Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
lately, in my Tusculan villa; indeed, I have sent you a book of the
four former days' discussions; but the fifth day, when we had seated
ourselves as before, what we were to dispute on was proposed thus:
V. _A._ I do not think virtue can possibly be sufficient for a happy
life.
_M._ But my friend Brutus thinks so, whose judgment, with submission, I
greatly prefer to yours.
_A._ I make no doubt of it; but your regard for him is not the business
now: the question is now, what is the real character of that quality of
which I have declared my opinion. I wish you to dispute on that.
_M._ What! do you deny that virtue can possibly be sufficient for a
happy life?
_A._ It is what I entirely deny.
_M._ What! is not virtue sufficient to enable us to live as we ought,
honestly, commendably, or, in fine, to live well?
_A._ Certainly sufficient.
_M._ Can you, then, help calling any one miserable who lives ill? or
will you deny that any one who you allow lives well must inevitably
live happily?
_A._ Why may I not? for a man may be upright in his life, honest,
praiseworthy, even in the midst of torments, and therefore live well.
Provided you understand what I mean by well; for when I say well, I
mean with constancy, and dignity, and wisdom, and courage; for a man
may display all these qualities on the rack; but yet the rack is
inconsistent with a happy life.
_M._ What, then? is your happy life left on the outside of the prison,
while constancy, dignity, wisdom, and the other virtues, are
surrendered up to the executioner, and bear punishment and pain without
reluctance?
_A._ You must look out for something new if you would do any good.
These things have very little effect on me, not merely from their being
common, but principally because, like certain light wines that will not
bear water, these arguments of the Stoics are pleasanter to taste than
to swallow. As when that assemblage of virtues is committed to the
rack, it raises so reverend a spectacle before our eyes that happiness
seems to hasten on towards them, and not to suffer them to be deserted
by her. But when you take your attention off from this picture and
these images of the virtues to the truth and the reality, what remains
without disguise is, the question whether any one can be happy in
torment? Wherefore let us now examine that point, and not be under any
apprehensions, lest the virtues should expostulate, and complain that
they are forsaken by happiness. For if prudence is connected with every
virtue, then prudence itself discovers this, that all good men are not
therefore happy; and she recollects many things of Marcus Atilius[55],
Quintus Caepio[56], Marcus Aquilius[57]; and prudence herself, if these
representations are more agreeable to you than the things themselves,
restrains happiness when it is endeavoring to throw itself into
torments, and denies that it has any connection with pain and torture.
VI. _M._ I can easily bear with your behaving in this manner, though it
is not fair in you to prescribe to me how you would have me carry on
this discussion. But I ask you if I have effected anything or nothing
in the preceding days?
_A._ Yes; something was done, some little matter indeed.
_M._ But if that is the case, this question is settled, and almost put
an end to.
_A._ How so?
_M._ Because turbulent motions and violent agitations of the mind, when
it is raised and elated by a rash impulse, getting the better of
reason, leave no room for a happy life. For who that fears either pain
or death, the one of which is always present, the other always
impending, can be otherwise than miserable? Now, supposing the same
person--which is often the case--to be afraid of poverty, ignominy,
infamy, or weakness, or blindness, or, lastly, slavery, which doth not
only befall individual men, but often even the most powerful nations;
now can any one under the apprehension of these evils be happy? What
shall we say of him who not only dreads these evils as impending, but
actually feels and bears them at present? Let us unite in the same
person banishment, mourning, the loss of children; now, how can any one
who is broken down and rendered sick in body and mind by such
affliction be otherwise than very miserable indeed? What reason, again,
can there be why a man should not rightly enough be called miserable
whom we see inflamed and raging with lust, coveting everything with an
insatiable desire, and, in proportion as he derives more pleasure from
anything, thirsting the more violently after them? And as to a man
vainly elated, exulting with an empty joy, and boasting of himself
without reason, is not he so much the more miserable in proportion as
he thinks himself happier? Therefore, as these men are miserable, so,
on the other hand, those are happy who are alarmed by no fears, wasted
by no griefs, provoked by no lusts, melted by no languid pleasures that
arise from vain and exulting joys. We look on the sea as calm when not
the least breath of air disturbs its waves; and, in like manner, the
placid and quiet state of the mind is discovered when unmoved by any
perturbation. Now, if there be any one who holds the power of fortune,
and everything human, everything that can possibly befall any man, as
supportable, so as to be out of the reach of fear or anxiety, and if
such a man covets nothing, and is lifted up by no vain joy of mind,
what can prevent his being happy? And if these are the effects of
virtue, why cannot virtue itself make men happy?
