Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition

M. TVLLI CICERONIS

DE FINIBVS BONORVM

ET MALORVM

LIBRI QVINQVE.

THE TEXT REVISED AND EXPLAINED

BY

JAMES S. REID, M.L,

FELLOW AND ASSISTANT TUTOR OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE;

CLASSICAL EXAMINER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III

Containing the Translation.

Cambridge :

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

1883

PREFATORY NOTE.

My rendering of Ciceros De Finibus is primarily

designed as an appendage to my forthcoming an-

notated edition of the text. The translation will

enable me to lighten the commentary, since it will

sufficiently explain many difficulties which would

otherwise have required notes. It has been necessary

for my design to follow Cicero’s syntax as closely as

the English language permitted, so that the student

may not be left in doubt about my way of taking any

particular passage. But I have at the same time

striven to make the rendering run smoothly, and I

3 hope it will be found not too harsh for the ear of the

~ English reader.

In representing technical expressions I have en-

d deavoured to choose English phrases which shall be

j

vi PREFATORY NOTE.

as wide in their meaning as the ancient terms them-

selves. I have sometimes seen it urged that in

translating ancient philosophical works, and especially

those of Cicero, the technical terms of modern philo-

sophy should be employed. But to do so would be

to destroy, and not- to represent the original—to

substitute in fact modern ideas for the ancient. Only

a few of the commonest and vaguest modern expres-

sions are in fact applicable. I have, however, tried to avoid paraphrase, and, to help the reader, have some-

times placed in italics words used to represent the

technical phrases of the Latin.

There is some inconvenience, but I iope very

slight, in issuing the translation in advance of the text

and commentary. My text, when actually printed,

will not differ very largely from that of Madvig, and a

great many of the alterations will be such as to affect

the translation but little. My plan required me to

complete the translation before writing out the com-

mentary, and I trust the present volume may be

useful to some students in the interval that must

elapse before the rest of the edition appears.

I hope to publish at some future time a separate

edition of the translation for English readers, with an

introduction and notes especially intended to shew the

historical importance of the ancient ethical systems

treated in the De Finibus.

I have compared my translation throughout with

that of R. Kühner (Stuttgart 1861), which is scholarly

and valuable.

J. S. Ren.

GONVILLE AND Carus COLLEGE, CaMBRIDGE,

September, 1883.

CICERO

DE FINIBUS

BOOK L.

WHILE I was engaged, Brutus, in transferring to our Latin 1

literature those investigations which in the Greek tongue had

been handled by philosophers of consummate ability and pro-

found learning, it did not escape me that this task of mine

would meet with censure of different kinds. Some there are

indeed (persons, I admit, not entirely without learnmg) who

look with disfavour on the whole pursuit of philosophy. Some

again do not so much object to it, if it be laxly carried on, but

think that so much devotion and such great energy should

not be expended upon it. Some too, men no doubt skilled in the

literature of Greece, but indifferent to Latin, will declare that

they would rather devote their energy to the perusal of works

written in Greek. Finally, I imagme there will be some who

will invite me into other paths of literature, affirming that

this style of composition, refined though it be, 1s stall not in

accord with my character and position. In reply to all these 2

critics I deem it necessary to say a few words, though cer-

tainly the depreciators of philosophy have received a sufficient

reply in the treatise wherein I championed and eulogised

philosophy, while it was attacked and depreciated by Hortensius.

Finding that this treatise was manifestly acceptable, not only

to yourself, but to all whom I supposed competent to form

an opinion, I have taken in hand several other subjects; for

I feared it might be thought that I aroused the interest of

readers, without the power to sustain it. Again those who,

however much they approve of my design, still desire that

it should be executed with some reserve, call for a self-control

that is hard to exercise in a matter where, when the rein is

once loosened, no check nor curb can be applied; hence we feel

that the critics who beckon us entirely away from philosophy

treat us almost more fairly than men who try to set a bound to

matters which admit of no limitation, and who call for modera-

tion in the treatment of a subject which increases in value

8 precisely as its range is extended. Now if on the one hand it

is possible for us to arrive at wisdom, we are not only to acquire

it, but to reap enjoyment from it; if on the other hand

our task is hard, still not only is discovery the sole limit to

the exploration of truth, but when the object of search is the

noblest possible, weariness in the search becomes disgraceful.

Further, if writing is a pleasure to me, who is so grudging as to

drag me away from that occupation? Or if it tasks my energy,

who is there that should set a bound to the employments of

another? So while the Chremes of Terence shews no unkindly

spirit when he wishes that his new neighbour should not dig nor |

plough nor toil indeed at all (for he tries to withdraw him not

from occupation, but from menial toil) these critics are fussy

who feel displeasure at exertions which to me are by no means

unpleasant.

4 II. Well then, it is still harder to meet the views of men

who say they are indifferent to works written in Latin. With

regard to these persons, the first thing I fail to understand

is why their mother tongue,. when employed upon the most

weighty themes, gives them no pleasure, though the same per-

_ sons are not unwilling to read Latin plays which are translated

word for word from Greek. Pray, what man exists so ‘un-

friendly, I might almost say, to the name of Roman, that he

treats the Medea of Ennius or the Antiopa of Pacuvius with

scorn or condemnation, on the plea that he takes pleasure in the

same plays as written by Euripides, while he feels a distaste for

Latin literature? Am I, says such an one, to read the Young

Comrades of Caecilius or the Andrian Woman of Terence in

5 preference to both plays by Menander? I am so far from agreeing

III § 7] DE FINIBUS I. 3

with such persons, that though Sophocles composed the Electra

with the utmost skill, I still think it my duty to read the bad

version of Atilius, of whom Licinus said that he was an iron

author, but, as I think, an author for all that, so that he is to

be read; since to be altogether unacquainted with the poets of

our own country indicates either the most sluggish idleness or

the most sickly taste. For my part I think no man’s education

complete, who is unacquainted with our own literature. While

we read Would that never in the grove as much as the same

piece in Greek, are we not to find pleasure in good Latin

expositions of the views maintained by Plato concerning the -

good and happy life? How will it be if I do not take upon me 6

the office of translator, but, remaining faithful to the opinions

expressed by my authorities, use my own discretion about them

and apply to them my own plan of composition? What reason

have my critics for preferring Greek treatises to others written

in brilliant style and not merely translated from the Greek ?

Now if they mean to plead that the Greeks have already handled

these topics, I answer that they can shew no reason why, of

the Greek writers themselves, they should read such a number

as are thought needful to be read. I ask, what point in the

Stoic system has been overlooked by Chrysippus? Yet we read

Diogenes, Antipater, Mnesarchus, Panaetius and many others,

and in particular my friend Posidonius. What? Does Theo-

phrastus afford us only a moderate pleasure when he handles

topics already handled by Aristotle before him? Again, do

Epicureans cease writing to please themselves on the very

themes which. were treated by Epicurus and the ancients?

Now if the Greeks do study Greek writers who deal with

subjects already treated, only following a different arrangement,

what reason is there why our own countrymen should not read

our native writers ? |

III. However, if I were to render Plato and Aristotle in 7

every respect as our poets rendered the plays, I suppose I should

be doing poor service to my fellow-countrymen, in bringing men

of such glorious genius within their ken! But this is what I

have not done as yet, though I do not consider myself debarred

from doing it. Some passages indeed I shall translate, if it seems

1—2

4 CICERO ` [III § 7—

advisable, and particularly from the philosophers I have just

named, as Ennius often translates from Homer and Afranius

from Menander. Nor yet will I make any protest, like our own

Lucilius, against one and all reading my works. I only wish

the famous Persius were alive, and still more Scipio and Rutilius,

from whose criticism the poet shrinks and declares that he

writes for the people of Tarentum and Consentia and Sicily. A

droll speech, like many of his; but there existed then no class

learned enough for him to finish his works to suit their taste, and

again his writings are somewhat slight, so that they exhibit

8 extreme wittiness, but only moderate learning. But why should

I fear any reader, seeing that I venture to address myself to you,

who do not yield in philosophy even to the Greeks? It is true,

however, that you yourself, by dedicating to me that most

delightful work of yours concerning virtue, challenged me to do

what I am now doing. But the reason why some people are

led to feel aversion for Latin writers is, I believe, that they

have come across certain rude and uncouth treatises, rendered

from bad Greek originals into worse Latin. And I agree with

these critics if only they admit that on such subjects even the

Greeks are not worth reading. But when the matter is good,

and worthily and richly set forth in choice language, who would

refuse to read, unless it be one who wants to have himself dubbed

a complete Greek, in the style which Scaevola when praetor

9 used in addressing Albucius at Athens? The story has been

touched on with much grace and all possible point by the same

Lucilius, in whose pages Scaevola makes this splendid speech:

You have chosen, Albucius, to be called a Greek; rather than a

Roman and a Sabine, and a fellow townsman of Pontius and

Tritanus the centurions, splendid men, and chiefs and ensign-

bearers ; therefore now being praetor I address you at Athens in

Greek, according to your wish, whenever you visit me; yaipe,

Titus, say I, and so say my orderlies, my whole squadron and my

suite; yatpe, Titus! From this time is Albucius my foe, from

10 this time my enemy! But Mucius was quite right; though I

cannot sufficiently express the curiosity I feel to discover the

source of such an arrogant disdain for the products of our

country. I quite admit that this is not the place to prove

EV § 12] - DE FINIBUS L 5

the point, but my opinion is, and I have often expressed it,

that the Latin tongue is not only not barren, as the common

view is, but is even richer than the Greek. For when did we,

or I will rather say, when did good speakers or poets, as soon as

models existed for them to imitate, ever feel the lack of any

adornments suited either to an abundant or a chaste style ?

IV. For myself, however, since, as I believe, amid the occu-

pations, exertions and dangers of the forum, I never deserted the

post to which I was appointed by the Roman people, I assuredly

am bound also to strive to the best of my power that my

fellow-countrymen may become more learned through my dili-

gence, zeal and industry, and while declining all serious contest

with those who prefer to read Greek (if only they do read it,

and not merely make pretence) it is my duty to give my

services to those who either desire to enjoy both literatures, or

do not greatly feel the want of the Greek, if they are pro-

vided with literature of their own. Now those who prefer that 11

I should write on other subjects are bound to shew me fair-

ness, because I have written many works, so that no country- |

man of mine has written more, and I shall perhaps write

more still, if life last; and putting that aside, any one who

accustoms himself to read carefully the views on philosophy

which I now commit to writing, will judge that there is no

more profitable reading than these supply. What other ques-

tion I ask is there in life which we should examine with such

energy, as all the problems with which philosophy is concerned,

but particularly the inquiry pursued in these books, what

is our end, aim and goal, by what principle all our plans for

good living and right action are to be guided, what it is that

nature pursues as the highest object of desire, what she shuns

as the utmost evil? And seeing that there is extreme dis-

agreement among the most learned men on this subject, who

would think it derogatory to the position which every man

assigns to me, if I investigate what is the best and truest view

of every function in life? The first men in the country, Publius 12

Scaevola and Manius Manilius, debated whether the offspring of

a female slave is part of her hirer’s profit, and Marcus Brutus

disagreed with them (a kind of debate which is subtle and not

6 CICERO [IV § 12—

without advantage to the interests of our burgesses, and I gladly

read and will read these writings, and the rest of the same

class). Well then, are these other questions with which our

whole life is bound up, to be passed by? Indeed, allowing

that the former study is more in vogue, the latter is assuredly

more fruitful; though that is a point which I will leave

readers to decide. For my part, I believe I have in the

present work pretty nearly expounded the whole problem

concerning the standards of good and evil, and in the course of

the work I have, so far as I could, traced out not only my own

views, but also the statements made by each separate school of

philosophy. |

13 V. To begin with the easiest opinions, let the theory of

Epicurus first enter the arena. It is to most people thoroughly

familiar, and you will perceive that I have set it forth with an

exactness which is not commonly surpassed even by the adherents

of the school themselves; for my desire is to find truth and not

to confound as it were some opponent. Now the tenets of

Epicurus concerning pleasure were once carefully advocated by

Lucius Torquatus, a gentleman trained in every department of

learning, and I replied to him, while Gaius Triarius, a par-

ticularly serious and well instructed youth, was present at the

14 debate. Well, both of them having come to me in my villa

at Cumae to pay their respects, we had at first a little con-

versation about literary matters, in which both took the greatest

interest; then Torquatus said, ‘As we have at last found you free,

I shall surely learn what is the reason why you do not exactly

dislike our teacher Epicurus, as do most of those who disagree

with him, but certainly do not approve of him, though I believe

that he alone has seen the truth, and has set free the minds of

men from the most grievous misconceptions, and has taught all

that is essential for the good and happy life; but I judge that

your pleasure in him, like that of our friend Triarius, is diminished

because he cared little for those graces that adorn the style of a

Plato, an Aristotle and a Theophrastus. I can scarcely bring

myself to believe that you deem his opinions to be wanting in

15 truth.” ‘Just see, said I, ‘Torquatus, how great is your mis-

take. Itis not the style of your philosopher which displeases

VI§ 18] DE FINIBUS I. 7

me, for he compasses his meaning by the terms he employs,

and states clearly things such as I understand; and while I

should not feel averse to any philosopher for displaying eloquence,

I should still not demand it very loudly if he did not possess it;

in his subject-matter he fails to content me in the same

measure; and what I say concerns a number of topics. But

there are as many opinions as there are men, so I may be

wrong. ‘How is it, pray,’ said he, ‘that he does not content

you? for I think you an impartial critic, if only you rightly under-

stand his drift.’ ‘Unless, said I, ‘you suppose that I heard false- 16

hoods from Phaedrus or Zeno, both of whom were my teachers,

and in whom certainly the one thing I approved was their

diligence, then all the tenets of Epicurus are quite familiar to

me; and I constantly attended the lectures of the philosophers

I have just named, in company with my friend Atticus, who

on his side felt admiration for both, and for Phaedrus even

affection, and we used to discuss with each other every day

the lessons we heard, nor did the dispute ever turn on my

understanding, but on my approval.’

VI. ‘What is the matter, then?’ said he; ‘for I long to be 17

told what it is that you do not sanction? ‘At the outset,

said I, ‘in natural science, which is his chief boast, he is in the

first place altogether unoriginal. He states the doctrines of

Democritus, with a few changes, but of such a nature that in my

opinion he distorts the theories which he desires to amend.

Democritus holds that through the limitless void, which has

neither highest nor lowest point, nor centre, nor end, nor bound,

the atoms, as he calls them, meaning thereby bodies indivisible

owing to their impenetrability, sweep along in such a manner

that by their collisions they adhere to each other, and produce all

objects which exist and are discernible; and that it is fitting to

regard this movement of the atoms as having no beginning, but

as existent from infinite time. Now Epicurus does not generally 18

stumble where he follows Democritus. Yet there are many points

about both with which I do not sympathise, and particularly

this, that while in the world of phenomena two problems are

set before us, one that of the substance out of which each

object is evolved, and the other that of the power which evolves

8 _ CICERO [VI § 18—

each object, they have discoursed of the substance, and have

passed over the power and the efficient force. But this fault

is common to both ; the peculiar downfall of Epicurus is this: ħe

pronounces that these same indivisible and impenetrable bodies

are carried downward by their own weight in a straight line;

19 this he declares to be the natural movement of all bodies. Then

in a moment it struck this shrewd fellow that if all bodies were

carried along perpendicularly and, as I said, in a straight line, no

one atom could ever touch another; consequently he introduced

an idea purely fictitious; he declared that the atom swerved a

very little, the least bit possible; this swerving produced attach-

ments, combinations and unions of atoms one with another, out

of which was evolved the universe and all the divisions of the

universe and all the things therein. And while this whole

theory is a childish imagination, it does not even prove what he

desires, For not.only is this very ‘swerving a capricious fiction

(since he says the atom swerves without a cause, whereas

nothing is more discreditable to a natural philosopher than to

declare that anything happens without a cause) but further, ©

= for no reason whatever, he robs the atoms of the motion

natural to all heavy substances, which, as he himself laid

down, seek a lower point in a perpendicular line; yet for

all that he did not achieve the end: for which he had fabri-

20 cated these notions. For if all atoms are to swerve, none will

ever adhere to each other, and if some:are to swerve, while others

are to sweep on in a straight line by their own moment, this will,

to begin with, be the same as assigning separate functions, so to

‘say, to the atoms, determining which are to move straight and

which at an angle to the line; next, this same disorderly

collision of the atoms (which is a weak point of Democritus

as well) will never have power to produce this ordered uni-

verse. Nor is it proper in a natural philosopher to believe

in a least possible body, a hypothesis he certainly never would

have formed,if he had chosen to learn mathematics of his friend

Polyaenus rather than to make him actually unlearn what

he knew himself. Democritus believes the sun to be of great

size, as is to be expected from a man of education and an

accomplished mathematician ; this philosopher thinks it a foot.

VII § 23] DE FINIBUS I. 9

broad, perhaps, for he pronounces that its real size is the same

as its apparent size, or, it may be, either just a little larger

or smaller. So he spoils the doctrines he alters, and those he 21

accepts are entirely the property of Democritus, The atoms, the

void, the forms which they call e/SwAa, by whose inroad we not

only see but even think, the boundless substance itself, dzre:pla

as they call it, comes entirely from him; further, the countless

universes which both rise and perish every day. And though these

are matters I by no means accept, still I wish that Democritus,

who has been applauded by all others, had not been reviled by

this man, who followed him beyond all others.

VII. Further, in the second division of philosophy, which 22

comprises dialectical investigation and is entitled Aoyexn, your

philosopher is, it seems to me, utterly defenceless and without

weapons. He does away with the process of definition; he has

nothing to teach about subdivision or partition; he lays down no

method for constructing and shaping an argument; he does not

shew by what means fallacies are to be unriddled or the senses

of ambiguous terms disentangled; he places his criterion of

objective truth in the senses, and thinks that if they once admit

any particle of falsehood for truth, all possibility of a criterion

of truth and falsehood is destroyed. * * * This position is 23

especially strengthened by what nature herself, as he says,

adopts and approves, I mean the distinction between pleasure

and pain. By these tests he decides in every case what

we are to strive after and what we are to shun. However,

though the scheme belongs to Aristippus and is much better and

more frankly advocated by the Cyrenaics, it is in my judgment

of such a character that I believe no system more unworthy

of the human race. Nature has in truth created and shaped

us for certain higher aims, in my view at least.. I may indeed

be wrong; but that is just what I think, nor do I suppose that

the Torquatus, who first won for himself the title, either expected

to reap any bodily enjoyment from his action when he wrenched

the necklet from his foe, or had pleasure in view when he

did battle with the Latins in his third consulship on the banks

of the Veseris. Moreover, as regards the beheading of his son,

he actually, it is clear, robbed himself of many pleasures, by set-

10 CICERO — [VII § 23—

ting the law of treason and of military obedience higher than

24 nature herself and paternal affection. Once more, do you sup-

pose that Titus Torquatus, he who held the consulship along with

Gnaeus Octavius, gave a thought to his own pleasures when he

treated his own son, whom he had given in adoption to Decimus

Silanus, with such sternness that, when an embassy from Mace-

donia charged the son with having taken bribes as praetor in

the province, he ordered his son to state his case before him,

and after hearing evidence on both sides gave judgment that in

his opinion the son in his provincial command had not shewn

himself such a man as his ancestors had been, and so forbade

him to come into his presence. But to say nothing of the

dangers, toils and pain too, which all the best citizens under-

go in defence of their country and their own people, not merely

ceasing to court, but actually passing by every pleasure, and

preferring to incur any pains whatsoever, rather than to prove

traitors to a single call of duty, let us I say pass on to considera-

tions which though they seem of less account, still testify no less

25 emphatically to the same facts. What pleasure do you, Tor-

quatus, or what does our friend Triarius here derive from litera-

ture, from records and the investigation of historical facts,

from conning the poets, from learning by heart so laboriously

so many lines? And do not say to me “Why, these very actions

bring me pleasure, as theirs did to the Torquati.” Never indeed

did Epicurus or Metrodorus or any one possessed of any wisdom

or any knowledge of the tenets of your school ever maintain such

a position by such arguments. And when the question is asked,

as it often is, why Epicureans are so numerous, I answer that

there are no doubt other motives, but the motive which especially

fascinates the crowd is this; they believe their chief to declare that

all upright and honourable actions are in themselves productive

of delight, or rather pleasure. These excellent persons do not

perceive that the whole system is overturned supposing the truth

were really as they imagine. For if we were to admit that such

actions are inherently and absolutely pleasant, even though we

judge nothing by the standard of the body, then virtue and

knowledge would be things absolutely desirable, a conclusion

26 which your leader is far from favouring. Well, these are the

VIII § 28] DE FINIBUS I. 11

points about Epicurus, said I, ‘with which I have no sympathy.

