Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
them, and must be able to enjoy the bounty of Fortune without
becoming her slave. You understand without my mentioning it that
an unbroken calm and freedom ensue, when we have driven away all
those things which either excite us or alarm us: for in the place
of sensual pleasures and those slight perishable matters which are
connected with the basest crimes, we thus gain an immense, unchangeable,
equable joy, together with peace, calmness and greatness of mind,
and kindliness: for all savageness is a sign of weakness.
IV. Our highest good may also be defined otherwise, that is to say,
the same idea may be expressed in different language. Just as the
same army may at one time be extended more widely, at another
contracted into a smaller compass, and may either be curved towards
the wings by a depression in the line of the centre, or drawn up
in a straight line, while, in whatever figure it be arrayed, its
{209} strength and loyalty remain unchanged; so also our definition
of the highest good may in some cases be expressed diffusely and
at great length, while in others it is put into a short and concise
form. Thus, it will come to the same thing, if I say “The highest
good is a mind which despises the accidents of fortune, and takes
pleasure in virtue”: or, “It is an unconquerable strength of mind,
knowing the world well, gentle in its dealings, showing great
courtesy and consideration for those with whom it is brought into
contact.” Or we may choose to define it by calling that man happy
who knows good and bad only in the form of good or bad minds: who
worships honour, and is satisfied with his own virtue, who is neither
puffed up by good fortune nor cast down by evil fortune, who knows
no other good than that which he is able to bestow upon himself,
whose real pleasure lies in despising pleasures. If you choose to
pursue this digression further, you can put this same idea into
many other forms, without impairing or weakening its meaning: for
what prevents our saying that a happy life consists in a mind which
is free, upright, undaunted, and steadfast, beyond the influence
of fear or desire, which thinks nothing good except honour, and
nothing bad except shame, and regards everything else as a mass of
mean details which can neither add anything to nor take anything
away from the happiness of life, but which come and go without
either increasing or diminishing the highest good? A man of these
principles, whether he will or no, must be accompanied by a continual
cheerfulness, a high happiness, which comes indeed from on high
because he delights in what he has, and desires no greater pleasures
than those which his home affords. Is he not right in allowing these
to turn the scale against petty, ridiculous, and shortlived movements
of his wretched body? on the day on which he becomes proof against
pleasure he also becomes proof against pain. See, on the other hand,
how {210} evil and guilty a slavery the man is forced to serve who
is dominated in turn by pleasures and pains, those most untrustworthy
and passionate of masters. We must, therefore, escape from them
into freedom. This nothing will bestow upon us save contempt of
Fortune: but if we attain to this, then there will dawn upon us
those invaluable blessings, the repose of a mind that is at rest
in a safe haven, its lofty imaginings, its great and steady delight
at casting out errors and learning to know the truth, its courtesy,
and its cheerfulness, in all of which we shall take delight, not
regarding them as good things, but as proceeding from the proper
good of man.
V. Since I have begun to make my definitions without a too strict
adherence to the letter, a man may be called “happy” who, thanks
to reason, has ceased either to hope or to fear: but rocks also
feel neither fear nor sadness, nor do cattle, yet no one would call
those things happy which cannot comprehend what happiness is. With
them you may class men whose dull nature and want of self-knowledge
reduces them to the level of cattle, mere animals: there is no
difference between the one and the other, because the latter have
no reason, while the former have only a corrupted form of it, crooked
and cunning to their own hurt. For no one can be styled happy who
is beyond the influence of truth: and consequently a happy life is
unchangeable, and is founded upon a true and trustworthy discernment;
for the mind is uncontaminated and freed from all evils only when
it is able to escape not merely from wounds but also from scratches,
when it will always be able to maintain the position which it has
taken up, and defend it even against the angry assaults of Fortune:
for with regard to sensual pleasures, though they were to surround
one on every side, and use every means of assault, trying to win
over the mind by caresses and making trial of every conceivable
stratagem to attract either our entire selves or {211} our separate
parts, yet what mortal that retains any traces of human origin would
wish to be tickled day and night, and, neglecting his mind, to
devote himself to bodily enjoyments?
VI. “But,” says our adversary, “the mind also will have pleasures
of its own.” Let it have them, then, and let it sit in judgment
over luxury and pleasures; let it indulge itself to the full in all
those matters which give sensual delights: then let it look back
upon what it enjoyed before, and with all those faded sensualities
fresh in its memory let it rejoice and look eagerly forward to those
other pleasures which it experienced long ago, and intends to
experience again, and while the body lies in helpless repletion in
the present, let it send its thoughts onward towards the future,
and take stock of its hopes: all this will make it appear, in my
opinion, yet more wretched, because it is insanity to choose evil
instead of good: now no insane person can be happy, and no one can
be sane if he regards what is injurious as the highest good and
strives to obtain it. The happy man, therefore, is he who can make
a right judgment in all things: he is happy who in his present
circumstances, whatever they may be, is satisfied and on friendly
terms with the conditions of his life. That man is happy, whose
reason recommends to him the whole posture of his affairs.
