The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by · Marcus Tullius Cicero
Introduction.
And it is only out of ignorance that the object of the art of medicine or navigation is compared with the object of wisdom; for wisdom embraces greatness of mind and justice, and judges all the accidents which befal mankind beneath itself: and this too is not the case in the other arts. But no one will be able to maintain those very virtues of which I have just made mention, unless he lays down a rule that there is nothing which is of any importance, nothing which differs from anything else, except what is honourable or disgraceful. VIII. Let us see now how admirably these rules follow from those principles which I have already laid down. For as this is the ultimate (_extremum_) point, (for you have noticed, I dare say, that I translate what the Greek philosopher calls τέλος, sometimes by the word _extremum_, sometimes by _ultimum_, and sometimes by _summum_, and instead of _extremum_ or _ultimum_, I may also use the word _finis_,)—as, then, this is the ultimate point, to live in a manner suitable to and harmonising with nature; it follows of necessity that all wise men do always live happily, perfectly, and fortunately; that they are hindered by nothing, embarrassed by nothing; that they are in want of nothing. And that which holds together not more that school of which I am speaking than our lives and fortunes, that is to say, the principle of accounting what is honourable to be the sole good, may indeed easily be embellished and enlarged upon at great length, with great richness of illustration, with great variety of carefully chosen expressions, and with the most pompous sentiments in a rhetorical manner; but I prefer the brief, acute, conclusive arguments of the Stoics.
Now their conclusions are arrived at in this manner: “Everything which is good is praiseworthy; but everything which is praiseworthy is honourable;—therefore, everything which is good is honourable.” Does not this appear properly deduced? Undoubtedly;—for the result which was obtained from the two premises which were assumed, you see was contained in them. But of the two premises from which the conclusion was inferred it is only the major one which can be contradicted—if you say that it is not the case, that everything which is good is praiseworthy: for it is granted that whatever is praiseworthy is honourable. But it is utterly absurd to say, that there is anything good which is not to be sought for; or, that there is anything which ought to be sought for which is not pleasing; or, that if it is pleasing it ought not likewise to be loved. Then it ought also to be approved of. Then it is praiseworthy. But what is praiseworthy is honourable. And so the result is, that whatever is good is also honourable. In the next place, I ask, who can boast of a life which is miserable; or avoid boasting of one which is happy?—therefore men boast only of a life which is happy.
From which the consequence follows, that a happy life deserves to be boasted of; but this cannot properly be predicated of any life which is not an honourable one. From this it follows, that a happy life must be an honourable one. And since the man to whom it happens to be deservedly praised has some eminent qualities tending to credit and glory, so that he may rightly be called happy on account of such important qualities; the same thing is properly predicated of the life of such a man. And so, if a happy life is discerned by its honourableness, then what is honourable ought to be considered the sole good. And, as this cannot possibly be denied, what man do we say can ever exist of a stable and firm and great mind,—whom, in fact, can we ever call brave,—unless the point is established, that pain is not an evil? For as it is impossible that the man who ranks death among evils should not fear it, so in every case it is impossible for a man to disregard what he judges to be an evil, and to despise it.
And when this point has been laid down, and ratified by universal assent, this is assumed next, that the man who is of a brave and magnanimous spirit despises and utterly disregards every accident which can befal a man. And as this is the case, the consequence is, that there is nothing evil which is not disgraceful. And that man of lofty and excellent spirit,—that magnanimous and truly brave man, who considers all human accidents beneath his notice,—the man I mean whom we wish to make so, whom at all events we are looking for,—ought to confide in himself, and in his own life both past and to come, and to form a favourable judgment of himself, laying down as a principle, that no evil can happen to a wise man. From which again the same result follows, that the sole good is that which is honourable; and that to live happily is to live honourably, that is, virtuously.
IX. Not that I am ignorant that the opinions of philosophers have been various, of those I mean who have placed the chief good, that which I call the end, in the mind. And although some people have followed them very incorrectly, still I prefer their theory, not only to that of the three sects who have separated virtue from the chief good, while ranking either pleasure, or freedom from pain, or the original gifts of nature among goods, but also to the other three who have thought that virtue would be crippled without some reinforcement, and on that account have each added to it one of those other particulars which I have just enumerated. I, however, as I said, prefer to all these the men, whoever they may be, who have described the chief good as consisting in the mind and in virtue. But nevertheless, those also are extremely absurd who have said that to live with knowledge is the highest good, and who have asserted that there is no difference between things, and so, that a wise man will surely be a happy one, never at any moment of his life preferring one thing to another: as some of the Academics are said to have laid it down, that the highest good and the chief duty of a wise man is to resist appearances, and firmly to withhold his assent from them.
