Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
recourse to any underhand devices: for slow and hesitating action
are the signs of discord and want of settled purpose. You may, then,
boldly declare that the highest good is singleness of mind: for
where agreement and unity are, there must the virtues be: it is the
vices that are at war one with another.
IX. “But,” says our adversary, “you yourself only practise virtue
because you hope to obtain some pleasure from it.” In the first
place, even though virtue may afford us pleasure, still we do not
seek after her on that account: for she does not bestow this, but
bestows this to boot, nor is this the end for which she labours,
but her labour wins this also, although it be directed to another
end. As in a tilled-field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are
found amongst it, and yet, though these posies may charm the eye,
all this labour was not spent in order to produce them—the man who
sowed the field had another object in view, he gained this over and
above it—so pleasure is not the reward or the cause of virtue, but
comes in addition to it; nor do we choose virtue because she gives
us pleasure, but {215} she gives us pleasure also if we choose her.
The highest good lies in the act of choosing her, and in the attitude
of the noblest minds, which when once it has fulfilled its function
and established itself within its own limits has attained to the
highest good, and needs nothing more: for there is nothing outside
of the whole, any more than there is anything beyond the end. You
are mistaken, therefore, when you ask me what it is on account of
which I seek after virtue: for you are seeking for something above
the highest. Do you ask what I seek from virtue? I answer. Herself:
for she has nothing better; she is her own reward. Does this not
appear great enough, when I tell you that the highest good is an
unyielding strength of mind, wisdom, magnanimity, sound judgment,
freedom, harmony, beauty? Do you still ask me for something greater,
of which these may be regarded as the attributes? Why do you talk
of pleasures to me? I am seeking to find what is good for man, not
for his belly; why, cattle and whales have larger ones than he.
X. “You purposely misunderstand what I say,” says he, “for I too
say that no one can live pleasantly unless he lives honorably also,
and this cannot be the case with dumb animals who measure the extent
of their happiness by that of their food. I loudly and publicly
proclaim that what I call a pleasant life cannot exist without the
addition of virtue.” Yet who does not know that the greatest fools
drink the deepest of those pleasures of yours? or that vice is full
of enjoyments, and that the mind itself suggests to itself many
perverted, vicious forms of pleasure?—in the first place arrogance,
excessive self-esteem, swaggering precedence over other men, a
shortsighted, nay, a blind devotion to his own interests, dissolute
luxury, excessive delight springing from the most trifling and
childish causes, and also talkativeness, pride that takes a pleasure
in insulting others, sloth, and the decay of a dull mind which goes
to sleep over itself. All these are dissipated by virtue, which
plucks a {216} man by the ear, and measures the value of pleasures
before she permits them to be used; nor does she set much store by
those which she allows to pass current, for she merely allows their
use, and her cheerfulness is not due to her use of them, but to her
moderation in using them. “Yet when moderation lessens pleasure,
it impairs the highest good.” You devote yourself to pleasures, I
check them; you indulge in pleasure, I use it; you think that it
is the highest good, I do not even think it to be good: for the
sake of pleasure I do nothing, you do everything.
XI. When I say that I do nothing for the sake of pleasure, I allude
to that wise man, whom alone you admit to be capable of pleasure:
now I do not call a man wise who is overcome by anything, let alone
by pleasure: yet, if engrossed by pleasure, how will he resist toil,
danger, want, and all the ills which surround and threaten the life
of man? How will he bear the sight of death or of pain? How will
he endure the tumult of the world, and make head against so many
most active foes, if he be conquered by so effeminate an antagonist?
He will do whatever pleasure advises him: well, do you not see how
many things it will advise him to do? “It will not,” says our
adversary, “be able to give him any bad advice, because it is
combined with virtue?” Again, do you not see what a poor kind of
highest good that must be which requires a guardian to ensure its
being good at all? and how is virtue to rule pleasure if she follows
it, seeing that to follow is the duty of a subordinate, to rule
that of a commander? do you put that which commands in the background?
According to your school, virtue has the dignified office of
preliminary taster of pleasures. We shall, however, see whether
virtue still remains virtue among those who treat her with such
contempt, for if she leaves her proper station she can no longer
keep her proper name: in the meanwhile, to keep to the point, I
will show you many men beset by pleasures, {217} men upon whom
Fortune has showered all her gifts, whom you must needs admit to
be bad men. Look at Nomentanus and Apicius, who digest all the good
things, as they call them, of the sea and land, and review upon
their tables the whole animal kingdom. Look at them as they lie on
beds of roses gloating over their banquet, delighting their ears
with music, their eyes with exhibitions, their palates with flavours:
their whole bodies are titillated with soft and soothing applications,
and lest even their nostrils should be idle, the very place in
which, they solemnize[3] the rites of luxury is scented with various
perfumes. You will say that these men live in the midst of pleasures.
Yet they are ill at ease, because they take pleasure in what is not
good.
