Book 5

When I had heard Antiochus, Brutus, as I was wont, with Marcus Piso, in that gymnasium which is called the Ptolemaeum, and together with us my brother Quintus and Titus Pomponius and Lucius Cicero — my cousin by kinship, my brother in affection — we settled among ourselves to take our afternoon walk in the Academy, chiefly because that place at that hour was free from all crowd. And so at the appointed time we all came to Piso's house. Thence, in varied talk, we completed those six stades from the Dipylon gate. But when we had come into the walks of the Academy, not without cause renowned, there was that solitude which we had wished for.

Then Piso said: 'Shall I say that this is given us by nature, or by some illusion, that, when we see those places in which we have learned that men worthy of remembrance much frequented, we are more moved than when at any time we either hear of their very deeds or read some writing of theirs? As I now am moved. For Plato comes into my mind, who, we have learned, was the first wont to dispute here; and those little gardens of his, close by, not only bring me the memory of him, but seem to set the man himself before my sight. Here was Speusippus, here Xenocrates, here his hearer Polemo — whose very seat that was which we see. For my part, gazing too at our senate-house — the Hostilia, I mean, not this new one, which seems to me smaller since it has been made larger — I used to think of Scipio, Cato, Laelius, and above all of my own grandfather; so great is the force of admonition in places, that not without cause the art of memory has been derived from them.

Then Quintus said: 'It is plainly so, Piso, as you say. For just now, as I came hither, that Colonean spot turned me toward itself, whose inhabitant Sophocles dwelt before my eyes — Sophocles, whom you know how I admire and how I delight in him. Indeed a certain vision moved me toward the deeper memory of Oedipus coming hither, and asking in that most tender song what these very places were — vainly, of course, but yet it moved me.' Then Pomponius: 'But I, whom you are wont to pursue as devoted to Epicurus, am much indeed with Phaedrus, whom I love uniquely, as you know, in the gardens of Epicurus, which we just now passed; but, warned by the old proverb, I remember the living — and yet I cannot forget Epicurus, even if I should wish, whose likeness our friends have not only in pictures, but even on cups and on rings.'

Here I: 'Our Pomponius indeed,' said I, 'seems to jest, and perhaps by his own right. For he has so settled himself at Athens that he is almost one of the Attic men — so that he seems likely even to have that surname. But I assent to you, Piso, that it comes about by experience that we think somewhat more keenly and attentively of famous men at the reminder of places. For you know that I once came with you to Metapontum, and did not turn aside to my host before I had seen that very spot where Pythagoras had ended his life, and his seat. But at this time, although in every part of Athens there are many marks of the greatest men in the very places, yet I am moved by that exedra. For just now it was the seat of Carneades, whom I seem to see — for his likeness is well known — and I think that very seat, bereaved of so great a magnitude of genius, longs for that voice.'

Then Piso said: 'Since, then, we all have said something, what of our Lucius?' said he. 'Does he gladly visit that place where Demosthenes and Aeschines were wont to contend with each other? For each man is led most by his own pursuit.' And he, when he had blushed, said: 'Do not ask me, who have even gone down to the Phaleric shore, in which place they say Demosthenes was wont to declaim against the surf, that he might accustom himself to overcome the roar with his voice. Just now too I turned a little to the right off the road, that I might approach the tomb of Pericles. Although that indeed is endless in this city; for wherever we walk, we set our foot upon some history.'

Then Piso: 'And yet, Cicero,' said he, 'those studies, if they look to imitating the greatest men, are the mark of the gifted; but if only to learning the records of ancient memory, of the merely curious. But we all exhort you — running already, as I hope — that you should wish to imitate those whom you wish to have known.' Here I: 'Although this one indeed, Piso,' said I, 'does, as you see, the things you advise, yet your exhortation is pleasing to me.' Then he, most kindly, as was his wont, said: 'Let us all indeed bring all things to bear on this young man's youth, and especially that he impart something of his pursuits to philosophy too — whether to imitate you, whom he loves, or that he may be able to pursue that very thing he studies the more elegantly. But are you to be exhorted by us, Lucius,' said he, 'or are you of your own accord inclined? To me, at least, you seem to attend prettily well to Antiochus, whom you hear.' Then he, timidly, or rather modestly, said: 'I do indeed; but did you hear just now about Carneades? I am carried off thither; but Antiochus calls me back, and there is no one besides whom we may hear.'

Then Piso: 'Although this perhaps cannot so pass off, since he is present' — he meant me — 'yet I shall dare to call you from this New Academy to that old one, in which, as you heard Antiochus say, are counted not those alone who are called Academics — Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crantor, and the rest — but also the old Peripatetics, whose chief is Aristotle, whom, except Plato, I know not whether I might rightly call the chief of philosophers. Turn yourself, then, I pray, to them. For from their writings and institutions both all liberal learning, all history, all elegant discourse can be drawn, and there is so great a variety of arts that no one, without that equipment, can come sufficiently adorned to any more illustrious matter. From these came orators, from these commanders and leaders of commonwealths. And, to come to lesser things, mathematicians, poets, musicians, finally physicians, set out from this workshop, as it were, of all craftsmen.' And I:

'You know,' said I, 'that I feel that very same thing, Piso; but your mention of it is opportune. For my Cicero is eager to hear what is the opinion of that old Academy of which you speak, and of the Peripatetics, about the ends of goods. And we think that you can most easily explain it, since you both had Stasea of Naples with you for many years, and we see you for several months now at Athens seeking out these very things from Antiochus.' And he, smiling, said: 'Come, come' — for cleverly enough you wished me to be the beginning of our discourse — 'let us set forth for the young man, if perchance we can, anything. For this solitude grants us that which, if some god should say it, I should never have thought — that I should dispute in the Academy like a philosopher. But let me not, while I humour him, be troublesome to you.' 'To me?' said I, 'who asked you this very thing?' Then, when Quintus and Pomponius had said that they wished the same, Piso began. Attend, I pray, to his discourse, Brutus, whether it seems sufficiently to have embraced the opinion of Antiochus — which I judge most approved by you, who have frequently heard his brother Aristus.

He spoke, then, thus: How great an ornament there is in the doctrine of the Peripatetics, has been said by me, as briefly as I could, a little while ago. But the form of that doctrine, as nearly of the rest, is threefold: one part is of nature, the second of arguing, the third of living. Nature was so investigated by them that no part of heaven, sea, earth — to speak poetically — was passed over; nay even, when they had spoken of the beginnings of things and the whole world, so that they concluded many things not only by probable argumentation, but even by the necessary reasoning of the mathematicians, they brought the greatest material from things investigated for their own sake to the knowledge of hidden things.

Aristotle followed out the origins, modes of life, and shapes of all living creatures; Theophrastus, the natures of plants and the causes and reasons of almost all things which are born from the earth; from which knowledge the investigation of the most hidden things was made easier. And of arguing, precepts were handed down by the same men not only dialectically, but also rhetorically; and by Aristotle, as chief, the exercise of speaking on both sides about single matters was instituted — not so that he always spoke against everything, like Arcesilas, and yet so that in all matters he brought out whatever could be said on either side.

But when the third part sought the precepts of living well, that too was by the same men referred not only to the plan of private life, but also to the governance of commonwealths. We have learned from Aristotle the manners, institutions, and disciplines of nearly all states, not of Greece only, but also of the barbarian world; from Theophrastus, even their laws. And since each of them had taught what kind of leader it was fitting to be in a commonwealth, and had moreover written in many books what was the best condition of a commonwealth, Theophrastus did this further: what were the inclinations of affairs in a commonwealth, and the turning-points of the times, which had to be controlled however the matter demanded. But the plan of leading life pleased them most that was quiet, placed in the contemplation and knowledge of things; which, because it was most like the life of the gods, seemed most worthy of the wise man. And about these matters their discourse is both splendid and illustrious.

