: for that there is one system only, in which both the principles of action and the chief good too is contained; and that, as the opinion of Aristo is exploded, when he says that one thing does not differ from another, and that there is nothing except virtue and vice in which there was any difference whatever; so, too, Zeno was in the wrong, who affirmed that there was no influence in anything, except virtue or vice, of the very least power to assist in the attainment of the chief good: and as that had no influence on making life happy, but only in creating a desire for things, he said that there was some power of attraction in them: just as if this desire had no reference to the acquisition of the chief good. But what can be less consistent than what they say, namely, that when they have obtained the knowledge of the chief good they then return to nature, in order to seek in it the principle of action, that is to say, of duty? For it is not the principle of action or duty which impels them to desire those things which are ​according to nature; but desire and action are both set in motion by those things.
XVIII. Now I come to those brief statements of yours which you call conclusions; and first of all to that—than which, certainly, nothing can be more brief—that "everything good is praiseworthy; but everything praiseworthy is honourable; therefore everything good is honourable." Oh, what a leaden dagger!—for who will grant you your first premises? And if it should be granted to you, then you have no need of the second: for if everything good is praiseworthy, so is everything honourable; who, then, will grant you this, except Pyrrho, Aristo, and men like them?—whom you do not approve of. Aristotle, Xenocrates, and all that school, will not grant it; inasmuch as they call health, strength, riches, glory, and many other things good, but not praiseworthy; and they therefore do not think that the chief good is contained in virtue alone, though still they do prefer virtue to everything else. What do you think that those men will do who have utterly separated virtue from the chief good, Epicurus, Hieronymus, and those too, if indeed there are any such, who wish to defend the definition of the chief good given by Carneades? And how will Callipho and Diodorus be able to grant you what you ask, men who join to honourableness something else which is not of the same genus?—Do you, then, think it proper, Cato, after you have assumed premises which no one will grant to you, to derive whatever conclusion you please from them? Take this sorites, than which you think nothing can be more faulty: “That which is good is desirable; that which is desirable ought to be sought for; that which ought to be sought for is praiseworthy,” and so on through all the steps. But I will stop here, for in the same manner no one will grant to you that whatever ought to be sought is therefore praiseworthy; and that other argument of theirs is far from a legitimate conclusion, but a most stupid assertion, “that a happy life is one worthy of being boasted of.” For it can never happen that a person may reasonably boast, without something honourable in the circumstances. Polemo will grant this to Zeno; and so will his master, and the whole of that school, and all the rest who, preferring virtue by far to everything else, still add something besides to it in their definition of the chief good. For ​if virtue be a thing worthy of being boasted of, as it is, and if it is so far superior to all other things that it can scarcely be expressed how much better it is; then a man may, possibly, be happy if endowed with virtue alone, and destitute of everything else; and yet he will never grant to you that nothing whatever is to be classed among goods, except virtue.
But those men whose chief good has no virtue in it, will perhaps not grant to you that a happy life has anything in it of which a man can rightly boast, although they also, at times, represent virtues as subjects for boasting. You see, therefore, that you are either assuming propositions which are not admitted, or else such as, even if they are granted, will do you no good.
XIX. In truth, in all these conclusions, I should think this worthy both of philosophy and of ourselves,—and that, too, most especially so when we were inquiring into the chief good,—that our lives, and designs, and wishes should be corrected, and not our expressions. For who, when he has heard those brief and acute arguments of yours which, as you say, give you so much pleasure, can ever have his opinion changed by them? For when men fix their attention on them, and wish to hear why pain is not an evil, they tell him that to be in pain is a bitter, annoying, odious, unnatural condition, and one difficult to be borne; but, because there is in pain no fraud, or dishonesty, or malice, or fault, or baseness, therefore it is not an evil. Now, the man who hears this said, even if he does not care to laugh, will still depart without being a bit more courageous as to bearing pain than he was when he came. But you affirm that no one can be courageous who thinks pain an evil. Why should he be more courageous if he thinks it—what you yourself admit it to be—bitter and scarcely endurable? For timidity is generated by things, and not by words. And you say, that if one letter is moved, the whole system of the school will be undermined. Do I seem, then, to you to be moving a letter, or rather whole pages? For although the order of things, which is what you so especially extol, may be preserved among them, and although everything may be well joined and connected together, (for that is what you said,) still we ought not to follow them too far, if arguments, having set out from false principles, are consistent with themselves, and do not wander from the end they propose to themselves.
