Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
his reason. Therefore, as any one who has the appearance of the best
constitution may yet appear to be naturally rather inclined to some
particular disorder, so different minds may be more particularly
inclined to different diseases. But as to those men who are said to be
vicious, not by nature, but their own fault, their vices proceed from
wrong opinions of good and bad things, so that one is more prone than
another to different motions and perturbations. But, just as it is in
the case of the body, an inveterate disease is harder to be got rid of
than a sudden disorder; and it is more easy to cure a fresh tumor in
the eyes than to remove a defluxion of any continuance.
XXXVIII. But as the cause of perturbations is now discovered, for all
of them arise from the judgment or opinion, or volition, I shall put an
end to this discourse. But we ought to be assured, since the boundaries
of good and evil are now discovered, as far as they are discoverable by
man, that nothing can be desired of philosophy greater or more useful
than the discussions which we have held these four days. For besides
instilling a contempt of death, and relieving pain so as to enable men
to bear it, we have added the appeasing of grief, than which there is
no greater evil to man. For though every perturbation of mind is
grievous, and differs but little from madness, yet we are used to say
of others when they are under any perturbation, as of fear, joy, or
desire, that they are agitated and disturbed; but of those who give
themselves up to grief, that they are miserable, afflicted, wretched,
unhappy. So that it doth not seem to be by accident, but with reason
proposed by you, that I should discuss grief, and the other
perturbations separately; for there lies the spring and head of all our
miseries; but the cure of grief, and of other disorders, is one and the
same in that they are all voluntary, and founded on opinion; we take
them on ourselves because it seems right so to do. Philosophy
undertakes to eradicate this error, as the root of all our evils: let
us therefore surrender ourselves to be instructed by it, and suffer
ourselves to be cured; for while these evils have possession of us, we
not only cannot be happy, but cannot be right in our minds. We must
either deny that reason can effect anything, while, on the other hand,
nothing can be done right without reason, or else, since philosophy
depends on the deductions of reason, we must seek from her, if we would
be good or happy, every help and assistance for living well and
happily.
BOOK V.
WHETHER VIRTUE ALONE BE SUFFICIENT FOR A HAPPY LIFE.
I. This fifth day, Brutus, shall put an end to our Tusculan
Disputations: on which day we discussed your favorite subject. For I
perceive from that book which you wrote for me with the greatest
accuracy, as well as from your frequent conversation, that you are
clearly of this opinion, that virtue is of itself sufficient for a
happy life: and though it may be difficult to prove this, on account of
the many various strokes of fortune, yet it is a truth of such a nature
that we should endeavor to facilitate the proof of it. For among all
the topics of philosophy, there is not one of more dignity or
importance. For as the first philosophers must have had some inducement
to neglect everything for the search of the best state of life: surely,
the inducement must have been the hope of living happily, which
impelled them to devote so much care and pains to that study. Now, if
virtue was discovered and carried to perfection by them, and if virtue
is a sufficient security for a happy life, who can avoid thinking the
work of philosophizing excellently recommended by them, and undertaken
by me? But if virtue, as being subject to such various and uncertain
accidents, were but the slave of fortune, and were not of sufficient
ability to support herself, I am afraid that it would seem desirable
rather to offer up prayers, than to rely on our own confidence in
virtue as the foundation for our hope of a happy life. And, indeed,
when I reflect on those troubles with which I have been so severely
exercised by fortune, I begin to distrust this opinion; and sometimes
even to dread the weakness and frailty of human nature, for I am afraid
lest, when nature had given us infirm bodies, and had joined to them
incurable diseases and intolerable pains, she perhaps also gave us
minds participating in these bodily pains, and harassed also with
troubles and uneasinesses, peculiarly their own. But here I correct
myself for forming my judgment of the power of virtue more from the
weakness of others, or of myself perhaps, than from virtue itself: for
she herself (provided there is such a thing as virtue; and your uncle
Brutus has removed all doubt of it) has everything that can befall
mankind in subjection to her; and by disregarding such things, she is
far removed from being at all concerned at human accidents; and, being
free from every imperfection, she thinks that nothing which is external
to herself can concern her. But we, who increase every approaching evil
by our fear, and every present one by our grief, choose rather to
condemn the nature of things than our own errors.
