Part 15 (1/2)

XXIV. These cases are not alike, Cato. For in these instances, though you may have made a good deal of progress, still you are in exactly the same evil from which you wish to be free, till you have entirely escaped. For a man does not breathe till he has entirely emerged, and puppies are just as blind till they have opened their eyes, as if they were never going to open them. I will give you some instances that really are like. One man's eyes are bad, another is weak in his body; these men are both gradually relieved by the daily application of remedies. The one gets better every day, and the other sees better. Now these men resemble all those who study virtue. They are relieved of their vices; they are relieved of their errors. Unless, perchance, you think that Tiberius Gracchus, the father, was not happier than his son, when the one laboured to establish the republic, and the other to subvert it. And yet he was not a wise man. For who taught him wisdom? or when? or where? or whence did he learn it?

Still, because he consulted his twin glory and dignity, he had made great progress in virtue.

But I will compare your grandfather, Drusus, with Caius Gracchus, who was nearly his contemporary. He healed the wounds which the other inflicted on the republic. But there is nothing which makes men so miserable as impiety and wickedness. Grant that all those who are unwise are miserable, as, in fact, they are; still he is not equally miserable who consults the interest of his country with him who wishes for its destruction.

Therefore, those men are already a great deal relieved from their vices who have made any considerable advance towards virtue. But the men of your school admit that advance towards virtue can be made, but yet a.s.sert that no relief from vices takes place in consequence.

But it is worth while to consider on what arguments acute men rely for proving this point. Those arts, say they, of which the perfection can be increased, show that the completeness of their contraries can likewise be increased. But no addition can be made to the perfection of virtue.

Therefore, also, vices will not be susceptible of any increase, for they are the contraries of virtues. Shall we say, then, that things which are doubtful are made plain by things which are evident, or that things which are evident are obscured by things that are doubtful? But this is evident, that different vices are greater in different people. This is doubtful, whether any addition can be made to that which you call the chief good.

But you, while what you ought to do is to try and ill.u.s.trate what is doubtful by what is evident, endeavour to get rid of what is evident by what is doubtful. And, therefore, you will find yourself hampered by the same reasoning which I used just now. For if it follows that some vices are not greater than others, because no addition can be made to that chief good which you describe, since it is quite evident that the vices of all men are not equal, you must change your definition of the chief good. For we must inevitably maintain this rule, that when a consequence is false, the premises from which the consequence proceeds cannot be true.

XXV. What, then, is the cause of these difficulties? A vain-glorious parade in defining the chief good. For when it is positively a.s.serted that what is honourable is the sole good, all care for one's health, all attention to one's estate, all regard for the government of the republic, all regularity in transacting business, all the duties of life, in short, are put an end to. Even that very honourableness, in which alone you a.s.sert that everything is comprised, must be abandoned. All which arguments are carefully urged against Ariston by Chrysippus. And from that embarra.s.sment it is that all those fallaciously speaking wiles, as Attius calls them, have arisen. For because wisdom had no ground on which to rest her foot, when all the duties were taken away, (and duties were taken away when all power of selection and discrimination was denied; for what choice, or what discrimination could there be when all things were so completely equal that there was no difference whatever between them?) from these difficulties there arose worse errors than even those of Aristo. For his arguments were at all events simple; those of your school are full of craft.

For suppose you were to ask Aristo whether these things, freedom from pain, riches, and good health, appear to him to be goods? He would deny it. What next? Suppose you ask him whether the contraries of these things are bad? He would deny that equally. Suppose you were to ask Zeno the same question? He would give you the same answer, word for word. Suppose further, that we, being full of astonishment, were to ask them both how it will be possible for us to live, if we think that it makes not the least difference to us whether we are well or sick; whether we are free from pain or tormented by it; whether we are able or unable to endure cold and hunger? You will live, says Aristo, magnificently and excellently, doing whatever seems good to you. You will never be vexed, you will never desire anything, you will never fear anything. What will Zeno say? He says that all these ideas are monstrous, and that it is totally impossible for any one to live on these principles; but that there is some extravagant, some immense difference between what is honourable and what is base; that between other things, indeed, there is no difference at all. He will also say-(listen to what follows, and do not laugh, if you can help it)-all those intermediate things, between which there is no difference, are nevertheless such that some of them are to be chosen, others rejected, and others utterly disregarded; that is to say, that you may wish for some, wish to avoid others, and be totally indifferent about others. But you said just now, O Zeno, that there was no difference whatever between these things. And now I say the same, he replies; and that there is no difference whatever as respects virtues and vices. Well, I should like to know who did not know that?