​Accordingly, in his first establishment of his system, your master, Zeno, departed from nature; and as he had placed the chief good on that superiority of disposition which we call virtue, and had affirmed that there was nothing whatever good which was not honourable, and that virtue could have no real existence if in other things there were things of which one was better or worse than another; having laid down these premises, he naturally maintained the conclusions. You say truly; for I cannot deny it. But the conclusions which follow from his premises are so false that the premises from which they are deduced cannot be true. For the dialecticians, you know, teach us that if the conclusions which follow from any premises are false, the premises from which they follow cannot be true. And so that conclusion is not only true, but so evident that even the dialecticians do not think it necessary that any reasons should be given for it—“If that is the case, this is; but this is not; therefore that is not.” And so, by denying your consequence, your premise is contradicted. What follows, then?—“All who are not wise are equally miserable; all wise men are perfectly happy: all actions done rightly are equal to one another; all offences are equal.” But, though all these propositions at first appear to be admirably laid down, after a little consideration they are not so much approved of. For every man's own senses, and the nature of things, and truth itself, cried out, after a fashion, that they could never be induced to believe that there was no difference between those things which Zeno asserted to be equal.
XX. Afterwards that little Phœnician of yours (for you know that the people of Citium, your clients, came from Phœnicia), a shrewd man, as he was not succeeding in his case, since nature herself contradicted him, began to withdraw his words; and first of all he granted in favour of those things which we consider good, that they might be considered fit, and useful, and adapted to nature; and he began to confess that it was more advantageous for a wise—that is to say for a perfectly happy—man, to have those things which he does not venture indeed to call goods, but yet allows to be well adapted to nature. And he denies that Plato, if he were not a wise man, would be in the same circumstances as the tyrant Dionysius; for that to die was better for the one, ​because he despaired of attaining wisdom, but to live was better for the other, because of his hope of doing so. And he asserts that of offences some are tolerable, and some by no means so, because many men passed by some offences, and there are others which very few people pass by, on account of the number of duties violated. Again, he said that some men are so foolish as to be utterly unable ever to arrive at wisdom; but that there are others who, if they had taken pains, might have attained to it. Now, in this he expressed himself differently from any one else, but he thought just the same as all the rest. Nor did he think those things deserving of being valued less which he himself denied to be goods, than they did who considered them as goods. What, then, did he wish to effect by having altered these names? At least he would have taken something from their weight, and would have valued them at rather less than the Peripatetics, in order to appear to think in some respects differently from them, and not merely to speak so.
What more need I say? What do you say about the happy life to which everything is referred? You affirm that it is not that life which is filled with everything which nature requires; and you place it entirely in virtue alone. And as every controversy is usually either about a fact or a name, both kinds of dispute arise if either the fact is not understood or if a mistake is made as to the name; and if neither of these is the case, we must take care to use the most ordinary language possible, and words as suitable as can be,—that is, such as make the subject plain. Is it, then, doubtful that if the former philosophers have not erred at all as to the fact itself, they certainly express themselves more conveniently? Let us, then, examine their opinions, and then return to the question of names.