As for the rest, I wish he had either been better equipped

with learning himself (he is surely, as you yourself must needs

believe, imperfectly cultivated in those accomplishments the

possessors of which are styled men of education) or that he

had not frightened away others from learned pursuits; though

I see that he has by no means frightened you, for one.’

VIII. After I had said this, rather from a wish to draw

him out, than to make a speech myself, Triarius said with a

slight smile: ‘You on your side have, I may say, banished

Epicurus entirely from the company of philosophers. What

concession have you made to him but that, whatever his style,

you understand his meaning? In natural science his deliver-

ances are unoriginal and in themselves such as you do not accept.

Whenever he has tried to make improvements in them, they

have turned out to be corruptions. He had no skill in logic.

In declaring pleasure to be the supreme good, he betrayed in

the first place by that very proceeding narrowness of vision;

in the second, he was plagiarist once more, for Aristippus

had maintained the same tenets earlier, and better too. You

added in conclusion that he was uneducated as well? ‘Triarius, 27

said I, ‘one cannot in any way avoid stating what one does not

accept in the system of a philosopher with whom one disagrees,

Pray what would hinder me from becoming an Epicurean if I

accepted the doctrines of Epicurus? And more especially as

to learn them by heart would be mere pastime. So the

adverse criticisms passed on each other by men who disagree are

not to be censured; it is reviling and insult, and again passionate

conflicts and obstinate encounters in debate which always seem

to me unworthy of philosophy.’ Then said Torquatus: ‘I am 28

quite of your opinion ; without adverse criticism there can indeed

be no debate, nor is proper debate compatible with passion or

obstinacy. But, if you do not object, I have a reply I should

like to make to what you have said.’ ‘Do you imagine, I

answered, ‘that I should have said what I did, were I not

anxious to hear you?’ ‘Do you prefer then that we should run

over the whole system of Epicurus, or should confine the inquiry

to the one subject of pleasure, on which the whole dispute

29

30

12 -~ CICERO [VIH § 28—

turns?’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘that must be as you decide? ‘This is

what I will do, then,’ said he; ‘I will expound a single topic,

and that the most important; natural science I shall leave for

another occasion, when certainly I will demonstrate to you not

only our philosopher's doctrine of the swerving of the atoms

and of the sun’s size, but will shew that very many blunders of

Democritus have been criticised and set right by Epicurus; at.

present I shall speak concerning pleasure, though of course I have

nothing new to say; still Iam sure you will yourself yield to my

arguments such as they are.’ ‘You may be sure, said I, ‘that I

shall not be obstinate, and if you convince me of your proposi-

tions I will freely give them my assent.’ ‘I shall demonstrate

them, he replied, ‘if only you exhibit that impartiality which

you promise ; but I would rather deliver an uninterrupted speech

than put or answer questions.’ ‘As you please, said I. Then

he began to speak.

IX. ‘First, then, said he, ‘I shall plead my case on the

lines laid down by the founder of our school himself: I shall

define the essence and features of the. problem before us,

not because I imagine you to be unacquainted with them, but

with a view to the methodical progress of my speech. The

problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of

things good, and this in the opinion of all philosophers must

needs be such that we are bound to test all things by it, but

the standard itself by nothing. Epicurus places this standard

in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good,

while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of

this on the following considerations. Every creature, as soon as

it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its

supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil,

and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and

this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself

prompts unbiassed and unaffected decisions. So he says we need

no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire,

pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just

as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no

one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate argu-

ments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and

X § 32] DE FINIBUS I. 13

there is a difference between proof and formal argument on

the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on

the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things

under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce

upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you

deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it

is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what

is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does

she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any

particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and

pain? There are however some of our own school, who want 31

to state these principles with greater refinement, and who

say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil

to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also

enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter -

for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So

. they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred

conception leading us. to feel that the one thing is fit for us

to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree,

finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to

prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good

nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too

confident about our case, and think that we should lead proof |

and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and

pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

X. But that I may make plain to you the source of all 32

the mistakes made by those who inveigh against pleasure and

eulogise pain, I will unfold the whole system and will set before

you the very language held by that great discoverer of truth

and that master-builder, if I may style him so, of the life of

happiness. Surely no one recoils from or dislikes or avoids

pleasure in itself because it is pleasure, but because great pains

come upon those who do not know how to follow pleasure ration-

ally. Nor again is there any one who loves or pursues or

wishes to win pain on its own account, merely because it is

pain, but rather because circumstances sometimes occur which

compel him to seek some great pleasure at the cost of exertion

and pain. To come down to petty details, who among us ever

14 CICERO © [X§32—

undertakes any toilsome bodily exercise, except in the hope of

gaining some advantage from it? Who again would have any right

to reproach either a man who desires to be surrounded by pleasure

unaccompanied by any annoyance, or another man who shrinks

33 from any pain which is not productive of pleasure? But in truth

we do blame and deem most deserving of righteous hatred the

men who, enervated and depraved by the fascination of momen-

tary pleasures, do not foresee the pains and troubles which are

sure to befall them, because they are blinded by desire, and in

the same error are involved those who prove traitors to their

duties through effeminacy of spirit, I mean because they shun

exertions and trouble. Now it is easy and simple to mark the

difference between these cases. For at our seasons of ease, when

we have untrammelled freedom of choice, and when nothing

debars us from the power of following the course that pleases us

best, then pleasure is wholly a matter for our selection and pain

for our rejection. On certain occasions however either through the

inevitable call of duty or through stress of circumstances, it will

often come to pass that we must put pleasures from us and must

make no protest against annoyance. Soin such cases the principle

of selection adopted by the wise man is that he should either by

‘refusing certain pleasures attain to other and greater pleasures or

34 by enduring pains should ward off pains still more severe. Hold-

ing as I do this theory, what reason should I have for fearing

that I may not be able to bring our Torquati into accord with it?

You à little while ago shewed at once your copious memory

and your friendly and kindly feeling for me by quoting their

examples; yet you neither perverted me by eulogising my

ancestors nor made me less vigorous in my reply. Now I

ask, what interpretation do you put upon the actions of these

men? Do you believe that they attacked the armed foe, or

practised such cruelty towards their own children and their own

flesh and blood, absolutely without giving a thought to their

own interest or their own advantage? Why, even the beasts do

not act so as to produce such a tumult and confusion that we

cannot see the purpose of their movements and attacks; do you

believe that men so exceptional achieved such great exploits from

35 no motive whatever? What the motive was, I shall examine

XIg37] DE FINIBUS I. 15

presently; meanwhile I shall maintain this, that if they per-

formed those actions, which are beyond question noble, from

some motive, their motive was not virtue apart from all else.

He stripped the foe of his necklet. Yes, and he donned it

himself to save his own life. But he faced a grave danger.

Yes, with the whole army looking on. What did he gain by it ?

Applause and affection, which are the strongest guarantees for

passing life in freedom from fear. He punished his son with

death. If purposelessly, I should be sorry to be descended

from one so abominable and so cruel; but if he did it to enforce *

by his self-inflicted pain the law of military command, and

by fear of punishment to control the army in the midst of a

most critical war, then he had in view the preservation of his

fellow-countrymen, which he knew to involve his own. And 36

these principles have a wide application. There is one field in

which the eloquence of your school has been wont especially

to vaunt itself, and your own eloquence in particular, for you

are an eager Investigator of the past, I mean the stories of

illustrious and heroic men and the applause of their actions `

. viewed as looking not to any reward ‘but to the inherent come-

liness of morality. All such arguments are upset when once

the principle of choice which I have just described has been

established, whereby either pleasures are neglected for the pur-

pose of obtaining pleasures still greater, or pains are incurred

for the sake of escaping still greater pains.

XI. But let what has been said on this occasion suffice con- 37

cerning the brilliant and famous actions of illustrious men. We

shall indeed find a fitting opportunity by and by for discoursing

about the tendency of all the virtues towards pleasure. At

present however I shall shew what is the essence and what are

the characteristics of pleasure, so as to remove all confusion

caused by ignorant people, and to make it clear how serious,

how sober, how austere is that school which is esteemed to be

pleasure-seeking, luxurious and effeminate. For the pleasure

which we pursue is not that alone which excites the natural

constitution itself by a kind of sweetness, and of which the sensual

enjoyment is attended by a kind of agreeableness, but we look

upon the greatest pleasure as that which is enjoyed when all

16 CICERO | 7 [XI § 37—

pain is removed. Now inasmuch as whenever we are released

from pain, we rejoice in the mere emancipation and freedom

from all annoyance, and everything whereat we rejoice is equi-

valent to pleasure, just as everything whereat we are troubled

is equivalent to pain, therefore the complete release from pain

is rightly termed pleasure. For just as the mere removal of

annoyance brings with it the realisation of pleasure, whenever

hunger and thirst have been banished by food and drink, so

in every case the banishment of pain ensures its replacement

38 by pleasure. Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there

is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was

thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all

pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure pos-

sible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition

must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain.

Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined

by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards

exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or

89 extension. But actually at Athens, as my father used to tell

me, when he wittily and humorously ridiculed the Stoics, there

is in the Ceramicus a statue of Chrysippus, sitting with his

hand extended, which hand indicates that he was fond of

the following little argument: Does your hand, being in its

present condition, feel the lack af anything at all? Certainly of

‘nothing. But if pleasure were the supreme good, it would feel

a lack. I agree. Pleasure then is not the supreme good. -My

father used to say that even a statue would not talk in that

way, if it had power of speech. The inference is shrewd enough

as against the Cyrenaics, but does not touch Epicurus. For if the

only pleasure were that which, as it were, tickles the senses,

if I may say so, and attended by sweetness overflows them

and insinuates itself into them, neither the hand nor any other

member would be able to rest satisfied with the absence of pain

apart from a joyous activity of pleasure. But if it is the highest

pleasure, as Epicurus believes, to be in no pain, then the first

admission, that the hand in its then existing condition felt no

lack, was properly made to you, Chrysippus, but the second im-

properly, I mean that it would have felt a lack had pleasure been

XII § 42.] DE FINIBUS I. . 17

the supreme good. It would certainly feel no lack, and on this

ground, that anything which is cut off from the state of pain is

in the state of pleasure.

XII. Again, the truth that pleasure is the supreme good 40

can be most easily apprehended from the following consideration.

Let us imagine an individual in the enjoyment of pleasures

great, numerous and constant, both mental and bodily, with

no pain to thwart or threaten them; I ask what circumstances

can we describe as more excellent thai these or more desirable ?

A man whose circumstances are such must needs possess, as

well as other things, a robust mind subject to no fear of death

or pain, because death is apart from sensation, and pain when

lasting is usually slight, when oppressive is of short duration, so

that its temporariness reconciles us to its intensity, and its

slightness to its continuance. When in addition we suppose 41

that such a man is in no awe of the influence of the gods,

and does not allow his past pleasures to slip away, but takes

delight in constantly recalling them, what circumstance is it

possible to add to these, to make his condition better? Imagine

on the other hand a man worn by the greatest mental and bodily

pains which can befall a human being, with no hope before him

that his lot will ever be lighter, and moreover destitute of

pleasure either actual or probable; what more pitiable object

can be mentioned or imagined? But if a life replete with

pains is above all things to be shunned, then assuredly the

supreme evil is life accompanied by pain; and from this view

it is a consistent inference that the climax of things good is

life accompanied by pleasure. Nor indeed can our mind find

any other ground whereon to take its stand as though already

at the goal; and all its fears and sorrows are comprised under

the term pain, nor is there any other thing besides which is

able merely by its own character to cause us vexation or pangs.

In addition to this the germs of desire and aversion and gene- 42

rally of action originate either in pleasure or in pain. This

being so, it is plain that all right and praiseworthy action has

the life of pleasure for its aim. Now inasmuch as the climax

or goal or limit of things good (which the Greeks term réàos) is

that object which is not a means to the attainment of any-

R. C. F. 2

18 ~ CICERO [XII § 42-—

thing else, while all other things are a means to its attainment,

we must allow that the climax of things good is to live agreeably.

XIII. Those who find this good in virtue and virtue only,

and dazzled by the glory of her name, fail to perceive what it is

that nature craves, will be emancipated from heresy of the

deepest dye, if they will deign to lend ear to Epicurus. For

unless your grand and beautiful virtues were productive of

pleasure, who would suppose them to be either meritorious or

desirable? Yes, just as we regard with favour the physician’s

skill not for his art's sake merely but because we prize sound

health, and just as the pilot’s art is praised on utilitarian

and not on artistic grounds, because it supplies the principles of

good navigation, so wisdom, which we must hold to be the art of

living, would be no object of desire, if it were productive of no

advantage; but it is in fact desired, because it is to us as an

43 architect that plans and accomplishes pleasure. (You are now

aware what kind of pleasure I mean, so the odium of the term

must not shake the foundation of my argument.) For seeing

that the life of men is most of all troubled by ignorance

about the goodness and badness of things, and on account of

this blindness men are often robbed of the intensest pleasures

and also are racked by the severest mental pains, we must sum-

mon to our aid wisdom, that she may remove from us all

alarms and passions, and stripping us of our heedless confidence

in all false imaginations, may offer herself as our surest guide

to pleasure. Wisdom indeed is alone able to drive sadness from

our minds, and to prevent us from quaking with fear, and if we

sit at her feet we may live in perfect calm, when once the heat

of every passion has been cooled. Verily the passions are un-

conscionable, and overthrow not merely individual men, but

whole families, and often shake the foundations of the entire

44 commonwealth. From passions spring enmities, divisions, strifes,

rebellions and wars. Nor do the passions only air their pride

abroad; they do not merely attack others than ourselves in

their blind onset; but even when imprisoned within our own

breasts they are at variance and strife one with another; and the

inevitable result of this is life of the bitterest kind, so that the

wise man alone, who has cut back and pruncd away all vanity

XIV § 47.] DE FINIBUS I. 19

and delusion, can live contentedly within the bounds prescribed

by nature, emancipated from all sorrow and from all fear. I 45

ask what classification is either more profitable or more suited

to the life of happiness than that adopted by Epicurus? He

affirmed that there is one class of passions which are both

natural and needful; another class which are natural with-

out being needful; a third class which are neither natural nor

needful; and such are the conditions of these passions that the

needful class are satisfied without much trouble or expenditure ;

nor is it much that the natural passions crave, since nature

herself makes such wealth as will satisfy her both easy of access

and moderate in amount; and it is not possible to discover any

boundary or limit to false passions.

XIV. But if we see that all human life is agitated by con- 46

fusion and ignorance, and that wisdom alone can redeem us

from the violence of our lusts and from the menace of our fears,

and alone can teach us to endure humbly even the outrages of

fortune, and alone can guide us into every path which leads to

peace and calm, why should we hesitate to say that wisdom

is desirable in view of pleasures, and unwisdom to be shunned

on account of annoyances? And on the same principles we 47

shall assert that even temperance is not desirable for its own

sake, but because it brings quiet to our hearts and soothes them

and appeases them by a kind of harmony. Temperance is in

truth the virtue which warns us to follow reason in dealing

with the objects of desire or repugnance. Nor indeed is it

enough to resolve what we are to do or omit, but we should

also abide by our resolve. Most men, however, being unable

to uphold and maintain a determination they have them-

selves made, are overmastered and enervated when the image

of pleasure is thrust before their eyes, and surrender them-

selves to be bound by the chain of their lusts, nor do they

foresee what the issue will be, and so for the sake of some

paltry and needless pleasure, which would be procured by other

means if they chose, and with which they might dispense and

yet not suffer pain, rush sometimes into grievous diseases,

sometimes into ruin, sometimes into disgrace, and often even

become subject to the penalties imposed by the statutes and the

2—2

20 CICERO [XIV § 47—

48 courts. Men however whose aim is so to enjoy their pleasures

that no pains may ensue in consequence of them, and who re- —

tain their own judgment, which prevents them from succumb-

ing to pleasure and doing things which they feel should not be

done, these achieve the greatest amount of pleasure by neglecting

pleasure. Such men actually often suffer pain, fearing that,

if they’ do not, they may incur greater pain. From these

reflections it is easily understood that intemperance on the one

hand is not repugnant in and for itself, and on the other that

temperance is an object of desire, not because it flees from

pleasures, but because it is followed by greater pleasures.

49 XV. Thesame principles will be found to apply to courage ;

for neither the performance of work nor the suffering of pain is

in itself attractive, nor yet endurance, nor diligence, nor watch-

‘ings nor much-praised industry itself, no, nor courage either, but

we devote ourselves to all such things for the purpose of passing

our life in freedom from anxiety and alarm, and of emancipating

both mind and body, so far as we can succeed in doing so, from

annoyance. As in truth, on the one hand, the entire stability

of a peaceful life is shaken by the fear of death, and it is

wretched to succumb to pains and to bear them in an abject

and feeble spirit, and many have through such weakness of mind

brought ruin on their parents, many on their friends and some

on their country, so on the other hand a strong and exalted

spirit is free from all solicitude and torment, as it thinks lightly

of death, which brings those who are subject to it into the same

state they were in before they were born, and such a spirit is so

disciplined to encounter pains that it recalls how the most severe

of them are terminated by death, while the slighter grant

many seasons of rest, and those which lie between these two

classes are under our control, so that if we find them endurable,

we may tolerate them, if otherwise, we may with an unruffled

mind make our exit from life, when we find it disagreeable, as

we would from a theatre. These facts enable us to see that

cowardice and weakness are not blamed, nor courage and

endurance applauded, for what they are in themselves, but that

the former qualities are spurned, because productive of pain,

while the latter are sought, because productive of pleasure.