But about the highest good — because there are two kinds of books, one written in a popular way, which they called exoteric, the other more polished, which they left in their commentaries — they do not always seem to say the same thing; nor yet in the sum itself is there any variety among these men, at least whom I have named, or disagreement among themselves. But since the happy life is the thing sought, and this is the one thing which philosophy ought to regard and follow, whether it is wholly placed in the power of the wise man, or can be either shaken or snatched away by adverse circumstances, in this they seem sometimes to vary and to doubt. Which is chiefly brought about by Theophrastus's book on the happy life, in which a great deal indeed is given to fortune. But if it be so, wisdom cannot guarantee the happy life. This seems to me a softer, so to speak, and more effeminate reasoning than the force and gravity of virtue demands. Wherefore let us hold to Aristotle and his son Nicomachus, whose carefully written books on morals are said indeed to be Aristotle's — but I do not see why the son could not have been like the father. Let us yet use Theophrastus for very many things, provided we hold in virtue more firmness and strength than he held. Let us, then, be content with these.

For their successors are better indeed, in my opinion, than the philosophers of the other schools, but they so degenerate that they seem to have sprung from themselves. First, the successor of Theophrastus, Strato, chose to be a natural philosopher; in which, although he is great, yet very many of his views are novel, and very few are about morals. His successor, Lyco, is rich in language, but rather meagre in the things themselves. Then his successor, Aristo, is neat and elegant; but that gravity which is desired in a great philosopher was not in him; his writings, indeed, are both many and polished, but somehow his discourse has no authority.

I pass over many, and among them a learned and agreeable man, Hieronymus — whom now I know not why I should call a Peripatetic. For he set forth freedom from pain as the highest good; but whoever disagrees about the highest good disagrees about the whole system of philosophy. Critolaus wished to imitate the ancients, and indeed is nearest in gravity, and his discourse overflows; and yet not even he abides in his country's institutions. Diodorus, his hearer, joins freedom from pain to honourableness. He too is his own man, and, disagreeing about the highest good, cannot truly be called a Peripatetic. But the opinion of the ancients our Antiochus seems to me to pursue most diligently — the same which he teaches was held by Aristotle and Polemo.

Our Lucius, then, does prudently, who would rather hear about the highest good; for this being established, all things in philosophy are established. For in other matters, if anything has been passed over or unknown, there is no more of harm than is the worth of each of those things in which something has been neglected. But if the highest good be unknown, the plan of living must be unknown; from which so great an error follows that men cannot know into what harbour they may betake themselves. But the ends of things being known — when it is understood what is both the uttermost of goods and of evils — the road of life is found, and the shaping of all duties, when it is inquired to what each thing is to be referred;

from which the plan of living happily — that which all men seek — can be found and procured. But since there is great disagreement as to in what this lies, we must employ the Carneadean division, which our Antiochus is wont gladly to use. He, then, saw not only how many opinions of philosophers about the highest good there had been so far, but how many altogether there could be. He denied, then, that there is any art which proceeds from itself; for always that which is comprehended by the art is outside it. There is no need to make this longer by examples. For it is plain that no art is concerned with itself, but that the art itself is one thing, and what is set before the art another. Since, then, as medicine is the art of health, steering of navigation, so prudence is the art of living, it is necessary that it too be established and proceed from some thing.

But it has been pretty well agreed among all that that in which prudence is concerned, and which it wishes to attain, ought to be fitted and accommodated to nature, and such that of itself it invites and allures the appetite of the mind, which the Greeks call horme. But what it is that so moves and is so sought by nature at the first origin is not agreed, and about it is all the disagreement among the philosophers when the highest good is sought out. For of that whole question which is held about the ends of goods and evils — when it is inquired what in these is the uttermost and last — the source must be found, in which are the first invitations of nature; and this being found, the whole discussion about the highest good and evil is drawn from it as from a head. Some think the first appetite is for pleasure, and the first repelling for pain. Others judge that freedom from pain is first taken on, and pain first turned away.

From these, others set out from those things which they name the first according to nature, among which they count the soundness and preservation of all the parts, health, the senses entire, freedom from pain, strength, beauty, and the rest of that kind; like to which are the first things in the mind, the little sparks, as it were, and seeds of the virtues. Since of these three some one is that by which nature is first moved either to seeking or to repelling, and nothing at all besides these three can be, it is necessary that the whole duty of fleeing or following be referred to some one of them, so that that prudence which we said is the art of life is concerned with some one of those three things, from which it draws the beginning of the whole life.

But from that which a man shall have determined to be the thing by which nature is first moved, there will arise also the reasoning of the right and the honourable, which may agree with some one of those three — so that it is honourable either to do all things for the sake of pleasure, even if you do not attain it; or of not being in pain, even if you cannot attain it; or of attaining the things which are according to nature, even if you attain nothing. So it comes about that, as great as is the difference in the natural principles, so great is the unlikeness in the ends of goods and evils. Others again, from the same principles, will refer every duty either to pleasure, or to not being in pain, or to obtaining those first things according to nature.

Six opinions, then, about the highest good having now been set forth, of the three nearest these are the chiefs: of pleasure, Aristippus; of not being in pain, Hieronymus; of enjoying those things which we said are the first according to nature, Carneades — not indeed as their author, but as their defender for the sake of argument. The three earlier were such as could be; of which one alone has been defended, and that vehemently. For that one should do all things for the sake of pleasure, when, even if we attain nothing, yet that very purpose of so acting is in itself to be sought, and honourable, and the only good — no one has said. Nor did anyone think that the avoidance of pain itself, for its own sake, is among things to be sought, unless one could also avoid it. But that to do all things, that we may attain the things which are according to nature, even if we do not attain them, is both honourable and the only thing to be sought for its own sake, and the only good — the Stoics say.

These six, then, are the simple opinions about the highest of goods and evils — two without a patron, four defended. But of the joined and double expositions of the highest good there were altogether three, nor indeed could there be more, if you look deeply into the nature of things. For either pleasure can be joined to honourableness, as it pleased Callipho and Dinomachus; or freedom from pain, as Diodorus; or the first things of nature, as the ancients, whom we have named both Academics and Peripatetics. But since all things cannot be said at once, these things must for the present be noted: that pleasure is to be set aside, since we are born for certain greater things, as will soon appear. About freedom from pain much the same things are wont to be said as about pleasure. Since, then, both about pleasure with Torquatus, and about honourableness, in which alone all good was placed, with Cato, it has been disputed, first, the things which were said against pleasure fall much the same against freedom from pain.

Nor indeed are other things to be sought against that Carneadean opinion. For in whatever way the highest good is so set forth that it lacks honourableness, neither duties nor virtues nor friendships can stand in that reasoning. But the joining of either pleasure or not being in pain with honourableness makes that very honourable thing which it wishes to embrace base. For to refer the things you do to those things, of which the one, if a man be free from evil, one would say he is in the highest good, the other is concerned with the lightest part of nature — this is to darken, not to say to defile, all the splendour of honourableness. There remain the Stoics, who, when they had transferred all things from the Peripatetics and Academics, pursued the same things under other names. These it is better to speak against one by one. But now, what we are about;

of them, when we shall wish. But the unconcern of Democritus, which is, as it were, a tranquillity of mind, which they call euthymia, had to be set apart from this discussion, because that very tranquillity of mind is the happy life itself; but we are inquiring, not what it is, but whence it comes. Now the opinions of Pyrrho, Aristo, Erillus, hissed off and cast out — because they cannot fall within this circle which we have described — ought not to have been employed at all. For since this whole question about the ends and, as it were, the uttermost of goods and evils proceeds from that which we said is fitted and accommodated to nature, and which itself is first sought for its own sake, this whole thing both they take away, who in those matters in which there is nothing that is not either honourable or base deny that there is any cause why one thing should be preferred to another, and think there is no difference at all among those things; and Erillus, if he so felt that there is nothing good except knowledge, took away every cause of forming a counsel and the discovery of duty. The opinions of the rest being thus excluded, since there can be none besides, this opinion of the ancients must necessarily prevail. Therefore, by the institution of the ancients, which the Stoics too use, let us take our beginning here.

Every living creature loves itself, and, as soon as it is born, does this, that it may preserve itself; because this first appetite for guarding its whole life is given it by nature — that it should preserve itself and be so disposed that it may be best disposed according to nature. This constitution it has at first confused and uncertain, so that it only guards itself, of whatever sort it be, but understands neither what it is, nor what it can do, nor what its own nature is. But when it has advanced a little, and has begun to perceive how far each thing touches it and pertains to it, then it begins gradually to advance, and to recognize itself and to understand for what cause it has that appetite of mind which we mentioned, and it begins both to seek the things which it feels are fitted to nature and to repel their contraries. Therefore for every living creature that which it seeks is placed in that which is accommodated to nature. So the end of goods arises — to live according to nature, so disposed that one can be best disposed and most accommodated to nature.