XXVI. However, let us hear a little more. Those things, says he, which you have mentioned, to be well, to be rich, to be free from pain, I do not call goods; but I will call them in Greek p??????a (which you may translate by the Latin _producta_, though I prefer _praeposita_ or _praecipua_, for they are more easily comprehended and more applicable terms). And again, the contraries, want, sickness, and pain, I do not call evils, though I have no objection to styling them (if you wish) things to be rejected. And, therefore, I do not say that I seek for them first, but that I choose them; not that I wish for them, but that I accept them. And so, too, I do not say that I flee from the contraries; but that I, as it were, keep aloof from them. What says Aristotle and the rest of the disciples of Plato? Why, that they call everything good which is according to nature; and that whatever is contrary to nature they call evil.

Do you not see, then, that your master Zeno agrees with Aristo in words, but differs from him as to facts; but that he agrees with Aristotle and those other philosophers as to facts, but differs from them only in words?

Why, then, when we are agreed as to facts, do we not prefer speaking in the ordinary manner? Let him teach me either that I shall be more prepared to despise money, if I reckon it only among things preferred, than if I count it among goods; and that I shall have more fort.i.tude to endure pain if I call it bitter, and difficult to bear, and contrary to nature, than if I p.r.o.nounce it an evil. Marcus Piso, my intimate, also was a very witty man, and used to ridicule the Stoics for their language on this topic: for what was he used to say? ”You deny that riches are a good, but call them something to be preferred. What good do you do by that? do you diminish avarice? But if we mind words, then, in the first place, your expression, to be preferred, is longer than good.” ”That has nothing to do with the matter.” ”I dare say it has not, but still it is a more difficult expression. For I do not know what the word good is derived from; but the word preferred I suppose means that it is preferred to other things. That appears to me to be important.” Therefore, he insisted upon it, that more consequence was attributed to riches by Zeno, who placed them among things preferred, than by Aristotle, who admitted that they were a good. Still he did not say that they were a great good, but rather such an one as was to be despised and scorned in comparison of what was right and honourable, and never one to be greatly sought after. And altogether, he argued in this way, about all those expressions which had been altered by Zeno, both as to what he denied to be goods, and as to those things to which he referred the name of evil; saying that the first received from him a more joyful t.i.tle than they did from us; and the latter a more gloomy one.

XXVII. Piso, then-a most excellent man, and, as you well know, a great friend of yours-used to argue in this manner. And now let us make an end of this, after we have just said a few additional words. For it would take a long time to reply to all your a.s.sertions.

For from the same tricks with words, originate all those kingdoms, and commands, and riches, and universal dominion which you say belong to the wise man. You say besides, that he alone is handsome, he alone is free, he alone is a citizen; and that everything which is the contrary of all these things belongs to the foolish man, who is also insane, as you a.s.sert they call these a.s.sertions pa??d??a; we may call them marvellous. And yet what marvel is there in them when you come nearer to them? I will just examine the matter with you, and see what meaning you affix to each word; there shall be no dispute between us. You say that all offences are equal. I will not speak to you now, as I spoke on the same subject when I was defending Lucius Murena, whom you prosecuted; then I was addressing an unphilosophical audience; something too was to be directed to the bystanders in court; at present, we must proceed more precisely. In what way can all offences be called equal? Because nothing is more honourable than what is honourable; nothing more base than what is base. Go on a little further, for there is a great dispute as to this point; let us examine those arguments, which are especially your own, why all offences are equal. As, says he, in many lyres, if not one of them is so well in tune as to be able to preserve the harmony, all are equally out of tune; so because offences differ from what is right, they will differ equally; therefore they are equal: now here we are being mocked with an ambiguous expression. For it equally happens to all the lyres to be out of tune, but not to them all to be equally out of tune. Therefore, that comparison does not help you at all. For it would not follow if we were to say that every avarice is equally avarice, that therefore every case of avarice was equal. Here is another simile which is no simile; for as, says he, a pilot blunders equally if he wrecks a s.h.i.+p loaded with straw, as if he wrecks one loaded with gold; so, too, he sins equally who beats his parent, with him who beats a slave unjustly. This is not seeing that it has no connexion with the art of the pilot what cargo the s.h.i.+p carries: and therefore that it makes no difference with respect to his steering well or ill, whether his freight is straw or gold. But it can and ought to be understood what the difference is between a parent and a slave; therefore it makes no difference with respect to navigation, but a great deal with respect to duty, what the description of thing may be which is affected by the blunder. And if, in navigation, a s.h.i.+p has been wrecked through carelessness, the offence then becomes more serious if gold is lost, than if it is only straw. For in all arts we insist upon the exercise of what is called common prudence; which all men who have the management of any business entrusted to them are bound to possess. And so even in this instance offences are not equal.

XXVIII. However, they press on, and relax nothing. Since, say they, every offence is one of imbecility and inconsistency, and since these vices are equally great in all fools, it follows necessarily that offences are equal: as if it were admitted that vices are equally great in all fools, and that Lucius Tubulus was a man of the same imbecility and inconsistency as Publius Scaevola, on whose motion he was condemned; and as if there were no difference at all between the things themselves which are the subject of the offences; so that, in proportion as they are more or less important, the offences committed in respect of them are so too.

