Letter 73

They seem to me to err who think that those faithfully devoted to philosophy are stubborn and refractory, despisers of magistrates or kings or of those by whom public affairs are administered. For, on the contrary, none are more grateful toward them; and not without reason. For to none do they owe more than to those by whose grace they may enjoy untroubled leisure.

And so those to whom public security contributes much toward the purpose of living well must needs honor the author of this good as a parent — much more, indeed, than those restless men set in the midst of affairs, who owe much to their princes but also charge much to their account, whom no liberality can ever so fully satisfy as to glut their desires, which grow while they are filled. But whoever thinks about receiving has forgotten what he has received; and desire has no greater evil than that it is ungrateful.

Add now that no one of those who are engaged in public life looks at how many he surpasses, but by whom he is surpassed. And it is not so pleasant to them to see many behind them as it is grievous to see anyone before them. All ambition has this vice: it does not look back. And not ambition only is unstable, but every desire, because it always begins from its end.

But that sincere and pure man, who has left both the senate-house and the forum and all administration of the republic that he might withdraw to ampler things, loves those by whose grace it is permitted him to do this in safety, and he alone renders them unbought testimony and owes a great thing to men who know it not. As he venerates and looks up to his teachers, by whose benefit he comes forth from those trackless ways, so too these men, under whose protection he is placed and practices the good arts.

"But the king protects others too by his strength." Who denies it? But just as a man judges that he owes more to Neptune, out of those who have enjoyed the same calm, who has carried more and more precious cargo over that sea — the vow is paid more spiritedly by the merchant than by the passenger, and of the merchants themselves he is more lavishly grateful who carried perfumes and purple and things to be weighed against gold than he who had heaped up the cheapest things, destined to serve as ballast — so the benefit of this peace, which pertains to all, reaches more deeply to those who use it well.

For there are many of these men in the toga to whom peace is more laborious than war. Or do you think those owe the same for peace who spend it on drunkenness or lust or other vices, which ought to be broken off even by war? Unless perhaps you think the wise man so unfair as to judge that he owes nothing individually for the common goods. To the sun and moon I owe very much, and they do not rise for me alone. To the year and the god who tempers the year I am privately obligated, although nothing has been appointed in my honor.

The foolish greed of mortals distinguishes possession and ownership and believes nothing to be its own that is public. But the wise man judges nothing more his own than that which he holds in partnership with the human race. For these things would not be so common unless a part of them pertained to individuals; even that which is common in the smallest portion makes a partner.

Add now that great and true goods are not divided so that a scant part falls to individuals; they come whole to each one. From a largess men carry off only as much as was promised per head. A feast and a distribution of meat and whatever else is taken by hand departs into parts. But these undivided goods, peace and liberty, belong whole both to all and to each one.

And so he reflects through whom the use and enjoyment of these things falls to him, through whom no public necessity calls him to arms nor to keeping watch nor to guarding walls and the manifold tribute of war, and he gives thanks to his helmsman. This philosophy teaches above all, to owe benefits well, to repay them well; but sometimes the repayment is the very confession.

He will confess, then, that he owes much to the man by whose administration and providence there falls to him a rich leisure and the disposal of his own time and a quiet unperturbed by public occupations. "O Meliboeus, a god made this leisure for us. For he shall always be a god to me."

If even that leisure owes much to its author, whose gift is this greatest one: "He allowed my cattle to wander, as you see, and myself to play what I would on the rustic reed" — how greatly do we value this leisure, which is passed among the gods, which makes gods?

So I say, Lucilius, and I call you to heaven by a short way. Sextius used to say that Jupiter can do no more than a good man. Jupiter has more things to bestow on men, but between two good men he is not the better who is the richer, no more than, between two who have equal knowledge of governing the helm, you would call him the better who has the larger and finer ship.

In what does Jupiter surpass the good man? He is good for longer; the wise man esteems himself nothing the less because his virtues are shut within a briefer span. As of two wise men he who died the older is not more blessed than he whose virtue was bounded within fewer years, so god does not surpass the wise man in happiness, even if he surpasses him in age.

Virtue is not greater for being longer. Jupiter has all things, but to be sure he has handed them over to others to hold; to himself this one use pertains, that he is the reason for all men's using all things. The wise man sees and despises all things in others' hands with as even a mind as Jupiter, and looks up to himself the more, in that Jupiter cannot use them, while the wise man will not.

Let us therefore believe Sextius, who shows us the fairest road and cries: "This is the way to the stars, this is the way by frugality, this by temperance, this by courage." The gods are not fastidious, not envious; they admit us and reach out a hand to those who climb.

Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God comes to men — nay, what is nearer, comes into men; no mind is good without god. Divine seeds are scattered in human bodies, which, if a good husbandman receives them, come forth like their origin and rise equal to those from which they sprang; but if a bad one, no otherwise than a barren and marshy soil, he kills them and then produces refuse instead of crops. Farewell.