Part 27 (2/2)

What? does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things which he must learn over and over again? and yet, though these men are sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because no opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this knowledge. What shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man to grieve? amongst whom we may reckon Q. Maximus, when he buried his son that had been consul, and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few days of one another. Of the same opinion was M. Cato, who lost his son just after he had been elected praetor, and many others, whose names I have collected in my book on Consolation. Now what made these men so easy, but their persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming in a man?

Therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an opinion that it was discreditable; from which we may infer that grief is owing more to opinion than nature.

XXIX. It may be said, on the other side, Who is so mad as to grieve of his own accord? Pain proceeds from nature; which you must submit to, say they, agreeably to what even your own Crantor teaches, for it presses and gains upon you unavoidably, and cannot possibly be resisted. So that the very same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had before comforted Telamon on the death of Ajax, on hearing of the death of his own son is broken-hearted. On this alteration of his mind we have these lines:-

Show me the man so well by wisdom taught That what he charges to another's fault, When like affliction doth himself betide, True to his own wise counsel will abide.(96)

Now when they urge these things, their endeavour is to prove that nature is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people allow that we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires. What madness is it then in us to require the same from others? But there are many reasons for our taking grief on us. The first is from the opinion of some evil, on the discovery and certainty of which grief comes of course. Besides, many people are persuaded that they are doing something very acceptable to the dead when they lament bitterly over them. To these may be added a kind of womanish superst.i.tion, in imagining that when they have been stricken by the afflictions sent by the G.o.ds, to acknowledge themselves afflicted and humbled by them is the readiest way of appeasing them. But most men appear to be unaware what contradictions these things are full of. They commend those who die calmly, but they blame those who can bear the loss of another with the same calmness, as if it were possible that it should be true, as is occasionally said in love speeches, that any one can love another more than himself. There is, indeed, something excellent in this, and, if you examine it, something no less just than true, that we love those who ought to be most dear to us as well as we love ourselves; but to love them more than ourselves is absolutely impossible; nor is it desirable in friends.h.i.+p that I should love my friend more than myself, or that he should love me so; for this would occasion much confusion in life, and break in upon all the duties of it.

x.x.x. But we will speak of this another time: at present it is sufficient not to attribute our misery to the loss of our friends, nor to love them more than, if they themselves could be sensible of our conduct, they would approve of, or at least not more than we do ourselves. Now as to what they say, that some are not at all appeased by our consolations; and moreover as to what they add, that the comforters themselves acknowledge they are miserable when fortune varies the attack and falls on them,-in both these cases the solution is easy: for the fault here is not in nature, but in our own folly; and much may be said against folly. But men who do not admit of consolation seem to bespeak misery for themselves; and they who cannot bear their misfortunes with that temper which they recommend to others, are not more faulty in this particular than most other persons; for we see that covetous men find fault with others who are covetous; as do the vain-glorious with those who appear too wholly devoted to the pursuit of glory. For it is the peculiar characteristic of folly to perceive the vices of others, but to forget its own. But since we find that grief is removed by length of time, we have the greatest proof that the strength of it depends not merely on time, but on the daily consideration of it. For if the cause continues the same, and the man be the same, how can there be any alteration in the grief, if there is no change in what occasioned the grief, nor in him who grieves? Therefore it is from daily reflecting that there is no real evil in the circ.u.mstance for which you grieve, and not from the length of time, that you procure a remedy for your grief.

x.x.xI. Here some people talk of moderate grief; but if such be natural, what occasion is there for consolation? for nature herself will determine the measure of it; but if it depends on and is caused by opinion, the whole opinion should be destroyed. I think that it has been sufficiently said, that grief arises from an opinion of some present evil, which includes this belief, that it is inc.u.mbent on us to grieve. To this definition Zeno has added very justly, that the opinion of this present evil should be recent. Now this word recent they explain thus;-those are not the only recent things which happened a little while ago, but as long as there shall be any force or vigour or freshness in that imagined evil, so long it is ent.i.tled to the name of recent. Take the case of Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus king of Caria, who made that n.o.ble sepulchre at Halicarna.s.sus; whilst she lived she lived in grief, and died of it, being worn out by it, for that opinion was always recent with her: but you cannot call that recent, which has already begun to decay through time.

Now the duty of a comforter is, to remove grief entirely, to quiet it, or draw it off as much as you can, or else to keep it under, and prevent its spreading any further, and to divert one's attention to other matters.