Now people often make very lengthy replies to each of these assertions; yet what is very clear ought not to be long. But what is more evident than, if there be no selection made, discarding those things which are contrary to nature, and selecting those which are according to nature, all that prudence which is so much sought after and extolled would be done away with? If, then, we discard those sentiments which I have mentioned, and all others which resemble them, it remains that the chief good must be to live, exercising a knowledge of those things which happen by nature, selecting what is according to nature, and rejecting any which are contrary to nature; that is to say, to live in a manner suitable and corresponding to nature. But in other arts, when anything is said to have been done according to the rules of art, there is something to be considered which is subsequent and follows upon such compliance; which they call ἐπιγεννηματικόν. But when we say in any matter that a thing has been done wisely, that same thing is from the first said also to have been done most properly; for whatever proceeds from a wise man must at once be perfect in all its parts: for in him is placed that quality which we say is to be desired. For as it is a sin to betray one’s country, to injure one’s parents, to plunder temples, which are all sins of commission; so it is likewise a sin to be afraid, to grieve, to be under the dominion of lust, even if no overt act follows these feelings. But, as these are sins, not in their later periods and consequences, but at once from the first moment; so those actions which proceed from virtue are to be considered right at the first moment that they are undertaken, and not only when they are accomplished.
X. But it may be as well to give an explanation and definition of the word good, which, has been so often employed in this discourse. But the definitions of those philosophers differ a good deal from one another, and yet have all reference to the same facts. I myself agree with Diogenes, who has defined good to be that which in its nature is perfect. But that which follows, that which is profitable (for so we may translate his ὼφέλημα), he considered to be a motion, or a state, arising out of the nature of the perfect. And as the notions of things arise in the mind, if anything has become known either by practice, or by combination, or by similitude, or by the comparison of reason; then by this fourth means, which I have placed last, the knowledge of good is arrived at. For when, by a comparison of the reason, the mind ascends from those things which are according to reason, then it arrives at a notion of good. And this good we are speaking of, we both feel to be and call good, not because of any addition made to it, nor from its growth, nor from comparing it with other things, but because of its own proper power.
For as honey, although it is very sweet, is still perceived to be sweet by its own peculiar kind of taste, and not by comparison with other things; so this good, which we are now treating of, is indeed to be esteemed of great value; but that valuation depends on kind and not on magnitude. For as estimation, which is called ἀξί, is not reckoned among goods, nor, on the other hand, among evils, whatever you add to it will remain in its kind. There is, therefore, another kind of estimation proper to virtue, which is of weight from its character, and not because of its increasing. Nor, indeed, are the perturbations of the mind, which make the lives of the unwise bitter and miserable, and which the Greeks call πάθη, (I might translate the word itself by the Latin _morbi_, but it would not suit all the meanings of the Greek word; for who ever calls pity, or even anger, a disease—_morbus_)? but the Greeks do call such a feeling πάθος. Let us then translate it perturbation, which is by its very name pointed out to be something vicious. Nor are these perturbations, I say, excited by any natural force; and they are altogether in kind four, but as to their divisions they are more numerous. There is melancholy, fear, lust, and that feeling which the Stoics call by the common name which they apply to both mind and body, ἡδονὴ, and which I prefer translating joy (_lætitia_), rather than a pleasurable elation of an exulting mind. But perturbations are not excited by any force of nature; and all those feelings are judgments and opinions proceeding from light-mindedness; and, therefore, the wise man will always be free from them.
XI. But that everything which is honourable is to be sought for its own sake, is an opinion common to us with many other schools of philosophers. For, except the three sects which exclude virtue from the chief good, this opinion must be maintained by all philosophers, and above all by us, who do not rank anything whatever among goods except what is honourable. But the defence of this opinion is very easy and simple indeed; for who is there, or who ever was there, of such violent avarice, or of such unbridled desires as not infinitely to prefer that anything which he wishes to acquire, even at the expense of any conceivable wickedness, should come into his power without crime, (even though he had a prospect of perfect impunity,) than through crime? and what utility, or what personal advantage do we hope for, when we are anxious to know whether those bodies are moving whose movements are concealed from us, and owing to what causes they revolve through the heavens?