XVI § 52.] DE FINIBUS I. 21

XVI. Justice still is left to complete our statement concern- 50

ing the whole of virtue, but considerations nearly similar may be

urged. Just as I have proved wisdom, temperance and courage

to be linked with pleasure, so-that they cannot possibly by any

means be sundered or severed from it, so we must deem of

justice, which not only never injures any person, but on the

contrary always produces some benefit, not solely by reason of

its own power and constitution, whereby it calms our minds, but

also by inspiring hope that we shall lack none of the objects

which nature when uncorrupted craves. And as recklessness

and caprice and cowardice always torture the mind and always

bring unrest and tumult, so if wickedness has established itself

in a man’s mind, the mere fact of its presence causes tumult;

if moreover it has carried out any deed, however secretly it may

have acted, yet it will never feel a trust that the action will

always remain concealed. In most cases the acts of wicked

men are at first dogged by suspicion, then by talk and rumour,

then by the prosecutor, then by the judge; many have actually

informed against themselves, as in your own consulship. But 51

if there are any who seem to themselves to be sufficiently barri-

caded and fortified against all privity on the part of their

fellow men, still they tremble before the privity of the gods, and

imagine that the very cares by which their minds are devoured

night and day are imposed upon them, with a view to their

punishment, by the eternal gods. Again, from wicked acts what

new influence can accrue tending to the diminution of annoy-

ances, equal to that which tends to their increase, not only

from consciousness of the actions themselves, but also from legal

penalties and the hatred of the community? And yet some

men exhibit no moderation in money-making, or office, or

military command, or wantonness, or gluttony, or the remaining

passions, which are not lessened but rather intensified by the

trophies of wickedness, so that such persons seem fit to be

repressed rather than to be taught their error. True reason 52

beckons men of properly sound mind to pursue justice, fairness

and honour; nor are acts of injustice advantageous to a man

without eloquence or influence, who cannot easily succeed in

what he attempts, nor maintain his success if he wins it, and -

22 CICERO [XVI § 52—

large resources either of wealth or of talent suit better with

a generous spirit, for those who exhibit this spirit attract to

themselves goodwill and affection, which 1s very well calculated

to ensure a peaceful life; and this is the truer in that men have

53 no reason for sinning. For the passions which proceed from

nature are easily satisfied without committing any wrong; while

we must not succumb to those which are groundless, since

they yearn for nothing worthy of our craving, and more loss is

involved in the mere fact of wrong doing, than profit in the

results which are produced by the wrong doing. So one would

not be right in describing even justice as a thing to be wished

for on its own account, but rather because it brings with it a

very large amount of agreeableness. For to be the object of

esteem and affection is agreeable just because it renders life

safer and more replete with pleasures. Therefore we think

that wickedness should be shunned, not alone on account of the

disadvantages which fall to the lot of the wicked, but much

rather because when it pervades a man’s soul it never permits

54 him to breathe freely or to rest. Butif the encomium passed

even on the virtues themselves, over which the eloquence of all

other philosophers especially runs riot, can find no vent unless

it be referred to pleasure, and pleasure is the only thing which

invites us to the pursuit of itself, and attracts us by reason of

its own nature, then there can be no doubt that of all things

good it is the supreme and ultimate good, and that a life of

happiness means nothing else but a life attended by pleasure.

55 XVII. I will concisely explain what are the corollaries of

these sure and well grounded opinions. People make no mis-

take about the standards of good and evil themselves, that is

about pleasure or pain, but err in these matters through igno-

rance of the means by which these results are to be brought

about. Now we admit that mental pleasures and pains spring

from bodily pleasures and pains; so I allow what you alleged

just now, that any of our school who differ from this opinion

are out of court; and indeed I see there are many such, but

unskilled thinkers. I grant that although mental pleasure

brings us joy and mental pain brings us trouble, yet each

feeling takes its rise in the body and is dependent on the

XVIII § 57.] DE FINIBUS I. 23

body, though it does not follow that the pleasures and pains

of the mind do not greatly surpass those of the body. With

the body indeed we can perceive only what is present to us

at the moment, but with the mind the past and future

also. For granting that we feel just as great pain when our

body is in pain, still mental pain may be very greatly inten-

sified if we imagine some everlasting and unbounded evil

to be menacing us. And we may apply the same argument

to pleasure, so that it is increased by the absence of such fears.

By this time so much at least is plain, that the intensest 56

pleasure or the intensest annoyance felt in the mind exerts

more influence on the happiness or wretchedness of life than

either feeling, when present for an equal space of time in the

body. We refuse to believe, however, that when pleasure is

. removed, grief instantly ensues, excepting when perchance pain

has taken the place of the pleasure; but we think on the con-

trary that we experience joy on the passing away of pains,

even though none of that kind of pleasure which stirs the senses

has taken their place; and from this it may be understood how

great a pleasure it is to be without pain. But as we are elated 57

by the blessings to which we look forward, so we delight in

those which we call to memory. Fools however are tormented

by the recollection of misfortunes; wise men rejoice in keeping

fresh the thankful recollection of their past blessings. Now it

is in the power of our wills to bury our adversity in almost

unbroken forgetfulness, and to agreeably and sweetly remind

ourselves of our prosperity. But when we look with penetra-

tion and concentration of thought upon things that are past,

then, if those things are bad, grief usually ensues, if good, joy.

XVIII. What a noble and open and plain and straight

avenue to a happy life! It being certain that nothing can be

better for man than to be relieved of all pain and annoyance,

and to have full enjoyment of the greatest pleasures both of

mind and of body, do you not see how nothing is neglected

which assists our life more easily to attain that which is its

aim, the supreme good? Epicurus, the man whom you charge

with being an extravagant devotee of pleasures, cries aloud that

no one can live agreeably unless he lives a wise, moral and

24 CICERO [XVIII § 57—

righteous life, and that no one can live a wise, moral and

58 righteous life without living agreeably. It is not possible

for a community to be happy when there is rebellion, nor for

a house when its masters are at strife; much less can a mind

at disaccord and at strife with itself taste any portion of plea-

sure undefiled and unimpeded. Nay more, if the mind is

always beset by desires and designs which are recalcitrant

and irreconcileable, it can never see a moment’s rest or a

59 moment’s peace. But if agreeableness of life is thwarted by the

more serious bodily diseases, how much more must it inevitably

be thwarted by the diseases of the mind! Now the diseases of

the mind are the measureless and false passions for riches, fame,

power and even for the lustful pleasures. To these are added

griefs, troubles, sorrows, which devour the mind and wear it away

with anxiety, because men do not comprehend that no pain should

be felt in the mind, which is unconnected with an immediate or

impending bodily pain. Nor indeed is there among fools any

one who is not sick with some one of these diseases; there is

60 none therefore who is not wretched. There is also death which

always hangs over them like the stone over Tantalus, and

again superstition, which prevents those who are tinged by it

from ever being able to rest. Moreover they have no memories

for their past good fortune, and no enjoyment of their present ;

they only wait for what is to come, and as this cannot but be

uncertain, they are wasted with anguish and alarm; and they

are tortured most of all when they become conscious, all too late,

that their devotion to wealth or military power, or influence, or

fame has been entirely in vain. For they achieve none of the

pleasures which they ardently hoped to obtain and so underwent

61 numerous and severe exertions. Turn again to another class of

men, trivial and pusillanimous, either always in despair about

everything, or ill-willed, spiteful, morose, misanthropic, slanderous,

unnatural; others again are slaves to the frivolities of the lover ;

others are aggressive, others reckless or impudent, while these

same men are uncontrolled and inert, never persevering in their

opinion, and for these reasons there never is in their life any

intermission of annoyance. `. Therefore neither can any fool be

happy, nor any wise man fail to be happy. And we advocate

XIX § 63.] DE FINIBUS I. 25

these views far better and with much greater truth than do the

Stoics, since they declare that nothing good exists excepting

that vague phantom which they call morality, a title imposing

rather than real; and that virtue being founded on this mo-

rality demands no pleasure and is satisfied with her own

resources for the attainment of happiness.

XIX. But these doctrines may be stated in a certain 62

manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually

to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus

represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his

passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds

true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he

has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the

better course. Furnished with these advantages he is con-

tinually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment

at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains.

For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present

is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its

agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits

it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from

those defects ef character which I quoted a little time ago,

-and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels

great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power

enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for

joy than for vexation. It was indeed excellently said by Epi- 63

curus that fortune only in a small degree crosses the wise man’s

path, and that his greatest and most important undertakings

are executed in accordance with his own design and his own

principles, and that no greater pleasure can be reaped from

a life which is without end in time, than is reaped from this

which we know to have its allotted end.

He judged that the logic of your school possesses no efficacy

either for the amelioration of life or for the facilitation of debate.

He laid the greatest stress on natural science. That branch of

knowledge enables us to realise clearly the force of words and

the natural conditions of speech and the theory of consistent

and contradictory expressions; and when we have learned the

constitution of the universe we are~relieved of superstition, are

26 l CICERO [XIX § 63—

emancipated from the dread of death, are not agitated through

ignorance of phenomena, from which ignorance, more than any-

thing else, terrible panics often arise; finally, our characters will

also be improved when we have learned what it is that nature

craves. Then again if we grasp a firm knowledge of pheno-

mena, and uphold that canon, which almost fell from heaven

into human ken, that test to which we are to bring all our

judgments concerning things, we shall never succumb to any

64 man’s eloquence and abandon our opinions. Moreover, un-

less the constitution of the world is thoroughly understood, we

shall by no means be able to justify the verdicts of our `

senses. Further, our mental perceptions all arise from our

sensations; and if these are all to be true, as the system of

Epicurus proves to us, then only will cognition and perception

become possible. Now those who invalidate sensations and say

that perception is altogether impossible, cannot even clear the

way for this very argument of theirs when they have thrust

the senses aside. Moreover, when cognition and knowledge

have been invalidated, every principle concerning the con-

duct of life and the performance of its business becomes in-

validated. So from natural science we borrow courage to

withstand the fear of death, and firmness to face superstitious

dread, and tranquillity of mind, through the removal of ignorance

concerning the mysteries of the world, and self-control, arising

from the elucidation of the nature of the passions and their

different classes, and as I shewed just now, our leader again

has established the canon and criterion of knowledge and

thus has imparted to us a method for marking off falsehood

from truth. |

65 XX. One topic remains, which is of prime importance for

this discussion, that relating to friendship, which you declare

will cease to exist, if pleasure be the supreme good, yet Epi-

curus makes this declaration concerning it, that of all the

aids to happiness procured for us by wisdom, none is greater

than friendship, none more fruitful, none more delightful. Nor

in fact did he sanction this view by his language alone, but

much more by his life and actions and character. And the

greatness of friendship is made evident by the imaginary stories

XX § 68.] DE FINIBUS I. 27

of the ancients, in which, numerous and diversified as they are,

and reaching back to extreme antiquity, scarce three pairs of

friends are mentioned, so that beginning with Theseus you end

with Orestes. But in truth within the limits of a single school,

and that restricted in numbers, what great flocks of friends did

Epicurus secure, and how great was that harmony of affection

wherein they all agreed! And his example is followed by the

Epicureans in our day also. But let us return to our theme;

there is no need to speak of persons. I see then that friendship 66

has been discussed by our school in three ways. Some, denying

that the pleasures which affect our friends are in themselves as

desirable to us as those we desire for ourselves, a view which

certain persons think shakes the foundation of friendship,

still defend their position, and in my opinion easily escape

from their difficulties. For they affirm that friendship, like

the virtues of which we spoke already, cannot be dissociated

from pleasure. Now since isolation and a life without friends

abound in treacheries and alarms, reason herself advises us to

procure friendships, by the acquisition of which the spirit is

strengthened, and cannot then be severed from the hope of

achieving pleasures. And as enmity, spitefulness, scorn, are 67

opposed to pleasures, so friendships are not only the truest

promoters, but are actually efficient causes of pleasures, as

well to a man’s friends as to himself; and friends not only

have the immediate enjoyment of these pleasures but are elate

with hope as regards future and later times. Now because we

can by no means apart from friendship preserve the agreeable-

ness of life strong and unbroken, nor further can we maintain

friendship itself unless we esteem our friends in the same degree

as ourselves; on that account this principle is acted on in friend-

ship, and so friendship is linked with pleasure. Truly we

both rejoice at the joy of our friends as much as at our own joy,

and we are equally pained by their vexations. Therefore the 68

wise man will entertain the same feeling for his friend as

for himself, and the very same efforts which he would un-

dergo to procure his own pleasure, these he will undergo to

procure that of his friend. And all that we said of the virtues

to shew how they always have their root in pleasures, must be

28 CICERO [XX § 68—

said over again about friendship. For it was nobly declared by

Epicurus, almost in these words: It is one and the same feel-

ing which strengthens the mind against the fear of eternal

or lasting evil, and which clearly sees that in this actual span of

life the protection afforded by friendship is the most powerful

69 of all’ There are however certain Epicureans who are somewhat

more nervous in facing the reproaches of your school, but are

still shrewd enough; these are afraid that if we suppose friendship

to be desirable with a view to our own pleasure, friendship may

appear to be altogether maimed, as it were. So they say that

while the earliest meetings and associations and tendencies

towards the establishment of familiarity do arise on account of

pleasure, yet when experience has gradually produced intimacy,

then affection ripens to such a degree that though no interest

be served by the friendship, yet friends are loved in themselves

and for their own sake. Again, if by familiarity we get to

love localities, shrines, cities, the exercise ground, the park,

dogs, horses, and exhibitions either of gymnastics or of combats

with beasts, how much more easily and properly may this come

= 70 about when our familiarity is with human beings? Men are

found to say that there is a certain treaty of alliance which binds

wise men not to esteem their friends less than they do themselves.

Such alliance we not only understand to be possible, but often

see it realised, and it is plain that nothing can be found more

conducive to pleasantness of life than union of this kind. From

all these different views we may conclude that not only are the

principles of friendship left unconstrained, if the supreme good

be made to reside in pleasure, but that without this view it is

entirely impossible to discover a basis for friendship.

71 XXI. Wherefore, if the doctrines I have stated are more

dazzling and luminous than the sun itself, if they are draughts

drawn from nature’s spring, if our whole argument establishes

its credit entirely by an appeal to our senses, that is to say, to

witnesses who are untainted and unblemished, if speechless babes

and even dumb beasts almost cry out that with nature for

our governor and guide there is no good fortune but pleasure,

no adverse fortune but pain, and their verdict upon these

matters is neither perverted nor tainted, are we not bound to

XXI § 72.] DE FINIBUS I. 29

entertain the greatest gratitude for the man who lending his ear

to this voice of nature, as I may call it, grasped it in so strong

and serious a spirit that he guided all thoroughly sober-minded

men into the track of a peaceful, quiet, restful, happy life? And

though you think him ill-educated, the reason is that he held no

education of any worth, but such as promoted the ordered life of

happiness. Was he the man to spend his time in conning poets 72

as I and Triarius do on your advice, when they afford no sub-

stantial benefit, and all the enjoyment they give is childish in

kind, or was he the man to waste himself, like Plato, upon

music, geometry, mathematics and astronomy, which not only

start from false assumptions and so cannot be true, but if they

were true would not aid us one whit towards living a more

agreeable, that is a better life; was he, I ask, the man to pursue

those arts and thrust behind him the art of living, an art of such

moment, so laborious too, and correspondingly rich in fruit?

Epicurus then is not uneducated, but those persons are unin-

structed who think that subjects which it is disgraceful to a boy

not to have learned, are to be learned through life into old

age. When he had thus spoken, he said, ‘I have expounded

my own tenets and just with this purpose, that I might make

acquaintance with your opinion, as this is an opportunity for

doing so to my satisfaction, which has never been offered me till

?

now.

END OF BOOK I.

CICERO [I 8 1—

BOOK II.

l I. AT this point, finding that both were looking towards

me and making signs that they were ready to listen, I began :

‘In the first place I entreat you not to suppose that I am going

to expound to you some thesis after the fashion of a philosopher,

for that is a practice which, even when adopted by the philo-

sophers themselves, I have never much liked. When, I ask,

did Socrates, who may as of right be entitled the father of

philosophy, proceed in any such manner? It was a custom

distinctive of those who in his day were styled sophists; and

Gorgias of Leontini was the first of their number who ventured

in a meeting to demand a theme, I mean to request some one

to propose a subject on which he desired to hear a lecture. A

bold undertaking; I should call it shameless, but that the plan

afterwards became the property of my own school of philosophy.

2 Still, as can be seen from Plato’s writings, we find that the

sophist I just named and the rest too were made ridiculous

by Socrates. He by probing and questioning used to bring out

the ideas of those with whom he conversed, so that he might

criticise their answers if he thought fit. This custom was not

observed by his successors, but Arcesilas revived it, and such

persons as desired to listen to him he taught not to put

questions to him but themselves to declare their thoughts, and

when they had done so, he replied. But his audience main-

tained their own views so far as they could; in the other schools

of philosophy, he who has once proposed a question holds his

peace; as indeed is now usual even in the Academy. For when

he who desires to be instructed has said, Z hold pleasure to be

the supreme good, then the discussion on the opposite side

II § 5.] DE FINIBUS II. 31

consists of a continuous speech, so that it may easily be under-

stood that the men who declare themselves to hold some

view are not personally of that opinion, but desire to hear the

opposite side. We proceed in a more convenient way; Tor- 3

quatus has not only told us what he thinks, but also why he

thinks it. But, though I was exceedingly pleased with the con-

tinuous speech he made, yet I imagine it to be a more con-

venient method, by pausing at each step, and understanding

what concessions each is prepared to make and what he refuses

to make, to draw from the admissions the inferences we desire,

and so arrive at a conclusion. For when a speech sweeps on-

ward like a flood, although it carries along with it many things

of every kind, still you would never seize on or grasp any state-

ment, or restrain at any point the swift course of the speech.

Now in investigations any discourse which is in some

sense methodically and rationally conducted is bound at the

outset to lay down what we find in certain legal forms:

This shall be the point at issue; so that the disputants may

be agreed what the matter in dispute is. II. To this rule,

as laid down by Plato in the Phaedrus, Epicurus gave his

sanction, and declared that this proceeding should be ob-

served in every debate. But the next step he did not see;

for he pronounces against any definition of a subject being

given, though, without such, it is impossible sometimes to

secure an understanding concerning the nature of the point

at issue between those who take part in the discussion; as for

instance in the case of the very matter we are now debating.

Our inquiry touches the ultimate good; can we learn what its

nature is, without agreeing among ourselves, when we use the

phrase ultimate good, what we mean by ultimate and what

also we mean by good itself? But this disclosure of matters 5

which were, so to say, veiled, by which we reveal the essence of

each thing, 1s definition; and you actually adopted it occasionally

unawares; for instance you defined this very ultimate or final or

supreme good to be that standard whereby all right actions are

judged, which is itself judged by no standard anywhere. Excel-

lent, so far. Perhaps if you had had occasion, you would have

defined the good itself as the object of natural desire, or that

p>

32 CICERO [II § 5—

which is beneficial, or that which is pleasing, or that which

strikes the fancy merely. Now too, if you have no objection,

as you do not altogether reject definition, and practise it when

you please, I should like you to define what pleasure is, for

6 our whole inquiry deals with that.’ ‘Pray,’ said he, ‘who is

there that does not know what pleasure is, or requires some

definition to make it plainer?’ ‘I should proclaim myself to

be such a person,’ said I, ‘but that I believe myself to have

a thorough notion of pleasure, and a quite stable idea and

conception of it in my mind. As it is, however, I allege

that Epicurus himself is in the dark about it and uncertain

in his idea of it, and that the very man who often asserts that

the meaning which our terms denote ought to be accurately

represented, sometimes does not see what this term pleasure

indicates, I mean what the thing is which is denoted by the

term.’ |

III. Then he said with a smile, ‘this is truly an excellent

thought, that he who declares pleasure to be supreme among

objects of desire, and the final and ultimate good, knows no-

thing of the essence and attributes of the thing itself!’ ‘Nay,

said I, ‘either Epicurus is ignorant or else all human beings

who are to be found anywhere are ignorant what pleasure is.’