II. But the amendment of this fault, and of all our other vices and
offences, is to be sought for in philosophy: and as my own inclination
and desire led me, from my earliest youth upward, to seek her
protection, so, under my present misfortunes, I have had recourse to
the same port from whence I set out, after having been tossed by a
violent tempest. O Philosophy, thou guide of life! thou discoverer of
virtue and expeller of vices! what had not only I myself, but the whole
life of man, been without you? To you it is that we owe the origin of
cities; you it was who called together the dispersed race of men into
social life; you united them together, first, by placing them near one
another, then by marriages, and lastly, by the communication of speech
and languages. You have been the inventress of laws; you have been our
instructress in morals and discipline; to you we fly for refuge; from
you we implore assistance; and as I formerly submitted to you in a
great degree, so now I surrender up myself entirely to you. For one day
spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an
eternity of error. Whose assistance, then, can be of more service to me
than yours, when you have bestowed on us tranquillity of life, and
removed the fear of death? But Philosophy is so far from being praised
as much as she has deserved by mankind, that she is wholly neglected by
most men, and actually evil spoken of by many. Can any person speak ill
of the parent of life, and dare to pollute himself thus with parricide,
and be so impiously ungrateful as to accuse her whom he ought to
reverence, even were he less able to appreciate the advantages which he
might derive from her? But this error, I imagine, and this darkness has
spread itself over the minds of ignorant men, from their not being able
to look so far back, and from their not imagining that those men by
whom human life was first improved were philosophers; for though we see
philosophy to have been of long standing, yet the name must be
acknowledged to be but modern.
III. But, indeed, who can dispute the antiquity of philosophy, either
in fact or name? For it acquired this excellent name from the ancients,
by the knowledge of the origin and causes of everything, both divine
and human. Thus those seven [Greek: Sophoi], as they were considered
and called by the Greeks, have always been esteemed and called wise men
by us; and thus Lycurgus many ages before, in whose time, before the
building of this city, Homer is said to have lived, as well as Ulysses
and Nestor in the heroic ages, are all handed down to us by tradition
as having really been what they were called, wise men; nor would it
have been said that Atlas supported the heavens, or that Prometheus was
bound to Caucasus, nor would Cepheus, with his wife, his son-in-law,
and his daughter have been enrolled among the constellations, but that
their more than human knowledge of the heavenly bodies had transferred
their names into an erroneous fable. From whence all who occupied
themselves in the contemplation of nature were both considered and
called wise men; and that name of theirs continued to the age of
Pythagoras, who is reported to have gone to Phlius, as we find it
stated by Heraclides Ponticus, a very learned man, and a pupil of
Plato, and to have discoursed very learnedly and copiously on certain
subjects with Leon, prince of the Phliasii; and when Leon, admiring his
ingenuity and eloquence, asked him what art he particularly professed,
his answer was, that he was acquainted with no art, but that he was a
philosopher. Leon, surprised at the novelty of the name, inquired what
he meant by the name of philosopher, and in what philosophers differed
from other men; on which Pythagoras replied, "That the life of man
seemed to him to resemble those games which were celebrated with the
greatest possible variety of sports and the general concourse of all
Greece. For as in those games there were some persons whose object was
glory and the honor of a crown, to be attained by the performance of
bodily exercises, so others were led thither by the gain of buying and
selling, and mere views of profit; but there was likewise one class of
persons, and they were by far the best, whose aim was neither applause
nor profit, but who came merely as spectators through curiosity, to
observe what was done, and to see in what manner things were carried on
there. And thus, said he, we come from another life and nature unto
this one, just as men come out of some other city, to some much
frequented mart; some being slaves to glory, others to money; and there
are some few who, taking no account of anything else, earnestly look
into the nature of things; and these men call themselves studious of
wisdom, that is, philosophers: and as there it is the most reputable
occupation of all to be a looker-on without making any acquisition, so
in life, the contemplating things, and acquainting one's self with
them, greatly exceeds every other pursuit of life."
IV. Nor was Pythagoras the inventor only of the name, but he enlarged
also the thing itself, and, when he came into Italy after this
conversation at Phlius, he adorned that Greece, which is called Great
Greece, both privately and publicly, with the most excellent
institutions and arts; but of his school and system I shall, perhaps,
find another opportunity to speak. But numbers and motions, and the
beginning and end of all things, were the subjects of the ancient
philosophy down to Socrates, who was a pupil of Archelaus, who had been
the disciple of Anaxagoras. These made diligent inquiry into the
magnitude of the stars, their distances, courses, and all that relates
to the heavens. But Socrates was the first who brought down philosophy
from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and
obliged it to examine into life and morals, and good and evil. And his
different methods of discussing questions, together with the variety of
his topics, and the greatness of his abilities, being immortalized by
the memory and writings of Plato, gave rise to many sects of
philosophers of different sentiments, of all which I have principally
adhered to that one which, in my opinion, Socrates himself followed;
and argue so as to conceal my own opinion, while I deliver others from
their errors, and so discover what has the greatest appearance of
probability in every question. And the custom Carneades adopted with
great copiousness and acuteness, and I myself have often given in to it
on many occasions elsewhere, and in this manner, too, I disputed