And who is there that lives according to such clownish maxims, or who has so rigorously hardened himself against the study of nature, as to be averse to things worthy of being understood, and to be indifferent to and disregard such knowledge, merely because there is no exact usefulness or pleasure likely to result from it? or, who is there who—when he comes to know the exploits, and sayings, and wise counsels of our forefathers, of the Africani, or of that ancestor of mine whom you are always talking of, and of other brave men, and citizens of pre-eminent virtue—does not feel his mind affected with pleasure? and who that has been brought up in a respectable family, and educated as becomes a freeman, is not offended with baseness as such, though it may not be likely to injure him personally? Who can keep his equanimity while looking on a man who, he thinks, lives in an impure and wicked manner? Who does not hate sordid, fickle, unstable, worthless men? But what shall we be able to say, (if we do not lay it down that baseness is to be avoided for its own sake), is the reason why men do not seek darkness and solitude, and then give the rein to every possible infamy, except that baseness of itself detects them by reason of its own intrinsic foulness? Innumerable arguments may be brought forward to support this opinion; but it is needless, for there is nothing which can be less a matter of doubt than that what is honourable ought to be sought for its own sake; and, in the same manner, what is disgraceful ought to be avoided.
But after that point is established, which we have previously mentioned, that what is honourable is the sole good; it must unavoidably be understood that that which is honourable, is to be valued more highly than those intermediate goods which we derive from it. But when we say that folly, and rashness, and injustice, and intemperance are to be avoided on account of those things which result from them, we do not speak in such a manner that our language is at all inconsistent with the position which has been laid down, that that alone is evil which is dishonourable. Because those things are not referred to any inconvenience of the body, but to dishonourable actions, which arise out of vicious propensities (_vitia_). For what the Greeks call κακία I prefer translating by _vitium_ rather than by _malitia_.
XII. Certainly; Cato, said I, you are employing very admirable language, and such as expresses clearly what you mean; and, therefore, you seem to me to be teaching philosophy in Latin, and, as it were, to be presenting it with the freedom of the city. For up to this time she has seemed like a stranger at Rome, and has not put herself in the way of our conversation; and that, too, chiefly because of a certain highly polished thinness of things and words. For I am aware that there are some men who are able to philosophise in any language, but who still employ no divisions and no definitions; and who say themselves that they approve of those things alone to which nature silently assents. Therefore, they discuss, without any great degree of labour, matters which are not very obscure. And, on this account, I am now prepared to listen eagerly to you, and to commit to memory all the names which you give to those matters to which this discussion refers. For, perhaps, I myself may some day have reason to employ them too. You, then, appear to me to be perfectly right, and to be acting in strict accordance with our usual way of speaking, when you lay it down that there are vices the exact opposites of virtues; for that which is blameable (_vituperabile_) for its own sake, I think ought, from that very fact, to be called a vice; and perhaps this verb, _vitupero_, is derived from _vitium_. But if you had translated κακία by _malitia_,(46) then the usage of the Latin language would have limited us to one particular vice; but, as it is, all vice is opposed to all virtue by one generic opposite name.
XIII. Then he proceeded:—After these things, therefore, are thus laid down, there follows a great contest, which has been handled by the Peripatetics somewhat too gently, (for their method of arguing is not sufficiently acute, owing to their ignorance of dialectics;) but your Carneades has pressed the matter with great vigour and effect, displaying in reference to it a most admirable skill in dialectics, and the most consummate eloquence; because he has never ceased to contend throughout the whole of this discussion, which turns upon what is good and what is bad, that the controversy between the Stoics and Peripatetics is not one of things, but only of names. But, to me, nothing appears so evident as that the opinions of these two schools differ from one another far more as to facts than to names; I mean to say, that there is much greater difference between the Stoics and Peripatetics in principle than in language. Forasmuch as the Peripatetics assert that everything which they themselves call good, has a reference to living happily; but our school does not think that a happy life necessarily embraces everything which is worthy of any esteem.
