On Providence

You have asked me, Lucilius, how it is that, if the world is governed by providence, so many evils befall good men. This would be more conveniently answered within the framework of a larger work, in which we proved that providence presides over all things and that God is concerned with us. But since it is your wish to tear off one small piece from the whole, and to settle a single objection while the main dispute remains untouched, I will undertake a task that is not difficult: I will plead the cause of the gods.

For the present it is needless to show that so great a work does not stand without some guardian; that this gathering and coursing of the stars is no random impulse; that things set in motion by chance are often thrown into confusion and quickly collide, whereas this unerring speed advances under the command of an eternal law, bearing along so many things on land and sea, so many of the brightest lights shining each in its ordered place. This order does not belong to wandering matter, nor can things that have come together at random hang in so great a poise that the heaviest weight, the earth, sits unmoved and watches the flight of the heavens that hasten around it; that the seas, poured into the valleys, soften the lands and feel no increase from the rivers; that from the tiniest seeds vast things are born.

Not even those things that seem disordered and unpredictable—I mean rains and clouds, the hurled bolts of clashing lightning, the fires that pour from the riven summits of mountains, the tremors of the shifting ground, and the other disturbances that the turbulent region of the world stirs up about the earth—happen without a reason, sudden though they are; they too have their own causes, no less than the marvels seen in distant places: hot springs in the midst of the waves, and new tracts of islands that leap up in the vast sea.

And again, if one were to observe how the shores are laid bare as the sea draws back into itself, and then within a short time are covered over again, he would suppose that by some blind rolling the waves are now contracted and driven inward, now burst forth and in a great rush return to their place—whereas in fact they grow by fixed measures, and at their appointed hour and day come on greater or smaller, according as the moon has drawn them out, at whose command the ocean overflows. But let these matters be reserved for their proper time—the more so since you do not doubt providence, but only complain of it.

I will reconcile you with the gods, who are best toward the best of men. For Nature does not allow that good should ever harm the good: between good men and the gods there exists a friendship, with virtue as the bond. A friendship, do I say? Rather a kinship and a likeness—since the good man differs from God only in the matter of time. He is God's pupil, his imitator, his true offspring, whom that magnificent parent, no lenient exactor of the virtues, rears the more harshly, after the manner of stern fathers.

And so, when you see good men, dear to the gods, toiling and sweating and climbing the steep path, while the wicked run riot and overflow with pleasures, remember that in our own children we take delight in their modesty but in our slaves' children in their boldness; that the former are held in check by a sterner discipline, while the latter's audacity is encouraged. Let the same be clear to you concerning God. He does not keep the good man in soft indulgence; he tests him, he hardens him, he readies him for himself.

"Why do many adversities befall good men?" No evil can befall a good man: opposites do not mingle. Just as all those rivers, all that rain poured down from above, all the mighty volume of medicinal springs do not change the taste of the sea, nor so much as dilute it, so the onset of adversity does not turn the spirit of a brave man. He stands firm in his place and draws whatever happens into his own colour; for he is stronger than all that is external.

I do not mean that he feels nothing; rather, he conquers, and though otherwise calm and serene, he rises up against whatever assails him. He counts all adversities as so many exercises. And what man—provided he is truly a man and bent upon the honourable—is not eager for rightful toil and ready for his duties, danger and all? To what man of energy is idleness not a punishment?

We see that athletes, who take care for their strength, pit themselves against none but the strongest, and require of those who train them for the contest that they use their full force against them; they let themselves be struck and battered, and if they cannot find single opponents to match them, they take on several at once. Virtue withers without an adversary.

Its greatness and its power appear only when it shows by endurance what it can do. You may be sure that good men must act in the same way: they should not shrink from what is hard and difficult, nor complain of fate; whatever befalls them, they should take in good part and turn to good. It is not what you bear, but how you bear it, that matters.

Do you not see how differently fathers and mothers show their love? Fathers order their children to be roused early to set about their studies; even on holidays they will not suffer them to be idle, and they wring sweat from them, and sometimes tears. But mothers wish to cherish them in their lap, to keep them in the shade, never to let them be saddened, never to weep, never to toil.