Therefore, for I may now bring this discourse to an end, your Stoics seem to me to be most especially open to this charge, that they fancy they can support two opposite propositions. For what is so inconsistent as for the same person to say that what is honourable is the only good, and also that the desire of things adapted for human life proceeds from nature? But when they wish to maintain the arguments which are suitable for the former propositions, they agree with Aristo; when they avoid that, they in reality are upholding the same doctrines as the Peripatetics; they cling to words with great tenacity; and as they cannot bear to have them taken from them one after another, they become more fierce, and rough, and harsher both in their language and manners. But Panaetius, wis.h.i.+ng to avoid their moroseness and asperity, would not approve of either the bitterness of their sentiments, or their captious way of arguing: and so in one respect he was more gentle, and in the other more intelligible. And he was always quoting Plato, and Aristotle, and Xenocrates, and Theophrastus, and Dicaearchus, as his own writings show. And indeed, I feel very sure that it would do you a great deal of good if you too were to study those authors with care and diligence.

But since it is getting towards evening, and I must return to my villa, we will stop this discussion at this point, but we will often return to it on other occasions. Indeed we will, said he, for what can we do better? And indeed I shall require of you to give me a hearing while I refute what you have said; but recollect that you approve of all our opinions, charging us only with using words incorrectly; but that we do not approve of one single one of your ideas. You are throwing a stone at me as I depart, said I; however, we shall see. And when we had thus spoken we separated.

Fifth Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.

I. One day when I had been hearing Antiochus lecture, as I was in the habit of doing, O Brutus, in company with Marcus Piso, in that gymnasium which is called Ptolemy's, my brother Quintus being with me, and t.i.tus Pomponius, and Lucius Cicero, our cousin on the father's side as to relations.h.i.+p, but our own brother as to affection, we determined to take our afternoon's walk in the Academy, princ.i.p.ally because at that time of day that place was free from any crowd. Accordingly, at the appointed time we all met at Piso's house, and from thence we walked half-a-dozen furlongs from the Dipylus to the Academy, beguiling the road with discourse on various subjects; and when we had arrived at the deservedly celebrated s.p.a.ce of the Academy, we there found the solitude which we desired. Then said Piso-Shall I say that this is implanted in us by nature, or by some mistake, that when we see those places which we have heard that men who deserve to be had in recollection have much frequented, we are more moved than when we hear even of their actual deeds, or than when we read some one of their writings?-just as I am affected now. For the remembrance of Plato comes into my mind, whom we understand to have been the first person who was accustomed to dispute in this place; and whose neighbouring gardens not only recal him vividly to my recollection, but seem even to place the man himself before my eyes. Here Speusippus, here Xenocrates, here his pupil Polemo used to walk; and the latter used to sit in the very spot which is now before us. There is our senate-house (I mean the Curia Hostilia,(48) not this new one, which always seems to me smaller, though in fact it is larger): whenever I have looked upon that I have always thought of Scipio, and Cato, and Laelius, and more especially of my own grandfather. So great a power of reminding one of circ.u.mstances exists in the places themselves, that it is not without reason that some people have built up a system of memory in them. Then Quintus said-It is just as you say, Piso: for as I was coming here just now, that district of Colonos drew my attention to itself, whose inhabitant, Sophocles, was brought at once before my eyes: for you know how I admire, and how I delight in him: and accordingly a sort of appearance moved me, an unsubstantial one indeed, but still it did move me to a more vivid recollection of dipus coming hither, and asking in most melodious verse what all these places were. Then Pomponius said-I whom you all are always attacking as devoted to Epicurus, am often with Phaedrus, who is a particular friend of mine, as you know, in the gardens of Epicurus, which we pa.s.sed by just this moment; but, according to the warning of the old proverb, I remember the living; still I may not forget Epicurus, even if were to wish to do so, whose likeness our friends have not only in pictures, but even on their goblets and rings.

II. On this I chimed in:-Our friend Pomponius, said I, appears to be joking, and perhaps he has a right to do so; for he has established himself at Athens in such a way that he has almost become an Athenian, and indeed so as to seem likely to earn such a surname. But I, Piso, agree with you that we do get into a habit of thinking a good deal more earnestly and deeply on ill.u.s.trious men in consequence of the warnings of place. For you know that once I went with you to Metapontum, and did not turn into the house of my entertainer until I had seen the very place where Pythagoras pa.s.sed his life, and his house; and at this present time, although all over Athens there are many traces of eminent men in the places themselves, still I am greatly affected by this seat which is before me. For here Charmadas lately sat,-a man whom I seem to see, for his likeness is well known to me, and I can fancy that his voice is regretted by the very seat itself, deprived as it is now of such a brilliant genius. Then Piso said-Since, now, we have all said something, what does our friend Lucius think? is he glad to visit that spot where Demosthenes and aeschines used to contend together? for every one is chiefly attracted by his own particular study. And he blushed, and answered-Do not ask me, who went down even to the harbour of Phalerum, where they say that Demosthenes used to declaim to the waves, in order to accustom himself to outvoice the roaring of the sea. I turned aside also out of the road, a little to the right, to approach the tomb of Pericles; although, indeed, such records are countless in this city, for wherever we step we place our foot on some history.