‘How so?’ he said. ‘Because all pronounce that thing to be

pleasure, by the reception of which sense is excited and is

7 pervaded by a certain agreeable feeling.’ ‘Well then,’ said he,

‘is Epicurus unfamiliar with this kind of pleasure?’ ‘Not

always, I replied, ‘for he is now and then too familiar with it,

since he avers that he cannot even understand where any good

exists, or what is its nature, unless such good as is experienced

from food and drink and the gratification of the ears and from

impure pleasures. Is this not in fact what he says?’ ‘As if,

said he, ‘I were ashamed of the words you quote, or unable to

explain in what sense they are used!’ ‘I assure you,’ said I, ‘I

do not question your ability to do that easily, nor have you any

cause to be ashamed of repeating things said by a wise man,

who is the only one, so far as I know, that ever ventured to

announce himself as a wise man. I do not suppose that

Metrodorus announced himself as such, but rather that when

III § 10.] DE FINIBUS II. 33

Epicurus gave him the title, he did not like to thrust from him so

great a favour. The well-known seven again obtained the title

not by their own vote, but by that of all nations. However, I 8

take it for granted at this point that when he holds such language

_Epicurus certainly understands the word pleasure to bear the

same sense that the rest of the world give it. All men in

fact describe by the term jov) in Greek and the term voluptas

in Latin an agreeable excitement by which the sense is cheered.’

‘Then,’ said he, ‘what else should you want?’ ‘I will tell

you, said I, ‘and that rather in the hope of being in-

structed, than from a desire to find fault with you or Epicurus.’

‘I too, he replied, ‘would be better pleased to learn anything

you have to bring forward, than to find fault with you.’ ‘Do

you understand, then, I continued, ‘ what Hieronymus of

Rhodes declares to be the supreme good, by the standard of

which he thinks all things should be judged?’ ‘I understand,’

he answered, ‘that he holds freedom from pain to be the final

good. ‘Well, I asked, ‘what view does this same philosopher

hold of pleasure?’ ‘He asserts, said he, ‘that it is not essen- 9

tially an object of desire.” ‘So he is of opinion that joy is one

thing, absence of pain another.’ ‘Yes,’ was the answer, ‘and he

is grossly mistaken, for, as I proved a little while ago, the limit

to the increase of pleasure consists in the removal of all pain.’

‘I shall examine afterwards, I said, ‘what is the sense of your

expression absence af parn, but that pleasure means one thing,

absence of pain another, you must grant me, unless you prove very

obstinate.’ ‘Oh but,’ said he, ‘you will find me obstinate in this

matter, for no doctrine can be more truly stated.’ ‘Pray,’ said

I, ‘does a man when thirsty find pleasure in drinking?’ ‘Who

could say no to that?’ he answered. ‘The same pleasure that

he feels when the thirst has been quenched?’ ‘No, a pleasure

different in kind. For the quenching of the thirst brings with

it a steady pleasure, whereas the pleasure which accompanies the

process of quenching itself consists in agitation. ‘Why then,’

said I, ‘do you describe two things so different by the same

name ?’ ‘Do you not recollect, he answered, ‘what I said a little 10

while since, that when once all pain has been removed pleasure

admits of varieties but not of increase?’ ‘I do indeed remember,’

R. C. F. 3

34 CICERO [III § 10—

said I, ‘but though your statement is in good Latin, it is far

from clear. For variety is a Latin word, and is in its strict

sense applied to differences of colour, but is metaphorically used

to denote many differences; we speak of a varied poem, varied

speech, varied manners, varied fortune, pleasure too is usually

called varied when it is derived from many unlike objects

which produce pleasures that are unlike. If you intended this

by the term variety, I should understand it, as indeed I do

understand the word when you are not the speaker; I am

far from clear what the variety is of which you speak, when

you say that we experience the highest pleasure as often as we

are without pain, when however we are eating things which

rouse a pleasurable agitation in our senses, then the pleasure

consists in the agitation, which produces a variety in our pleasures,

but that the pleasure felt in absence of pain is not thereby in-

creased; and why you should call that feeling pleasure, I cannot

understand.’

11 IV. ‘Can then,’ my friend said, ‘anything be sweeter than

to feel no pain?’ ‘Nay, I said, ‘be it granted that there is

nothing better, for I am not yet investigating that question;

does it therefore follow that painlessness, so to call it, is identical

with pleasure?’ ‘It is quite identical, and is the greatest

possible, and no pleasure can be greater. ‘Why then, I

answered, ‘when once you have so defined your supreme good as

to make it consist entirely in absence of pain, do you shrink

from embracing, maintaining, and championing this exclusively?

12 I ask what need there is for you to introduce pleasure into

the assembly of the virtues, like some harlot into a company of

matrons? The name of pleasure is odious, disreputable, open

to suspicion. So you are in the habit of telling us this, very

often, that we do not understand what kind of pleasure Epicurus

means. Now whenever I have been told this (and I have

been told it not unfrequently) I have the habit of getting now

and then a little angry, though I usually bear myself with

tolerable calmness in discussion. Do I not understand what

ov) means in Greek and voluptas in Latin? Which, pray,

of the two languages is it that I do not know? Next, how

comes it that I do not know this, though all those are aware

IV § 14] DE FINIBUS II. 35

of it, whoever they be, that have chosen to become Epicureans?

And this is a point argued by your school most admirably, that a

man who is to become a philosopher has no need to be ac-

quainted with literature. Thus just as our ancestors brought

old Cincinnatus from his plough to make him dictator, so you

gather from every village men who are indeed worthies, but surely

not very well educated. They then understand what Epicurus 13

means, and I do not? To let you know that I do understand, I

first declare that by voluptas I mean what he means by 7éovn.

Now though we often search for a Latin word equivalent to a

Greek word and conveying the same sense, in this case there was

no need to search. No word can possibly be discovered which

more exactly represents in Latin the sense of a Greek word

than voluptas. All men everywhere who know Latin denote

by this word two things, delight existing in the mind and a

sweet agreeable agitation in the body. In fact the character

in Trabea’s play describes delight as excessive pleasure in the

mind, just like the character in Caecilius, who gives out

that he is delighted with all delights. But there is this dis-

tinction, that voluptas is applied also to the mind (an immoral

feeling, as the Stoics think, who define it as an irrational eleva-

tion of the mind when it fancies itself in the enjoyment of some

great blessing) while laetitia and gaudium are not used in con-

nexion with the body. But according to the usage of all who 14

speak Latin, pleasure consists in feeling that kind of agreeable-

ness which agitates some one of the senses. This agreeableness too

you may apply metaphorically if you please to the mind; for we

use the phrase to affect agreeably in both cases, and in connexion

with it the word agreeable; if only you understand that midway

between the'man who says Z am enriched with such delight that

I am unsteadied and the man who cries Now at last 1s my heart

on fire, one of whom is transported with delight, while the

other is racked by pain, comes this man’s speech Though this

our acquaintance is quite recent, for he is neither in a state

of delight nor of torture; and also that between him who is

master of exquisite bodily pleasures and him who is tormented

by the intensest pains comes he who is removed from both

states.

3—2

36 CICERO [V § 15—

15 V. Do you think then that I sufficiently grasp the force of

expressions, or am I even at my age to be taught to speak either

Greek or Latin? And, putting that aside, even granting that I

do not clearly comprehend what Epicurus means, though I have,

I believe, a clear knowledge of Greek, look to it that there be

not some fault in him who uses such language that he is not

understood. This happens in two ways without reproof, when it

is done intentionally, as by Heraclitus, who is styled by the

surname oxotewos, because he talked about physical science

an very dark language, or when the darkness of the subject-

matter, not the language, makes the style difficult to under-

stand, as is the case with the Timaeus of Plato. But Epicurus,

I imagine, neither lacks the desire to express himself lucidly

and plainly, if he can, nor deals with dark subjects, as do the

physical writers, nor with technical matters, like the mathema-

ticians, but speaks on a doctrine which is perspicuous and easy

and which has already spread itself abroad. Still you do not

declare that we fail to understand what pleasure is, but what

he says of it, whence it results not that we fail to under-

stand the force of the word in question, but that he speaks after

16 a fashion of his own and gives no heed to ours. If indeed his

statement is identical with that of Hieronymus, who pronounces

that supreme good consists in a life apart from all annoyance, why

does he prefer to talk of pleasure rather than of freedom from

pain, as Hieronymus does, who well understands what he is

describing? And if he thinks he must add to this the pleasure

which depends on agitation (for he thus speaks of this sweet

kind of pleasure, as consisting in agitation, and of the other, felt

by a man free from pain, as consisting in steadiness) why does he

fight? He cannot bring it about that any man who knows him-

self, I mean who has thoroughly examined his own constitution

and his own senses, should think that freedom from pain is one

and the same thing with pleasure. It is as good as doing

violence to the senses, Torquatus, to uproot from our minds

those notions of words which are ingrained in us. Why, who

can fail to see that there are, in the nature of things, these

three states, one when we are in pleasure, another when we are in

pain, the third, the state in which I am now, and I suppose you

VI § 18.] DE FINIBUS II. 37

too, when we are neither in pain nor in pleasure; thus he who is

feasting is in pleasure, while he who is on the rack is in pain.

But do you not see that between these extremes lies a great

crowd of men who feel neither delight nor sorrow?’ ‘Not at 17

all” said he; ‘and I affirm that all who are without pain are in

pleasure and that the fullest possible.’ ‘Therefore he who, not

thirsty himself, mixes mead for another, and he who, being

thirsty, drinks the mead, are in just the same state of pleasure?’

VI. Then he replied: ‘Make an end of questioning if you

please; and I said at the outset that I preferred to have it so,

foreseeing just what has come about, I mean logical quibbles.’

‘Then, said I, ‘would you rather that we debated in rhetorical

than in logical style?’ ‘You speak,’ he answered, ‘as though

continuous speech belonged to rhetoricians only and not to

philosophers also.’ ‘This,’ I replied, ‘is: what Zeno the Stoic

says; that all power of speech has two. divisions (so it seemed

to Aristotle before him); rhetoric he declared to resemble the

open hand, logic the closed fist, because rhetoricians speak in a

more extended, and logicians in a more condensed style. I

will therefore bow to your wish, and will speak in the rhetorical

manner if I can, but using the rhetoric of philosophers, not our

rhetoric of the forum, which must needs be sometimes a little

more obtuse, because it talks to catch the mob. But while

Epicurus disregards logic, Torquatus, which is the sole founda-

tion of all skill both in discovering the essence of every object

and in determining its qualities, and also in conducting dis-

cussion reasonably and methodically, he makes shipwreck, in

my opinion, of his exposition, and uses no art to define the

matters he desires to demonstrate, as in the very instance of

which we were even now talking. You declare pleasure to be the

supreme good. You have therefore to unfold the nature of

pleasure; for otherwise the object of the inquiry cannot be made

clear. And if he had made it clear, he would not be in such

difficulties; he would either defend the kind of pleasure adopted

by Aristippus, to wit, that whereby sense is sweetly and agree-

ably agitated, which even beasts would call pleasure if they had

power to talk, or else, if he decided to speak after a fashion of

his own rather than as all men of Argos and Mycenae, and

38 ~ CICERO [VI § 18—

the Attic youth to boot, and the rest of the Greeks who are

summoned in these anapaestic lines, he would describe this

absence of pain alone by the term pleasure, and would disregard

the pleasure of Aristippus, or again, if he accepted both kinds,

as he does, he would combine freedom from pain with pleasure,

19 and adopt two kinds of ultimate good. Indeed many great

philosophers have thus invented complex views of ultimate good;

for example, Aristotle combined the practice of virtue with the

good fortune of a life complete in itself; Callipho attached

pleasure to morality ; Diodorus added to morality again freedom

from pain. Epicurus would have acted in the same way, if

he had combined the view, which is now the property of

Hieronymus, with the old view of Aristippus. These two philo-

sophers are at variance, therefore each adopts his own view of

the ethical standard; and as both use excellent Greek, neither

Aristippus, who affirms pleasure to be the supreme good, makes

absence of pain a part of pleasure, nor does Hieronymus, who

lays down that the supreme good is absence of pain, ever use

the term pleasure to denote such painlessness, since he does not

reckon pleasure as even having a place among objects of desire.

20 VII. Lest you should suppose that the words only differ,

I say that the things denoted are also two. Freedom from pain

is one thing, possession of pleasure another; you attempt not

merely to compound out of these two things, diverse as they are,

one single term (for I should find that easier to endure) but to

roll the two things into one, which cannot possibly be done.

Your philosopher, who approves both things, was bound formally

to adopt both, as he does in fact, without distinguishing them in

words. For when in numerous passages he eulogises that very

kind of pleasure, which all men call by the same name, he

makes bold to say that he cannot even imagine any form of

good unconnected with that kind of pleasure which Aristippus

approves; and he makes this declaration in passages where

his whole language refers to the supreme good. But in

another book, in which, by putting briefly his most weighty

maxims, he is said to have published the oracles, as it were, of

wisdom, he writes in these terms, which of course are familiar

to you, Torquatus; who indeed of your school has not got by

VIII § 23.] DE FINIBUS II. 39

heart the xvpíaı dd£as, that is, maxims tersely expressed, the

most authoritative, so to speak, because they have the most

important bearing on happiness ?—Well then, consider whether

I translate this maxim properly: If the objects which are 21

productive of pleasures to sybarites, freed them from the fear of

gods, and of death and of pain, and proved to them what are the

proper limits to our passions, we should find nothing to blame,

since these men would be enriched with pleasures on all sides and

would not experience in any direction anything painful or

grievous, which is what we mean by evil” At this point Triarius

could not contain himself. ‘Pray, Torquatus, said he, ‘is this

what Epicurus says?’ For my part, I think that though he

knew it, he still wanted to hear Torquatus admit it. He, how-

ever, did not shrink, but very boldly answered: ‘yes, in those very

words; but you here do not see through his meaning.’ ‘If he

means one thing and utters another, said I, ‘I shall never under-

stand what his meaning is; but whatever he grasps he states

clearly. And if what he states is this, that sybarites are not to

be blamed, if they be wise men, then he states nonsense, just-

as much as if he were to declare that assassins are not to be

blamed if they are not passionate and if they fear neither gods nor

death nor pain. And yet what propriety is there in allowing any

saving clause for sybarites, or in imagining persons, who, though

they live like sybarites, are not blamed by the prince of philoso-

phers on that account at least, while they guard against all else ?

But for all that would you not, Epicurus, blame sybarites for 22

this very reason, because they so live as to aim at pleasures of

every class, and that although the supreme pleasure, as you your-

self say, is to feel no pain? But, even so, we shall find pro-

fligates who, in the first place, are so destitute of superstition

as to dine off the patin, and next are so thoroughly without fear

of death, that they have on their lips the line of the Hymnis—

For me siz months suffice of life, the seventh to death I vow.

Further, they will produce, as though from a medicine chest, the

Epicurean panacea for their pain: If ts hard, tis short; of tis

long, tis light. One thing I do not know, how a man can, if a

sybarite, keep his passions within bounds,

VIII. What propriety then is there in saying: I should 23

40 CICERO [VIII § 23--

find nothing to blame, if they kept their passions within bounds ?

This is as much as to say: I should not blame profligates, if they

were not profligates. Nor, on the same method, the unprincipled

people if they were good men. At this point the stern fellow

declines to think that sybaritism is in itself a thing to blame.

And emphatically, Torquatus, to be candid, he is very right in

declining, if pleasure is the supreme good. I should be sorry to

imagine to myself profligates, as you often do, who are sick at table,

and are carried away from banquets, and though dyspeptic gorge

themselves again next day, who, as the saying has it, have never

caught a glimpse of either the setting or the rising sun, who run

through their inheritance and are beggars. There is not a man

on our side who thinks that profligates of that kind have an

agreeable life. Those who are refined and tasteful, with excellent

cooks and confectioners, with fish, fowl and game, and all such

things of recherché descriptions, who avoid dyspepsia, whose wine

is drawn golden froma full cask, as Lucilius says, which has no

harshness, but the strainer has removed it all—who introduce

sports and their accompaniments, the things in the absence

of which Epicurus (as he noisily tells us) cannot understand

what good means ; let handsome youths stand by, to wait; let

dress, plate, bronzes, the room itself and the building be all in

keeping ;—well then, even such profligates as these I should

24 never declare to live well or happily. From this it results, not

that pleasure is not pleasure, but that pleasure is not the

supreme good. Nor was the great Laelius, who in his youth

had learnt of Diogenes the Stoic, and later of Panaetius, sur-

named the wise, because he did not perceive what thing had the

best flavour (it does not follow that when a man’s heart has

true taste, his palate has none) but because he held such things

in low esteem. Oh sorrel, how art thou despised nor ts thy

worth truly known! ‘Twas oer thee that Laelius, the great sage,

used to utter loud praises, addressing our gourmands one by one.

Finely does Laelius speak, and like a true sage, and this of

his is true: .

Oh Publius, Oh thou glutton Gallonius, a wretched man art

thou, says he. Thou hast never yet dined well in thy life,

though thou hast spent it all upon thy lobsters, and thy monstrous

IX § 27.] DE FINIBUS Il. 4}

sturgeons. This language is used by one who, attaching no

importance to pleasure, does not allow that a man dines well,

who stakes his all on pleasure ; and yet he does not decline to

admit that Gallonius ever dined to his satisfaction (that would

indeed be a falsehood) but merely that he ever dined well.

So seriously and so strictly did he divorce pleasure from good.

From this the inference is drawn that all who dine well, dine to

their satisfaction, while not all who dine to their satisfaction, there-

by dine well. Laelius always dined well. What do we mean by 25

well? Laelius shall say: on food well cooked, well seasoned ; but

tell me the pièce de resistance at the dinner: good conversation ;

what was the result? To our satisfaction, if you want to know

For in coming to dinner he purposed with mind at rest to satisfv

the cravings of nature. Rightly then does he refuse to allow that

Gallonius had ever dined well; rightly call him wretched, and

that though he expended all his thoughts upon the matter; yet

no one declines to admit that he dined to his satisfaction. Why

not well, then? Because well means rightly, honestly, reputa-

bly; he on the contrary dined wrongly, wickedly, flagitiously ;

so not well. It was not that Laelius rated the flavour of sorrel

above that of sturgeon; but flavour was just what he disre-

garded ; though he would never do so, if he made the supreme

good consist in pleasure.

IX. You must then set pleasure aside, not only if you want

to pursue a right course, but if you want it to be seemly for you

to speak the language of honest men. Can we then assert that a 23

thing is for the whole of life the supreme good, though we do not

think we can say it is so even fora dinner? Yet how does our

philosopher talk? There are three kinds of passions, one natural

and necessary, another natural but not necessary, a third neither

natural nor necessary. In the first place his subdivision lacks

neatness; for he has made what were really two classes into

three. This is not to subdivide, but to rend asunder. The men

who have learned the lessons he sets at nought usually proceed

thus: there are two kinds of passions, the natural and the false ;

of the natural there are two, the necessary and the unnecessary.

The process would have been finished off. It is faulty in subdi-

vision to count a species as a genus, But let us if you please 27

42 CICERO [IX § 27—

waive this point. He is indifferent to logical neatness ; his talk

is disorderly ; we must humour him, if only he thinks aright.

To my mind this is exactly what is not very satisfactory (though I

just do put up with it) that a philosopher should talk of limit-

ing the passions. Can passion be limited? It is rather a

thing to abolish and drag out by the roots. Who is there that

cannot, if passion be in him, be rightly called passionate? So

we shall have a miser, but within limits, and an adulterer, but

he will keep within bounds, and a sybarite in the same way.

What sort of philosophy is this, which does not lead to the

extinction of depravity, but is satisfied with moderation in sin ?