God has a father's heart toward good men, and loves them sternly. "Let them be harried," he says, "by toils, by pains, by losses, that they may gather true strength." Beasts grown fat through inactivity grow sluggish, and fail not only from labour but from their own movement and the mere weight of their bulk. Unbruised prosperity cannot withstand a single blow; but the man who has been in continual struggle with his misfortunes has grown a callus through his injuries; he yields to no evil, and even if he falls, he fights on from his knees.

Do you wonder that God, who loves good men most of all, who wishes them to be as good and as excellent as may be, should assign them a fortune by which they may be put to the test? For my part, I do not wonder that the gods are sometimes seized with the desire to watch great men wrestling with some calamity.

To us it is sometimes a pleasure to see a young man of steady courage receive a charging beast upon his hunting-spear, or undauntedly withstand a lion's onset; and the more noble the man who does it, the more welcome the spectacle. But these are not the things that could turn the gaze of the gods upon themselves—they are childish amusements, the diversions of human frivolity.

Behold a spectacle worthy of God's regard as he bends over his own work; behold a match worthy of God—a brave man pitted against ill fortune, and all the more so if he himself has provoked the contest. I see nothing, I say, more beautiful on earth for Jupiter to fix his gaze upon, should he wish to turn his mind that way, than the sight of Cato, after his party had been broken more than once, still standing upright amid the ruins of the commonwealth.

"Though all things," he says, "have passed into the dominion of one man; though the lands be guarded by his legions and the seas by his fleets, and Caesar's soldiers beset the gates—Cato has a way out: with a single hand he will open a broad road to freedom. This sword, kept clean and guiltless even in civil war, shall at last do good and noble service: the freedom it could not give to the fatherland, it shall give to Cato. Set about it, my soul, the task you have long pondered; tear yourself free from human affairs. Already Petreius and Juba have met and fallen, each slain by the other's hand. A brave and glorious compact with fate—but one that ill befits our greatness; it is as base for Cato to beg death of any man as to beg life."

It is clear to me that the gods watched with great joy as that man, the fiercest avenger of his own honour, took thought for the safety of others and arranged the escape of those who were to flee; as on his last night he still pursued his studies; as he drove the sword into his sacred breast; as he scattered his entrails and drew forth by his own hand that most holy soul, too noble to be defiled by the steel.

For this reason I would believe that the wound was not quite sure and effective: it was not enough for the immortal gods to behold Cato once. His virtue was held back and called forth again, that it might display itself in the harder role; for death is not entered upon with so great a spirit as it is sought a second time. Why should they not gladly watch their foster-son make his exit by so glorious and memorable an end? Death consecrates those whose passing even those who fear it praise.

But as my discourse proceeds I shall show how far from evil are the things that seem so. For now I say only this: that those things you call harsh, adverse, and abominable are, first, for the good of the very men to whom they happen; and next, for the good of all, of whom the gods take more care than of individuals; and further, that they come upon men who are willing, and that, were they unwilling, they would deserve their misfortune. To this I shall add that these things befall good men by fate, and by the very law that makes them good. And then I shall persuade you never to pity a good man; for he may be called wretched, but he cannot be so.

Of all the propositions I have set down, the hardest seems to be the one I named first: that the things we dread and shudder at are for the good of the very men they befall. "Is it for their good," you say, "to be cast into exile, reduced to want, to carry out for burial their children and their wife, to be branded with disgrace, to be crippled?" If you wonder that these things can be good for anyone, you will also wonder that some men are cured by knife and fire, and no less by hunger and thirst. But if you reflect that for the sake of a cure some men have their bones scraped and removed, their veins drawn out, and certain limbs amputated that could not remain without destroying the whole body, you will let yourself be brought to grant this too: that certain hardships are for the good of those they befall—just as, by Hercules, certain things that are praised and sought after are against those they have delighted, being very like surfeits and drunkenness and the other things that kill by way of pleasure.

