The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
sense the evil; and its accessories are despondency, and melancholy, and
other things of that kind.
LVI. Again, of goods, some have reference to the mind, and some are
external; and some neither have reference to the mind, nor are external.
The goods having reference to the mind are virtues, and actions according
to the virtues. The external goods are the having a virtuous country, a
virtuous friend, and the happiness of one’s country and friend. And those
which are not external, and which have no reference to the mind, are
such as a man’s being virtuous and happy to himself. And reciprocally,
of evils, some have reference to the mind, such as the vices and actions
according to them; some are external, such as having a foolish country,
or a foolish friend, or one’s country or one’s friend being unhappy. And
those evils which are not external, and which have no reference to the
mind, are such as a man’s being worthless and unhappy to himself.
LVII. Again, of goods, some are final, some are efficient, and some are
both final and efficient. For instance, a friend, and the services
done by him to one, are efficient goods; but courage, and prudence, and
liberty, and delight, and mirth, and freedom from pain, and all kinds of
actions done according to virtue, are final goods. There are too, as I
said before, some goods which are both efficient and final; for inasmuch
as they produce perfect happiness they are efficient, and inasmuch as
they complete it by being themselves parts of it, they are final. And
in the same way, of evils, some are final, and some efficient, and some
partake of both natures. For instance, an enemy and the injuries done to
one by him, are efficient evils; fear, meanness of condition, slavery,
want of delight, depression of spirits, excessive grief, and all actions
done according to vice, are final evils; and some partake of both
characters, since, inasmuch as they produce perfect unhappiness, they are
efficient; and inasmuch as they complete it in such a way as to become
parts of it, they are final.
LVIII. Again, of the goods which have reference to the mind, some
are habits, some are dispositions, and some are neither habits nor
dispositions. Dispositions are virtues, habits are practices, and those
which are neither habits nor dispositions are energies. And, speaking
generally, the following may be called mixed goods: happiness in one’s
children, and a happy old age. But knowledge is a pure good. And some
goods are continually present, such as virtue; and some are not always
present, as joy, or taking a walk.
LIX. But every good is expedient, and necessary, and profitable, and
useful, and serviceable, and beautiful, and advantageous, and eligible,
and just. Expedient, inasmuch as it brings us things, which by their
happening to us do us good; necessary, inasmuch as it assists us in
what we have need to be assisted; profitable, inasmuch as it repays all
the care that is expended on it, and makes a return with interest to
our great advantage; useful, inasmuch as it supplies us with what is of
utility; serviceable, because it does us service which is much praised;
beautiful, because it is in accurate proportion to the need we have of
it, and to the service it does. Advantageous, inasmuch as it is of such a
character as to confer advantage on us; eligible, because it is such that
we may rationally choose it; and just, because it is in accordance with
law, and is an efficient cause of union.
And they call the honourable the perfect good, because it has naturally
all the numbers which are required by nature, and because it discloses
a perfect harmony. Now, the species of this perfect good are four in
number: justice, manly courage, temperance, and knowledge; for in these
goods all beautiful actions have their accomplishment. And analogously,
there are also four species of the disgraceful: injustice, and cowardice,
and intemperance, and folly. And the honourable is predicated in one
sense, as making those who are possessed of it worthy of all praise; and
in a second sense, it is used of what is well adapted by nature for its
proper work; and in another sense, when it expresses that which adorns a
man, as when we say that the wise man alone is good and honourable.
The Stoics also say, that the beautiful is the only good, as Hecaton
says, in the third book of his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus asserts
the same principle in his essays on the Beautiful. And they say that this
is virtue, and that which partakes of virtue; and this assertion is equal
to the other, that everything good is beautiful, and that the good is an
equivalent term to the beautiful, inasmuch as the one thing is exactly
equal to the other. For since it is good, it is beautiful; and it is
beautiful, therefore, it is good.
LX. But it seems that all goods are equal, and that every good is to be
desired in the highest degree, and that it admits of no relaxation, and
of no extension. Moreover, they divide all existing things into good,
bad, and indifferent. The good are the virtues, prudence, justice, manly
courage, temperance, and the rest of the like qualities. The bad are the
contraries, folly, injustice, and the like. Those are indifferent which
are neither beneficial nor injurious, such as life, health, pleasure,
beauty, strength, riches, a good reputation, nobility of birth; and their
contraries, death, disease, labour, disgrace, weakness, poverty, a bad
reputation, baseness of birth, and the like; as Hecaton lays it down in
the seventh book of his treatise on the Chief Good; and he is followed by
Apollodorus, in his Ethics, and by Chrysippus. For they affirm that those
things are not good but indifferent, though perhaps a little more near to
one species than to the other.