There are some who think with Cleanthes, that the only duty of a comforter is to prove, that what one is lamenting is by no means an evil. Others, as the Peripatetics, prefer urging that the evil is not great. Others, with Epicurus, seek to divert your attention from the evil to good: some think it sufficient to show, that nothing has happened but what you had reason to expect, and this is the practice of the Cyrenaics. But Chrysippus thinks that the main thing in comforting is, to remove the opinion from the person who is grieving, that to grieve is his bounden duty. There are others who bring together all these various kinds of consolations, for people are differently affected; as I have done myself in my book on Consolation: for as my own mind was much disordered, I have attempted in that book to discover every method of cure. But the proper season is as much to be attended to in the cure of the mind, as of the body; as Prometheus in aeschylus, on its being said to him,

I think, Prometheus, you this tenet hold, That all men's reason should their rage control;

answers,

Yes, when one reason properly applies; Ill-timed advice will make the storm but rise.(97)

x.x.xII. But the princ.i.p.al medicine to be applied in consolation, is to maintain either that it is no evil at all, or a very inconsiderable one: the next best to that is, to speak of the common condition of life, having a view, if possible, to the state of the person whom you comfort particularly. The third is, that it is folly to wear oneself out with grief which can avail nothing. For the comfort of Cleanthes is suitable only for a wise man, who is in no need of any comfort at all; for could you persuade one in grief, that nothing is an evil but what is base, you would not only cure him of grief, but folly. But the time for such precepts is not well chosen. Besides, Cleanthes does not seem to me sufficiently aware that affliction may very often proceed from that very thing which he himself allows to be the greatest misfortune. For what shall we say? When Socrates had convinced Alcibiades, as we are told, that he had no distinctive qualifications as a man different from other people, and that in fact there was no difference betwixt him, though a man of the highest rank, and a porter; and when Alcibiades became uneasy at this, and entreated Socrates, with tears in his eyes, to make him a man of virtue, and to cure him of that mean position; what shall we say to this, Cleanthes? Was there no evil in what afflicted Alcibiades thus? What strange things does Lycon say? who, making light of grief, says that it arises from trifles, from things that affect our fortune or bodies, not from the evils of the mind. What, then-did not the grief of Alcibiades proceed from the defects and evils of the mind? I have already said enough of Epicurus's consolation.

x.x.xIII. Nor is that consolation much to be relied on, though it is frequently practised, and sometimes has some effect, namely, ”That you are not alone in this.”-It has its effect, as I said, but not always, nor with every person; for some reject it, but much depends on the application of it; for you ought rather to show, not how men in general have been affected with such evils, but how men of sense have borne them. As to Chrysippus's method, it is certainly founded in truth; but it is difficult to apply it in time of distress. It is a work of no small difficulty to persuade a person in affliction that he grieves, merely because he thinks it right so to do. Certainly then, as in pleadings we do not state all cases alike, (if I may adopt the language of lawyers for a moment,) but adapt what we have to say to the time, to the nature of the subject under debate, and to the person; so too in alleviating grief, regard should be had to what kind of cure the party to be comforted can admit of. But, somehow or other, we have rambled from what you originally proposed. For your question was concerning a wise man, with whom nothing can have the appearance of evil, that is not dishonourable: or at least, anything else would seem so small an evil, that by his wisdom he would so over-match it, as to make it wholly disappear; and such a man makes no addition to his grief through opinion, and never conceives it right to torment himself above measure, nor to wear himself out with grief, which is the meanest thing imaginable. Reason, however, it seems, has demonstrated, (though it was not directly our object at the moment to inquire whether anything can be called an evil except what is base,) that it is in our power to discern, that all the evil which there is in affliction has nothing natural in it, but is contracted by our own voluntary judgment of it, and the error of opinion.

x.x.xIV. But the kind of affliction of which I have treated is that which is the greatest; in order that when we have once got rid of that, it may appear a business of less consequence to look after remedies for the others. For there are certain things which are usually said about poverty; and also certain statements ordinarily applied to retired and undistinguished life. There are particular treatises on banishment, on the ruin of one's country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, and on every incident that can come under the name of an evil. The Greeks divide these into different treatises and distinct books: but they do it for the sake of employment: not but that all such discussions are full of entertainment; and yet, as physicians, in curing the whole body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief in general, (still if any other deficiency exists, should poverty bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those things which I have just mentioned appear,)-there is for each its appropriate consolation: which you shall hear whenever you please. But we must have recourse again to the same original principle, that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve, when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so. When then we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, some slight p.r.i.c.king will still remain.