XXI. They say that the desire of the mind is excited when anything appears to it to be according to nature; and that all things which are according to nature are worthy of some esteem; and that they deserve to be esteemed in proportion to the weight that there is in each of them: and that of those things which are according to nature, some have in themselves nothing of that appetite of which we have already frequently spoken, being neither called honourable nor praiseworthy; and some, again, are accompanied by pleasure in the ​case of every animal, and in the case of man also with reason. And those of them which are suitable are honourable, beautiful, and praiseworthy; but the others, mentioned before, are natural, and, when combined with those which are honourable, make up and complete a perfectly happy life. But they say, too, that of all these advantages—to which those people do not attribute more importance who say that they are goods, than Zeno does, who denies it—by far the most excellent is that which is honourable and praiseworthy; but that if two honourable things are both set before one, one accompanied with good health and the other with sickness, it is not doubtful to which of them nature herself will conduct us: but, nevertheless, that the power of honourableness is so great, and that it is so far better than, and superior to, everything else, that it can never be moved by any punishments or by any bribes from that which it has decided to be right; and that everything which appears hard, difficult, or unfortunate, can be dissipated by those virtues with which we have been adorned by nature; not because they are trivial or contemptible—or else where would be the merit of the virtues?—but that we might infer from such an event, that it was not in them that the main question of living happily or unhappily depended.
In short, the things which Zeno has called estimable, and worth choosing, and suitable to nature, they call goods; but they call that a happy life which consists of those things which I have mentioned, or, if not of all, at least of the greatest number of them, and of the most important. But Zeno calls that the only good which has some peculiar beauty of its own to make it desirable; and he calls that life alone happy which is passed with virtue.
XXII. If we are to discuss the reality of the case, then there cannot possibly, Cato, be any disagreement between you and me: for there is nothing on which you and I have different opinions; let us only compare the real circumstances, after changing the names. Nor, indeed, did he fail to see this; but he was delighted with the magnificence and splendour of the language: and if he really felt what he said, and what his words intimate, then what would be the difference between him and Pyrrho or Aristo? But if he did not approve of them, then what was his object in differing in language with those men with whom he agreed in reality?
​What would you do if these Platonic philosophers, and those, too, who were their pupils, were to come to life again, and address you thus:—“As, O Marcus Cato, we heard that you were a man exceedingly devoted to philosophy, a most just citizen, an excellent judge, and a most conscientious witness, we marvelled what the reason was why you preferred the Stoics to us; for they, on the subject of good and evil things, entertain those opinions which Zeno learnt from Polemo; and use those names which, when they are first heard, excite wonder, but when they are explained, move only ridicule. But if you approved those doctrines so much, why did you not maintain them in their own proper language? If authority had influence with you, how was it that you preferred some stranger to all of us and to Plato himself? especially while you were desirous to be a chief man in the republic, and might have been accomplished and equipped by us in a way to enable you to defend it to your own great increase of dignity. For the means to such an end have been investigated, described, marked down, and enjoined by us; and we have written detailed accounts of the government of all republics, and their descriptions, and constitutions, and changes,—and even of the laws, and customs, and manners of all states. Moreover, how much eloquence, which is the greatest ornament to leading men,—in which, indeed, we have heard that you are very eminent,—might you have learnt, in addition to that which is natural to you, from our records!” When they had said this, what answer could you have made to such men? I would have entreated you, said he, who had dictated their speech to them, to speak likewise for me, or else rather to give me a little room to answer them myself, only that now I prefer listening to you; and yet at another time I should be likely to reply to them at the same time that I answer you.
XXIII. But if you were to answer truly, Cato, you would be forced to say this—That you do not approve of those men, men of great genius and great authority as they are. But that you have noticed that the things which, by reason of their antiquity they have failed to see, have been thoroughly comprehended by the Stoics, and that these latter have discussed the same matters with more acuteness, and have also entertained more dignified and courageous senti​ments, inasmuch as, in the first place, they deny that good health is to be desired, though they admit that it may be chosen; not because to be well is a good, but because it is not to be utterly disregarded, and yet that it does not appear to them of more value that it does to those who do not hesitate to call it a good. And that you could not endure that those ancients, those bearded men (as we are in the habit of calling our own ancestors), should believe that the life of that man who lived honourably, if he had also good health and a good reputation, and was rich, was more desirable, better, and more to be sought for, than that of him who was equally a good man in many respects, like the Alcmæon of Ennius—
Surrounded by disease, and exile sad, And cruel want.