But since each living creature has its own nature, it is necessary that the end too of all be this, that nature be filled out — for nothing forbids certain things to be common both among the other living creatures themselves, and to man with the beasts, since the nature of all is common — but those uttermost and highest things which we seek are distinct and divided among the kinds of living creatures, and each one has its own, fitted to that which the nature of each desires.

Wherefore when we say that the uttermost end of all living creatures is to live according to nature, it must not be taken as if we said that there is one uttermost end of all, but as it can rightly be said of all the arts that it is common to them to be concerned with some knowledge, but that the knowledge of each art is its own — so it is common to all living creatures to live according to nature, but their natures are diverse, so that one thing is from nature for the horse, another for the ox, another for man. And yet in all there is a common sum, and indeed not only in living creatures, but also in all those things which nature nourishes, increases, guards — among which we see that the things which are born from the earth do many things in a manner for themselves of their own accord, which avail for living and growing, so that they may in their own kind come to their uttermost; so that now it is allowed to embrace all things in one comprehension, and to say without hesitation that every nature is the preserver of itself, and has this set before it as, as it were, its end and uttermost — that it may guard itself in the best state of its kind; so that it must necessarily be that the end of all things which thrive by nature is like, but not the same. From which it ought to be understood that for man the uttermost of goods is to live according to nature, which we may interpret thus: to live from the nature of man perfected on every side and lacking nothing.

These things, then, must be explained by us; but if rather plainly, you will pardon. For we must serve this man's age, and one now hearing these things perhaps for the first time.' 'Quite so,' said I; 'although the things which you have said so far might, even for his age, be rightly said in that manner.' 'The boundary of things to be sought being set forth, then,' said he, 'next it must be shown why that matter is so as I said. Wherefore let us begin from that which I put first, which is also in very deed first — that we may understand that every living creature loves itself. Although this has no doubt — for it is fixed in nature itself and is grasped by the senses of each so that, if anyone should wish to say the contrary, he would not be heard — yet, that we may pass over nothing, I think reasons too must be brought forward why this is so.

And yet how can it be understood or conceived that there is any living creature which hates itself? For contrary things will clash. For when that appetite of mind shall have begun, with deliberation, to draw something to itself which harms it, because it is its own enemy, since it will do this for its own sake, it will both hate itself and at the same time love itself; which cannot be. And it must be that, if anyone is his own enemy, he thinks the things that are good evil, the things that are evil good on the contrary, and flees the things to be sought, seeks the things to be fled — which is, without doubt, the overturning of life. Nor indeed, if some are found who seek either nooses or other deaths, or, like that man in Terence, who 'resolved meanwhile to do less injustice to his own son,' as he himself says, 'until he should be made wretched,' is he to be thought his own enemy.

But some are moved by pain, others by desire; many too are carried away by anger, and, when knowingly they rush into evils, then they think they take the best counsel for themselves. And so they say, and do not doubt: 'Such is my use; do you do as is needful for you.' And those who have declared war on themselves would wish to be tortured by day, tormented by night; nor indeed would they accuse themselves on this account, that they should say they had taken ill counsel for their own affairs. For this complaint belongs to those who are dear to themselves and love themselves. Wherefore, whenever it is said that someone deserves ill of himself and is his own enemy and foe, and finally flees life, let it be understood that there underlies some such cause that from that very thing it can be understood that each man is dear to himself.

Nor indeed is it enough that there is no one who hates himself, but this too must be understood, that there is no one who judges that it is of no concern to him in what state he is. For the appetite of mind will be taken away, if, as in those things among which there is no difference, we are not more inclined to either part, so we shall judge that it is of no concern to us in what state we ourselves are. And also, if anyone should wish to say this — it would be most absurd — that each man is so loved by himself that the force of that loving is referred to some other thing, not to that very man who loves himself. When this is said of friendships, of duties, of virtues, in whatever way it is said, yet it can be understood what is said; but in ourselves it cannot even be understood, that we should love ourselves for the sake of some other thing — for example, for the sake of pleasure; for we love that for our own sake, not ourselves for the sake of it.

And yet what is there more plain than that each man is not only dear to himself, but vehemently dear? For who is there, or how few, from whom, when death draws near, 'the blood does not flee in timid fear, and he grow pale with dread'? Although this indeed is a fault — to shudder so greatly at the dissolution of nature (which likewise is to be blamed in pain) — but because nearly all are so affected, it is argument enough that nature shrinks from destruction; and the more some do this so that they are even rightly blamed, the more must it be understood that these very excesses would not have been in some, unless certain things were moderate by nature. Nor indeed do I speak of the fear of death of those who flee death because they think themselves robbed of the goods of life, or because they dread certain terrors after death, or fear lest they die with pain; for in children, who think of none of these things, often, if at any time in play we threaten that they will be hurled from somewhere, they are terrified. Nay even 'wild beasts,' says Pacuvius, 'which lack the cunning of understanding for taking precaution,' when the terror of death is cast upon them 'shudder.' But who thinks otherwise of the wise man himself, but that, even when he has resolved that he must die, yet he is moved by the parting from his own and the very leaving of the light?

But most of all in this kind the force of nature is plain, since both many endure beggary that they may live, and men worn out by old age are distressed at the approach of death, and bear those things which we see Philoctetes bear in the plays. He, when he was tortured by unbearable pains, yet prolonged his life by fowling — 'slow, he pierced the swift with the stroke of his arrows, standing, the flying,' as it is in Accius — and made coverings for his body from the weaving of feathers.

Do I speak of the race of men, or of living creatures altogether, when the nature of trees and plants is almost the same? For whether, as it has seemed to the most learned men, some greater and more divine cause implanted this force, or it comes about thus by chance, we see that the things which the earth produces are kept strong by their bark and roots — which happens to living creatures by the distribution of the senses and a certain compacting of the limbs. About which matter, although I assent to those who think that all these things are governed by nature — which, if nature should neglect, could not itself exist — yet I grant that those who disagree about this may think what they will, and may even understand this, that, if ever I say 'the nature of man,' I mean 'man'; for this makes no difference. For each man will be able sooner to depart from himself than to lose the appetite for those things which are profitable to him. Rightly, then, did the gravest philosophers seek the beginning of the highest good from nature, and thought that that appetite for things accommodated to nature was inborn in all, because they are contained in that commendation of nature by which they love themselves.

Next it must be seen — since it is plain enough that each man is by nature dear to himself — what the nature of man is. For that is what we inquire about. And it is plain that man consists of body and mind, the mind being first, the body second. Then we see this too, that the body is so shaped that it excels the others, and the mind so constituted that it is both furnished with senses and has the pre-eminence of mind, to which the whole nature of man is subject, in which there is a certain wonderful force of reason and of knowledge and of science and of all the virtues. Now the things which are of the body have neither authority to be compared with the parts of the mind, and have an easier knowledge. And so let us begin from these.

How fitted to nature, then, the parts of our body, and the whole figure and form and stature are, appears; nor is there any doubt that it is understood what brow, eyes, ears, and the rest of the parts are proper to man. But certainly they must be sound and vigorous and have natural motions and uses, so that none of them be lacking, nor diseased or weakened; for this nature desires. There is also a certain action of the body, which keeps the motions and postures agreeing with nature; in which, if there be a fault by some distortion and depravation, or by a deformed motion or posture — as if a man should walk on his hands, or not forward but backward — he would plainly seem to flee himself, and, putting off man from man, to hate nature. Wherefore certain sittings too, and bent and broken motions, such as are wont to be those of insolent or effeminate men, are against nature; so that, even if it come about by a fault of the mind, yet the nature of man seems to be changed in the body.

And so, on the contrary, moderate and even habits, affections, and uses of the body seem to be fitted to nature. But now the mind ought not only to be, but also to be of a certain kind, so that it both have all its parts sound and lack none of the virtues. And in the senses there is the proper virtue of each, that nothing hinder each sense from discharging its office in perceiving quickly and readily those things which are subjected to the senses. But of the mind, and of that part of the mind which is the chief, and which is named the intellect, there are several virtues, but two first kinds: one of those which are implanted by their own nature and are called involuntary; the other of those which, being placed in the will, are wont to be called by a more proper name — of which there is an excellent pre-eminence in the praise of minds. Of the former kind is teachableness, memory; which are nearly all called by the one name of natural talent, and those who have these virtues are called gifted. But the other kind is of the great and true virtues, which we call voluntary, such as prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice, and the rest of the same kind. And in sum these were the things to be said about body and mind, by which is, as it were, sketched what the nature of man requires.

