Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
which I set him comprises all others. He must never cease from
cultivating and studying himself, that he may excite others to imitate
him, and become, through the splendor of his talents and enterprises, a
living mirror to his countrymen. For as in flutes and harps, and in all
vocal performances, a certain unison and harmony must be preserved
amidst the distinctive tones, which cannot be broken or violated
without offending experienced ears; and as this concord and delicious
harmony is produced by the exact gradation and modulation of dissimilar
notes; even so, by means of the just apportionment of the highest,
middle, and lower classes, the State is maintained in concord and peace
by the harmonic subordination of its discordant elements: and thus,
that which is by musicians called harmony in song answers and
corresponds to what we call concord in the State--concord, the
strongest and loveliest bond of security in every commonwealth, being
always accompanied by justice and equity.
XLIII. And after this, when Scipio had discussed with
considerable breadth of principle and felicity of
illustration the great advantage that justice is to a state,
and the great injury which would arise if it were wanting,
Pilus, one of those who were present at the discussion, took
up the matter and demanded that this question should be
argued more carefully, and that something more should be said
about justice, on account of a sentiment that was now
obtaining among people in general, that political affairs
could not be wholly carried on without some disregard of
justice.
XLIV. * * * to be full of justice.
Then Scipio replied: I certainly think so. And I declare to you that I
consider that all I have spoken respecting the government of the State
is worth nothing, and that it will be useless to proceed further,
unless I can prove that it is a false assertion that political business
cannot be conducted without injustice and corruption; and, on the other
hand, establish as a most indisputable fact that without the strictest
justice no government whatever can last long.
But, with your permission, we have had discussion enough for the day.
The rest--and much remains for our consideration--we will defer till
to-morrow. When they had all agreed to this, the debate of the day was
closed.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD BOOK,
BY THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATOR.
Cicero here enters on the grand question of Political Justice,
and endeavors to evince throughout the absolute verity of
that inestimable proverb, "Honesty is the best policy," in
all public as well as in all private affairs. St. Augustine,
in his City of God, has given the following analysis of this
magnificent disquisition:
"In the third book of Cicero's Commonwealth" (says he) "the
question of Political Justice is most earnestly discussed.
Philus is appointed to support, as well as he can, the
sophistical arguments of those who think that political
government cannot be carried on without the aid of injustice
and chicanery. He denies holding any such opinion himself;
yet, in order to exhibit the truth more vividly through the
force of contrast, he pleads with the utmost ingenuity the
cause of injustice against justice; and endeavors to show, by
plausible examples and specious dialectics, that injustice is
as useful to a statesman as justice would be injurious. Then
Laelius, at the general request, takes up the plea for
justice, and maintains with all his eloquence that nothing
could be so ruinous to states as injustice and dishonesty,
and that without a supreme justice, no political government
could expect a long duration. This point being sufficiently
proved, Scipio returns to the principal discussion. He
reproduces and enforces the short definition that he had
given of a commonwealth--that it consisted in the welfare of
the entire people, by which word 'people' he does not mean
the mob, but the community, bound together by the sense of
common rights and mutual benefits. He notices how important
such just definitions are in all debates whatever, and draws
this conclusion from the preceding arguments--that the
Commonwealth is the common welfare whenever it is swayed with
justice and wisdom, whether it be subordinated to a king, an
aristocracy, or a democracy. But if the king be unjust, and
so becomes a tyrant; and the aristocracy unjust, which makes
them a faction; or the democrats unjust, and so degenerate
into revolutionists and destructives--then not only the
Commonwealth is corrupted, but in fact annihilated. For it
can be no longer the common welfare when a tyrant or a
faction abuse it; and the people itself is no longer the
people when it becomes unjust, since it is no longer a
community associated by a sense of right and utility,
according to the definition."--_Aug. Civ. Dei._ 3-21.
This book is of the utmost importance to statesmen, as it
serves to neutralize the sophistries of Machiavelli, which
are still repeated in many cabinets.
BOOK III.
I. * * *[331] Cicero, in the third book of his treatise On a
Commonwealth, says that nature has treated man less like a mother than
a step-dame, for she has cast him into mortal life with a body naked,
fragile, and infirm, and with a mind agitated by troubles, depressed by
fears, broken by labors, and exposed to passions. In this mind,
however, there lies hidden, and, as it were, buried, a certain divine
spark of genius and intellect.