Those ancients, then, must have been far from clever, to think that life more desirable, better, and happier. But the Stoics think it only to be preferred if one has a choice; not because this life is happier, but because it is better adapted to nature; and they think that all who are not wise are equally miserable. The Stoics, forsooth, thought this; but it had entirely escaped the perception of those philosophers who preceded them, for they thought that men stained with all sorts of parricide and wickedness were not at all more miserable than those who, though they lived purely and uprightly, had not yet attained complete wisdom.
And while on this topic, you brought forth those similes which they are in the habit of employing, which are, in truth, no similes at all. For who is ignorant that, if many men should choose to emerge from the deep, those would be nearer breathing who came close to the surface, but still would not be actually able to breathe any more than those who are at the bottom? Therefore, on your principles, it is of no avail to make progress and advancement in virtue, in order to be less utterly miserable before you have actually arrived at it, since it is of no use in the case of men in the water. And since puppies who are on the point of opening their eyes, are just as blind as those that are but this moment born; it is plain also that Plato, as he had not yet seen wisdom, was as blind in his intellect as Phalaris.
XXIV. These cases are not alike, Cato. For in these ​instances, though you may have made a good deal of progress, still you are in exactly the same evil from which you wish to be free, till you have entirely escaped. For a man does not breathe till he has entirely emerged, and puppies are just as blind till they have opened their eyes, as if they were never going to open them. I will give you some instances that really are like. One man's eyes are bad, another is weak in his body; these men are both gradually relieved by the daily application of remedies. The one gets better every day, and the other sees better. Now these men resemble all those who study virtue. They are relieved of their vices; they are relieved of their errors. Unless, perchance, you think that Tiberius Gracchus, the father, was not happier than his son, when the one laboured to establish the republic, and the other to subvert it. And yet he was not a wise man. For who taught him wisdom? or when? or where? or whence did he learn it? Still, because he consulted his twin glory and dignity, he had made great progress in virtue.
But I will compare your grandfather, Drusus, with Caius Gracchus, who was nearly his contemporary. He healed the wounds which the other inflicted on the republic. But there is nothing which makes men so miserable as impiety and wickedness. Grant that all those who are unwise are miserable, as, in fact, they are; still he is not equally miserable who consults the interest of his country with him who wishes for its destruction. Therefore, those men are already a great deal relieved from their vices who have made any considerable advance towards virtue. But the men of your school admit that advance towards virtue can be made, but yet assert that no relief from vices takes place in consequence.
But it is worth while to consider on what arguments acute men rely for proving this point. Those arts, say they, of which the perfection can be increased, show that the completeness of their contraries can likewise be increased. But no addition can be made to the perfection of virtue. Therefore, also, vices will not be susceptible of any increase, for they are the contraries of virtues. Shall we say, then, that things which are doubtful are made plain by things which are evident, or that things which are evident are obscured by things that are doubtful? But this is evident, that different vices are greater in different people. This is doubtful, whether ​any addition can be made to that which you call the chief good. But you, while what you ought to do is to try and illustrate what is doubtful by what is evident, endeavour to get rid of what is evident by what is doubtful. And, therefore, you will find yourself hampered by the same reasoning which I used just now. For if it follows that some vices are not greater than others, because no addition can be made to that chief good which you describe, since it is quite evident that the vices of all men are not equal, you must change your definition of the chief good. For we must inevitably maintain this rule, that when a consequence is false, the premises from which the consequence proceeds cannot be true.
XXV. What, then, is the cause of these difficulties? A vain-glorious parade in defining the chief good. For when it is positively asserted that what is honourable is the sole good, all care for one's health, all attention to one's estate, all regard for the government of the republic, all regularity in transacting business, all the duties of life, in short, are put an end to. Even that very honourableness, in which alone you assert that everything is comprised, must be abandoned. All which arguments are carefully urged against Ariston by Chrysippus. And from that embarrassment it is that all those fallaciously speaking wiles, as Attius calls them, have arisen. For because wisdom had no ground on which to rest her foot, when all the duties were taken away, (and duties were taken away when all power of selection and discrimination was denied; for what choice, or what discrimination could there be when all things were so completely equal that there was no difference whatever between them?) from these difficulties there arose worse errors than even those of Aristo. For his arguments were at all events simple; those of your school are full of craft.