From which it is plain — since we are loved by ourselves, and wish all things both in mind and in body to be perfect — that those very things are dear to us for their own sake, and that there are in them the greatest weights toward living well. For he to whom the preservation of himself is set before him must necessarily hold the parts too of himself dear, and dearer the more perfect they are and the more praiseworthy in their kind. For that life is sought which is filled out with the virtues of mind and body, and in this the highest good must necessarily be placed, since it ought to be such that it is the uttermost of things to be sought. This being known, it cannot be doubted that, since men themselves are dear to themselves for their own sake and of their own accord, the parts too both of the body and of the mind, and of those things which are in the motion and posture of each, are cultivated by their own dearness and sought for their own sake.

These things being set forth, it is easy to conjecture that those things are most to be sought from among our own which have the most dignity — so that the virtue of each best part, which is sought for its own sake, is to be sought most. So it will come about that the virtue of the mind is set before the virtue of the body, and that the voluntary virtues of the mind surpass the involuntary — which indeed are properly called virtues, and much excel, because they are born from reason, than which there is nothing in man more divine. For of all the things which nature both creates and guards, which are either without mind or not much otherwise, the highest good is in the body — so that that saying about the pig does not seem unskilful, that a mind was given to that beast instead of salt, lest it should rot. But there are certain beasts in which there is something like virtue, as in lions, in dogs, in horses, in which we see, not of bodies only, as in pigs, but also of minds in some part certain motions. But in man the whole sum is in the mind, and in the mind in reason, from which comes virtue, which is defined as the completion of reason, which they think must be explained again and again.

Of those things too which the earth produces, there is a certain nurture and perfection not unlike that of living creatures. And so we say both that a vine lives and dies, and that a tree is both young and old, and thrives and 'grows old.' From which it is not strange, as in living creatures, so in these too, to think both that certain things are fitted to nature and others alien, and that there is a certain cultivator for their increasing and nourishing — which is the science and art of farmers, which cuts round, prunes, raises up, lifts, props, so that they can go whither nature bears them; so that the vines themselves, if they could speak, would confess that they ought to be so handled and tended. And now indeed that which tends it — to speak especially of the vine — is something external; for in the vine itself there is too little force, that it may be as well as possible, if no culture be applied.

But indeed if sense should come to the vine, so that it had a certain appetite and were moved of itself, what do you think it would do? Will it care for itself the things which before it attained through the vine-dresser? But do you see that care will come to it, that it may tend its senses too and their whole appetite, and any limbs that are joined to it? So to those things which it always had it will join those which shall afterward have come, nor will it have the same end which its cultivator had, but will wish to live according to that nature which shall afterward have been joined to it. So the end of good for it will be like to that which had been before, and yet not the same; for it will now seek not the good of a plant, but of an animal. What, if not only sense be given to it, but even the mind of a man? Must it not be both that those former things remain, so that they are to be tended, and that these which shall have come be much dearer, and that each best part of the mind be dearest, and that in this filling out of nature the end of the highest good consist, since mind and reason far and much excel? So that which is the uttermost of all things to be sought, and drawn from the first commendation of nature, ascends by many steps, so that it comes to the highest, which is heaped up from the integrity of the body and from the perfected reason of the mind.

Since, then, the form of nature is that which I have set forth, if, as I said at the beginning, each man, as soon as he were born, should recognize himself and could judge what the force was both of his whole nature and of the single parts, he would at once see what this is which we seek, the highest and uttermost of all things which we seek, nor could he err in anything. But as it is, at first indeed nature is wonderfully hidden, and can neither be perceived nor known. But as our ages advance, gradually, or rather slowly, we recognize, as it were, our very selves. And so that first commendation, which was made to us by nature of ourselves, is uncertain and obscure, and that first appetite of mind acts only so far that we may be safe and sound. But when we have begun to discern and to feel what we are, and in what we differ from the other living creatures, then we begin to pursue those things for which we are born.

Which likeness we see in the beasts, which at first do not move themselves from the place in which they were born, then each is moved by its own appetite. We see little snakes creep, little ducklings swim, blackbirds fly out, oxen use their horns, scorpions their stings, and finally that each one's own nature is its guide to living. Which likeness appears also in the human race. For little children at first lie, at their birth, as if altogether without mind. But when a little firmness has come, they use both mind and senses, and strive to raise themselves up, and use their hands, and recognize those by whom they are reared. Then they delight in their equals and gladly gather with them, and give themselves to play, and are led by the hearing of fables, and wish to gratify others with what they themselves have to spare, and observe more curiously the things which are done at home, and begin to think out something and to learn, and wish not to be ignorant of the names of those whom they see; and in those matters in which they contend with their equals, if they have won, they are uplifted with gladness, if conquered, they are unnerved and cast down. And nothing of these things is to be thought to happen without cause.

For the force of man is so generated by nature that it seems made for perceiving every virtue; and on that account little children are moved, without teaching, by the likenesses of the virtues, of which they have the seeds in themselves; for these are the first elements of nature, which being increased, the germ, as it were, of virtue is produced. For since we are so born and made that we contain in ourselves the beginnings both of doing something, and of loving some persons, and of generosity, and of returning gratitude, and have minds fitted for knowledge, prudence, fortitude, and alien from their contraries, not without cause do we see in children those sparks, as it were, of the virtues which I mentioned, from which the reason of the philosopher ought to be kindled, that, following it as, as it were, a god for his guide, he may come to the uttermost of nature. For, as I have now often said, in the weak age and feeble mind the force of nature is discerned as if through a mist; but when, advancing, the mind is strengthened, it recognizes indeed the force of nature, but so that it may advance further, while it is by itself only begun.

We must enter, then, into the nature of things, and see thoroughly what it demands; for otherwise we cannot know ourselves. Which precept, because it was greater than that it should seem to come from a man, was on that account assigned to a god. The Pythian Apollo, then, bids us know ourselves. But this is the one knowledge of ourselves — that we know the force of body and mind, and follow that life which enjoys those very things. But since the appetite of mind was from the beginning such that we should have those things which I mentioned as perfect as possible by nature, it must be confessed that, when we have attained that which was sought, nature rests, as it were, in that as in its uttermost, and that this is the highest good; which, certainly, as a whole, must of its own accord be sought for itself and for its own sake, since it was before shown that even its single parts are to be sought for their own sake.

But in enumerating the advantages of the body, if anyone shall think that pleasure has been passed over by us, let that question be deferred to another time. For whether there be pleasure in those things which we said are the first according to nature, or there be not, makes nothing to what we are about. For if, as it seems to me at least, pleasure does not fill out the goods of nature, it has rightly been passed over; but if it be in them, as some would have it, this our comprehension of the highest good is in no way hindered. For to the things which are established as the first of nature, if pleasure shall have come, some one advantage of the body will have come, nor will it have changed that constitution of the highest good which has been set forth.

And so far indeed our reasoning has so advanced that it was all drawn from the first commendation of nature. But now let us follow another kind of arguing, that not only because we love ourselves, but because each part of nature, both in body and in mind, has its own force, on that account we are moved supremely in these things of our own accord. And, to begin from the body, do you see how, if there be anything in the limbs crooked or weakened or diminished, men hide it? How they even strive and labour, if they can bring it about, that the fault of the body either not appear, or appear as little as possible? And how they endure even many pains for the sake of cure, so that, if the very use of the limbs is to be not only not greater but even less, yet their appearance may return to nature? For indeed, since all by nature think themselves to be sought wholly, and that not for any other thing, but for their own sake, it must be that the parts too are sought for their own sake, since the whole is sought for its own sake.

What? In the motion and posture of the body is there nothing which nature herself judges must be observed? In what manner one walks, sits; what is the cast of the mouth, the countenance in each? Is there nothing in these things which we count worthy or unworthy of a free man? Do we not think many worthy of hatred, who by a certain motion or posture seem to have despised the law and measure of nature? And since these things are derived from the body, why should not beauty too itself rightly be thought to be sought for its own sake? For if we think crookedness and diminution of the body is to be fled for its own sake, why should we not also, and perhaps more, pursue dignity of form for its own sake? And if we flee baseness in the posture and motion of the body, why should we not pursue beauty? And health too, strength, freedom from pain we shall seek not only for usefulness, but also for their own sake. For since nature wishes to be filled out in all its parts, it seeks for its own sake that state of body which is most according to nature, which is wholly disturbed if the body be either sick, or in pain, or lacking in strength.

