Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
However, as we are discussing public matters, those examples are more
illustrious which refer to what is done publicly. And since the
question between justice and policy applies equally to private and
public affairs, I think it well to speak of the wisdom of the people. I
will not, however, mention other nations, but come at once to our own
Roman people, whom Africanus, in his discourse yesterday, traced from
the cradle, and whose empire now embraces the whole world. Justice
is[340] * * *
XIII. How far utility is at variance with justice we may
learn from the Roman people itself, which, declaring war by
means of the fecials, and committing injustice with all legal
formality, always coveting and laying violent hands on the
property of others, acquired the possession of the whole
world.
What is the advantage of one's own country but the
disadvantage of another state or nation, by extending one's
dominions by territories evidently wrested from others,
increasing one's power, improving one's revenues, etc.?
Therefore, whoever has obtained these advantages for his
country--that is to say, whoever has overthrown cities,
subdued nations, and by these means filled the treasury with
money, taken lands, and enriched his fellow-citizens--such a
man is extolled to the skies; is believed to be endowed with
consummate and perfect virtue; and this mistake is fallen
into not only by the populace and the ignorant, but by
philosophers, who even give rules for injustice.
XIV. * * * For all those who have the right of life and death over the
people are in fact tyrants; but they prefer being called by the title
of king, which belongs to the all-good Jupiter. But when certain men,
by favor of wealth, birth, or any other means, get possession of the
entire government, it is a faction; but they choose to denominate
themselves an aristocracy. If the people gets the upper hand, and rules
everything after its capricious will, they call it liberty, but it is
in fact license. And when every man is a guard upon his neighbor, and
every class is a guard upon every other class, then because no one
trusts in his own strength, a kind of compact is formed between the
great and the little, from whence arises that mixed kind of government
which Scipio has been commending. Thus justice, according to these
facts, is not the daughter of nature or conscience, but of human
imbecility. For when it becomes necessary to choose between these three
predicaments, either to do wrong without retribution, or to do wrong
with retribution, or to do no wrong at all, it is best to do wrong with
impunity; next, neither to do wrong nor to suffer for it; but nothing
is more wretched than to struggle incessantly between the wrong we
inflict and that we receive. Therefore, he who attains to that first
end[341] * * *
XV. This was the sum of the argument of Carneades: that men
had established laws among themselves from considerations of
advantage, varying them according to their different customs,
and altering them often so as to adapt them to the times; but
that there was no such thing as natural law; that all men and
all other animals are led to their own advantage by the
guidance of nature; that there is no such thing as justice,
or, if there be, that it is extreme folly, since a man would
injure himself while consulting the interests of others. And
he added these arguments, that all nations who were
flourishing and dominant, and even the Romans themselves, who
were the masters of the whole world, if they wished to be
just--that is to say, if they restored all that belonged to
others--would have to return to their cottages, and to lie
down in want and misery.
Except, perhaps, of the Arcadians and Athenians, who, I presume,
dreading that this great act of retribution might one day arrive,
pretend that they were sprung from the earth, like so many field-mice.
XVI. In reply to these statements, the following arguments are often
adduced by those who are not unskilful in discussions, and who, in this
question, have all the greater weight of authority, because, when we
inquire, Who is a good man?--understanding by that term a frank and
single-minded man--we have little need of captious casuists, quibblers,
and slanderers. For those men assert that the wise man does not seek
virtue because of the personal gratification which the practice of
justice and beneficence procures him, but rather because the life of
the good man is free from fear, care, solicitude, and peril; while, on
the other hand, the wicked always feel in their souls a certain
suspicion, and always behold before their eyes images of judgment and
punishment. Do not you think, therefore, that there is any benefit, or
that there is any advantage which can be procured by injustice,
precious enough to counterbalance the constant pressure of remorse, and
the haunting consciousness that retribution awaits the sinner, and
hangs over his devoted head.[342] * * *
XVII. [Our philosophers, therefore, put a case. Suppose, say they, two
men, one of whom is an excellent and admirable person, of high honor
and remarkable integrity; the latter is distinguished by nothing but
his vice and audacity. And suppose that their city has so mistaken
their characters as to imagine the good man to be a scandalous,
impious, and audacious criminal, and to esteem the wicked man, on the
contrary, as a pattern of probity and fidelity. On account of this
error of their fellow-citizens, the good man is arrested and tormented,
his hands are cut off, his eyes are plucked out, he is condemned,
bound, burned, exterminated, reduced to want, and to the last appears
to all men to be most deservedly the most miserable of men. On the
other hand, the flagitious wretch is exalted, worshipped, loved by all,
and honors, offices, riches, and emoluments are all conferred on him,
and he shall be reckoned by his fellow-citizens the best and worthiest
of mortals, and in the highest degree deserving of all manner of
prosperity. Yet, for all this, who is so mad as to doubt which of these
two men he would rather be?