For suppose you were to ask Aristo whether these things, freedom from pain, riches, and good health, appear to him to be goods? He would deny it. What next? Suppose you ask him whether the contraries of these things are bad? He would deny that equally. Suppose you were to ask Zeno the same question? He would give you the same answer, word for word. Suppose further, that we, being full of astonishment, were to ask them both how it will be possible for us to live, if we think that it makes not the least difference to ​us whether we are well or sick; whether we are free from pain or tormented by it; whether we are able or unable to endure cold and hunger? You will live, says Aristo, magnificently and excellently, doing whatever seems good to you. You will never be vexed, you will never desire anything, you will never fear anything. What will Zeno say? He says that all these ideas are monstrous, and that it is totally impossible for any one to live on these principles; but that there is some extravagant, some immense difference between what is honourable and what is base; that between other things, indeed, there is no difference at all. He will also say—(listen to what follows, and do not laugh, if you can help it)—all those intermediate things, between which there is no difference, are nevertheless such that some of them are to be chosen, others rejected, and others utterly disregarded; that is to say, that you may wish for some, wish to avoid others, and be totally indifferent about others. But you said just now, O Zeno, that there was no difference whatever between these things. And now I say the same, he replies; and that there is no difference whatever as respects virtues and vices. Well, I should like to know who did not know that?
XXVI. However, let us hear a little more. Those things, says he, which you have mentioned, to be well, to be rich, to be free from pain, I do not call goods; but I will call them in Greek προηγμένα (which you may translate by the Latin producta, though I prefer præposita or præcipua, for they are more easily comprehended and more applicable terms). And again, the contraries, want, sickness, and pain, I do not call evils, though I have no objection to styling them (if you wish) things to be rejected. And, therefore, I do not say that I seek for them first, but that I choose them; not that I wish for them, but that I accept them. And so, too, I do not say that I flee from the contraries; but that I, as it were, keep aloof from them. What says Aristotle and the rest of the disciples of Plato? Why, that they call everything good which is according to nature; and that whatever is contrary to nature they call evil.
Do you not see, then, that your master Zeno agrees with Aristo in words, but differs from him as to facts; but that he agrees with Aristotle and those other philosophers as to facts, but differs from them only in words? Why, then, when we ​are agreed as to facts, do we not prefer speaking in the ordinary manner? Let him teach me either that I shall be more prepared to despise money, if I reckon it only among things preferred, than if I count it among goods; and that I shall have more fortitude to endure pain if I call it bitter, and difficult to bear, and contrary to nature, than if I pronounce it an evil. Marcus Piso, my intimate, also was a very witty man, and used to ridicule the Stoics for their language on this topic: for what was he used to say? “You deny that riches are a good, but call them something to be preferred. What good do you do by that? do you diminish avarice? But if we mind words, then, in the first place, your expression, to be preferred, is longer than good.” “That has nothing to do with the matter.” “I dare say it has not, but still it is a more difficult expression. For I do not know what the word good is derived from; but the word preferred I suppose means that it is preferred to other things. That appears to me to be important.” Therefore, he insisted upon it, that more consequence was attributed to riches by Zeno, who placed them among things preferred, than by Aristotle, who admitted that they were a good. Still he did not say that they were a great good, but rather such an one as was to be despised and scorned in comparison of what was right and honourable, and never one to be greatly sought after. And altogether, he argued in this way, about all those expressions which had been altered by Zeno, both as to what he denied to be goods, and as to those things to which he referred the name of evil; saying that the first received from him a more joyful title than they did from us; and the latter a more gloomy one.
XXVII. Piso, then—a most excellent man, and, as you well know, a great friend of yours—used to argue in this manner. And now let us make an end of this, after we have just said a few additional words. For it would take a long time to reply to all your assertions.