Let us look at the parts of the mind, whose aspect is more illustrious; which, the loftier they are, the clearer signs they give of nature. So great, then, is the love of knowledge and of science inborn in us, that no one can doubt that the nature of man is carried off to these things, invited by no profit. Do we not see how children are not deterred even by blows from contemplating and searching out things? How, when driven off, they run back? How they rejoice that they know something? How they are eager to tell it to others? How they are held by processions, games, and spectacles of that kind, and on that account endure even hunger and thirst? What of this? Those who delight in liberal studies and arts — do we not see that they have regard neither for health nor for household estate, and endure all things, captivated by knowledge and science itself, and compensate with the greatest cares and labours that pleasure which they take from learning?

So that to me indeed Homer seems to have seen something of this kind in those things which he feigned about the songs of the Sirens. For they are not represented as wont to call back those who sailed past by the sweetness of their voices or by a certain novelty and variety of singing, but because they professed that they knew many things, so that men should cling to their rocks from desire of learning. For thus they invite Ulysses — for I have translated, as some things of Homer's, so this very passage too: 'O glory of the Argives, why dost thou not turn thy ship, Ulysses, that thou mayest learn our songs with thine ears! For no one has ever sailed past these blue waters on his course, but he first stood still, captivated by the sweetness of our voices, and afterward, sated in his eager breast with our varied music, more learned glided back and came to his native shores. We hold the grievous struggle of war and the disaster which Greece, by the divine will, brought upon Troy, and all the traces of things upon the wide lands.' Homer saw that the fable could not be approved, if so great a man were held entangled by little songs; they promise knowledge, which it was no wonder should be dearer than country to one desirous of wisdom. And to wish to know all things, of whatever kind they be, must be thought the mark of the curious; but to be led by the contemplation of greater things to the desire of knowledge, the mark of the greatest men.

For what ardour of zeal do you think there was in Archimedes, who, while he was rather attentively drawing certain things in the dust, did not even feel that his country was taken? How great a genius of Aristoxenus do we see consumed in music? With what zeal do we think Aristophanes spent his life in letters? What shall I say of Pythagoras? What of Plato or of Democritus? By whom, from desire of learning, we see the uttermost lands were traversed. Those who do not see these things have never loved anything great and worthy of knowledge. And in this place, those who say that those studies which I mentioned are cultivated for the sake of the pleasures of the mind do not understand that on that very account they are to be sought for their own sake, because the minds delight when no usefulness is set before them, and rejoice in knowledge itself, even if it be about to bring disadvantage.

But what is the point of seeking more about things so plain? For let us ask of ourselves how the motions of the stars, and the contemplations of the heavenly things, and the knowledge of all those things which are hidden by the obscurity of nature move us; and what history delights us, which we are wont to pursue even to the uttermost, when we go back over what was passed over, and follow out what was begun. Nor indeed am I ignorant that there is usefulness in history, not only pleasure.

What, when we read feigned fables, from which no usefulness can be drawn, with pleasure? What, when we wish the names of those who have done anything to be known to us — their parents, their country, and many things besides by no means necessary? What of this, that men of the lowest fortune, with no hope of doing great things, in short craftsmen, delight in history? And we can see most of all those wish to hear and read of deeds done who are far from the hope of doing them, worn out by old age. Wherefore it must be understood that in the very things which are learned and known there are invitations by which we are moved to learning and knowing.

And the old philosophers indeed feign, in the Isles of the Blessed, what the life of the wise will be like, whom, freed from all care, requiring no necessary support or preparation of life, they think will do nothing else but spend all their time in inquiring and learning, in the knowledge of nature. But we see that this is not only the delight of the happy life, but also the relief of miseries. And so many, when they were in the power of enemies or of tyrants, many in prison, many in exile, lightened their grief by the studies of learning.

A leader of this state, Demetrius of Phalerum, when he had been driven from his country by injustice, betook himself to king Ptolemy at Alexandria. He, since he excelled in this very philosophy to which we exhort you, and was a hearer of Theophrastus, wrote many excellent things in that calamitous leisure, not for any use of his own, of which he was bereaved, but that culture of his mind was to him, as it were, a certain food of humanity. For my part I often used to hear from Gnaeus Aufidius, a man of praetorian rank, learned, deprived of his eyes, when he said that he was moved by the longing for light more than for usefulness. And finally we should think that sleep was given us against nature, unless it brought rest to our bodies and a certain medicine for toil; for it takes away our senses and removes all action. And so if nature either did not seek rest, or could attain it by some other means, we should easily endure it — we who even now are wont, for the sake of doing or learning something, to take on wakeful vigils almost against nature.

But there are also clearer, or rather quite plain and least doubtful, signs of nature, especially of course in man, but in every living creature — that the mind seeks always to do something, and on no condition can endure perpetual rest. This is easy to discern in the first little years of children. For although I fear lest I seem too much in this kind, yet all the old philosophers, especially ours, come to the cradle, because in childhood they think they can most easily know the will of nature. We see, then, that not even infants can be at rest. But when they have advanced a little, they delight in games even laborious ones, so that they cannot be deterred even by blows, and that desire of doing something grows up together with their ages. And so, not even if we thought we should use the most pleasant dreams, would we wish the sleep of Endymion to be given us; and if it should happen, we should think it the likeness of death.

Nay even, we see the most idle men, endowed with some I-know-not-what singular sloth, yet always moved both in body and in mind, and, when they are hindered by no necessary matter, either calling for a gaming-board, or seeking some game, or requiring some conversation; and, since they have not the freeborn delights from learning, they pursue certain little circles and gatherings. Nay, not even the beasts, which we shut up for the sake of delight, when they are fed more abundantly than if they were free, easily endure to be confined, and require the loose and roaming motions granted them by nature.

And so, the better born and trained each man is, the less would he wish to be in life at all, if, bereaved of conducting affairs, he could feed on the readiest pleasures. For either they prefer to conduct something privately, or, those who are of a loftier mind, undertake the commonwealth in gaining honours and commands, or betake themselves wholly to the studies of learning. In which life so far are they from pursuing pleasures, that they even endure cares, anxieties, wakeful vigils, and enjoy the best part of man — which is to be thought in us divine — the edge of genius and mind, neither seeking pleasure nor fleeing labour. Nor indeed do they intermit either the admiration of those things which were discovered by the ancients, or the investigation of new ones. And since they cannot be sated with this zeal, forgetful of all other things, they think nothing abject, nothing low; and so great is the force in such studies, that we see even those who have set themselves other ends of goods, which they direct by usefulness or pleasure, yet spend their ages in seeking out and explaining the natures of things.

Therefore this at least appears, that we are born for action. But there are several kinds of actions, so that even the lesser are darkened by the greater; but the greatest are, first, as it seems to me at least, and to those in whose reasoning we now are concerned, the consideration and knowledge of the heavenly things, and of those which reason can track out, hidden and lurking by nature; then the administration of commonwealths, or the science of administering; then the prudent, temperate, brave, just reason, and the rest of the virtues, and the actions agreeing with the virtues, which, embracing all in one word, we call honourable; to the knowledge and use of which, being now strengthened, we are led by nature herself going before. For the beginnings of all things are small, but, using their own progressions, they are increased, and not without cause; for in the first origin there is a certain tenderness and softness, so that they can neither see the best things nor do them. For of virtue and the happy life, which two are most to be sought, the light appears later, much later even, so that it be understood plainly what they are. For admirably says Plato: 'Happy is he to whom it has fallen, even in old age, to be able to attain wisdom and true opinions!' Wherefore, since enough has been said about the first advantages of nature, now let us see about the greater and consequent ones.

Nature, then, both begot and formed the body of man so that it perfected some things at the first origin, others it shaped with advancing age, nor indeed used much aid from external and adventitious things. But the mind it so perfected as the body; for it adorned it with senses fit for perceiving things, so that they needed no aid, or not much, for their confirmation; but that which is in man most excellent and best, it left untended. Although it gave such a mind as could receive every virtue, and implanted, without teaching, small notions of the greatest things, and, as it were, set about to teach and introduced into the things which were within, as if the elements of virtue. But virtue itself it only began, nothing further.