VII. _A._ But the other of these two propositions is undeniable, that
they who are under no apprehensions, who are noways uneasy, who covet
nothing, who are lifted up by no vain joy, are happy: and therefore I
grant you that. But as for the other, that is not now in a fit state
for discussion; for it has been proved by your former arguments that a
wise man is free from every perturbation of mind.
_M._ Doubtless, then, the dispute is over; for the question appears to
have been entirely exhausted.
_A._ I think, indeed, that that is almost the case.
_M._ But yet that is more usually the case with the mathematicians than
philosophers. For when the geometricians teach anything, if what they
have before taught relates to their present subject, they take that for
granted which has been already proved, and explain only what they had
not written on before. But the philosophers, whatever subject they have
in hand, get together everything that relates to it, notwithstanding
they may have dilated on it somewhere else. Were not that the case, why
should the Stoics say so much on that question, Whether virtue was
abundantly sufficient to a happy life? when it would have been answer
enough that they had before taught that nothing was good but what was
honorable; for, as this had been proved, the consequence must be that
virtue was sufficient to a happy life; and each premise may be made to
follow from the admission of the other, so that if it be admitted that
virtue is sufficient to secure a happy life, it may also be inferred
that nothing is good except what is honorable. They, however, do not
proceed in this manner; for they would separate books about what is
honorable, and what is the chief good; and when they have demonstrated
from the one that virtue has power enough to make life happy, yet they
treat this point separately; for everything, and especially a subject
of such great consequence, should be supported by arguments and
exhortations which belong to that alone. For you should have a care how
you imagine philosophy to have uttered anything more noble, or that she
has promised anything more fruitful or of greater consequence, for,
good Gods! doth she not engage that she will render him who submits to
her laws so accomplished as to be always armed against fortune, and to
have every assurance within himself of living well and happily--that he
shall, in short, be forever happy? But let us see what she will
perform? In the mean while, I look upon it as a great thing that she
has even made such a promise. For Xerxes, who was loaded with all the
rewards and gifts of fortune, not satisfied with his armies of horse
and foot, nor the multitude of his ships, nor his infinite treasure of
gold, offered a reward to any one who could find out a new pleasure;
and yet, when it was discovered, he was not satisfied with it; nor can
there ever be an end to lust. I wish we could engage any one by a
reward to produce something the better to establish us in this belief.
VIII. _A._ I wish that, indeed, myself; but I want a little
information. For I allow that in what you have stated the one
proposition is the consequence of the other; that as, if what is
honorable be the only good, it must follow that a happy life is the
effect of virtue: so that if a happy life consists in virtue, nothing
can be good but virtue. But your friend Brutus, on the authority of
Aristo and Antiochus, does not see this; for he thinks the case would
be the same even if there were anything good besides virtue.
_M._ What, then? do you imagine that I am going to argue against
Brutus?
_A._ You may do what you please; for it is not for me to prescribe what
you shall do.
_M._ How these things agree together shall be examined somewhere else;
for I frequently discussed that point with Antiochus, and lately with
Aristo, when, during the period of my command as general, I was lodging
with him at Athens. For to me it seemed that no one could possibly be
happy under any evil; but a wise man might be afflicted with evil, if
there are any things arising from body or fortune deserving the name of
evils. These things were said, which Antiochus has inserted in his
books in many places--that virtue itself was sufficient to make life
happy, but yet not perfectly happy; and that many things derive their
names from the predominant portion of them, though they do not include
everything, as strength, health, riches, honor, and glory: which
qualities are determined by their kind, not their number. Thus a happy
life is so called from its being so in a great degree, even though it
should fall short in some point. To clear this up is not absolutely
necessary at present, though it seems to be said without any great
consistency; for I cannot imagine what is wanting to one that is happy
to make him happier, for if anything be wanting to him, he cannot be so
much as happy; and as to what they say, that everything is named and
estimated from its predominant portion, that may be admitted in some
things. But when they allow three kinds of evils--when any one is
oppressed with every imaginable evil of two kinds, being afflicted with
adverse fortune, and having at the same time his body worn out and
harassed with all sorts of pains--shall we say that such a one is but
little short of a happy life, to say nothing about the happiest
possible life?
IX. This is the point which Theophrastus was unable to maintain; for
after he had once laid down the position that stripes, torments,
tortures, the ruin of one's country, banishment, the loss of children,
had great influence on men's living miserably and unhappily, he durst
not any longer use any high and lofty expressions when he was so low
and abject in his opinion. How right he was is not the question; he
certainly was consistent. Therefore, I am not for objecting to
consequences where the premises are admitted. But this most elegant and
learned of all the philosophers is not taken to task very severely when
he asserts his three kinds of good; but he is attacked by every one for
that book which he wrote on a happy life, in which book he has many
arguments why one who is tortured and racked cannot be happy. For in
that book he is supposed to say that a man who is placed on the wheel