For from the same tricks with words, originate all those kingdoms, and commands, and riches, and universal dominion which you say belong to the wise man. You say besides, that he alone is handsome, he alone is free, he alone is a citizen; and that everything which is the contrary of all these things belongs to the foolish man, who is also insane, as you assert ​they call these assertions παράδοξα; we may call them marvellous. And yet what marvel is there in them when you come nearer to them? I will just examine the matter with you, and see what meaning you affix to each word; there shall be no dispute between us. You say that all offences are equal. I will not speak to you now, as I spoke on the same subject when I was defending Lucius Murena, whom you prosecuted; then I was addressing an unphilosophical audience; something too was to be directed to the bystanders in court; at present, we must proceed more precisely. In what way can all offences be called equal? Because nothing is more honourable than what is honourable; nothing more base than what is base. Go on a little further, for there is a great dispute as to this point; let us examine those arguments, which are especially your own, why all offences are equal. As, says he, in many lyres, if not one of them is so well in tune as to be able to preserve the harmony, all are equally out of tune; so because offences differ from what is right, they will differ equally; therefore they are equal: now here we are being mocked with an ambiguous expression. For it equally happens to all the lyres to be out of tune, but not to them all to be equally out of tune. Therefore, that comparison does not help you at all. For it would not follow if we were to say that every avarice is equally avarice, that therefore every case of avarice was equal. Here is another simile which is no simile; for as, says he, a pilot blunders equally if he wrecks a ship loaded with straw, as if he wrecks one loaded with gold; so, too, he sins equally who beats his parent, with him who beats a slave unjustly. This is not seeing that it has no connexion with the art of the pilot what cargo the ship carries: and therefore that it makes no difference with respect to his steering well or ill, whether his freight is straw or gold. But it can and ought to be understood what the difference is between a parent and a slave; therefore it makes no difference with respect to navigation, but a great deal with respect to duty, what the description of thing may be which is affected by the blunder. And if, in navigation, a ship has been wrecked through carelessness, the offence then becomes more serious if gold is lost, than if it is only straw. For in all arts we insist upon the exercise of what is called common prudence; which all men who have the management of any ​business entrusted to them are bound to possess. And so even in this instance offences are not equal.
XXVIII. However, they press on, and relax nothing. Since, say they, every offence is one of imbecility and inconsistency, and since these vices are equally great in all fools, it follows necessarily that offences are equal: as if it were admitted that vices are equally great in all fools, and that Lucius Tubulus was a man of the same imbecility and inconsistency as Publius Scævola, on whose motion he was condemned; and as if there were no difference at all between the things themselves which are the subject of the offences; so that, in proportion as they are more or less important, the offences committed in respect of them are so too.
Therefore, for I may now bring this discourse to an end, your Stoics seem to me to be most especially open to this charge, that they fancy they can support two opposite propositions. For what is so inconsistent as for the same person to say that what is honourable is the only good, and also that the desire of things adapted for human life proceeds from nature? But when they wish to maintain the arguments which are suitable for the former propositions, they agree with Aristo; when they avoid that, they in reality are upholding the same doctrines as the Peripatetics; they cling to words with great tenacity; and as they cannot bear to have them taken from them one after another, they become more fierce, and rough, and harsher both in their language and manners. But Panætius, wishing to avoid their moroseness and asperity, would not approve of either the bitterness of their sentiments, or their captious way of arguing: and so in one respect he was more gentle, and in the other more intelligible. And he was always quoting Plato, and Aristotle, and Xenocrates, and Theophrastus, and Dicæarchus, as his own writings show. And indeed, I feel very sure that it would do you a great deal of good if you too were to study those authors with care and diligence.
But since it is getting towards evening, and I must return to my villa, we will stop this discussion at this point, but we will often return to it on other occasions. Indeed we will, said he, for what can we do better? And indeed I shall require of you to give me a hearing while I refute what you have said; but recollect that you approve of all our opinions, ​charging us only with using words incorrectly; but that we do not approve of one single one of your ideas. You are throwing a stone at me as I depart, said I; however, we shall see. And when we had thus spoken we separated.