And so it is ours — what I call ours, belongs to art — to seek out the consequences to the principles which we have received, until that which we wish be brought to pass. Which indeed is by no little more valuable and more to be sought for its own sake than either the senses or those things of the body which we have mentioned, which the excelling perfection of the mind so far surpasses that it can scarcely be conceived what the difference is. And so all honour, all admiration, all zeal is referred to virtue and to those actions which are agreeable to virtue, and all those things which are either so in our minds or are so done are called by the one name 'honourable.' Of all which, what the notions are — those at least which are signified by the names of things — and what is the force and nature of each, we shall soon see.

But in this place let us only explain that these honourable things which I speak of, besides that we love ourselves, are moreover by their own nature to be sought for their own sake. Children show it, in whom, as in mirrors, nature is discerned. How great are the zeals of those contending! How great the contests themselves! How they are uplifted with gladness when they have won! How ashamed are the conquered! How they wish not to be accused! How they desire to be praised! What labours do they not endure, that they may be the chiefs of their equals! What memory is there in them of the well-deserving, what desire of returning gratitude! And these things appear most in each best disposition, in which these honourable things, which we understand, are, as it were, sketched by nature.

But these things are in children; but expressed in those ages which are now confirmed. Who is so unlike a man that he is not moved both by the offence of baseness and by the approval of honourableness? Who is there who does not hate a lustful, insolent youth? Who, on the contrary, does not love modesty, steadfastness in that age, even though it be of no concern to himself? Who does not hate Pullus Numitorius of Fregellae, the traitor, although he profited our commonwealth? Who does not most highly praise Codrus, the saviour of his city, who the daughters of Erechtheus? To whom is the name of Tubulus not hateful? Who does not love Aristides, though dead? Or do we forget how greatly we are moved in hearing and reading, when we learn that something was done piously, in friendship, with greatness of mind?

What shall I say of ourselves, who were born, taken up, and trained for praise and for honour? What shouts of the crowd and of the ignorant are raised in the theatres, when these things are said: 'I am Orestes,' and, on the contrary, from the other: 'Nay, in truth, I, I say, am Orestes!' And when too the way out is given by each to the confused and wandering king — when they both pray that they be slain together — as often as this is acted, ever at any time except with the greatest admirations? There is no one, then, who does not approve and praise this affection of mind, by which not only is no usefulness sought, but even, against usefulness, good faith is preserved.

With such examples not feigned fables only, but even histories are crammed, and indeed most of all ours. For we chose the best man to receive the Idaean sacred things; we sent guardians to kings; our commanders devoted their own heads for the safety of their country; our consuls warned even their bitterest enemy, already approaching the walls, that he should beware of poison; in our commonwealth was found a Lucretia, who atoned by a voluntary death for a defilement offered by force, and one who slew his daughter, that she might not be defiled. All which things, and countless besides, who is there that does not understand both that those who did them, led by the splendour of dignity, were unmindful of their own advantages, and that we, when we praise them, are led by no other thing than honourableness? These things being briefly set forth — for I have not pursued the abundance which I could, since there was doubt in nothing — but by these things it is surely concluded that both all the virtues and that honourable thing which arises from them and cleaves to them are to be sought for their own sake.

But in every honourable thing of which we speak, there is nothing so illustrious nor of wider reach than the conjunction of men among men, and, as it were, a certain fellowship and sharing of advantages, and the very affection of the human race. Which, born from the first begetting — because the begotten are loved by their begetters, and the whole house is joined by marriage and offspring — creeps gradually abroad, first by kinships, then by affinities, then by friendships, after by neighbourhoods, then by fellow citizens and those who are publicly allies and friends, then by the embrace of the whole human race. Which affection of mind, giving to each his own, and bountifully and equally guarding this fellowship of human conjunction which I speak of, is called justice; to which are joined piety, goodness, generosity, kindness, courtesy, and the things of the same kind. And these things are so proper to justice that they are common to the other virtues.

For since the nature of man is so generated that it has something inborn, as it were civil and popular, which the Greeks call politikon, whatever each virtue does will not shrink from that community and the affection and fellowship of men which I have set forth; and in turn justice, as it pours itself out into the other virtues, so it will seek them. For justice cannot be preserved except by a brave man, except by a wise one. Of such a kind, then, as is all this conspiration and consent of the virtues which I speak of, such is that very honourable thing — since the honourable is either virtue itself or a deed done by virtue; and a life agreeing with these things and answering to the virtues can be esteemed right and honourable and constant and agreeing with nature.

And yet this conjunction and blending of the virtues is by the philosophers distinguished by a certain reasoning. For although they are so coupled and connected that all share in all, and one cannot be separated from another, yet each has its own proper office: as fortitude is discerned in toils and dangers, temperance in the passing over of pleasures, prudence in the choice of goods and evils, justice in giving to each his own. Since, then, there is in every virtue a certain care, as it were, looking outward and seeking and embracing others, it comes about that friends, brothers, kinsmen, connexions, fellow citizens, and finally all men — since we would have there to be one fellowship of men — are to be sought for their own sake. And yet none of these is of that kind that it should be in the end and uttermost of goods.

So it comes about that two kinds of things to be sought for their own sake are found: one, which is in those things in which that uttermost is filled out, which are either of the mind or of the body; but these which are external — that is, which are neither in the mind nor in the body, as friends, parents, children, kinsmen, the country itself — these indeed are dear of their own accord, but are not in the same kind as those. Nor indeed could anyone ever attain the highest good, if all those things which are external, though to be sought, were contained in the highest good.

How, then, you will say, can it be true that all things are referred to the highest good, if friendships, kinships, and the rest of external things are not contained in the highest good? By this reasoning, forsooth: that we guard those things which are external by those duties which arise from each one's own kind of virtue. For both the cultivation of a friend and of a parent, to him who discharges his duty, is profitable in this very thing, that so to discharge duty is among right deeds, which arise from the virtues. And these indeed the wise pursue, with nature for their guide, as though seeing; but men not perfect, and yet endowed with excellent geniuses, are often stirred by glory, which has the appearance and likeness of honourableness. But if they should see deeply honourableness itself, perfect and complete on every side, the one most glorious thing of all and most to be praised, with what gladness would they be filled, when they so greatly rejoice in the sketched opinion of it?

For what man given over to pleasures, what man inflamed by the fires of desires, in attaining those things which he had most keenly desired, do we think is flooded with so great a gladness as either the elder Africanus when Hannibal was conquered, or the younger when Carthage was overthrown? Whom did the descent on the Tiber on that festal day affect with so great joy as Lucius Paulus, when he brought king Perses captive, sailing in upon the same river? Come now, our Lucius, build up in your mind the loftiness and excellence of the virtues:

now you will not doubt that men possessed of them, living with a great and uplifted mind, are always happy, who understand that all the motions of fortune and the changes of things and times will be light and feeble, if they come into the contest of virtue. For those things which were counted by us among the goods of the body do indeed fill out the happiest life, but so that without them the happy life can exist. For those additions of goods are so small and slight that, as the stars in the rays of the sun, so those are not even discerned in the splendour of the virtues. And as this is truly said, that those weights of bodily advantages are small toward living happily, so it is too violent to say that they are nothing;

for those who so argue seem to me to have forgotten what principles of nature they themselves laid down. Something, then, must be assigned to these, provided you understand how much is to be assigned. For it belongs to a philosopher seeking not so much glorious as true things, both not to count as nothing those things which even those glorious men confessed to be according to nature, and to see that there is so great a force of virtue and so great, so to speak, an authority of honourableness, that the rest are not indeed nothing, but so small that they seem to be nothing. This is the discourse neither of one who spurns all things except virtue, nor of one who amplifies virtue itself with its own praises; in short, this is the explanation of the highest good, complete and perfect on every side. From this the rest, trying to snatch little parts, each wished to seem to bring forward his own opinion.