For, as it is the property of the hot to warm and not to chill one, so
it is the property of the good to benefit and not to injure one. Now,
wealth and good health cannot be said to benefit any more than to injure
any one: therefore, neither wealth nor good health are goods. Again,
they say that that thing is not good which it is possible to use both
well and ill. But it is possible to make either a good or a bad use of
wealth, or of health; therefore, wealth and good health are not goods.
Posidonius, however, affirms that these things do come under the head of
goods. But Hecaton, in the nineteenth book of his treatise on Goods, and
Chrysippus, in his treatises on Pleasure, both deny that pleasure is a
good. For they say that there are disgraceful pleasures, and that nothing
disgraceful is good. And that to benefit a person is to move him or to
keep him according to virtue, but to injure him is to move him or to keep
him according to vice.
They also assert, that things indifferent are so spoken of in a twofold
manner; firstly, those things are called so, which have no influence in
producing either happiness or unhappiness; such for instance, as riches,
glory, health, strength, and the like; for it is possible for a man to
be happy without any of these things; and also, it is upon the character
of the use that is made of them, that happiness or unhappiness depends.
In another sense, those things are called indifferent, which do not
excite any inclination or aversion, as for instance, the fact of a man’s
having an odd or an even number of hairs on his head, or his putting
out or drawing back his finger; for it is not in this sense that the
things previously mentioned are called indifferent, for they do excite
inclination or aversion. On which account some of them are chosen, though
there is equal reason for preferring or shunning all the others.
LXI. Again, of things indifferent, they call some preferred (προηγμένα),
and others rejected (ἀποπροηγμένα). Those are preferred, which have some
proper value (ἀξίαν), and those are rejected, which have no value at all
(ἀπαξίαν ἔχοντα). And by the term proper value, they mean that quality
of things, which causes them to concur in producing a well-regulated
life; and in this sense, every good has a proper value. Again, they
say that a thing has value, when in some point of view, it has a sort
of intermediate power of aiding us to live conformably to nature; and
under this class, we may range riches or good health, if they give any
assistance to natural life. Again, value is predicated of the price
which one gives for the attainment of an object, which some one, who
has experience of the object sought, fixes as its fair price; as if we
were to say, for instance, that as some wheat was to be exchanged for
barley, with a mule thrown in to make up the difference. Those goods
then are preferred, which have a value, as in the case of the mental
goods, ability, skill, improvement, and the like; and in the case of the
corporeal goods, life, health, strength, a good constitution, soundness,
beauty; and in the case of external goods, riches, glory, nobility of
birth, and the like.
Rejected things are, in the case of qualities of the mind, stupidity,
unskilfulness, and the like; in the case of circumstances affecting
the body, death, disease, weakness, a bad constitution, mutilation,
disgrace, and the like; in the case of external circumstances, poverty,
want of reputation, ignoble birth, and the like. But those qualities
and circumstances which are indifferent, are neither preferred nor
rejected. Again, of things preferred, some are preferred for their own
sakes, some for the sake of other things, and some partly for their own
sakes and partly for that of other things. Those which are preferred for
their own sakes, are ability, improvement, and the like; those which are
preferred for the sake of other things, are wealth, nobility of birth,
and the like; those which are preferred partly for their own sake, and
partly for that of something else, are strength, vigour of the senses,
universal soundness, and the like; for they are preferred, for their own
sakes, inasmuch as they are in accordance with nature; and for the sake
of something else, inasmuch as they are productive of no small number of
advantages; and the same is the case in the inverse ratio, with those
things which are rejected.
LXII. Again, they say that that is duty, which is preferred, and which
contains in itself reasonable arguments why we should prefer it; as
for instance, its corresponding to the nature of life itself; and this
argument extends to plants and animals, for even their nature is subject
to the obligation of certain duties. And duty (τὸ καθῆκον) had this name
given to it by Zeno, in the first instance, its appellation being derived
from its coming to, or according to some people, ἀπὸ τοῦ κατά τινας
ἥκειν; and its effect is something kindred to the preparations made by
nature. Now of the things done according to inclination, some are duties,
and some are contrary to duty; and some are neither duties nor contrary
to duty. Those are duties, which reason selects to do, as for instance,
to honour one’s parents, one’s brothers, one’s country, to gratify one’s
friends. Those actions are contrary to duty, which reason does not
choose; as for instance, to neglect one’s parents, to be indifferent to
one’s brothers, to shirk assisting one’s friends, to be careless about
the welfare of one’s country, and so on. Those are neither duties, nor
contrary to duty, which reason neither selects to do, nor, on the other
hand, repudiates, such actions, for instance, as to pick up straw, to
hold a pen, or a comb, or things of that sort.
Again, there are some duties which do not depend on circumstances, and
some which do. These do not depend on circumstances, to take care of
one’s health, and of the sound state of one’s senses, and the like. Those
which do depend on circumstances, are the mutilation of one’s members,