VII. Even those very people who declare the highest good to be in
the belly, see what a dishonourable position they have assigned to
it: and therefore they say that pleasure cannot be parted from
virtue, and that no one can either live honourably without living
cheerfully, nor yet live cheerfully without living honourably. I
do not see how these very different matters can have any connexion
with one another. What is there, I pray you, to prevent virtue
existing apart from pleasure? of course the reason is that all good
things derive their origin from virtue, and therefore even those
things which you cherish and seek for {212} come originally from
its roots. Yet, if they were entirely inseparable, we should not
see some things to be pleasant, but not honourable, and others most
honourable indeed, but hard and only to be attained by suffering.
Add to this, that pleasure visits the basest lives, but virtue
cannot co-exist with an evil life; yet some unhappy people are not
without pleasure, nay, it is owing to pleasure itself that they are
unhappy; and this could not take place if pleasure had any connexion
with virtue, whereas virtue is often without pleasure, and never
stands in need of it. Why do you put together two things which are
unlike and even incompatible one with another? virtue is a lofty
quality, sublime, royal, unconquerable, untiring: pleasure is low,
slavish, weakly, perishable; its haunts and homes are the brothel
and the tavern. You will meet virtue in the temple, the market-place,
the senate house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt,
horny-handed: you will find pleasure skulking out of sight, seeking
for shady nooks at the public baths, hot chambers, and places which
dread the visits of the aedile, soft, effeminate, reeking of wine
and perfumes, pale or perhaps painted and made up with cosmetics.
The highest good is immortal: it knows no ending, and does not admit
of either satiety or regret: for a right-thinking mind never alters
or becomes hateful to itself, nor do the best things ever undergo
any change: but pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us
most: it has no great scope, and therefore it soon cloys and wearies
us, and fades away as soon as its first impulse is over: indeed,
we cannot depend upon anything whose nature is to change. Consequently
it is not even possible that there should be any solid substance
in that which comes and goes so swiftly, and which perishes by the
very exercise of its own functions, for it arrives at a point at
which it ceases to be, and even while it is beginning always keeps
its end in view.
{213}
VIII. What answer are we to make to the reflexion that pleasure
belongs to good and bad men alike, and that bad men take as much
delight in their shame as good men in noble things? This was why
the ancients bade us lead the highest, not the most pleasant life,
in order that pleasure might not be the guide but the companion of
a right-thinking and honourable mind; for it is Nature whom we ought
to make our guide: let our reason watch her, and be advised by her.
To live happily, then, is the same thing as to live according to
Nature: what this may be, I will explain. If we guard the endowments
of the body and the advantages of nature with care and fearlessness,
as things soon to depart and given to us only for a day; if we do
not fall under their dominion, nor allow ourselves to become the
slaves of what is no part of our own being; if we assign to all
bodily pleasures and external delights the same position which is
held by auxiliaries and light-armed troops in a camp; if we make
them our servants, not our masters—then and then only are they of
value to our minds. A man should be unbiassed and not to be conquered
by external things: he ought to admire himself alone, to feel
confidence in his own spirit, and so to order his life as to be
ready alike for good or for bad fortune. Let not his confidence be
without knowledge, nor his knowledge without steadfastness: let him
always abide by what he has once determined, and let there be no
erasure in his doctrines. It will be understood, even though I
append it not, that such a man will be tranquil and composed in his
demeanour, high-minded and courteous in his actions. Let reason be
encouraged by the senses to seek for the truth, and draw its first
principles from thence: indeed it has no other base of operations
or place from which to start in pursuit of truth: it must fall back
upon itself. Even the all-embracing universe and God who is its
guide extends himself forth into outward things, and yet altogether
returns from all sides back to {214} himself. Let our mind do the
same thing: when, following its bodily senses it has by means of
them sent itself forth into the things of the outward world, let
it remain still their master and its own. By this means we shall
obtain a strength and an ability which are united and allied together,
and shall derive from it that reason which never halts between two
opinions, nor is dull in forming its perceptions, beliefs, or
convictions. Such a mind, when it has ranged itself in order, made
its various parts agree together, and, if I may so express myself,
harmonized them, has attained to the highest good: for it has nothing
evil or hazardous remaining, nothing to shake it or make it stumble:
it will do everything under the guidance of its own will, and nothing
unexpected will befal it, but whatever may be done by it will turn
out well, and that, too, readily and easily, without the doer having