Among the many noble sayings of our friend Demetrius is this one, which I have heard but lately; it still sounds and rings in my ears: "Nothing," he said, "seems to me more unhappy than the man to whom nothing adverse has ever happened." For he has never been allowed to put himself to the test. Though everything has flowed for him as he wished—indeed, before he wished it—the gods have judged ill of him. He has been deemed unworthy ever to overcome fortune, who shrinks from every coward, as though she said: "Why should I take that man for my adversary? He will lay down his arms at once; against him I have no need of my full power; he will be driven off by a slight threat; he cannot bear the look of my face. Let me look about for another with whom I may join battle; I am ashamed to engage a man who is ready to be beaten."

A gladiator counts it a disgrace to be matched with an inferior, and knows there is no glory in conquering one who can be conquered without danger. Fortune does the same: she seeks out the bravest as her equals, and passes over some in disdain. She makes for the most defiant and upright, against whom she may strain her full force: she tries fire upon Mucius, poverty upon Fabricius, exile upon Rutilius, torture upon Regulus, poison upon Socrates, death upon Cato. None but ill fortune discovers a great exemplar.

Is Mucius unhappy because with his right hand he presses upon the enemy's fire, and himself exacts from himself the penalty of his mistake? Because with a burned hand he routs the king whom his armed hand could not? What then? Would he be happier if he were warming his hand in the bosom of his mistress?

Is Fabricius unhappy because, whenever he has leisure from the commonwealth, he digs his own field? Because he wages war as much against riches as against Pyrrhus? Because at his hearth he dines on the very roots and herbs that he, an old man crowned with triumph, has pulled up in clearing his land? What then? Would he be happier if he were heaping into his belly the fish of some distant shore and foreign fowl, if he were rousing the sluggishness of a queasy stomach with shellfish from the upper and lower seas, if he were ringing about with a huge pile of fruit the prize game beasts, taken with much slaughter by the hunters?

Is Rutilius unhappy because those who condemned him will have to plead their case before all the ages? Because he bore the loss of his fatherland with more equanimity than he bore his own exile? Because he alone refused something to the dictator Sulla, and, when recalled, all but drew back and fled farther off? "Let them face it," he said, "those men whom your good fortune has caught at Rome. Let them look on the streams of blood in the Forum, and above the Servilian pool—for that is the charnel-house of Sulla's proscription—the heads of senators, and the bands of cut-throats roaming everywhere through the city, and the many thousands of Roman citizens butchered in one place after a pledge of safety, nay, by means of that very pledge: let those look on such things who cannot go into exile." What then?

Is Lucius Sulla happy because, when he goes down to the Forum, his way is cleared with the sword; because he suffers the heads of men of consular rank to be displayed before him, and pays out the price of slaughter through his quaestor and the public registers? And this is all the doing of that man—that very man who carried the Cornelian law!

Let us come to Regulus: what harm did fortune do him in making him a pattern of good faith, a pattern of endurance? Nails pierce his skin, and wherever he leans his weary body, he rests upon a wound; his eyes are fixed in unbroken sleeplessness. The greater his torment, the greater his glory. Would you know how little he repents of having valued virtue at this price? Make him whole again and send him back to the senate; he will deliver the same opinion.

Do you, then, think Maecenas the happier—who, sick with love and bewailing the daily rebuffs of a peevish wife, woos sleep with the music of symphonies softly resounding from afar? Though he drug himself with wine and divert his mind with the splash of falling water and beguile his anxious heart with a thousand pleasures, he will lie as wakeful on his down as the other on his cross. But the one has the comfort of enduring hardship for the sake of the honourable, and from his suffering he looks back to its cause; the other, limp with pleasures and worn out by excess of good fortune, is tormented less by what he suffers than by the cause for which he suffers.

Vices have not yet so taken possession of the human race that it should be doubtful whether, if the choice of one's fate were offered, more men would wish to be born a Regulus than a Maecenas. Or if there be anyone who dares to say that he would rather have been born Maecenas than Regulus, that same man—though he hold his tongue—would rather have been born Terentia!