They may indeed call this natural, provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom. But how various, and how bitter, are the roots of grief! Whatever they are, I propose, after having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up.

But the principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. The Stoics define all these different feelings, and all those words which I have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as I shall make appear perhaps in another place. These are those fibres of the roots, which, as I said at first, must be traced back and cut off, and destroyed, so that not one shall remain. You say it is a great and difficult undertaking:-who denies it? But what is there of any excellency which has not its difficulty?-Yet philosophy undertakes to effect it, provided we admit its superintendence.

But enough of this: the other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here, or any where else.

Book IV. On Other Perturbations Of The Mind.

I. I have often wondered, Brutus, on many occasions, at the ingenuity and virtues of our countrymen; but nothing has surprised me more than their development in those studies, which, though they came somewhat late to us, have been transported into this city from Greece. For the system of auspices, and religious ceremonies, and courts of justice, and appeals to the people, the senate, the establishment of an army of cavalry and infantry, and the whole military discipline, were inst.i.tuted as early as the foundation of the city by royal authority, partly too by laws, not without the a.s.sistance of the G.o.ds. Then with what a surprising and incredible progress did our ancestors advance towards all kind of excellence, when once the republic was freed from the regal power! Not that this is a proper occasion to treat of the manners and customs of our ancestors, or of the discipline and const.i.tution of the city; for I have elsewhere, particularly in the six books I wrote on the Republic, given a sufficiently accurate account of them. But whilst I am on this subject, and considering the study of philosophy, I meet with many reasons to imagine that those studies were brought to us from abroad, and not merely imported, but preserved and improved; for they had Pythagoras, a man of consummate wisdom and n.o.bleness of character, in a manner, before their eyes; who was in Italy at the time that Lucius Brutus, the ill.u.s.trious founder of your n.o.bility, delivered his country from tyranny. As the doctrine of Pythagoras spread itself on all sides, it seems probable to me, that it reached this city; and this is not only probable of itself, but it does really appear to have been the case from many remains of it.

For who can imagine that, when it flourished so much in that part of Italy which was called Magna Graecia, and in some of the largest and most powerful cities, in which, first the name of Pythagoras, and then that of those men who were afterwards his followers, was in so high esteem; who can imagine, I say, that our people could shut their ears to what was said by such learned men? Besides, it is even my opinion, that it was the great esteem in which the Pythagoreans were held, that gave rise to that opinion amongst those who came after him, that king Numa was a Pythagorean. For, being acquainted with the doctrine and principles of Pythagoras, and having heard from their ancestors that this king was a very wise and just man, and not being able to distinguish accurately between times and periods that were so remote, they inferred from his being so eminent for his wisdom, that he had been a pupil of Pythagoras.

II. So far we proceed on conjecture. As to the vestiges of the Pythagoreans, though I might collect many, I shall use but a few; because they have no connexion, with our present purpose. For, as it is reported to have been a custom with them to deliver certain precepts in a more abstruse manner in verse, and to bring their minds from severe thought to a more composed state by songs and musical instruments; so Cato, a writer of the very highest authority, says in his Origins, that it was customary with our ancestors for the guests at their entertainments, every one in his turn, to celebrate the praises and virtues of ill.u.s.trious men in song to the sound of the flute; from whence it is clear that poems and songs were then composed for the voice. And, indeed, it is also clear that poetry was in fas.h.i.+on from the laws of the Twelve Tables, wherein it is provided, that no song should be made to the injury of another. Another argument of the erudition of those times is, that they played on instruments before the shrines of their G.o.ds, and at the entertainments of their magistrates; but that custom was peculiar to the sect I am speaking of. To me, indeed, that poem of Appius Caecus, which Panaetius commends so much in a certain letter of his which is addressed to Quintus Tubero, has all the marks of a Pythagorean author. We have many things derived from the Pythagoreans in our customs; which I pa.s.s over, that we may not seem to have learned that elsewhere which we look upon ourselves as the inventors of. But to return to our purpose. How many great poets as well as orators have sprung up among us! and in what a short time! so that it is evident that our people could arrive at any learning as soon as they had an inclination for it. But of other studies I shall speak elsewhere if there is occasion, as I have already often done.

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