Then Piso continued:-But, Cicero, said he, those inclinations are the inclinations of clever men, if they lead to the imitation of great men; but if they only tend to bringing up again the traces of ancient recollections, that is mere curiosity. But we all exhort you,-though you of your own accord, as I hope, are running that way,-to imitate those men whom you wish that you had known. Although, I replied, our friend Piso here does, as you see, what you recommended, still your exhortation is pleasing to me. Then said he, in a most friendly manner, as was his wont,-Let all of us, then, contribute every a.s.sistance to his youth, especially urging him to devote some of his studies to philosophy, either for the sake of imitating you whom he loves, or else of being able to do what he is desirous to do with more elegance. But do you, O Lucius, said he, require to be exhorted by us, or are you inclined that way of your own accord? You appear, indeed, to me to be very a.s.siduous in your attendance on Antiochus, whose pupil you are. Then replied he, timidly,-or, I ought rather to say, modestly,-I am indeed; but did you not just now hear Charmadas's name mentioned? I am attracted in that direction, but Antiochus drags me back again; nor is there any one else whose lectures it would be possible to attend.

III. Piso replied-Although, while our friend here (meaning me) is present, this matter will perhaps not be quite so easy; yet I will endeavour to call you back from this New Academy to that ancient one, in which (as you used to hear Antiochus say) those men are not alone reckoned who are called Academics,-Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crantor, and the rest; but the old Peripatetics also, the chief of whom was Aristotle, whom, next to Plato, I think I may fairly call the prince of philosophers. Turn yourself, therefore, I entreat you, to those men; for from their writings and systems all liberal learning, all history, all elegance of language, may be derived; and also, so great is the variety of arts of which they were masters, that no one can come properly armed for any business of importance and credit without being tolerably versed in their writings. It is owing to them that men have turned out orators, generals, and statesmen; and, to descend to less important matters, it is from this Academy, as from a regular magazine of all the arts, that mathematicians, poets, musicians, aye, and physicians too, have proceeded.

I replied-You know well, O Piso, that my opinion is the same: but still the mention of it by you was very seasonable; for my relation Cicero is anxious to hear what was the doctrine of that Old Academy which you have been speaking of, and of the Peripatetics, about the chief good; and we think that you can very easily explain it to us, because you entertained Staseas the Neapolitan in your house for many years, and because, too, we are aware that you have been many months at Athens, investigating these very things, as a pupil of Antiochus. And he said, with a laugh, Come, come,-for you have very cleverly drawn me in to begin the discussion,-let us explain it to the young man if we can; for this solitude gives us the opportunity: but, even if a G.o.d had told me so, I would never have believed that I should be disputing in the Academy, like a philosopher.

However, I hope I shall not annoy the rest of you while complying with his request. Annoy me, said I, who asked you? Quintus and Pomponius also said that they entertained the same wish; so he began. And I beg of you, Brutus, to consider whether what he said appears to you to sufficiently embrace the doctrines of Antiochus, which I know you, who were a constant attendant on the lectures of his brother Aristus, approve of highly. Thus he spoke:-

IV. What great elegance there is in the Peripatetic system I have explained a little time ago, as briefly as I could. But the form of the system, as is the case with most of the other schools, is threefold: one division being that of nature; the second, that of arguing; the third, that of living. Nature has been investigated by them so thoroughly that there is no part of heaven, or earth, or sea (to speak like a poet), which they have pa.s.sed over. Moreover, after having treated of the origin of things, and of the universal world, so as to prove many points not only by probable arguments, but even by the inscrutable demonstrations of mathematicians, they brought from the subjects which they had investigated abundant materials to a.s.sist in attaining to the knowledge of secret things. Aristotle investigated the birth, and way of living, and figure of every animal; Theophrastus examined the causes, and principles, and natures of plants, and of almost everything which is produced out of the earth; by which knowledge the investigation of the most secret things is rendered easier. Also, they have given rules for arguing, not only logically, but oratorically; and a system of speaking in both these manners, on every subject, has been laid down by Aristotle, their chief; so that he did not always argue against everything, as Arcesilas did; and yet he furnished one on every subject with arguments to be used on both sides of it.