Do you judge that Socrates was ill used because he drank down that draught, mixed by the state, as though it were the medicine of immortality, and discoursed about death up to the very moment of death? Was he badly dealt with because his blood was chilled, and, as the cold gradually crept in, the life of his veins came to a stand?

How much more is he to be envied than those for whom drink is served in jewelled cups, for whom some catamite, schooled to endure all things, his manhood gelded or in doubt, dissolves the snow held suspended above the gold! These men will measure back by vomiting whatever they have drunk, sour-faced and tasting again their own bile; but he will drain the poison gladly and with a willing heart.

As for Cato, enough has been said, and the common consent of mankind will confess that the highest happiness fell to him—the man whom Nature chose for herself as the one with whom she might match her terrors. "The enmities of the powerful are grievous; let him be set at once against Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus. It is grievous to be outstripped in office by lesser men; let him be ranked below Vatinius. It is grievous to take part in civil wars; let him do battle the whole world over for a good cause, as ill-fated as he is unyielding. It is grievous to lay hands upon oneself; let him do it. And what shall I gain by all this? That all may know these are no evils, for which I deemed Cato worthy."

Prosperity comes even to the common crowd and to mean spirits; but to bring beneath the yoke the calamities and terrors of mortal life is the mark of a great man. To be always fortunate, and to pass through life without a single pang of the soul, is to be ignorant of one half of Nature.

You are a great man—but how am I to know it, if fortune gives you no occasion to display your virtue? You have come down to compete at Olympia, but with no rival besides yourself; you have the crown, but not the victory. I do not congratulate you as I would a brave man, but as one who has won a consulship or a praetorship: you have gained a distinction.

And I can say the same to a good man, if no harder turn of fortune has given him an occasion in which alone he might show the strength of his soul: "I judge you wretched, because you have never been wretched. You have passed through life without an adversary; no one will know what you could have done—not even you yourself." For self-knowledge requires the test; no one has learned what he is capable of except by trying. And so some men have offered themselves of their own accord to misfortunes that hung back, and have sought an occasion through which their virtue, otherwise bound for obscurity, might shine forth.

Great men, I say, sometimes rejoice in adversity, no otherwise than brave soldiers do in war. I once heard the gladiator Triumphus, under Tiberius Caesar, complaining of the scarcity of shows: "What a fine season," he said, "is going to waste!" Valour is greedy for danger, and thinks of its goal, not of what it must suffer, since even what it must suffer is part of its glory. Soldiers glory in their wounds; gladly they display the blood that flows by a happier chance. Though those who return unscathed from the battle line may have done as much, the man who comes back wounded draws the greater regard.

It is for the men's own sake, I say, that God takes thought—men whom he longs to make as honourable as may be—as often as he gives them matter for some spirited and brave deed, a thing for which some difficulty of circumstance is needed. You come to know the helmsman in a storm, the soldier in the battle line. How can I know how much courage you have against poverty, if you are awash in riches? How can I know how much steadfastness you have against disgrace and ill repute and the people's hatred, if you grow old amid applause, if a favour that nothing can shake, and that follows you by a certain inclination of men's minds, attends you? How do I know with how calm a soul you would bear the loss of children, if you see about you all those you have reared? I have heard you when you consoled others: I should have seen your true measure if you had then consoled yourself, if you had then forbidden yourself to grieve.

Do not, I beg you, take fright at those things which the immortal gods apply to our souls like goads: calamity is virtue's opportunity. With justice one might call wretched those who grow numb through excess of good fortune, whom an idle calm holds fast as on a sluggish sea; whatever befalls them will come as something new.

Cruel things press harder upon the inexperienced; the yoke is heavy on a tender neck. The raw recruit turns pale at the mere thought of a wound; the veteran looks boldly at his own blood, knowing that he has often won the victory after bleeding. And so those whom God approves, whom he loves, he hardens, he reviews, he trains; but those whom he seems to indulge, whom he seems to spare, he keeps soft against the evils to come. For you are mistaken if you suppose anyone exempt. He too who has long been fortunate will get his share; whoever seems to have been let off has only been put off. Why does God afflict every best man with ill health, or grief, or other hardships?