Yet in the case of this subdivision, I entirely approve of its

purpose, though I feel the absence of neatness. Let him call

these feelings the cravings of nature; let him keep the term

passion for another use, so that when he comes to speak of

miserliness, self-indulgence, and the greatest sins, he may

28 arraign the term (so to speak) on a capital charge. But he

states these doctrines with greater freedom not unfrequently.

Now I do not blame this; for we must expect a philosopher so

great and so famed boldly to maintain his own dogmas; but owing

to the fact that he seems often to embrace somewhat ardently

that pleasure which all nations denote by the term, he some-

times is involved in great straits, so much so that there is

nothing so disreputable that he does not seem likely to do it for

the sake of pleasure, if only he were secure from the cognisance

of his fellow men. Then blushing (for the force of nature is

very great) he makes his escape in this way, by denying

that any addition can be made to the pleasure felt by one who

is free from pain. But this condition of freedom from pain is

not called pleasure. I am not anxious about terms, says he.

But how if the thing signified is entirely different? J shall

find many persons, or rather persons without number, who are

not so pedantic or so troublesome as you are, and such that I may

easily win them over to any doctrine I choose. Why then do we

hesitate to say, if absence of pain be the highest pleasure, that to

be without pleasure is the intensest pain? Why does not this

hold good, as I put it? Because pain has for its opposite not

pleasure, but the removal of pain.

X § 31.] DE FINIBUS II. 43

X. Now not to see that the greatest proof we have 29

with regard to that form of pleasure apart from which he

declares himself wholly unable to understand the nature of

good (he pursues this pleasure into detail thus, that which we

enjoy through the palate, and through the ears; then he adds

the rest, things not to be named without an apologetic preface)

—very well, this stern and serious philosopher does not see that

the only good within his knowledge is a thing not even to be

desired, because, on the authority of the same thinker, when-

ever we are without pain we do not crave that form of pleasure.

How irreconcileable these statements are! If he had been 30

instructed in the processes of definition and subdivision, did he

only understand the power of speech, or indeed the familiar

usage of words, he would never have strayed into such rough

paths; as it is you see what he does. What no one ever called

pleasure, he calls so; he rolls two things into one. This active

form of pleasure (for thus he describes these sweet and sugared

pleasures, so to call them) he sometimes so refines away, that you

think Manius Curius is the speaker, while he sometimes so extols

it, that he declares himself to be without even an idea of what

good is over and above this. When we get to this kind of

language, it should be put down, not by some philosopher, but

by the censor, for its fault is not a matter of language only but

of morality as well. He finds nothing to blame in sybaritism, if

only it be free from unbounded passion and fear. At this point

I believe he is anxious to get pupils, to the intent that those

who want to be profligates may become philosophers first. The 31

beginning of the supreme good, I believe, is looked for in the

earliest life of living creatures. As soon as the creature is born,

it rejoices in pleasure and yearns for it as being good, and rejects

pain as evil. He says however that creatures which are as yet

uncorrupted give the best judgment about things evil and things

good. You have yourself placed the matter in this light, and the

phrases belong to your school. How many faults are here! By

which kind of pleasure shall a puling babe determine the supreme

good and evil, by the steady pleasure, or the active, since it pleases

heaven that we should learn from Epicurus how to talk? If by the

steady kind, of course the aim of nature is that her safety should

44 CICERO [X § 31—

be secured, and this we grant; if by the active, which after all

is what you say, then no form of pleasure will be disreputable, so

that it should be neglected, while at the same time the creature

you imagine as newly born does not start from the supreme

form of pleasure, which has been defined by you as consisting in

32 the absence of pain. Yet Epicurus did not look to babes or

even to animals, though he thinks them the mirrors of nature,

for any proof to shew that they under the guidance of

nature do desire this kind of pleasure which consists in absence

of pain. Indeed this pleasure cannot stimulate our impulses,

nor has this condition of freedom from pain any force whereby

it may strike upon the mind; so Hieronymus sins in the same

matter; but that condition which charms the sense by the

presence of pleasure does strike upon the mind. So it is this

condition which Epicurus always employs to prove that pleasure

is naturally an object of desire, because it is the pleasure which

consists in activity that attracts to itself: babes and animals

alike, and not the other pleasure of the steady kind, which

comprises only the absence of pain. How then is it consistent

to say that nature starts from one kind of pleasure and then to

lay down another kind as constituting the supreme good ?

33 XI. But I believe animals have no power of judging; since

though they be uncorrupted, yet they may be corrupt. Just as

one stick is bent and twisted intentionally, while another grows

in that way, so the nature of beasts is not indeed corrupted

by bad training, but is corrupt in its own constitution. Nor,

moreover, does nature impel the babe to desire pleasure, but

merely to love himself, and to desire himself to remain sound and

secure. For every creature, from the moment of its birth, loves

itself and all the divisions of itself, and is especially devoted to

the two of these which are of most importance, its mind and body,

and after them the subdivisions of each. For there are certain

characteristics conspicuous both in mind and body, and when

the creature has even slightly recognised these, it begins to

draw distinctions, and to feel drawn towards the endowments

which are primarily assigned to it by nature, and to reject their

34 opposites. Whether pleasure is one of these primary natural

endowments or not is a great problem, but to suppose that they

XII § 36. ] DE FINIBUS IT. 45

comprise nothing but pleasure, putting aside our limbs, our senses,

our intellectual activity, soundness of body, health, is in my

opinion the extreme of ignorance. Yet this is the source from

which must needs flow the whole theory of good and evil. Polemo

and Aristotle before him believed the primary endowments to

be as I stated them just now. Hence there sprang up the view

of the old Academics and Peripatetics, which affirms ultimate

good to consist of a life in harmony with nature, or rather the

enjoyment of the primary endowments assigned by nature, with

the addition of virtue. To virtue Callipho joined nothing but

pleasure; Diodorus nothing but freedom from pain. In the

case of all that I have mentioned, the theories of absolute good

are consistent; Aristippus proposes pleasure unaccompanied,

the Stoics agreement with nature, whereby they mean life after

the law of virtue or rather of morality, which they expound

as a life attended by understanding of the operations which

come to pass in the’order of nature, with choice of such objects

as accord with nature and rejection of their opposites. There 35

are thus three theories of ultimate good which have nothing

to do with morality; one that of Aristippus or of Epicurus, the

second that of Hieronymus, the third that of Carneades; three

in which we find morality combined with some addition; those

of Polemo, Callipho, Diodorus; one view in which morality

stands alone, of which Zeno is author; this view wholly em-

braces seemliness or rather morality ; Pyrrho, Aristo, Erillus have

surely long since dropped out of memory. While the other

philosophers have been consistent with themselves, their ab-

solute good agreeing with their first principles, smce the ab-

solute good is pleasure in the case of Aristippus, freedom from

pain in the case of Hieronymus, in the case of Carneades the

enjoyment of primary natural advantages; (XII) yet Epicurus

after speaking of pleasure as the primary attraction, was bound

to hold the same form of ultimate good with Aristippus, if he

meant the same kind of pleasure ; while if he meant by pleasure

what Hieronymus held, he would have followed the same

course, that of laying down his form of pleasure to be the

primary attraction.

Now as to his statement that pleasure is decided by the 36

46 CICERO [XII § 36—

senses themselves to be good, and pain to be evil, he allows more

authority to the senses than our laws grant to us when we act as

judges in private suits. For we are unable to decide any-

thing, except that which falls within our jurisdiction. In this

matter judges often uselessly add, in giving their decision, the

words if a thing falls within my jurisdiction ; since if the affair

was not within their jurisdiction, the decision is none the more

valid for the omission of the words. On what do the senses

decide? On sweet and bitter, smooth and rough, nearness and

distance, rest and motion, the rectangular form and the cir-

37 cular. Reason then will declare an unbiassed opinion, aided

first by the knowledge of all things human and divine, which

may justly be called wisdom, then by the association of the

virtues, which reason has appointed to be rulers over all things,

you to be the attendants and handmaidens of the pleasures;

truly then the opinion of all these will in the first place de-

clare concerning pleasure that there is no chance for her, I will

not say to occupy alone the throne of the supreme good, but

none even for her to occupy it with morality in the way described.

As to freedom from pain their opinion. will be the same.

38 Carneades too will be turned away, nor will any system con-

cerning the supreme good be accepted which has any connexion

with either pleasure or absence of pain, or is dissociated from

morality. So reason will reserve two schemes for her repeated

deliberations; for she will either on the one hand decide that

there is nothing good which is not moral, and nothing bad

which is not immoral, that all other things are either entirely

without importance, or have just so much that they are neither

objects for our desire nor for our avoidance, but merely for our

choice or our rejection; or she will prefer on the other hand

that scheme which she sees not only furnished to the fullest

extent with morality, but also enriched by those very primary

endowments of nature, and by the perfection of life on all its

sides. And she will be clearer in her judgment, if she under-

stands whether the difference between these schemes is one of

things or of names.

39 XIII. Attaching myself to her opinion I shall now take

the same course. So far as I can I shall narrow the field of the

XIII § 42. | DE FINIBUS II. 47

dispute, and shall assume that all the uncomplex schemes of

the philosophers, in which virtue is not added, are to be entirely

banished from philosophy, first the scheme of Aristippus and all

the Cyrenaics, who were not afraid to make their supreme good

lie in that form of pleasure which excites sense with the greatest

possible sweetness, while they made light of your freedom from

pain. These men did not see that just as the horse is created 40

for speed, the ox for ploughing, the dog for hunting, so man is

created for two purposes, as Aristotle says, thought and action,

being, so to speak a god subject to death, and in opposition to these

views they have made up their minds that this godlike creature,

like some sluggish and lazy beast, came into being to feed and

take pleasure in propagating its kind; though I can imagine no

view sillier than this. Well, this is directed against Aristippus, 41

who accounts that pleasure which all of us alone call pleasure, to

be not only the highest but the only form of pleasure; while

your school holds different doctrine. But he, as I have said,

is in fault; since neither the shape of the human body nor

reason, preeminent among man’s mental endowments, gives any

indication that man came into existence for the sole purpose of

enjoying pleasures. Nor indeed must we listen to Hieronymus,

whose supreme good is the same as that on which your school

sometimes or rather very often insists, absence of pain. For if

pain is an evil it does not follow that to be free from that evil

suffices to produce the life of happiness. Let Ennius rather speak

thus: he has a vast amount of good who has no ill; let us estimate

happiness not by the banishment of evil, but by the acquisition

of good, and let us not seek this in inactivity, whether of a

joyous kind, like that of Aristippus, or marked by absence of

pain, like that of our philosopher, but in action of some sort

and reflection. Now these arguments may be advanced in the 42

same form against the Carneadean view of the supreme good,

though he proposed it not so much with the purpose of securing

approval as with the intention of combating the Stoics, against

whom he waged war; his supreme good is however of such

a nature that when joined to virtue it seems likely to exert

influence and to furnish forth abundantly the life of happiness,

with which subject our whole inquiry is concerned. Those in-

48 CICERO [XIII § 42—

deed who join to virtue either pleasure, the thing of all others

which virtue holds in least esteem, or the absence of pain, which

though it is unassociated with evil, still is not the supreme good,

make an addition which is not very plausible, yet I do not under-

stand why they should carry out the idea in such a niggardly

and narrow manner. For, as though they had to pay for anything

which they join with virtue, they in the first place unite with

her the cheapest articles, next they would rather add things

singly than combme with morality all those objects to which

43 nature had primarily given her sanction. And because these

objects were held worthless by Pyrrho and Aristo, so that they

said there was absolutely no distinction of value between the

best possible health and the most serious illness, people have

quite rightly ceased long ago to argue against these philoso-

phers. For by determining that on virtue alone everything

so entirely depends, that they robbed her of free selection from

among these objects, and allowed her neither starting point nor

foothold, they abolished that very virtue of which they were

enamoured. Erillus again by assigning all importance to know-

ledge, kept in view a single kind of good, but not the best kind

nor one by whose aid life can possibly be steered. So he too

was long ago cast into oblivion, for since the time of Chrysippus

there have certainly been no discussions about him.

XIV. Your school then remains; for the struggle with the

Academics is dubious, since they wake no assertions, and as if

hopeless of sure knowledge, declare themselves to follow what-

44 ever appears probable. With Epicurus the contest is the more

troublesome on these grounds, that he is a compound of two

kinds of pleasure, and that besides himself and his friends,

many chanrpions of his system have arisen since his time, and

somehow or other the multitude, whose credit is insig-

nificant, but whose power is wast, acts on their side. Now

unless we refute this company, we must turn our backs upon all

virtue, al honour, all true merit. So setting aside the systems

of ail the rest, there remains a contest not between me and

Torquatus, but between virtue and pleasure: a contest of which

Chrysippus, a man both shrewd and careful, does not think lightly,

for he considers that the entire decision about the supreme

XIV § 46] DE FINIBUS II. 49

good is involved in the opposition between these things. It is

however my opinion that if I shew there is something moral,

which is essentially desirable by reason of its inherent qualities

and for its own sake, all the doctrines of your school are over-

thrown. So when I have once briefly, as our time requires, de-

termined the nature of this object, I will touch upon all your

statements, Torquatus, unless perchance my recollection fails me.

Well, by what is moral we understand something of such 45

a nature that, even if absolutely deprived of utility, it may

with justice be eulogised for its own qualities, apart from

all rewards or advantages. Now the nature of this object

cannot be so easily understood from the definition I have

adopted (though to a considerable extent it can) as from the

general verdict of all mankind, and the inclinations and actions

of all the best men, who do very many things for the sole

reason that they are seemly, right and moral, though they see

that no profit will follow. Men indeed, while differing in many

other points from brutes, differ especially in this, that they

possess reason as a gift of nature, and a sharp and powerful

intellect, which carries on with the utmost speed many opera-

tions at the same moment, and is, if I may so speak, keen-

scented, for it discerns the causes of phenomena and their

results, and abstracts their common features, gets together

scattered facts, and links the future with the present, and

brings within its ken the entire condition of life in its future

course. And this same reason has given man a yearning for

his fellow men, and an agreement with them based on nature

and language and intercourse, so that starting from affection

for those of his own household and his own kin, he gradually

takes wider range and connects himself by fellowship first with

his countrymen, then with the whole human race, and, as Plato

wrote to Archytas, bears in mind that he was not born for him-

self alone, but for his fatherland and his kindred, so that only

a slight part of his existence remains for himself. And seeing 46

that nature again has implanted in man a passion for gazing

upon the truth, as is seen very clearly when, being free from

anxieties, we long to know even what takes place in the sky;

so led on by these instincts we love all forms of truth, I mean

R.C. F, 4

50 ~ CICERO [XIV § 46

all things trustworthy, candid and consistent, while we hate

things unsound, insincere and deceptive, for instance cheating,

perjury, spite, injustice. Reason again brings with it a rich

and splendid spirit, suited to command rather than obedience,

regarding all that may happen to man as not only endurable,

but even inconsiderable, a certain lofty and exalted spirit, which

47 fears nothing, bows to none, and is ever unconquerable. And

now that we have marked out these three classes of things

moral, there follows a fourth endued with the same loveliness

and dependent on the other three; in this is comprised the

spirit of orderliness and self-control. When the analogies of

this spirit have been recognised in the beauty and grandeur of

= outward shapes, a man advances to the display of moral beauty

in his words and deeds. For in consequence of the three

classes of meritorious qualities which I mentioned before, he

shrinks from reckless conduct, and does not venture to inflict

injury by either a petulant word or action, and dreads to do or

utter anything which seems unworthy of a man.

48 XV. Here you have a picture of morality, Torquatus,

finished and complete on all sides, which is wholly comprised

in these four virtues, concerning which you also talked. Your

friend Epicurus says he is altogether ignorant of the nature

and properties assigned to morality by those who make it the

measure of the supreme good. For if, he says, they judge all

things by the standard of morality and declare that in morality

pleasure has no part, they raise a clamour of empty sound (these

are the very words he uses) without understanding or seeing

what meaning must needs be put on this term morality. For

according to the language of custom, those qualities alone are

called moral which are vaunted by the talk of the people. And

these qualities, he says, although they are often sweeter than

certain of the pleasures, are still desired for the sake of pleasure.

49 Do you not see how extensive is this disagreement? A famous

philosopher, by whom not only Greece and Italy, but even all

foreign nations have been thrown into excitement, declares that

he does not understand what morality means, if it does not lie

in pleasure, unless perhaps it be some qualities extolled by the

babble of the crowd. But I hold such qualities to be often

XVI § 51] | DE FINIBUS TI. 51

actually immoral, and if at any time they be not immoral, they

are then not immoral when the crowd extols what is essentially

in its own nature right and deserves to be extolled; yet it is not

called moral for the reason that it is applauded by many men,

but because it is of such a nature that even if men knew

nothing -about it, or had even been struck with dumbness, it

would deserve to be extolled for its inherent loveliness and

beauty. So again, yielding to nature, which cannot be with-

stood, he makes in another passage the statement which you

also put forward a little while ago, that an agreeable life is

not possible, unless it be also a moral life. What does he now 50

mean by moral? The same that he means by agreeable? So

this is it, that a moral life is not possible, unless it be also a

moral life? Or, unless it accord with the talk of the multitude?

He declares then that without this he cannot live agreeably?

What is more immoral than that the life of a wise man should

depend on the conversation of those who are no wise men?

What is it then that in this passage he understands by moral?

Assuredly nothing but what can with justice be extolled in and

for itself. Since if it be extolled for the pleasure it brings,

what kind of merit is that which can be bought in the meat-

market? Seeing that he assigns such a place to morality as to

declare that without it an agreeable life is impossible, he 1s not

the man to adopt the kind of morality which depends on the

multitude, and to declare that without that an agreeable life

is an impossibility, or to understand anything else to be moral

except what is right in itself and worthy of eulogy for its own

sake, in its own essence, unaided, and by its own constitution.

XVI. So, Torquatus, when you stated how Epicurus cries 51

aloud that an agreeable life is not possible, unless it be a

moral, a wise, and a just life, you yourself seemed to me to be

uttering a vaunt. Such energy was breathed into your words

by the grandeur of those objects which your words represented,

that you seemed to grow taller, and sometimes ceased your walk,

and gazing at us almost deposed as a witness that morality

and justice are sometimes eulogised by Epicurus. How well it

became you to take these words on your lips, for if they were

never uttered by philosophers, we should not care to have any

4—2

52 CICERO [XVI § 51

philosophy at all! It is from a passion for those phrases which

are very seldom employed by Epicurus, wisdom, I mean, courage,

justice, temperance, that men of preeminent ability have de-

52 voted themselves to the pursuit of philosophy. Our eyesight,

says Plato, is the keenest sense we have, yet it does not enable

us to descry wisdom. What passionate affection for herself

would she inspire in us! Why so? Because she is so crafty

that she can build the fabric of the pleasures in the most ex-

cellent manner? Why is justice praised, or whence comes this

saying so hackneyed from of old, a man you may play with in

the dark? This proverb, though pointed at one thing only,

has this very wide application, that in all transactions we should

be influenced by the character of our actions and not by the

53 presence of witnesses. Indeed the arguments you alleged were

insignificant and very weak, I mean, that unprincipled men are

tortured by their own consciousness within them, and also by

the fear of punishment, which they either suffer, or live in dread

of suffering at some time. It is not proper to imagine your bad

man as a coward or a weakling, torturing himself about any-

thing he has done, and frightened at everything, but rather as

one who craftily judges of everything by his interests, being

keen, shrewd and hardened, so that he readily devises means

for cheating without detection, without witnesses, without any

54 accomplice. Do you think I am speaking of Lucius Tubulus ?