Often by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, the knowledge of things was wonderfully praised for its own sake; captivated by this one thing, Erillus maintained that knowledge is the highest good, and that no other thing is to be sought for its own sake. Many things were said by the ancients about despising and looking down on human things; this one thing Aristo held: he denied that there is any thing besides vices and virtues either to be fled or to be sought. It was laid down by our school that, among those things which are according to nature, is to be free from pain; this Hieronymus said is the highest good. But indeed Callipho and after him Diodorus, the one having fallen in love with pleasure, the other with freedom from pain, neither could lack honourableness, which is most highly praised by our school.

Nay even the votaries of pleasure themselves seek by-ways, and have the virtues on their lips all day long, and say that pleasure is sought at first only, then that by habit a kind of second nature, as it were, is produced, impelled by which they do many things seeking no pleasure. The Stoics remain. They indeed transferred not some one or other thing from us, but our whole philosophy to themselves; and as the rest of thieves change the marks of the things which they have taken, so they, that they might use our opinions as their own, changed the names, as if the marks of things. So there is left this doctrine alone, worthy of the studious of the liberal arts, worthy of the learned, worthy of famous men, worthy of leaders, worthy of kings. When he had said this and paused a little, 'What is it?' said he;

'do I seem to you to have discoursed sufficiently, by my right, in your ears?' And I: 'You indeed, Piso,' said I, 'as often at other times, so today seemed so to know these things that, if the opportunity of you fell to us more often, I should not think we need much supplicate the Greeks. And this indeed I approved the more, because I remember that Stasea of Naples, that teacher of yours, a noble Peripatetic indeed, was wont to say these things somewhat otherwise, assenting to those who placed much in good or adverse fortune, much in the goods or evils of the body.' 'It is as you say,' said he; 'but these things are said by Antiochus, our friend, much better and more strongly than they were said by Stasea. Although I do not ask what has been approved by you of me, but by this our Cicero, whom I desire to lead away from you as my pupil.'

Then Lucius: 'Those things indeed are greatly approved by me, which I think is so with my brother too.' Then Piso to me: 'What then?' said he; 'do you grant the young man leave? Or do you prefer that he learn those things which, when he has thoroughly learned them, he will know nothing?' 'I indeed permit him,' said I. 'But do you not remember that it is allowed me to approve those things which were said by you? For who can fail to approve the things which seem probable to him?' 'But indeed,' said he, 'can anyone approve what he has not perceived, comprehended, known?' 'That is no great disagreement, Piso,' said I. 'For there is no other reason why nothing seems to me able to be perceived, except that the force of perceiving is so defined by the Stoics that they deny anything can be perceived unless it be true in such a way that it cannot be false. And so this is a disagreement with them; with the Peripatetics none at all. But let us pass over these things; for they have a rather long and quarrelsome enough discussion.

That seemed to me said by you too hastily, that all the wise are always happy; somehow your discourse flew past it. But unless it be so brought about, those things which Theophrastus said about fortune, about pain, about the torture of the body — with which he thought the happy life could in no way be joined — I fear are true. For that vehemently fights against itself, that the same man be happy and oppressed by many evils. How these things agree I do not at all understand.' 'Does it not please you, then,' said he, 'that there is so great a force of virtue that it is content of itself for living happily? Or, if you approve that, do you deny that it can so come about that those who are possessed of virtue, even afflicted by certain evils, are happy?' 'I indeed wish there to be in virtue the greatest force possible; but how great it is, another time; now only whether it can be so great, if anything be held among goods outside virtue.'

'And yet,' said he, 'if you grant the Stoics that virtue alone, if it be present, makes life happy, you grant it to the Peripatetics too. For those things which they dare not call evils, but grant to be harsh and inconvenient and to be rejected and alien to nature, we call evils, but slight and almost least. Wherefore if he can be happy who is in harsh and rejectable things, he too can be who is in slight evils.' And I: 'Piso,' said I, 'if there is anyone who is wont to see acutely in causes what the matter at issue is, you are surely he. Wherefore attend, I pray. For so far, perhaps by my fault, you do not perceive what I am asking.' 'I am here,' said he, 'and I await what you will answer to that which I was asking.'

'I shall answer,' said I, 'that I am not asking at this time what virtue can effect, but what is said consistently, and what disagrees with itself.' 'In what way, then?' said he. 'Because, when this is published by Zeno magnificently, as if from an oracle: "Virtue is content of itself for living happily," and "Why?" says one, he answers: "Because there is no other good except what is honourable." I do not ask now whether it be true; that I say, that the things which he says cohere admirably among themselves.

Let Epicurus have said this same thing, that the wise man is always happy — which indeed he is wont sometimes to bubble forth — whom he says, when he is worn out by the greatest pains, will say: "How sweet this is! How little I care!"; I would not fight with the man as to why he should have so much good in his nature; this I would press, that he does not understand what he ought to say, when he has said that pain is the highest evil. The same now is my discourse against you. You say all the same things both good and evil which those say who never saw a philosopher even painted, as the saying is: health, strength, stature, beauty, the soundness of all the nails, goods; deformity, disease, weakness, evils.

Now those external things you indeed treat sparingly; but since these of the body are goods, you will certainly count among goods their producers — friends, children, kinsmen, riches, honours, resources. Against this attend that I say nothing; this I say, that, if those things are evils into which the wise man can fall, then to be wise is not enough for living happily.' 'Nay indeed,' said he, 'for living most happily it is too little, but for living happily it is enough.' 'I noticed,' said I, 'that you laid it down in that way a little before, and I know that it is wont to be said so by our Antiochus; but what is less to be approved than that someone be happy and not happy enough? For that to which whatever is added is enough, is too much; and no one is too happy; so no one is happier than the happy.'

'Then,' said he, 'to you Quintus Metellus, who saw three sons consuls — of whom one even both a censor and triumphing, and a fourth a praetor — and left them safe, and three daughters married, when he himself had been consul, censor, even an augur, and had triumphed, supposing him to have been wise — was he not happier than Regulus, supposing him likewise to have been wise, who was put to death in the power of the enemy by wakefulness and starvation?'

'Why do you ask me that?' said I. 'Ask the Stoics.' 'What, then,' said he, 'do you think they will answer?' 'That Metellus is no whit happier than Regulus.' 'Thence, then,' said he, 'we must begin.' 'Yet we stray from our purpose,' said I. 'For I am not asking what is true, but what each man ought to say. Would indeed that they said one man happier than another! Already you would see ruins. For since the good is placed in virtue alone and in the honourable itself, and since neither virtue, as it pleases them, nor the honourable grows, and that is the only good, possessing which one must necessarily be happy — since that cannot be increased in which alone being happy is placed, how can anyone be happier than another? Do you see how these things harmonize? And, by Hercules — for I must confess what I feel — wonderful among them is the connexion of things. The last things answer to the first, the middle to both, all to all. They see what follows, what is repugnant. As in geometry, if you grant the first, all must be granted. Grant that nothing is good except what is honourable; it must be granted that the happy life is placed in virtue. See again backward:

this being granted, that will have to be granted. This your school does not likewise. "Three kinds of goods"; the discourse runs down the slope. It comes to the end; it sticks in the rut. For it longs to say that nothing can be lacking to the happy life for the wise man. An honourable discourse, Socratic, even Platonic. "I dare to say it," says he. You cannot, unless you unravel those things. If poverty is an evil, no beggar can be happy, however wise he be. But Zeno dared to say him not only happy, but even rich. Pain is an evil; he who is driven onto the cross cannot be happy. Children are a good; bereavement is wretched. Country is a good; exile is wretched. Health is a good; disease is wretched. The soundness of the body is a good; weakness is wretched. Unimpaired sight is a good; blindness is wretched. If he can relieve each of these singly by consoling, how will he sustain them all together? Let the same man be blind, weak, afflicted with the gravest disease, an exile, bereaved, in want, tortured on the rack: whom do you call this man, Zeno?' 'Happy,' says he. 'Even most happy?' 'Quite so,' he will say, 'since I have taught that that thing has no degrees, just as virtue, in which being happy itself is also placed.'

'To you this is incredible, that he is most happy. What? Is yours credible? For if you call me to the people, you will never prove that he who is so affected is happy; if to the prudent, about the one thing they will perhaps doubt, whether there is so much in virtue that those endowed with it are happy even in the bull of Phalaris; about the other they will not doubt, but that the Stoics say things consistent with themselves, and you things repugnant.' 'Does, then,' said he, 'that book of Theophrastus on the happy life please you?' 'Yet we stray from our purpose; and, not to be longer, plainly, Piso,' said I, 'if those things are evils, it pleases me.' 'Do they not, then,' said he, 'seem to you evils?'