XVIII. What happens among individuals happens also among nations. There
is no state so absurd and ridiculous as not to prefer unjust dominion
to just subordination. I need not go far for examples. During my own
consulship, when you were my fellow-counsellors, we consulted
respecting the treaty of Numantia. No one was ignorant that Quintus
Pompey had signed a treaty, and that Mancinus had done the same. The
latter, being a virtuous man, supported the proposition which I laid
before the people, after the decree of the senate. The former, on the
other side, opposed it vehemently. If modesty, probity, or faith had
been regarded, Mancinus would have carried his point; but in reason,
counsel, and prudence, Pompey surpassed him. Whether[343] * * *
XIX. If a man should have a faithless slave, or an unwholesome house,
with whose defect he alone was acquainted, and he advertised them for
sale, would he state the fact that his servant was infected with
knavery, and his house with malaria, or would he conceal these
objections from the buyer? If he stated those facts, he would be
honest, no doubt, because he would deceive nobody; but still he would
be thought a fool, because he would either get very little for his
property, or else fail to sell it at all. By concealing these defects,
on the other hand, he will be called a shrewd man--as one who has taken
care of his own interest; but he will be a rogue, notwithstanding,
because he will be deceiving his neighbors. Again, let us suppose that
one man meets another, who sells gold and silver, conceiving them to be
copper or lead; shall he hold his peace that he may make a capital
bargain, or correct the mistake, and purchase at a fair rate? He would
evidently be a fool in the world's opinion if he preferred the latter.
XX. It is justice, beyond all question, neither to commit murder nor
robbery. What, then, would your just man do, if, in a case of
shipwreck, he saw a weaker man than himself get possession of a plank?
Would he not thrust him off, get hold of the timber himself, and escape
by his exertions, especially as no human witness could be present in
the mid-sea? If he acted like a wise man of the world, he would
certainly do so, for to act in any other way would cost him his life.
If, on the other hand, he prefers death to inflicting unjustifiable
injury on his neighbor, he will be an eminently honorable and just man,
but not the less a fool, because he saved another's life at the expense
of his own. Again, if in case of a defeat and rout, when the enemy were
pressing in the rear, this just man should find a wounded comrade
mounted on a horse, shall he respect his right at the risk of being
killed himself, or shall he fling him from the horse in order to
preserve his own life from the pursuers? If he does so, he is a wise
man, but at the same time a wicked one; if he does not, he is admirably
just, but at the same time stupid.
XXI. _Scipio._ I might reply at great length to these sophistical
objections of Philus, if it were not, my Laelius, that all our friends
are no less anxious than myself to hear you take a leading part in the
present debate, especially as you promised yesterday that you would
plead at large on my side of the argument. If you cannot spare time for
this, at any rate do not desert us; we all ask it of you.
_Laelius._ This Carneades ought not to be even listened to by our young
men. I think all the while that I am hearing him that he must be a very
impure person; if he be not, as I would fain believe, his discourse is
not less pernicious.
XXII.[344] True law is right reason conformable to nature, universal,
unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose
prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the
good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with
indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is
not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor
the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal
law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our
own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome, and another at Athens; one
thing to-day, and another to-morrow; but in all times and nations this
universal law must forever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the
sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,
its promulgator, its enforcer. And he who does not obey it flies from
himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. And by so doing
he will endure the severest penalties even if he avoid the other evils
which are usually accounted punishments.
XXIII. I am aware that in the third book of Cicero's treatise
on the Commonwealth (unless I am mistaken) it is argued that
no war is ever undertaken by a well-regulated commonwealth
unless it be one either for the sake of keeping faith, or for
safety; and what he means by a war for safety, and what
safety he wishes us to understand, he points out in another
passage, where he says, "But private men often escape from
these penalties, which even the most stupid persons
feel--want, exile, imprisonment, and stripes--by embracing
the opportunity of a speedy death; but to states death itself
is a penalty, though it appears to deliver individuals from
punishment. For a state ought to be established so as to be
eternal: therefore, there is no natural decease for a state,
as there is for a man, in whose case death is not only