He, having presided as praetor over the court for trying mur-

derers, took bribes in view of trials with such openness, that in

the following year Publius Scaevola, the tribune of the commons,

carried a bill in the popular assembly directing an inquiry to

be made into the matter. Under this bill the senate voted

that the inquiry should be conducted by Gnacus Caepio the

consul; Tubulus went into exile at once, and did not venture

to defend himself; the facts were indeed evident.

XVII. We are inquiring then not merely about an unprin-

cipled man but about one who is both crafty and unprincipled, as

Quintus Pompeius shewed himself when he disowned the treaty

with Numantia, one moreover who is not afraid of everything,

but, to begin with, sets at nought the consciousness that is within

him, which it costs him no effort to suppress. The man whom we

XVII § 56] DE FINIBUS II. 53

call secret and deep, so far from informing against himself, will

actually produce the impression that he is grieved by another

person’s unprincipled action; for what does shrewdness mean,

if not this? I recollect acting as adviser to Publius Sextilius 55

Rufus when he laid before his friends this difficulty, that he

was heir to Quintus Fadius Gallus, in whose will there was a

statement that he had requested Rufus to see that the whole

property passed to the daughter. This statement Sextilius said

was untrue, and he might say so without fear, for who was to

refute him? None of us believed him, and it was more pro-

bable that the falsehood lay with the man to whom it brought

advantage than with him who had written that he had made

the very request which it was his duty to make. The man said

further that having sworn to observe the Voconian law he could

not venture, unless his friends thought otherwise, to contravene

it. I was quite young when I assisted at this conference, but

there were many men of high distinction, not one of whom pro-

nounced that any more money should be handed over to Fadia

than might devolve upon her by the Voconian law. Sextilius

kept a very large property, of which he would never have touched

a single penny if he had accepted the tenets of those who set

morality and uprightness above all gains and advantages. Well,

do you suppose that his mind was afterwards troubled or

disturbed? Nothing could be less true; on the contrary he

was enriched by the property and this made him glad. He

placed a high value on money gained not merely without

breach of the laws, but actually by observance of the laws;

and money your school must get in spite of risks, because it is

productive of many and great pleasures. Thus, as the men who 56

lay down that everything upright and moral is desirable for its

own sake must often face dangers in the interests of seemliness

and morality, so your friends, who measure everything by the

standard of pleasure, must face dangers in order to make them-

selves masters of great pleasures. If great wealth or a great

property is at stake, seeing that money purchases very many

pleasures, Epicurus must, if he desires to carry out his own view

of ultimate good, act in the same manner as Scipio, who saw

great fame in store for him, if he succeeded in drawing back

54 CICERO | [XVII § 56

Hannibal into Africa. Therefore how great was the danger

that he faced! In this entire enterprise of his he was guided

by morality and not by pleasure. So your wise man, when

urged on by some great gain, will do battle for money’s sake, if

57 occasion requires. Perhaps it may have been possible for a crime

to remain concealed; he will be delighted; if caught, he will

make light of all punishments, since he will be trained to think

lightly of death and banishment and even pain itself. At least

you and your friends represent pain as intolerable when you set

punishment before the eyes of unprincipled men, but as endura-

ble, when you make out that the wise man has always a pre-

ponderance of good.

XVIII. But suppose that a man who does some unprin-

cipled act is not only crafty, but also all-powerful, as was M.

Crassus (who nevertheless used to rely on his own form of

good) and as at the present time our friend Pompeius is, to

whom we must feel obliged for his upright conduct, since he

might have been as wicked as he pleased, without fear. Again

how many unjust deeds may be committed, which no man is

5g permitted to blame! If a friend of yours on his death-bed asks

you to hand over his property to his daughter, and does not

record the fact anywhere, as Fadius did, nor mention it to

any one, what will you do? You, personally, would hand it

over; possibly Epicurus himself would; so Sextus Peducaeus,

the son of Sextus, who has left behind him a son, our friend, in

whom are mirrored his culture and his integrity; he being not

only a scholar, but the best and most just of men, though

no one knew that such a request had been made to him by

Gaius Plotius, a Roman knight of distinction belonging to

Nursia, yet did actually come to the lady, and explained to

her the husband’s commission, when she had no suspicion of it,

and then handed over to her the property. But, as you as-

suredly would have acted in the same way, I put the question

to you whether you do not see how the power of nature is

exalted by the fact that you, who determine all your actions

by your own convenience and your own pleasure, as you your-

selves declare, do in spite of that so act as to make it plain

that you are guided not by pleasure but by duty, and that

XIX § 61] DE FINIBUS II. 55-

natural uprightness has more influence with you than your

perverted philosophy? If, says Carneades, you know that a 59

snake is concealed somewhere and that some one, by whose

death you will gain, is intending to sit down on it unawares,

you will do a rascally action, if you do not warn him not to sit

down. But still, you would not be punished, for who could

prove that you knew? But I am too diffuse, since it is clear

that unless equity, faith and justice spring from nature, and if

all these virtues be estimated by interest, a good man cannot

anywhere be discovered, and enough has been said about this

matter by Laelius in my volume about the commonwealth.

XIX. Apply the same remarks to self-restraint or tem- 60

perance, by which I mean a government of the desires which

pays allegiance to reason. Well then, supposing a man to

yield to vice, in the absence of witnesses, would he shew suff-

cient regard for modesty, or is there something which is

in itself abominable, though attended by no disgrace? What?

Do brave men go to battle and pour out their blood for their

country, because they have gone through the arithmetic of

pleasures, or because they are carried away by a certain en-

thusiasm and tide of feeling? Pray do you think, Torquatus,

that old Imperiosus, if he were listening to our talk, would find

greater pleasure in giving ear to your speech about himself, or

to mine, in which I stated that he had done nothing from

regard for himself, but everything in the interest of the com-

monwealth; while on the contrary you said he had done

nothing but what he did out of regard to himself? If more-

over you had further chosen to make the matter clear, and to

state your view more plainly, that he acted entirely with an eye

to pleasure, how do you think he would have endured it?

Be it so; suppose, if you like, that Torquatus acted for the 61

sake of his own interests (I would rather use this word than

pleasures, particularly in relation to so great a man); did his

colleague Publius Decius, who was the first of his family to

achieve the consulship, think anything of his own pleasures,

when he had offered himself up, and was rushing into the

midst of the Latin line, with his horse at full gallop? Where

did he expect to catch his pleasure or when, knowing that he

56 CICERO [XIX § 61

must instantly die, and seeking his death with more burning

zeal than Epicurus thinks should be given to the search for

pleasure? And if this exploit of his had not been justly ap-

plauded, never would his son have emulated it in his fourth

consulship, nor would this man’s son again have died on the

field of battle, while conducting as consul the war with Pyrrhus,

thus offering himself for his country as a third sacrifice from

62 the same family in unbroken succession. I refrain from further

instances. The Greeks have few in this class, Leonidas, Epami-

nondas, some three or four others ; if I begin to gather up our

own examples, I shall indeed compel pleasure to surrender her-

self to virtue as her prisoner, but the day will not be long

enough for me, and just as Aulus Varius, who was looked

upon as a rather severe judge, used to say to his assessor,

when witnesses had been examined, and still others were being

summoned: Ether we have got enough witnesses or I do not

know what is enough, so I think I have supplied enough wit-

nesses. Why, was it pleasure that led you yourself, a most

worthy representative of your ancestors, while quite young, to

rob Publius Sulla of the consulship? And when you had con-

ferred this office on that staunchest of gentlemen, your father,

what a noble consul he was, and what a noble citizen after his

consulship, as always! And it was by his advice that I myself

carried out a policy which had regard to the general interest

rather than my own.

63 But how excellently you seemed to me to speak, when you

set before us on the one side a man crowned with most nume-

rous and most intense pleasures, free from all pain, either actual

or impending, and on the other side one racked with most

grievous torments over his whole frame, with no pleasure, either

attendant or prospective, and then asked who could be more

wretched than the latter man or more happy than the former,

and thence inferred that pain is the paramount evil, and pleasure

the paramount good! XX. There was a man of Lanuvium,

Lucius Thorius Balbus, whom you cannot remember; he lived

in such fashion that no pleasure could be discovered, however

rare, in which he did not revel. Not only was he a zealot for

pleasures, but he possessed ability and resource in this line of

XX § 66] DE FINIBUS II. 57

life ; and he was so devoid of superstition, that he cared nothing

for those sacrifices and shrines which are so very numerous in

his native place, and so free from fear in face of death, that he

died for his country on the field of battle. The bounds to his

passions were prescribed not by the classification of Epicurus,

but by his own sense of repletion. Yet he took care of his

health, he availed himself of such exercise as might send him

thirsty and hungry to dinner, and of such food as was at once

pleasantest and easiest to digest, and of wine sufficient to give

pleasure without doing harm. He gave heed to those other

matters in the absence of which Epicurus says he fails to under-

stand what goad means. All pain kept aloof; but if it had

come, he would have endured it without weakness, though he

would have resorted to physicians rather than philosophers. He

had an admirable complexion, perfect health, extreme popularity,

his life in fact was replete with all the divers forms of pleasure.

This is the man you pronounce happy; at least your system

compels you to it; but I have hardly the courage to say who

it is that I prefer to him; virtue herself shall speak for me, and

shall without hesitation prefer to your man of happiness her

Marcus Regulus; and virtue proclaims that when he had re-

turned from his own country to Carthage of his own choice

and under no compulsion but that of his honour, which he

had pledged to the enemy, he was happier in the very hour

at which he was tortured by want of sleep and hunger,

than Thorius when drinking on his bed of roses. He had

conducted important wars, had been twice elected consul, had

enjoyed a triumph, though he did not regard his previous

exploits as so important or so splendid as his last sacrifice,

which he had taken upon him from motives of honour and

consistency: a sacrifice that seems pitiable to us when we

hear of it, but was pleasurable to him while he endured it.

In truth, happy men are not always in a state of cheerfulness

or boisterousness, or mirth, or jesting, which things accompany

light characters, but oftentimes even in stern mood are made

happy by their staunchness and endurance. When Lucretia was 66

violated by the king’s son, she called her fellow-countrymen to

witness and cut short her life by her own hand. The indig-

58 CICERO [XX § 66

nation felt at this by the Roman people, with Brutus for their

leader and adviser, gave freedom to the community, and in

remembrance of the lady both her husband and her father were

elected consuls in the first year. Lucius Verginius, a poor man

and sprung from the people, in the sixtieth year after free-

dom had been won, slew his maiden daughter with his own

hand rather than let her be sacrificed to the lust of Appius

Claudius, who then held supreme authority.

67 XXI. You must either blame these examples, Torquatus,

or must abandon your advocacy of pleasure. But what kind of

advocacy is this, or what sort of case can you make out for

pleasure, which will never be able to call witnesses either to fact

or to character from among men of distinction? While we are

wont to summon as our witnesses from the records of the past

men whose whole life was spent in noble exertion, who would

never be able to listen to the name of pleasure, on the other

hand in your debates history is silent. I have never heard

that in any discussion carried on by Epicurus the names of

Lycurgus, Solon, Miltiades, Themistocles, Epaminondas were

mentioned, men who are ever on the lips of all the other

philosophers. Now however, seeing that we Romans also have

begun to handle these subjects, what fine and great men will

68 Atticus produce for us from his stores! Is it not better to

say something of these men than to talk through such ponder-

ous tomes about Themista? Let us allow such things to be

characteristic of Greeks; though it is from them that we derive

philosophy and all liberal arts; but still there are things which

are not permitted to us, though permitted to them. |

The Stoics are at war with the Peripatetics. The one

school declares that there is nothing good but what is moral;

the other that it assigns the highest, aye, infinitely the highest

value to morality, but that nevertheless there are some good

things connected with our bodies and also some external to

us. What a moral debate, what a noble disagreement! In

truth, the whole struggle concerns the prestige of virtue. But

whenever you discuss with your fellow disciples, you must listen

to much that concerns the impure pleasures, of which Epicurus

69 very often speaks. Believe me, then, Torquatus, you cannot

XXII § 71] DE FINIBUS II. 59

maintain your doctrines, if you once gain a clear view of your

own nature and your own thoughts and inclinations; you will

blush, I say, for that picture which Cleanthes used to paint, cer-

tainly very neatly, in his conversation. He bade his audience

imagine to themselves pleasure painted in a picture as sitting

on a throne, with most lovely raiment and queenly apparel;

the virtues near her as her handmaidens, with no other employ-

ment, and no thought of other duty, than to wait upon pleasure,

and merely to whisper in her ear (if only painting could convey

such meaning) to guard against doing anything heedlessly,

which might wound men’s feelings, or anything from which

some pain might spring. We virtues, indeed, were born to be

your thralls; we have no other function.

XXII. Oh, but Epicurus says (this indeed is your aironi 70

point) that no one can live agreeably who does not live morally.

As though I gave any heed to what he affirms or denies! The

question I ask is, what statement is consistent for a man to make,

who builds his highest good upon pleasure. What do you allege

to shew that Thorius, that Hirrius, that Postumius, and the master

of all these men, Orata, did not live very agreeable lives? He

himself, as I mentioned already, asserts that the life of sybarites

is not worthy of blame, unless they are utterly foolish, that is,

unless they are subject to passion and fear. And when he

proffers a remedy for both these conditions, he proffers im-

munity to sybaritism. For if these two conditions are removed,

he says that he finds nothing to blame in the life of profligates.

You cannot therefore, while guiding all actions by pleasure, 71

either defend or maintain virtue. For a man who refrains from

injustice only to avoid evil must not be considered a good and

just man; you know of course the saying, no one ts righteous,

whose righteousness...; well, never suppose that any saying is

truer. He is not indeed a just man, so long as his fear lasts, and

assuredly he will not be so if he ceases to fear; while he will

cease to fear if he is able either to conceal or by the aid of great

resources to secure anything he has done, and will undoubtedly

choose to be regarded as a good man, though not really so,

rather than to be good, without being considered good. So

you most disgracefully enjoin and press upon us in a kind of

60 CICERO (XXII § 71

way a pretence of justice in the place of the true and indubit-

able justice; you wish us to disregard the firm ground of inner

consciousness and to catch at the wandering fancies of other

72 men. And the same statements may be made about the rest

of the virtues, whose foundations, in every case, you pitch upon

pleasure, as you might upon water. Well, can we call the same

old Torquatus a brave man? You see I take delight, although

I cannot pervert you, as you call it, I take delight, I repeat,

both in your family and your name, and I declare that before

my eyes there rises a vision of that most excellent man and

very true friend of mine, Aulus Torquatus, whose great and

conspicuous zeal for me at that crisis which is familiar to every

one, must be well known to both of you; though I myself,

while anxious to be and to be considered thankful, should not

think such services deserving of gratitude, were it not plain to

me that he was my friend for my sake and not for his own;

unless by his own sake you hint at the fact that to do what is

right brings advantage to all. If you mean this, I have won

the victory; for what I desire and am struggling for is that

73 duty should be duty’s own reward. That philosopher of yours

will not have it so, but requires pleasure from everything as a

kind of fee. But I return to our old. Torquatus; if it was for

the sake of pleasure that he fought his combat with the Gaul

on the banks of the Anio, when challenged, and if from the

spoils of the foe he invested himself at once with the necklet and

the title from any other motive than the feeling that such ex-

ploits beseem a man, then I do not regard him as brave. Fur-

ther, if honour, if loyalty, if chastity, if in a word temperance,—

if all these are to be governed by dread of retribution or of dis-

grace, and are not to sustain themselves by their own inherent

purity, what kind of adultery, or impurity, or passion will not

take its heedless and headlong course, if either concealment is

promised to it, or freedom from punishment, or immunity ?

74 Why, Torquatus, what a state of things does this seem, that you

with your name, abilities and distinctions, cannot venture to

confess before a public meeting your actions, your thoughts,

your aims, your objects, or what that thing is from love of

which you desire to carry ‘your undertakings to completion, in

XXIII § 76] DE FINIBUS II. 61

fine what it is that you judge to be the best thing in life ?

What would you be willing to take, on condition that when

once you have entered on your office and risen before the as-

sembly (you know you must announce what rules you intend to

follow in your administration of the law, and perhaps too, if you

think it good to do so, you will say something about your own

ancestry and yourself, after the custom of our forefathers) —well

then, what would you take to declare that during your term of

office you will do everything with a view to pleasure, and that

you have never done anything during life except with a view to

pleasure? You say, do you suppose me to be such a madman

as to speak before ignorant men in that fashion? But make the

same statements in court, or, if you are afraid of the crowd, make

them in the senate. You will never do it. Why not, unless it

be that such speech is disgraceful? Do you suppose then that

I and Triarius are fit persons to listen to your disgraceful talk ?

XXIII. But let us grant this: the very name pleasure has 75

no prestige, and we perhaps do not understand it; for you

philosophers say over and over again, that we do not under-

stand what kind of pleasure you mean. Surely it is a hard

and abstruse subject! When you speak of atoms and spaces

between universes, which do not and cannot exist, then we

understand ; and can we not understand pleasure, which every

sparrow knows so well? What if I bring you to admit that I

not only know what pleasure is (it is indeed an agreeable activity

affecting the sense) but what you intend it to be? At one time

you intend it to mean exactly what I just now indicated, and

imply by the name that it is something active, and produces a

certain variation ; at another time you speak of a certain other

supreme pleasure, which is incapable of increase ; this you say

is present when all pain is absent; this you call stable pleasure.

Let us grant that this is pleasure. State before any public 76

meeting you like that you do everything with a view to avoid-

ing pain. If you think that even this statement cannot be

made with proper honour and dignity, say that both during

your term of office and your whole life you intend always to

act with an eye to your interest, doing nothing but what is

profitable, nothing in fine except for your own private sake;

62 CICERO [XXIII § 76

what kind of uproar do you think there will be, or what hope

will you have of the consulship, which is now very well assured to

you? Do you mean then to followa system such that you adopt

it when alone and in the company of your friends but do not

venture to proclaim it or make it public? But in reality when

you attend the courts or the senate you have always on your

lips the language of the Peripatetics and the Stoics. Duty and

equity, honour and loyalty, uprightness and morality, every-

thing worthy of the empire and the Roman people, all kind of

dangers to be faced for the commonwealth, death due to our

country,—when you talk in this strain, we simpletons are over-

77 come, but you I suppose laugh in your sleeve. Verily among

these phrases, splendid and noble as they are, no place is found

for pleasure, not merely for that pleasure which you philosophers

say lies in activity, which all men in town and country, all I

say, who speak Latin, call pleasure, but even for this stable

pleasure, which no one but you entitles pleasure.

XXIV. Consider then whether you ought not to avoid

adopting our language, along with opinions of your own. If

you were to disguise your features or your gait in order to

make yourself appear more dignified, you would be unlike

yourself; are you the man to disguise your language, and say

what you do not think? Or to keep one opinion for your home,

as you might a suit of clothes, and another for the streets, so

that you bear on your brow a mere pretence, while the truth

is concealed within? Consider, I pray you, whether this is

honest. I believe that those tenets are true which are moral,

praiseworthy and noble, which are to be proclaimed in the

senate, before the people, and in every public meeting and

assembly, for fear that men should feel no shame in thinking

what they feel shame in stating.