XII. “They are ill at ease,” replies he, “because many things arise
which distract their thoughts, and their minds are disquieted by
conflicting opinions.” I admit that this is true: still these very
men, foolish, inconsistent, and certain to feel remorse as they
are, do nevertheless receive great pleasure, and we must allow that
in so doing they are as far from feeling any trouble as they are
from forming a right judgment, and that, as is the case with many
people, they are possessed by a merry madness, and laugh while they
rave. The pleasures of wise men, on the other hand, are mild,
decorous, verging on dulness, kept under restraint and scarcely
noticeable, and are neither invited to come nor received with honour
when they come of their own accord, nor are they welcomed with any
delight by those whom they visit, who mix them up with their lives
and fill up empty spaces with them, like an amusing farce in the
intervals of serious business. Let them no longer, then, join
incongruous matters together, or connect pleasure with {218} virtue,
a mistake whereby they court the worst of men. The reckless profligate,
always in liquor and belching out the fumes of wine, believes that
he lives with virtue, because he knows that he lives with pleasure,
for he hears it said that pleasure cannot exist apart from virtue;
consequently he dubs his vices with the title of wisdom and parades
all that he ought to conceal. So, men are not encouraged by Epicurus
to run riot, but the vicious hide their excesses in the lap of
philosophy, and flock to the schools in which they hear the praises
of pleasure. They do not consider how sober and temperate—for so,
by Hercules, I believe it to be—that “pleasure” of Epicurus is, but
they rush at his mere name, seeking to obtain some protection and
cloak for their vices. They lose, therefore, the one virtue which
their evil life possessed, that of being ashamed of doing wrong:
for they praise what they used to blush at, and boast of their
vices. Thus modesty can never reassert itself, when shameful idleness
is dignified with an honourable name. The reason why that praise
which your school lavishes upon pleasure is so hurtful, is because
the honourable part of its teaching passes unnoticed, but the
degrading part is seen by all.
XIII. I myself believe, though my Stoic comrades would be unwilling
to hear me say so, that the teaching of Epicurus was upright and
holy, and even, if you examine it narrowly, stern: for this much
talked of pleasure is reduced to a very narrow compass, and he bids
pleasure submit to the same law which we bid virtue do—I mean, to
obey nature. Luxury, however, is not satisfied with what is enough
for nature. What is the consequence? Whoever thinks that happiness
consists in lazy sloth, and alternations of gluttony and profligacy,
requires a good patron for a bad action, and when he has become an
Epicurean, having been led to do so by the attractive name of that
school, he follows, not the pleasure which he there hears {219}
spoken of, but that which he brought thither with him, and, haying
learned to think that his vices coincide with the maxims of that
philosophy, he indulges in them no longer timidly and in dark
corners, but boldly in the face of day. I will not, therefore, like
most of our school, say that the sect of Epicurus is the teacher
of crime, but what I say is: it is ill spoken of, it has a bad
reputation, and yet it does not deserve it. “Who can know this
without having been admitted to its inner mysteries?” Its very
outside gives opportunity for scandal, and encourages men’s baser
desires: it is like a brave man dressed in a woman’s gown: your
chastity is assured, your manhood is safe, your body is submitted
to nothing disgraceful, but your hand holds a drum (like a priest
of Cybele). Choose, then, some honourable superscription for your
school, some writing which shall in itself arouse the mind: that
which at present stands over your door has been invented by the
vices. He who ranges himself on the side of virtue gives thereby a
proof of a noble disposition: he who follows pleasure appears to
be weakly, worn out, degrading his manhood, likely to fall into
infamous vices unless someone discriminates his pleasures for him,
so that he may know which remain within the bounds of natural desire,
which are frantic and boundless, and become all the more insatiable
the more they are satisfied. But come! let virtue lead the way:
then every step will be safe. Too much pleasure is hurtful: but
with virtue we need fear no excess of any kind, because moderation
is contained in virtue herself. That which is injured by its own
extent cannot be a good thing: besides, what better guide can there
be than reason for beings endowed with a reasoning nature? so if
this combination pleases you, if you are willing to proceed to a
happy life thus accompanied, let virtue lead the way, let pleasure
follow and hang about the body like a shadow: it is the part of a
mind incapable of great things to hand {220} over virtue, the highest
of all qualities, as a handmaid to pleasure.
XIV. Let virtue lead the way and bear the standard: we shall have
pleasure for all that, but we shall be her masters and controllers;
she may win some concessions from us, but will not force us to do
anything. On the contrary, those who have permitted pleasure to
lead the van, have neither one nor the other: for they lose virtue
altogether, and yet they do not possess pleasure, but are possessed
by it, and are either tortured by its absence or choked by its
excess, being wretched if deserted by it, and yet more wretched if
overwhelmed by it, like those who are caught in the shoals of the
Syrtes and at one time are left on dry ground and at another tossed
on the flowing waves. This arises from an exaggerated want of