Because in war too the most dangerous tasks are given to the bravest; the general sends his picked men to assault the enemy by night ambush, or to reconnoitre the route, or to dislodge a garrison from its post. Not one of those who go out says, "The commander has dealt ill with me," but "He has judged me well." Let those say the same who are bidden to suffer what would make cowards and weaklings weep: "We have been deemed worthy by God as the men in whom he might test how much human nature can endure."

Flee soft delights, flee that enervating good fortune by which men's souls grow sodden, and in which, unless something intervenes to remind them of the common human lot, they lie sunk as in unending drunkenness. The man whom window-panes have always shielded from every draught, whose feet have been kept warm by poultices changed again and again, whose dining-rooms have been tempered by heat banked beneath the floor and circling through the walls—a light breeze will not brush against such a man without peril.

Since all things that overstep their measure do harm, the most dangerous excess of all is excess of good fortune: it disorders the brain, it summons up empty fancies before the mind, it pours a thick fog between the false and the true. Why, then, is it not better to bear unbroken misfortune with virtue at one's side than to be burst asunder by goods without limit or restraint? Death by starvation is gentler; men split apart from surfeit.

The gods, then, follow the same principle with good men that teachers follow with their pupils, demanding more labour from those in whom the surer hope is placed. Do you really believe that the Spartans hate their own children, when they test their mettle by scourging them in public? Their very fathers urge them on to bear the strokes of the lash bravely, and, when they are torn and half-dead, beg them to persevere in offering wound upon wound.

What wonder, then, if God tests noble spirits harshly? The proof of virtue is never a soft one. Fortune lashes us and tears us; let us endure it! It is not cruelty, but a contest, and the more often we enter it, the stronger we shall be. The firmest part of the body is the one that constant use keeps busy. We must offer ourselves to fortune, that against her we may be hardened by her very self; little by little she will make us a match for her, and constant exposure to danger will breed contempt for dangers.

So it is that sailors' bodies are toughened by enduring the sea, farmers' hands are calloused, soldiers' arms are strong to hurl the javelin, runners' limbs are nimble; in each man the firmest part is the one he has exercised. It is by endurance that the soul comes to despise the suffering of evils; and you will learn what endurance can do in us if you observe how much labour achieves among naked tribes, made stronger by their very want.

Consider all the peoples among whom the Roman peace ends—I mean the Germans and whatever wandering tribes one meets with about the Danube. An unbroken winter, a gloomy sky, weighs upon them; the barren soil grudgingly sustains them; they keep off the rain with thatch or leaves, they range over ponds frozen hard, they hunt wild beasts for their food.

Do they seem wretched to you? There is nothing wretched in what habit has turned into nature; for by degrees the things that began under necessity become a pleasure. They have no dwellings, no settled abodes, save such as weariness sets up for a single day; their food is mean, and must be sought by their own hands; the climate is harsh in its cruelty, their bodies are unclad. This, which seems to you a calamity, is the life of so many nations! Why, then, do you wonder that good men are shaken, that they may be made strong?

No tree stands solid and strong unless the wind beats often against it; for by that very buffeting it is braced and fixes its roots more surely. Brittle are the trees that have grown up in a sunny valley. It is therefore for the good of good men themselves—that they may be capable of fearlessness—to spend much of their lives amid things that terrify, and to bear with calm soul what are not evils except to one who bears them ill.

Consider, too, that it is for the good of all that each best man should, so to speak, serve as a soldier and do his duties in the field. This is God's purpose, as it is the wise man's: to show that the things the crowd craves and the things it dreads are neither goods nor evils. It will be plain that they are goods if he bestows them on none but good men, and evils if he inflicts them only on the wicked.

Blindness would be a thing to be detested, if no one lost his eyes except the man whose eyes ought to be torn out; therefore let Appius and Metellus be deprived of the light. Riches are no good; therefore let even Elius the pimp possess them, so that men may see money, which they have consecrated in temples, also in a brothel. There is no surer way for God to bring into disrepute the things men covet than to bestow them on the basest and take them away from the best.