But can anything be more certain than that, according to the principles of those men who rank pain among the evils, a wise man cannot be happy when he is tormented on the rack? While the principles of those who do not consider pain among the evils, certainly compels us to allow that a happy life is preserved to a wise man among all torments. In truth, if those men endure pain with greater fortitude who suffer it in the cause of their country, than those who do so for any slighter object; then it is plain that it is opinion, and not nature, which makes the force of pain greater or less. Even that opinion of the Peripatetics is more than I can agree to, that, as there are three kinds of goods, as they say, each individual is the happier in proportion as he is richer in the goods of the body or external goods, so that we must be forced also to approve of this doctrine, that that man is happier who has a greater quantity of those things which are accounted of great value as affecting the body. For they think that a happy life is made complete by bodily advantages; but there is nothing which our philosophers can so little agree to.
For, as our opinion is that life is not even made in the least more happy by an abundance of those goods which we call goods of nature, nor more desirable, nor deserving of being more highly valued, then certainly a multitude of bodily advantages can have still less effect on making life happy. In truth, if to be wise be a desirable thing, and to be well be so too, then both together must be more desirable than wisdom by itself; but it does not follow, if each quality deserves to be esteemed, that therefore, the two taken together deserve to be esteemed more highly than wisdom does by itself. For we who consider good health worthy of any esteem, and yet do not rank it among the goods, think, at the same time, that the esteem to which it is entitled is by no means such as that it ought to be preferred to virtue. But this is not the doctrine of the Peripatetics; and they ought to tell us, that that which is an honourable action and unaccompanied by pain, is more to be desired than the same action would be if it were attended with pain. We think not: whether we are right or wrong may be discussed hereafter; but can there possibly be a greater disagreement respecting facts and principles?
XIV. For as the light of a candle is obscured and put out by the light of the sun; and as a drop of brine is lost in the magnitude of the Ægæan sea; or an addition of a penny amid the riches of Crœsus; or as one step is of no account in a march from here to India; so, if that is the chief good which the Stoics affirm is so, then, all the goods which depend on the body must inevitably be obscured and overwhelmed by, and come to nothing when placed by the side of the splendour and importance of virtue. And since opportunity, (for that is how we may translate εὐκαιρία,) is not made greater by extending the time, (for whatever is said to be opportune has its own peculiar limit;) so a right action, (for that is how I translate κατόρθωσις, and a right deed I call κατόρθωμα,)—a right action, I say, and suitableness, and, in short, the good itself, which depends on the fact of its being in accordance with nature, has no possibility of receiving any addition or growth. For as that opportunity is not made greater by the extension of time, so neither are these things which I have mentioned.
And, on that account, a happy life does not seem to the Stoics more desirable or more deserving of being sought after, if it is long than if it is short; and they prove this by a simile:—As the praise of a buskin is to fit the foot exactly, and as many buskins are not considered to fit better than few, and large ones are not thought better than small ones; so, in the case of those the whole good of which depends upon its suitableness and fitness; many are not preferred to few, nor what is durable to what is short-lived. Nor do they exhibit sufficient acuteness when they say, if good health is more to be esteemed when it lasts long than when it lasts only a short time, then the longest possible enjoyment of wisdom must clearly be of the greatest value. They do not understand that the estimate of good health is formed expressly with reference to its duration; of virtue with reference to its fitness of time; so that men who argue in this manner, seem as if they would speak of a good death, or a good labour, and call one which lasted long, better than a short one.
They do not perceive that some things are reckoned of more value in proportion to their brevity; and some in proportion to their length. Therefore, it is quite consistent with what has been said, that according to the principles of those who think that that end of goods which we call the extreme or chief good, is susceptible of growth, they may also think that one man can be wiser than another; and, in like manner then, one man may sin more, or act more rightly than another. But such an assertion is not allowable to us, who do not think the end of goods susceptible of growth. For as men who have been submerged under the water, cannot breathe any more because they are at no great depth below the surface, (though they may on this account be able at times to emerge,) than if they were at the bottom, nor can the puppy who is nearly old enough to see, as yet see any more than one who is but this moment born; so the man who has made some progress towards the approach to virtue, is no less in a state of misery than he who has made no such advance at all.
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