78 What room can there be for friendship, or who can be a

friend to any one whom he does not love for that friend’s

sake? What does loving, from which the word friendship

comes, mean, unless that a man desires some one to be en-

dowed with the greatest possible blessings, even though no

benefit accrues to himself from them? It is advantageous to

me, says he, to entertain such feelings, Say rather, perhaps,

XXV § 80] DE FINIBUS II. 63

to be thought to entertain them. For you cannot entertain

them, unless you really mean to do so; and how can you do

so, unless love itself takes possession of you? And love is

not usually brought about by calculating the balance of ad-

vantage, but is self-created, and springs into existence unso-

licited. Oh, but it is advantage that I look to. Then friendship

will last just so long as advantage attends it, and if advantage

establishes friendship, it will also remove it. But what will 79

you do, pray, if, as oftens happens, friendship is deserted by

advantage? Will you abandon it? What sort of friendship

is that? Will you cleave to it? How is that consistent ?

You see what principles you have laid down about friendship

being desirable with a view to advantage. I am afraid of

incurring unpopularity, if I cease to support my friend. First

I ask why such a proceeding deserves to be unpopular, unless

because it is disgraceful? But if you refrain from abandon-

ing your friend, from the fear that you may meet with some

inconvenience, still you will wish him to die, that you may

not be tied to him without any profit. What if he not merely

brings you no advantage but you have to make sacrifices of

your property, to undergo exertions, to face the risk of your

life? Will you not even then glance at yourself and reflect

that every man is born to pursue his own interests and his own

pleasures? Will you give yourself up to a despot, to suffer

death as surety for your friend, even as the Pythagorean of old

submitted to the Sicilian despot, or while you are really Pylades,

will you assert yourself to be Orestes, from the wish to die in

your friend’s stead, or if you were really Orestes, would you try

to disprove Pylades’ story, and disclose yourself, and failing to

convince, would you refuse to petition against the execution

of you both at once?

XXV. You, Torquatus, would do all this; for there is, I 80

think, no action meriting the highest approbation, which I

believe you likely to omit through fear either of death or of

pain. But the question is not what consists with your disposi-

tion, but what consists with your philosophy. The principles

which you maintain, the maxims which you have been taught

and accept are utterly subversive of friendship, even though

64 CICERO [XXV § 80

Epicurus should laud it to the skies, as indeed he does. Qh,

but he himself cultivated friendships. Pray, who denies that he

was not only a good man, but a kindly and a gentle man? In

these discussions the point at issue concerns his ability, and not

his character. Let us leave such aberrations to the lightminded

Greeks, who persecute with their abuse those with whom they

disagree about the truth. But whatever his kindliness in sup-

porting his friends, yet if what you say of him is true (for I make

no confident statements) he was deficient in penetration. But

81 he won the assent of many. Perhaps deservedly too, but the

evidence of the crowd is not of the highest importance; since

in every art or pursuit, or in any kind of knowledge whatever,

the highest excellence is always very scarce. And to my mind,

the fact that Epicurus was himself a good man and that many

Epicureans have been and many are to-day true in their friend-

ships and strong and serious in the conduct of their whole life,

not governing their plans by pleasure but by duty,—this fact

makes the power of morality seem greater and that of pleasure

less. Some men indeed so live that their language is refuted

by their life. And while the rest of men are supposed to be

better in their words than in their deeds, these men’s deeds seem

to me better than their words.

82 XXVI. But this, I allow, is nothing to the purpose; let us

look into your assertions about friendship. One of these I thought

I recognised as a saying of Epicurus himself, that friendship

cannot be divorced from pleasure, and deserves to be cultivated

on that account, because our lives cannot be secure or free from

apprehension without it, and so cannot be agreeable either. To

such arguments I have made a sufficient answer. You have

quoted another and more cultured maxim of the modern school, to

which he himself never gave utterance, so far as I know, namely

that the friend is desired with a view to advantage in the first

instance, but that when familiarity has been established, then

he is loved for his own sake, even if the expectation of pleasure

be disregarded. Although this utterance may be criticised in

many ways, I still welcome the concession they make; since it

is enough for my purposes, though not for theirs. For they say

that right action is sumetimes possible without hope of or seek-

XXVI § 85] DE FINIBUS IT. 65

ing after pleasure. Others also, as you insisted, maintain that 83

wise men enter into a sort of league with each other, binding

them to entertain for their friends the very same feelings that

they entertain for themselves; that such a league is not only

possible but has often been made, and is of. especial importance

for the attainment of pleasures. If they have found it possible

to establish this league, let them also establish another, namely

to feel regard for equity, temperance, and all the virtues from

pure love of them apart from interest. Or if we mean to:

cultivate: friendships with ‘an eye to gains and benefits and

advantages, if there is to be no feeling of affection which

renders friendship inherently from its own nature and its own

power, through and for itself desirable, can there really be any:

doubt that we shall prefer our estates and our house-rents to

our friends? At this point you may quote once more what 84

Epicurus said in most excellent language on the merits of

friendship. Iam not inquiring what he says, but what it 1s open

to him to say consistently with his own system and doctrines.

Friendship has ever been sought for the sake of advantage. Do

you imagine then that Triarius here can bring you more advan-

tage than the granaries at Puteoli would if they belonged to

you? Bring together all the points common in your school: the

protection friends afford. Enough protection is already afforded

you by yourself, by the laws, by ordinary friendships; already

it will not be possible to treat you with neglect, while you will

find it easy to escape from unpopularity and dislike; since it

is with reference to such things that Epicurus lays down his

maxims. And, apart from this, with such revenues at your

command for the display of generosity, you will defend and

fortify yourself excellently by means of the goodwill of many,

without this friendship of the Pyladean order. But for a friend 85

to share jest and earnest, as the saying is, your secrets, all your

hidden thoughts? You may best of all keep them to yourself,

next you may share them with a friend of the ordinary stamp.

But allowing all these privileges to be farfrom odious, what are

they compared with the advantages of such great wealth? You

see then that if you gauge friendship by disinterested. affection

there is nothing more excellent, but if by profit, that the closest

R. C. F. l 5

66 CICERO [XXVI § 85—

intimacies are less valuable than the returns from productive

property. You ought to love me myself, and not my possessions,

if we are to be true friends.

XXVII. But we dwell too long upon very simple matters.

When we have once concluded and demonstrated that if every-

thing is judged by the standard of pleasure, no room is left for

either virtues or friendships, there is nothing besides on which-

we need greatly insist. And yet, lest it should be thought that

any passage is left without reply, I will now also say a few words

86 in answer to the remainder of your speech. Well then, whereas

the whole importance of philosophy lies in its bearing on happi-

ness, and it is from a desire for happiness alone that men have

devoted themselves to this pursuit, and whereas some place

happiness in one thing, some in another, while you place it in

pleasure, and similarly on the other side all wretchedness you

place in pain, let us first examine the nature of happiness as

you conceive it. Now you will grant me this, I suppose, that

happiness, if only it exists at all, ought to lie entirely within the

wise man’s own control. For if the life of happiness may cease to

be so, then it cannot be really happy. Who indeed has any

faith that a thing which is perishable and fleeting will in his own

case always continue solid and strong? But he who feels no

confidence in the permanence of the blessings he possesses, must

needs apprehend that he will some time or other be wretched, if

he loses them. Now no one can be happy while in alarm about

87 his most important possessions; no one then can possibly be

happy. For happiness is usually spoken of not with reference

to some period of time, but to permanence, nor do we talk of

the life of happiness at all, unless that life be rounded off and

complete, nor can a man be happy at one time, and wretched

at another; since any man who judges that he can become

wretched will never be happy. For when happiness has been

once entered on, it is as durable as wisdom herself, who is the

creator of the life of happiness, nor does it await the last days

of life, as Herodotus writes that Solon enjoined upon Croesus.

But I shall be reminded (as you said yourself) that Epicurus

will not admit that continuance of time contributes anything to

happiness, or that less pleasure is realised in a short period of time

XXVIII § 90} DE FINIBUS II. 67

than if the pleasure were eternal. These statements are most 88

inconsistent ; for while he places his supreme good in pleasure,

he refuses to allow that pleasure can reach a greater height in a

life of boundless extent, than in one limited and moderate in

length. He who places good entirely in virtue can say that

happiness is consummated by the consummation of virtue,

since he denies that time brings additions to his supreme

good; but when a man supposes that happiness is caused by

pleasure, how are his doctrines to be reconciled, if he means

to affirm that pleasure is not heightened by duration? In that

case, neither is pain. Or, though all the most enduring pains are

also the most wretched, does length of time not render pleasure

more enviable? What reason then has Epicurus for calling a

god, as he does, both happy and eternal? If you take away

his eternity, Jupiter will be not a whit happier than Epicurus,

since both of them are in the enjoyment of the supreme good,

which is pleasure. Oh, but our philosopher is subject to pain as

well. Yes, but he sets it at nought; for he says that, if he

were being roasted, he would call out how sweet this is! In 89

what respect then is he inferior to the god, if not in respect of

eternity? And what good does eternity bring but the highest

form of pleasure, and that prolonged for ever? What boots it

then to use high sounding language unless your language be

consistent ? On bodily pleasure (I will add mental, if you like,

on the understanding that it also springs, as you believe, from the

body) depends the life of happiness. Well, who can guarantee

the wise man that this pleasure will be permanent? For the

circumstances that give rise to pleasures are not within the

control of the wise man, since your happiness is not dependent

on wisdom herself, but on the objects which wisdom procures

with a view to pleasure. Now all such objects are external to

us, and what is external is in the power of chance. Thus for-

tune becomes lady paramount over happiness, though Epicurus

says she to a small extent only crosses the path of the wise man.

XXVIII. Come, you will say to me, these are small matters.

The wise man is enriched by nature herself, whose wealth, as

Epicurus has taught us, is easily procured. His statements are

good, and I do not attack them, but they are inconsistent with

5—2

68 | ~ CICERO [XXVIII § 90—

each other. He declares that no less pleasure is derived from

the poorest sustenance, or rather from the most despicable

kinds of food and dink, than from the most recherché dishes

of the banquet. If he declared that it made no difference to

happiness what kind of food he lived on, I should yield him

the point and even applaud him ; for he would be asserting the

strict truth, and I listen when Socrates, who holds pleasure in

no esteem, affirms that hunger is the proper seasening for food,

and thirst for drink. But to one who, judging of everything by

pleasure, lives like Gallonius, but talks like the old Piso Frugi,

I do not listen, nor do I believe that he says what he thinks.

91 He announced that nature’s wealth is easily procurable, because

nature is satisfied with little. This would be true, if you did not

value pleasure so highly. The pleasure, he says, that is obtained

from the cheapest things is not inferior to that which is got

from the most costly. To say this is to be destitute not merely

of intelligence, but even of a palate. Truly those who disregard

pleasure itself are free to say that they do not prefer a sturgeon

‘to a sprat; but he who places his supreme good in pleasure

must judge of everything by sense and not by reason, and must

92 say that those things are best which are most tasty. But let

that pass; let us suppose he acquires the intensest pleasures

not merely at small cost, but at no cost at all, so far as I

am concerned; let the pleasure given by the cress which the

Persians used to eat, as Xenophon writes, be no less than

that afforded by the banquets of Syracuse, which are severely

blamed by Plato; let the acquisition of pleasure be as easy, I

say, as you make it out to be; still what are we to say about

pain? Its agonies are so great that a life surrounded by.

them cannot be happy, if only pain is the greatest of evils.

Why, Metrodorus himself, who is almost a second Epicurus,

sketches happiness almost in these words; a well regulated

condition of body, accompanied by the assurance that it will

continue so. Can any one possibly be assured as to the state

of this body of his, I do not say in a year’s time, but by the

time evening comes? Pain then, that is to say the greatest of

evils, will always be an object of dread, even though it be not

present, for it may present itself at any moment. How then

XXIX § 94] DE FINIBUS II. 69

can the dread of the greatest possible evil consort with the

life of happiness? Some one tells me: Epicurus imparts to 93

us a scheme which will enable us to pay no heed to pain. To

begin with, the thing is in itself ridiculous, that no attention

should be given to the greatest of evils. But pray what is

his scheme? The greatest pain, he says, ts short. First, what

do you mean by short? Next, what by the greatest pain? May

the greatest pain not continue for some days? Look to it,

that it may. not continue some months even! Unless possibly

you refer to the kind of pain which is fatal as soon as it seizes

any one. Who dreads such pain as that? I wish rather you

would alleviate that other sort, under which I saw that most

excellent and most cultivated gentleman, my friend Gnaeus

Octavius, son of Marcus, wasting away, and not on one occasion

only or for a short time, but often and over quite a long period.

What tortures did he endure, ye eternal gods, when all his

limbs seemed on fire! Yet for all that we did not regard him

as wretched, but only as distressed, for pain was not to him the

greatest of evils. But he would have been wretched, if he had

been immersed in pleasures, while his life was scandalous and

wicked. |

XXIX. Again when you say that great pain is short, while 94

prolonged pain is light, I do not understand what it is that you

mean. For I am acquainted with instances where pains were

not only great but also prolonged for a considerable time; and

' yet for enduring them there is another and truer mcthod, of

which you who do not love morality for its own sake cannot avail

yourselves. There are certain maxims, and I might almost

say enactments, concerning courage, which prohibit a man from

being womanish in the midst of pain. So we must think it

disgraceful, I do not say to feel pain (for that certainly is

occasionally inevitable) but to make that old rock of Lemnus

ghostly with the roarings of a Philoctetes, which, by echoing

back the shriekings, cryings, groanings, sighings, dumb eae ut

be, returns the sounds of lamentation.

Let Epicurus ¢ chant his prophecy to such an one, if he can, one

whose veins within him, tainted with poison from the serpent’s tooth,

bubble with foul torments. Says Epicurus: hush, Philoctetes, your

70 CICERO — [XXIX § 94—

pain is short. But for nearly ten years already he has been lying

sick in his cave. If tis long ‘tis light; for it has its pauses,

95 and sometimes slackens. First, it is not often so; next what is

this slackening worth, when not only is the recollection of past

pain fresh in the mind, but the dread of future and imminent

pain causes a torment? Let the man die, says he. Perhaps

it is best so, but what becomes of your saying there is always a

balance of pleasure? For if that is true, see that you be not

committing a crime in advising death. Rather hold language

such as this, namely that it is disgraceful, that it is unmanly to

be weakened by pain, to be broken by it and conquered. For

your maxims if ’tis hard, ’ts short, if ’tis long, ’tis light, are a

mere parrot’s lesson. Pain is usually assuaged by the soothing

applications of virtue, I mean loftiness of spirit, endurance and

courage.

96 XXX. Not to digress too far, hear what Epicurus says

on his death-bed, that you may perceive how his actions are

at variance with his maxims: Epicurus wishes health to Her-

marchus. I write this letter (he says) while passing a happy

day, and the last of my life. Pains in the bladder and intes-

tines are upon me, so severe that their intensity cannot be in-

creased. Wretched creature! If pain is the greatest of evils we

cannot call him anything else. But let us listen to the man

himself. Still all these are outweighed, he says, by elation of

mind, arising from the recollection of my theories and discoveries.

But do you, as befits the feelings you have entertained from —

your youth up for me and for philosophy, remember to protect the

children of Metrodorus.

97 After this I do not admire the death of Epaminondas or of

Leonidas more than this man’s death ; though one of these, after

winning a victory over the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea, and

finding that his life was ebbing away, owing to a serious wound,

asked, as soon as he saw how things stood, whether his shield

was safe. When his weeping comrades had answered that it

was, he asked whether the enemy had been routed. When

he heard. that this too was as he desired, he ordered that the

spear which had pierced him should be extracted. So he died

from the copious flow of blood, in a moment of exultation

XXXI § 99] DE FINIBUS II. 71

and victory. Leonidas again, the king of the Lacedaemonians,

along with the three hundred men whom he had led from

Sparta, when the choice lay between a base retreat and a

splendid death, confronted the enemy at Thermopylae. The

deaths of generals are celebrated, while philosophers mostly die

in their beds. Still it makes a difference how they die. This

philosopher thought himself happy at the moment of death. A

great credit to him. My intense pains, he says, are outweighed

by elation of mind. The voice I hear is indeed that of a true 98

philosopher, Epicurus, but you have forgotten what you ought

to say. For, first, if there is truth in those matters which you

say it causes you joy to recall, I mean, if your writings and

discoveries are true, you cannot feel joy, since you now possess

no blessing which you can set down to the account of the

body ; whereas you have always told us that no one can feel

joy unless on account of the body, nor pain either. JI feel

joy in my past joys, he tells me. What past joys? If you

say those relating to the body, I read that you set against

your pains your philosophical theories, and not any recollection

of pleasures enjoyed by the body; if you say those relating

to the mind, then your maxim is untrue, that there is no.

joy of the mind, which has not a relation to the body. Why

after that do you give a commission about the children of

Metrodorus? What is there about your admirable goodness and

extreme loyalty (for so I judge it to be) that you connect with

the body ?

XXXI. You and your friends, Torquatus, may twist your- 99-

selves this way and that; but you will find nothing in this

noble letter from the hand of Epicurus, which harmonises

or accords with his dogmas. So he is refuted out of his own

mouth, and his writings are put to shame by his own honesty

and character. For from that commission about the children,

from the remembrance of and tender feeling for friendship,

from the observance of most important duties when at the

last gasp, we learn that disinterested honesty was inbred in

the man, and was not bribed into existence by pleasures, nor

called forth by the wages of rewards. What stronger evidence

do we want to prove that morality and uprightness are in

72 CICERO [XXXI § 99—

themselves desirable, when we see such goodness displayed at

. 100 the moment of death? But while I regard as creditable the

letter which I have just translated almost word for word, though

it was by no means in accord with the spirit of his philosophy,

yet I am of opinion that this same philosopher's will is at

variance not only with the seriousness becoming a true philoso-

pher, but even with his own opinions. He wrote both many

times in detail, and also shortly and clearly in the book I

have just mentioned, that death is of no importance to us;

for anything which has decayed is destitute of feeling; and

what is destitute of feeling is of no importance whatever to us.

This maxim itself might have been more neatly put and better.

For when he puts it thus: what has decayed is without feeling,

his statement does not explain sufficiently what it is that has

101 decayed. Still I understand what he means. However, as all

feeling is quenched by decay, by which he means death, and

as nothing whatever remains which is of any importance to.

us, I ask how it is that he provides and lays down with

such care and minuteness that his heirs, Amynomachus and

Timocrates, should, with the sanction of Hermarchus, give a sum

‘sufficient for the celebration of his birthday every year in the

month Gamelion, and also money to provide each month, on

the twentieth day after the new moon, a banquet for all those

who studied philosophy along with him, that so the memory of

102 himself and of Metrodorus may be reverenced. I am not able

to deny that these directions shew us a man as nice and as

kindly as you please, but to assume that any man has a birth-

day is utterly unworthy of a philosopher, more particularly a

natural philosopher (for by this name he desires himself to

be called). Why, can the very day that has once been come

round again and again? Assuredly it cannot. Or a day just like it?