'You ask that,' said I, 'in which, whichever I answer, you must turn yourself this way and that.' 'In what manner, pray?' said he. 'Because, if they are evils, he who is in them will not be happy; if they are not evils, the whole reasoning of the Peripatetics lies prostrate.' And he, smiling: 'I see,' said he, 'what you are about; you fear lest I lead away your pupil.' 'You indeed,' said I, 'may lead him, if he follow; for he will be with me, if he be with you.' 'Hear, then, Lucius,' said he; 'for my discourse must be set up with you. All the authority of philosophy, as Theophrastus says, consists in procuring the happy life; for we are all inflamed with the desire of living happily. In this I agree with your brother.

Wherefore this must be seen, whether the reasoning of the philosophers can give us this. It promises it, at least. For unless it did this, why did Plato traverse Egypt, that he might receive numbers and the heavenly things from the barbarian priests? Why, after that, did he go to Archytas at Tarentum? Why to the rest of the Pythagoreans — Echecrates, Timaeus, Arion, to the Locrians — that, when he had expressed Socrates, he might join the discipline of the Pythagoreans, and learn those things which Socrates rejected? Why did Pythagoras himself both survey Egypt and go to the magi of the Persians? Why did he travel over so great regions of barbarians on foot, cross so many seas? Why did Democritus do these same things? Who — whether truly or falsely, we forbear to ask — is said to have deprived himself of his eyes; certainly, that his mind might be as little as possible drawn away from his thoughts, he neglected his patrimony, left his fields untilled, seeking what else but the happy life? Which, even if he placed it in the knowledge of things, yet from that investigation of nature he wished to follow this, that he should be of good cheer. For that he calls the highest good euthymia, and often athambia — that is, a mind free from terror.

But these things, though admirably, are not yet polished. For few things, and those not even clearly worked out, were said by him about virtue at least. For afterward these things first began to be inquired into in this city by Socrates, then were brought down to this place; nor was it doubted that in virtue all hope both of living well and likewise happily was placed. Which things when Zeno had learned from our school, as is wont to be prescribed in legal actions, he "did the same thing in another manner." This you now approve in him. Forsooth, the names of things being changed, he escapes the charge of inconstancy; we cannot escape it! He says the life of Metellus is not happier than that of Regulus, yet to be preferred — not more to be sought, but more to be taken; and, if there were a choice, the life of Metellus to be chosen, that of Regulus to be rejected; I call that life, which he says is to be preferred and more to be chosen, the happier, nor do I assign by any least weight more to that life than the Stoics.

What is the difference, except that I call known things by known words, while they seek new names by which to say the same? So, as in the senate there is always someone who demands an interpreter, so those men must be heard by us with an interpreter. I call good whatever is according to nature, what is contrary, evil; and not I alone, but you too, Chrysippus, in the forum, at home; in the school you cease. What then? Do you think men ought to speak one way, philosophers another? How much each thing is worth, the learned and the unlearned say differently; but when it has been agreed among the learned how much each thing is worth — if they were men, they would speak in the customary way — provided the things remain, let them coin words at their discretion.

But I come to the charge of inconstancy, lest you say too often that I stray; which you place in words, I thought it placed in the thing. If this be sufficiently perceived — in which we have the Stoics as the best of helpers — that there is so great a force of virtue that all things, if they be placed on the other side, do not even appear, when all the things which they at least call advantages, and to be taken and to be chosen and preferred — which they so define that they are to be valued at a fairly great worth — these things, then, when I call them by so many names used by the Stoics, partly new and invented, like those "brought forward" and "reduced," partly signifying the same — for what is the difference, whether you seek or choose? to me indeed that which is chosen, and to which choice is applied, seems even more elegant — but when I have called all those things goods, it matters only how great I say they are, when things to be sought, how strongly. But if I neither call them more to be sought than you to be chosen, nor value them at more, I who call them goods, than you who call them "brought forward," all those things must necessarily be darkened and not appear and run, as it were, into the rays of virtue as into those of the sun.

But, you say, that life in which there is something of evil cannot be happy. Then neither is a cornfield happy with rich and thick ears, if you see oats anywhere; nor merchandise profitable, if amid the greatest gains it has contracted a little loss. Or is this so everywhere, and otherwise in life? And will you not judge of the whole from the greatest part? Or is it doubtful that virtue so holds the greatest part in human affairs that it overwhelms the rest? I shall dare, then, to call the other things which are according to nature goods, and not to cheat them of their old name, nor now to seek out some new one rather, but to place the greatness of virtue, as it were, in the other scale of the balance.

That scale, believe me, will press down both earth and seas. For always from that which contains the greatest parts and pours itself out most widely the whole thing is named. We say that someone lives cheerfully; if, then, he has once been made rather sad, is the cheerful life lost? But this did not happen in that Marcus Crassus, whom Lucilius says laughed but once in his life, that on that account he was called less 'unlaughing,' as the same man says. Polycrates of Samos they called happy. Nothing had happened to him which he did not wish, except that he had thrown into the sea a ring in which he delighted. Was he, then, unhappy by that one annoyance, and happy again, when that very ring was found in the entrails of a fish? But he indeed, if he was foolish — which certainly, since he was a tyrant — was never happy; if wise, not even then was he wretched, when he was driven onto the cross by Oroetes, the satrap of Darius. 'But he was afflicted with many evils.' Who denies it? But those evils were overwhelmed by the greatness of virtue.

Or do you not grant even this to the Peripatetics, that they may say that the life of all good men — that is, of the wise and adorned with all the virtues — always has, in all its parts, more of good than of evil? Who says this? The Stoics, of course. By no means; but those very men who measure all things by pleasure and pain — do they not cry that the wise man always has present more of what he wishes than of what he does not wish? Since, then, those men place so much in virtue, who confess that for virtue's sake, unless it produced pleasure, they would not turn even a hand, what ought we to do, who say that even the least pre-eminence of mind goes before all the goods of the body, so that they are not even left in sight? For who is there who would dare to say that this falls within the wise man — that, if it could be, he would cast away virtue forever, to be freed from all pain? Who of us would say — we whom it does not shame to call those things which the Stoics call harsh, evils — that it is better to do something basely with pleasure than honourably with pain?

To us that Dionysius of Heraclea seems shamefully to have deserted the Stoics on account of pain of the eyes. As though, forsooth, he had learned this from Zeno — not to be in pain when he was in pain! He had heard, but had not learned, that that was not an evil, because it was not base, and was to be borne by a man. Had he been a Peripatetic, he would have remained, I believe, in his opinion — those who say pain is an evil, but, about bearing its harshness bravely, give the same precepts as the Stoics. And indeed your Arcesilas, although he was rather obstinate in arguing, yet was ours; for he was of Polemo's school. He, when he was burning with the pains of the gout, and his very intimate friend Charmides the Epicurean had visited him and was going out sad, said: 'Stay, I pray, our Charmides; nothing comes from there to here.' He showed his feet and his breast. And yet he would have preferred not to be in pain.

This, then, is our reasoning, which seems to you inconstant: that, on account of a certain heavenly and divine and so great pre-eminence of virtue, that, where virtue is, and great things and supremely praiseworthy done by virtue, there wretchedness and tribulation cannot be — yet toil can be, annoyance can be — I do not hesitate to say that all the wise are always happy, but yet that it can come about that one be happier than another.' 'And yet that point, Piso,' said I, 'must be confirmed by you again and again; which if you hold, you may lead away not only my Cicero, but even me myself.'

Then Quintus: 'To me indeed,' said he, 'this seems sufficiently confirmed, and I rejoice that that philosophy, whose furniture I formerly valued more than the possessions of the rest — so rich did it seem to me, that I could seek from it whatever I had desired in our studies — this philosophy, then, I rejoice has been found even more acute than the rest, which some said was lacking to it.' 'Not more, indeed, than ours,' said Pomponius, jesting; 'but, by Hercules, your discourse was most pleasing to me. For the things which I thought could not be said in Latin, those have been said by you in fitting words, and no less plainly than they are said by the Greeks. But it is time, if you please, and indeed straight to my house.' When he had said this, and it seemed to have been discussed enough, we all proceeded into the town, to the house of Pomponius.