Though man is born a frail and powerless being, nevertheless he is safe
from all animals destitute of voice; and at the same time those other
animals of greater strength, although they bravely endure the violence
of weather, cannot be safe from man. And the result is, that reason
does more for man than nature does for brutes; since, in the latter,
neither the greatness of their strength nor the firmness of their
bodies can save them from being oppressed by us, and made subject to
our power. * * *
Plato returned thanks to nature that he had been born a man.
II. * * * aiding our slowness by carriages, and when it had taught men
to utter the elementary and confused sounds of unpolished expression,
articulated and distinguished them into their proper classes, and, as
their appropriate signs, attached certain words to certain things, and
thus associated, by the most delightful bond of speech, the once
divided races of men.
And by a similar intelligence, the inflections of the voice, which
appeared infinite, are, by the discovery of a few alphabetic
characters, all designated and expressed; by which we maintain converse
with our absent friends, by which also indications of our wishes and
monuments of past events are preserved. Then came the use of numbers--a
thing necessary to human life, and at the same time immutable and
eternal; a science which first urged us to raise our views to heaven,
and not gaze without an object on the motions of the stars, and the
distribution of days and nights.
III. * * *[332] [Then appeared the sages of philosophy], whose minds
took a higher flight, and who were able to conceive and to execute
designs worthy of the gifts of the Gods. Wherefore let those men who
have left us sublime essays on the principles of living be regarded as
great men--which indeed they are--as learned men, as masters of truth
and virtue; provided that these principles of civil government, this
system of governing people, whether it be a thing discovered by men who
have lived amidst a variety of political events, or one discussed
amidst their opportunities of literary tranquillity, is remembered to
be, as indeed it is, a thing by no means to be despised, being one
which causes in first-rate minds, as we not unfrequently see, an
incredible and almost divine virtue. And when to these high faculties
of soul, received from nature and expanded by social institutions, a
politician adds learning and extensive information concerning things in
general, like those illustrious personages who conduct the dialogue in
the present treatise, none will refuse to confess the superiority of
such persons to all others; for, in fact, what can be more admirable
than the study and practice of the grand affairs of state, united to a
literary taste and a familiarity with the liberal arts? or what can we
imagine more perfect than a Scipio, a Laelius, or a Philus, who, not to
omit anything which belonged to the most perfect excellence of the
greatest men, joined to the examples of our ancestors and the
traditions of our countrymen the foreign philosophy of Socrates?
Wherefore he who had both the desire and the power to acquaint himself
thoroughly both with the customs and the learning of his ancestors
appears to me to have attained to the very highest glory and honor. But
if we cannot combine both, and are compelled to select one of these two
paths to wisdom--though to some people the tranquil life spent in the
research of literature and arts may appear to be the most happy and
delectable--yet, doubtless, the science of politics is more laudable
and illustrious, for in this political field of exertion our greatest
men have reaped their honors, like the invincible Curius,
Whom neither gold nor iron could subdue.
IV. * * *[333] that wisdom existed still. There existed this general
difference between these two classes, that among the one the
development of the principles of nature is the subject of their study
and eloquence, and among the other national laws and institutions form
the principal topics of investigation.
In honor of our country, we may assert that she has produced within
herself a great number, I will not say of sages (since philosophy is so
jealous of this name), but of men worthy of the highest celebrity,
because by them the precepts and discoveries of the sages have been
carried out into actual practice. And, moreover, though there have
existed, and still do exist, many great and glorious empires, yet since
the noblest masterpiece of genius in the world is the establishment of
a state and commonwealth which shall be a lasting one, even if we
reckon but a single legislator for each empire, the number of these
excellent men will appear very numerous. To be convinced of this, we
have only to turn our eyes on any nation of Italy, Latium, the Sabines,
the Volscians, the Samnites, or the Etrurians, and then direct our
attention to that mighty nation of the Greeks, and then to the
Assyrians, Persians, and Carthaginians, and[334] * * *
V. * * * [Scipio and his friends having again assembled, Scipio spoke
as follows: In our last conversation, I promised to prove that honesty
is the best policy in all states and commonwealths whatsoever. But if I
am to plead in favor of strict honesty and justice in all public
affairs, no less than in private, I must request Philus, or some one
else, to take up the advocacy of the other side; the truth will then
become more manifest, from the collision of opposite arguments, as we
see every day exemplified at the Bar.]
And Philus replied: In good truth, you have allotted me a very
creditable cause when you wish me to undertake the defence of vice.
Perhaps, said Laelius, you are afraid, lest, in reproducing the ordinary
objections made to justice in politics, you should seem to express your
own sentiments; though you are universally respected as an almost
unique example of the ancient probity and good faith; nor is it unknown
how familiar you are with the lawyer-like habit of disputing on both