"But it is unjust that a good man should be crippled or pierced or fettered, while the wicked walk abroad sound of body, at large, and pampered." What of it? Is it not unjust that brave men should take up arms, spend their nights in camp, and stand before the rampart with their wounds bound up, while meanwhile in the city the debauched and the avowedly shameless live secure? What of it? Is it not unjust that maidens of the noblest birth should be roused by night to perform the sacred rites, while the defiled enjoy the deepest sleep?

Toil summons the best. The senate is often in session the whole day long, while at that very time the meanest fellow is amusing his leisure on the Campus, or skulking in a tavern, or wasting his time in some idle knot of loafers. The same thing happens in this great commonwealth of the world: good men labour, they spend and are spent, and willingly at that; they are not dragged along by fortune, but follow her and keep pace with her step. Had they known the way, they would have gone on ahead.

This spirited utterance, too, of Demetrius, that bravest of men, I remember hearing: "This one thing," he said, "I may complain of to you, immortal gods—that you did not make your will known to me sooner; for I would have come the first to those things to which I now stand summoned. Do you wish to take my children? It was for you that I raised them. Do you wish some part of my body? Take it; I promise no great thing—soon I shall leave the whole behind. Do you wish my breath of life? Why not? I will make no delay in letting you take back what you gave. From a willing man you shall have whatever you ask.

What of it, then? I should have preferred to offer rather than to hand over. What need was there to take by force? You might have received it freely. But even now you shall not take it from me by force, for nothing is wrested away except from one who holds it back." I am compelled to nothing, I suffer nothing against my will, nor do I serve God, but rather assent to him—the more so because I know that all things run their course by a fixed law, ordained for eternity.

The fates lead us on, and the first hour of our birth has appointed how much time remains to each. Cause hangs upon cause; a long chain of things draws on all that is private and all that is public. Therefore everything must be borne bravely, because all things do not, as we suppose, befall us by chance, but come according to plan. Long ago it was settled what should give you joy, what tears; and however greatly the life of each man may seem to be marked off by its variety, the sum comes to one thing: we receive what is perishable, and are ourselves to perish. Why, then, are we indignant?

Why do we complain? For this we were born. Let Nature use her own bodies as she will; let us, glad and brave in the face of all things, reflect that nothing of our own perishes. What is the part of a good man? To offer himself to fate. It is a grand comfort to be swept along with the universe; whatever it is that has bidden us live thus and die thus binds the gods too by the same necessity. An irrevocable course carries along things human and divine alike. The very Maker and Ruler of all things did indeed write the fates, but he also follows them; he obeys forever, he commanded but once.

"Why, then, was God so unfair in his allotment of fate, as to assign to good men poverty and wounds and bitter deaths?" The craftsman cannot change his material; this is what it has allowed. Certain things cannot be separated from certain others; they cohere, they are indivisible. Sluggish natures, bound for sleep or for a waking that is much like sleep, are compounded of inert elements; but to make a man who deserves to be named with care, a stronger fate is needed. His road will not be level: he must go up and down, he must be tossed about and steer his ship through troubled waters. He must hold his course against fortune; many hard and harsh things will befall him, but such as he himself may soften and smooth.

Fire proves gold; misery proves brave men. See how high virtue must climb; you will know that its path does not run through safety: Steep is the first stretch of the road, which the fresh horses barely struggle up at morning; highest it stands in mid-heaven, whence to look upon sea and lands often strikes even me with dread, and my heart trembles with quaking fear; the last stretch runs downhill and needs a sure hand at the rein; then even Tethys, who receives me below in her waters lest I be hurled headlong, is wont to fear for the deeps.

When that high-spirited youth had heard this, he said: "The road pleases me; I will ascend. It is worth so much to travel that way, even though I fall." His father does not cease to terrify the boy's keen spirit with fear: And though you keep the road and are led astray by no wandering, yet you will pass through the horns of the Bull set against you, and the Haemonian Archer's bow, and the jaws of the raging Lion. After this he said: "Yoke the chariot you have granted me! The very things by which you think to deter me only spur me on. I long to stand there where the Sun himself trembles." To follow safe paths is the way of the lowly and the spiritless; virtue goes by the heights.

