Letter 109

You wish to know whether a wise man can profit a wise man. We say that the wise man is full of every good and has attained the highest things; how, then, anyone can profit one who possesses the highest good is the question. Good men profit one another; for they exercise their virtues and keep wisdom in its own condition. Each requires someone with whom to compare notes, with whom to inquire.

Practice exercises those skilled in wrestling; a musician stirs one who has learned the same things. The wise man too has need of the exercise of his virtues: thus, just as he stirs himself, so he is stirred by another wise man.

How will a wise man profit a wise man? He will give him impulse, he will point out occasions for honourable actions. Besides these he will express some of his own reflections: he will teach what he has discovered. For there will always remain, even for a wise man, something for him to discover and something for his mind to range out toward.

A bad man harms a bad man and makes him worse, by inciting his anger, by assenting to his sorrow, by praising his pleasures; and bad men suffer most then, when they have mingled their vices to the full and their wickedness has been brought together into one. Therefore, on the contrary, a good man will profit a good man. "How?" you ask.

He will bring him joy, he will confirm his confidence; from the sight of their mutual tranquillity the gladness of each will grow. Besides, he will hand on to him the knowledge of certain things; for the wise man does not know everything. And even if he did, someone might think out shorter ways to certain things and point out these, by which the whole work is carried round more easily.

A wise man will profit a wise man, not, of course, only by his own powers, but by those of the very man whom he helps. He can indeed, even when left to himself, unfold his own parts; nonetheless an encourager helps even one who is already running. "It is not the wise man that profits the wise man, but each profits himself." Know this: take away from him his own peculiar force, and he will do nothing.

On that principle you might say that there is no sweetness in honey: for the very man who is to taste it has his tongue and palate so fitted to such a flavour that this kind of taste pleases him, or else he will be offended by it. For there are some to whom, by a defect of disease, honey seems bitter. Both must be sound, that the one may be able to profit and that the other may be fit material for one who is to profit him.

"If," he says, "it is superfluous to warm a thing brought to the highest heat, then it is superfluous, for one brought to the highest good, that anyone should profit him. Does a farmer equipped with all things seek to be equipped by another? Does a soldier, armed with as much as is enough for safety when going out to battle, want more arms? Therefore neither does the wise man; for he is equipped enough for life, armed enough."

To this I answer: even the thing that is at its highest heat needs heat added, to keep it at the highest. "But heat," he says, "sustains itself." In the first place, there is a great difference between the things you compare; for heat is one thing, but to profit is various. Next, heat is not helped by the addition of heat, so as to be hot; the wise man cannot stand firm in the habit of his mind unless he has admitted some friends like himself, with whom to share his virtues.

Add now that there is a friendship among all the virtues with one another. Therefore he profits who loves the virtues of one his equal and renders his own in turn worthy of love. Like things delight, especially where they are honourable and know how to approve and to be approved.

Even so, no one but a wise man can skilfully stir the mind of a wise man, just as no one but a man can stir a man rationally. As, then, to move reason there is need of reason, so, that perfect reason may be moved, there is need of perfect reason.

Those too are said to profit us who bestow upon us things indifferent—money, influence, safety, and other things dear or necessary to the use of life. In these even a fool will be said to profit a wise man. But to profit is to move the mind according to Nature by one's own virtue, as well as by the virtue of him who is to be moved. This will not come about without a good also to the very man who profits. For necessarily, by exercising another's virtue, he exercises his own.

But, to set aside those things which are either the highest goods or the means to the highest, nonetheless wise men can profit one another. For to find a wise man is for a wise man a thing to be sought for its own sake, because by nature every good is dear to the good, and each is reconciled to the good as to himself.

I must, for the sake of argument, pass from this question to another. For it is asked whether the wise man will deliberate, whether he will call anyone into counsel. This he must do, when one comes to these civil and domestic and, so to speak, mortal matters. In these he needs another's counsel, as he does a physician, as a helmsman, as an advocate and an arranger of his suit. The wise man, then, will sometimes profit a wise man, for he will advise him. But in those great and divine matters too, as we have said, he will be useful by handling the honourable in common and by mingling minds and reflections.

Moreover, it is according to Nature both to embrace friends and to rejoice in a friend's increase as in one's own and proper good. For unless we do this, not even virtue will abide with us, which is strong by exercising the perception; and virtue counsels us to dispose well the present, to take thought for the future, to deliberate and to bend the mind to its task; he will more easily bend and unfold it who has taken to himself some companion. Therefore he will seek either a perfect man or one who is making progress and near the perfect. And the perfect man will profit, if he has aided counsel with their common prudence.

Men say that they see more in another's affairs; this befalls those whom self-love blinds, and from whom fear in dangers shakes the clear view of their interest; he will begin to be wise when he is more free from care and set beyond fear. But nonetheless there are certain things which even wise men see more carefully in another than in themselves. Besides, that sweetest and most honourable thing, to wish the same and to refuse the same, a wise man will render to a wise man; they will draw an excellent work under an equal yoke.

I have paid off what you demanded, although it was in the order of the matters which we embrace in the volumes of moral philosophy. Reflect, what I am wont often to say to you, that in these things we exercise nothing but our acuteness. For so often I come back to this: "What does this matter profit me? Make me already braver, juster, more temperate." I have not yet leisure to be exercised; I still have need of a physician.

Why do you demand of me useless knowledge? You promised great things; exact them of me, look. You used to say that I would be undaunted, even if swords flashed about me, even if the point touched my throat; you used to say that I would be free from care, even if fires blazed about me, even if a sudden whirlwind snatched my ship over the whole sea. Render me this care, that I may despise pleasure, that I may despise glory. Afterward you will teach me to untie tangles, to distinguish ambiguities, to see through obscurities; now teach me what is necessary. Farewell.