"Why, then, does God allow any evil to befall good men?" But in truth he allows none. He has kept all evils far from them—crimes and outrages and wicked thoughts and greedy schemes and blind lust and avarice that covets another's goods; the men themselves he guards and defends. Does anyone really demand of God this besides—that he should keep watch over good men's baggage as well? No, they themselves relieve God of that care: external things they hold in contempt.

Democritus cast away his riches, accounting them a burden to a good mind. Why, then, do you wonder if God allows to happen to a good man what a good man sometimes wishes to happen to himself? Good men lose their sons—why not, when sometimes they even slay them themselves? They are sent into exile—why not, when sometimes they themselves leave their fatherland, never to return? They are put to death—why not, when sometimes they lay hands upon themselves? Why do they suffer certain hardships? That they may teach others to suffer.

They were born to be an example. Suppose, then, that God says: "What ground have you to complain of me—you who have set your hearts on what is right? On others I have lavished false goods, and have toyed with their empty minds as with a long and deceptive dream. I have decked them out with gold and silver and ivory, but within there is no good at all.

Those men whom you look upon as fortunate, if you could see them not where they meet the eye but where they hide themselves, are wretched, squalid, vile, adorned on the outside after the fashion of their own walls. That is no solid and genuine happiness: it is a veneer, and a thin one at that. And so, while they are allowed to stand firm and be displayed as they please, they shine and impose upon us; but when something happens to throw them into disorder and strip them bare, then it appears how much deep and genuine foulness another's borrowed splendour had concealed.

To you I have given goods that are sure and lasting, goods that grow better and greater the more a man turns them over and examines them on every side. I have permitted you to despise what others fear, to disdain the desires of the crowd; you do not glitter on the outside, for your goods are turned inward. So has the universe scorned all that lies without, rejoicing in the spectacle of itself. Within I have placed every good; not to need good fortune is your good fortune.

'But many things befall us that are grievous, dreadful, hard to bear.' Since I could not withdraw you from them, I have armed your souls against all things; bear them bravely. This is the point in which you may outstrip God himself: he stands beyond the suffering of evils, you above it. Despise poverty: no one lives as poor as he was born. Despise pain: either it will be relieved, or it will relieve you. Despise death: it either ends you or removes you elsewhere. Despise fortune: I have given her no weapon with which to strike the soul.

Above all I have taken care that nothing should hold you against your will: the way out lies open. If you do not wish to fight, you are free to flee. For this reason, of all the things I willed to be necessary for you, I have made nothing easier than dying. I have set the soul on a downward slope; it is drawn off—only mark it, and you will see by how short and unobstructed a road it is led to freedom. I have not laid upon you in your departure such long delays as in your entering; otherwise fortune would have held a great kingdom over you, if a man died as slowly as he is born.

Let every time and every place teach you how easy it is to renounce Nature and to fling back at her her own gift; in the very midst of the altars and the solemn rites of those who sacrifice, while life is being prayed for, learn well the lesson of death. The fat bodies of bulls fall at a tiny wound, and a stroke of the human hand fells beasts of mighty strength; with a slender blade the joint of the neck is severed, and when that hinge which links head and neck has been cut, all that great bulk collapses.

The breath of life does not lie deep within, nor must it always be dug out with the steel; the vitals need not be searched with a deeply driven wound: death is close at hand. I have appointed no fixed spot for these blows; the way is open wherever you will. That very thing which is called dying, in which the soul departs from the body, is too brief for so great a swiftness to be felt. Whether a noose has crushed the throat, or water has stopped the breath, or the hardness of the ground beneath has dashed in pieces the head of one who has fallen upon it, or a draught of fire has cut short the returning course of the breath—whatever it be, it makes haste. Do you not blush? What is done so swiftly, you dread so long!"