That is not possible either, unless after many thousands of years

have intervened, so that there comes to pass a return of all the

stars simultaneously to the point from which they set out. No

one therefore has a birthday. But it is customary. And I did

not know it, I suppose! But if it be, is the custom to be

observed even after death? And is provision to be made for

it in his will by the man who has uttered to us his almost

XXXII § 105] DE FINIBUS Il. 73

oracular speech that nothing after death is of any importance to

us? Such things do not recall the man who had traversed in

thought countless universes and boundless tracts, without shore

and without end. Did Democritus ever do anything of the

kind? Passing by others, I appeal to the man whom he

followed more than all the rest. But if a day was to be sig- 103

nalised, why the day on which he was born, rather than that

on which he became a wise man? You will tell me he could

not have become a wise man, had he not been born, Nor yet if

his grandmother had never been born, if you come to that. The -

whole notion, Torquatus, of desiring that the recollection of one’s

name should be kept fresh after death by a banquet, is entirely

for unlearned men. Now I say nothing about the way in which

you celebrate such festivals, or the amount of pleasantry you

have to face from the wits; there is no need for us to quarrel ;

I only say thus much, that it was more pardonable for you to

observe the birthday of Epicurus than for him to provide by

will that it should be observed. |

XXXII. But to return to our theme (for we were speaking 104

about pain when we drifted into the consideration of this letter)

we may now thus sum up the whole matter: he who is subject

to the greatest possible evil is not happy so long as he remains

subject to it, whereas the wise man always is happy, though he

is at times subject to pain; pain therefore is not the greatest

possible evil. Now what kind of statement is this, that past

blessings do not fade from the wise man’s memory, but still that

he ought not to remember his misfortunes? First, have we

power over our recollections? I know that Themistocles, when

Simonides, or it may be some one else, offered to teach him

the art of remembering, said: Z would rather learn the art of

forgetting ; for I remember even the things I do not wish to re-

member, while I cannot forget what I wish to forget. He had 105

great gifts; but the truth is really this, that it is too domi-

neering for a philosopher to interdict us from remembering

things. Take care that your commands be not those of a

Manlius or even stronger; I mean when you lay a command

on me which I cannot possibly execute. What if the recol-

lection of past misfortunes is actually agreeable? Some pro-

74 CICERO [XXXII § 105—

verbs will thus be truer than your doctrines. It is a common

saying: Fast toils are agreeable; and not badly did Euripides

say (I shall put it into Latin if I can; you all know the

line in Greek): Sweet 1s the memory of toils that are past.

But let us return to the subject of past blessings. If you

spoke of such blessings as enabled Gaius Marius, though exiled,

starving, and immersed in a swamp, to lighten his pain by re-

calling to mind his triumphs, I would listen to you and give

you my entire approval. Indeed the happiness of the wise man

- can never be perfected, or reach its goal, if his good thoughts

and deeds are to be successively effaced by his own forgetfulness,

106 But in your view life is rendered happy by the remembrance of

pleasures already enjoyed, and moreover those enjoyed by the

body. For if there are any other pleasures, then it is not true that

all mental pleasures are dependent on association with the body.

Now if bodily pleasure, even when past, gives satisfaction, I do

not see why Aristotle should so utterly ridicule the inscription

of Sardanapallus, in which that king of Syria boasts that he has

carried away with him all the lustful pleasures. For, says

Aristotle, how could he retain after death a thing which, even

when he was alive, he could only feel just so long as he actually

enjoyed it? Bodily pleasures therefore ebb and fly away one

after another, and more often leave behind them reason for

regret than for remembrance. Happier then is Africanus when

he thus converses with his country : Cease, Rome, thy enemies to

fear, with the noble sequel: For my toils have established for

thee thy bulwarks. He takes delight in his past toils; you bid

him delight in his past pleasures; he turns his thoughts once

more to achievements, not one of which he ever connected with

the body; you wholly cling to the body.

107 XXXIII. But how is this very position of your school to

be made good, namely that all intellectual pleasures and pains

alike are referable to bodily pleasures and pains? Do you

never get any gratification (I know the kind of man I am

addressing) do you, then, Torquatus, never get any gratification

from anything whatever for its own sake? I put on one side

nobleness, morality, the mere beauty of the virtues, of which I

have already spoken; I will put before you these slighter

XXXIII § 110] DE FINIBUS Il. 75

matters;-when you either write or read a poem or a speech,

when you press your inquiries concerning all events, and all

countries, when you see a statue, a picture, an attractive spot,

games, fights with beasts, the country house of Lucullus (for if I

were to mention your own, you would find a loop-hole, you

would say that it had to do with your body)—well then, do you

connect all the things I have mentioned with the body? Or is

there something which gives you gratification for its own sake ?

You will either shew yourself very obstinate, if you persist in

connecting with the body everything that I have mentioned, or

will prove a traitor to the whole of pleasure, as Epicurus

conceives it, if you give the opposite opinion. But when you 108

maintain that the mental pleasures and pains are more intense

than those of the body, because the mind is associated with time

of three kinds, while the body has only consciousness of what is

present, how can you accept the result that one who feels some

joy on my account, feels more joy than I do myself? But in

your anxiety to prove the wise man happy, because the plea-

sures he experiences in his mind are the greatest, and incom-

parably greater than those he experiences in his body, you are

blind to the difficulty that meets you. For the mental pains he

experiences will also be incomparably greater than those of the

body. So the very man whom you are anxious to represent as

constantly happy must needs be sometimes wretched; nor indeed

will you ever prove your point, while you continue to connect

everything with pleasure and pain. Hence, Torquatus, we must 109

discover some other form of the highest good for man; let us

abandon pleasure to the beasts, whom you are accustomed to

summon as witnesses about the supreme good. What if even

beasts very often, under the guidance of the peculiar constitu-

tion of each, shew some of them kindness, even at the cost of

toil, so that when they bear and rear their young it is very

patent that they aim at something different from pleasure ?

Others again, rejoice in wanderings and in journeys; others in

their assemblages imitate in a certain way the meetings of bur-

gesses; in some kinds of birds we see certain signs of affection, 110

as well as knowledge and memory; in many also we see regrets;

shall we admit then that in beasts there are certain shadows of

76 -~ CICERO [XXXIII § 110—

human virtues, unconnected with pleasure, while in men them-

selves virtue canuot exist unless with a view-to pleasure? And

shall we say that man, who far excels all other creatures, has

received no peculiar gifts from nature ?

111 XXXIV. We in fact, if everything depends upon pleasure,

are very far inferior to the beasts, for whom the earth unbidden,

without toil of theirs, pours forth from her breast varied and

copious food, while we with difficulty or hardly even with

difficulty supply ourselves with ours, winning it by heavy toil,

Yet I cannot on any account believe that the supreme good is

the same for animals and for man. Pray what use is there in

such elaborate preparations for acquiring the best accomplish-

ments, or in such a crowd of the most noble occupations, or in

such a train of virtues, if all these things are sought after for no

112 other end but that of pleasure? Just as, supposing Xerxes,

with his vast fleets and vast forces of cavalry and infantry, after

bridging the Hellespont and piercing Athos, after marching

over seas, and sailing over the land, then, when he had attacked

Greece with such vehemence, had been asked by some one

about the reason for such vast forces and so great a war, and

had answered that he wanted to carry off some honey from

Hymettus, surely such enormous exertions would have seemed

purposeless; so precisely if we say that the wise man, endowed

and equipped with the most numerous and important accom-

plishments and excellences, not traversing seas on foot, like the

king, or mountains with fleets, but embracing in his thoughts

all the heaven, and the whole earth with the entire sea, is in

search of pleasure, then we shall be in effect saying that these

113 vast efforts are for the sake of a drop of honey. Believe me,

Torquatus, we are born to a loftier and grander destiny; and

this is proved not merely by the endowments of our minds,

which possess power to recollect countless experiences (in your

case power unlimited) and an insight into the future not far

removed from prophecy, and honour the governor of passion,

and justice the loyal guardian of human fellowship, and a

staunch and unwavering disregard of pain and death when

there are toils to be endured or dangers to be faced—well,

these are the endowments of our minds; I beg you now also

XXXV § 116] DE FINIBUS II. 77

to think even of our limbs and our senses, which will appear

to you, like the other divisions of our body, not merely to

accompany the virtues, but even to do them service. Now if 114

in the body itself there are many things to be preferred to

pleasure, strength for example, health, swiftness, beauty, what

I ask do you suppose is the case with our minds? Those most

_ learned men of old thought that mind contained a certain

heavenly and godlike element. But if pleasure were equiva-

lent to the supreme good, as you assert, it would be an enviable

thing to live day and night without intermission in a state of

extreme pleasure, all the senses being agitated by, and so to

Say, steeped in sweetness of every kind. Now who is there

deserving the name of man, that would choose to continue for

one whole day in pleasure of such a kind? The Cyrenaics I

admit are not averse to it; your friends treat these matters

with greater decency ; ; they perhaps with greater consistency.

But let us survey in our thoughts not these very important arts,

lacking which some men were called inert by our ancestors;

what I ask is whether you suppose, I do not say Homer,

Archilochus, or Pindar, but Phidias, Polyclitus, or Zeuxis, to

have regulated their arts by pleasure. Will then an artist aim

higher in order to secure beauty of form than a preeminent

citizen in the hope to achieve beauty of action? Now what

other reason is there for so serious a misconception, spread

far and wide as it is, but that the philosopher who pronounces

pleasure to be the supreme good takes counsel, not with

that part of his mind in which thought and reflection reside,

but with his passions, that is to say, with the most frivolous

part of his soul? If gods exist, as even your school supposes,

I ask you how they can be happy, when they cannot realise

pleasure with their bodily faculties, or if they are happy

without that kind of pleasure, why you refuse to allow that =

wise man can have similar intellectual enjoyment ? :

XXXV. Read the eulogies, Torquatus, passed not upon the

men who have been extolled by Homer, not upon Cyrus or

Agesilaus or Aristides or Themistocles, not upon Philip or

Alexander; read those of our own countrymen, of your own

family; you will find that no one ever was extolled in such

115

116

78 CICERO [XXXV § 116—

language as to be styled a subtle artist in the acquisition of

pleasures. That is not the witness of the inscriptions on the

tombs; this for example at the city gate: Many peoples agree

117 that he was a leader of the nation beyond compare. Do we

imagine that many peoples agreed concerning Calatinus that he

was a leader of the nation, because he far excelled others in the

production of pleasures? Are we then to say that those young

men give good promise and shew great ability, whom we

believe likely to be slaves to their own interests, and to do

whatever brings them profit? Do we not see how great a con-

fusion is likely to ensue in all affairs, and what great compli-

cations? Generosity is at an end; gratitude is at an end, and

these are the bonds of peace. Nor, though you lend a thing

to a man for your own sake, must it be called generosity, but

usury, and no gratitude appears to be due to one who has

made a loan for his own purposes. If pleasure is set on a

throne, the highest virtues must necessarily take a low place.

There are many forms of dishonour concerning which it is not

easy to allege a reason why they should not beset the wise man,

unless morality possesses by the laws of nature very great power.

118 And, not to take in too many considerations (they are indeed

countless) if virtue is adequately extolled, the approaches to

pleasure are inevitably barred. Now do not expect any such

eulogy from me; just examine your own mind yourself, and pro-

bing it with all possible deliberation question yourself whether

you prefer to pass all your life in the thorough enjoyment of

uninterrupted pleasures, in that calm of which you were con-

tinually talking, untouched by pain, with the proviso which your

school are accustomed to add, though it is an impossible one,

that fear of pain be absent, or rather, while rendering splendid

service to the whole world, and bringing succour and deliverance

to those in distress, to suffer even the dolours of Hercules? For

in this way our ancestors designated his inevitable toils, using

119 the most melancholy term dolours though he was a god. I

should entice from you and even force from you a reply, did

I not fear you would say that pleasure was the motive which

induced even Hercules to achieve all that he did achieve by

intense effort for the health of nations.’

XXXV § 119] DE FINIBUS II. 79

When I had thus spoken, Triarius said, ‘I have friends

to whom I can refer these questions, and although I might

have made some answer myself, still I would rather look to

men better equipped than myself.’ ‘I believe you mean our

friends Siro and Philodemus, not only excellent men, but

men of very great learning. ‘You understand me rightly,’

said he. ‘Agreed, then,’ said I, ‘ but it were fairer that Triarius

should give some verdict about our disagreement.’ ‘I reject

him on affidavit,’ said Torquatus with a smile, ‘as prejudiced, at

all events on this subject, since you handle these topics with

some gentleness, while he persecutes us after the fashion of the

Stoics? Then Triarius remarked: ‘ At least I shall do so here-

after with greater confidence. For I shall be ready with the

doctrines I have just listened to; though I shall not attack you `

until I see that you have been primed by the friends you

mention.’ This said, we put an end at once to our walk and

our debate.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III.

1 (I. I THINK, Brutus, that pleasure, for her part, if she con-

ducted her own case, and were not represented by such obstinate

advocates, would capitulate to true worth, after the sentence

passed in the preceding book. ‘She would indeed be brazen-

faced did she any longer fight against virtue, or prefer delights

to morals or maintain that bodily gratification, or the exhilara-

tion consequent upon it, is more precious than mental dignity

and stability. So let us discharge her with a caution to keep

herself within the sphere that is her own, lest her enticements

and her wiles interfere with the austerity proper to debate.

2 We have indeed to inquire where that supreme good resides |

which we are anxious to discover, seeing that it has now been

dissociated from pleasure, and nearly the same arguments may

be urged against the philosophers who have decided that the

ultimate good is absence of pain, and let us never accept as the

supreme good any good which is unconnected with virtue, for

nothing can be more excellent than that. Therefore, although

in the discourse which we carried on with Torquatus we were

not slack, still the struggle with the Stoics that lies before

us calls for more vigour. Certainly when assertions are made

about pleasure, not much ability and no profundity at all is dis-

played in the discussion, since on the one hand, her supporters

are unpractised in logic, and on the other her assailants have no

3 strong case to meet; Epicurus himself actually says that there

is no need to lead proof on the subject of pleasure, because

IT § 5} DE FINIBUS III. 81

our judgment concerning ‘it depends on our senses, 80 that it is

enough for us to receive a hint, and useless for us to be instructed.

Therefore we found the debate a plain affair for both parties.

There was in fact nothing involved or intricate in the discourse

of Torquatus, and my speech, I believe, was quite clear. But you

are not unaware how refined or rather how beset with thorns

is the system of logic pursued by the Stoics, and that is not

only the case with the Greeks, but still more with us, who have

to create a terminology, and to assign to novel matters novel

titles. And this will surprise no one who has even a slight

tincture of learning, when he reflects that with every art, the

practice of which is not ordinary and general, there arise many

novel expressions, whenever names are assigned to the matters

with which each art is concerned. So logicians and natural 4

philosophers use such terms as are not familiar to the Greeks

themselves; certainly the mathematicians and musicians, and

the grammarians too, talk after a fashion of their own; even

the systems of the rhetoricians, which look entirely to the

courts and the public, nevertheless use for purposes of instruc-

tion terms which are almost their property and peculiar to

themselves. II. Now to pass by these refined and liberal arts,

even the artisans would not be able to maintain their crafts,

did they not use terms which are incomprehensible to us but

familiar to themselves. Nay even husbandry, which is incom-

patible with all refinement of the smoother sort, has still

stamped with new titles the things with which it is conversant.

All the more reason for a philosopher to act in the same way,

since philosophy is the art of life, and when a man discourses

about it he cannot pick up his terms in the street. Yet I must say 5

the Stoics of all philosophers have been the greatest innovators,

and Zeno their founder was a discoverer not so much of new

ideas as of new terms. But if in a tongue which most think

very rich, the most learned men, when treating of matters not

generally known, have been permitted to use unfamiliar terms,

how much more is the permission due to us, who are now for the

first time venturing to set our hands to these subjects? And

seeing that I have often declared (with some murmuring, of

course, on the part not only of the Greeks, but of those who.

R. F. C. 6

82 ~ CICERO [II § 5—

wish to be taken for Greeks rather than Romans) that

not only do we not yieid to the Greeks in richness of

vocabulary, but are actually in that respect better off than

they, we must take pains to realise this not only in the case of

arts that are our own, but also in those that belong to the

Greeks themselves, Still, those terms which according to the

custom of the ancients we treat as Latin, for instance philosophy

itself, also rhetoric, dialectic, grammar, geometry, music, these,

though we might have expressed them by Latin terms, let us

regard as our own, seeing that by habit we have thoroughly

6 appropriated them. So much for the titles given to the sub-

jects, but as to the subjects themselves, Brutus, I am often

afraid that I may be blamed for addressing my book to you,

who have made such great progress not merely in philosophy,

but in a most excellent system of philosophy. Now if I did this

by way of schooling you, so to say, I should deserve the blame..

But 1 am very far from doing so, and I dedicate the book

to you not that I may bring to your knowledge things you

know thoroughly well already, but rather because I dwell on

your name with the greatest satisfaction, and find in you the

most impartial connoisseur and critic of those pursuits which I

follow in common with you. You will give me then, as you

always do, your careful attention and will arbitrate in the

dispute which I had with that marvellous and unique man,

7 your uncle. Now being at my house at Tusculum, and desiring

to consult some books in the library of young Lucullus, I went

to his mansion to bring away the books myself, as my custom was.

On arriving there I saw Marcus Cato, whom I had not expected to

find there, seated in the library, in the midst of a great flood of

Stoic literature. He had, as you know, a boundless passion for

reading, which it was impossible to satisfy; so much so that it

was his frequent custom, not shrinking from the carpings of the

crowd, vain as they were, to read even in the senate house, while

waiting for the members to assemble, as he was not depriving the

state of his services; so still more on that occasion, with plenty

of leisure and abundant supplies, he seemed almost to enjoy a

literary debauch, if I may use this phrase about so splendid an

8 occupation. When it came about that we suddenly caught

IIT § 10] DE FINIBUS ITI. 83

sight of each other, he rose to his feet at once. 'Fhen came the

first speeches, such as we always make when we meet. ‘What

has brought you here?’ he said, ‘for I suppose you come from

your own house;’ then ‘if I had known you were there, I

would have come myself to see you.’ ‘Yesterday,’ said I, ‘when

the races began I left the city and arrived towards evening.

My motive for coming here was to take away some books from

the house. And in truth, Cato, it will be fitting for our young

Lucullus to make acquaintance by and by with the whole of this

rich store; for I would rather see him take pleasure in these books

than in everything else with which the mansion is furnished. I

feel great eagerness (though this is a duty that is peculiarly

yours) to get him so educated that he may be worthy of his father

and of our friend Caepio and of yourself who are so closely

related to him. Now my anxiety is not without reason, for I

am influenced by my recollection of his grandfather (you know

of course how highly I valued Caepio, who in my opinion would

now be among the first men in the country were he alive): and

a vision of Lucullus is present to me, a man preeminent in all

respects and withal united to me by friendship and by every tie

of feeling and opinion. ‘You act admirably, said he, ‘in keep- 9

ing fresh your recollection of these friends, both of whom in

their wills bespoke your favour for their children, and also in

shewing affection for the boy. When however you speak of my

duty, I make no objection, but I associate you with me as my

colleague. This too I will say, that the boy already affords me

many indications of a sense of honour and also of ability; but you

see how young he is.’ ‘Indeed I see,’ said I, ‘but for all that he

must even now receive a tincture of those acquirements which,

if they are instilled into him while he is of tender years, will

enable him to proceed very well equipped to higher tasks.’ ‘Just

so; and we will talk over the matter between ourselves very

carefully and very often, and will take action in common. But,’

said he, ‘let us seat ourselves, if you please.’ And we did so.

III. Then he said, ‘But what books are you looking for 10

here, pray, when you have such a quantity of books yourself ?’

‘I came, said I, ‘to carry off some treatises of Aristotle,

which I knew were here, intending to read them while I

6—2

84 CICERO > [III § 10—

had leisure; and that is a thing which does not often fall to

my lot.’ ‘How I wish, said he, ‘that you had felt a bent

towards the Stoic school! It was surely to be expected

of you, if of any one, that you would place in the category

of good nothing but virtue.’ ‘Look well to it, said I;

‘perhaps it was rather to be expected of you, inasmuch as

your views substantially agreed with mine, that you would

not force upon the doctrines new titles. Our principles are at

one, and only our language is at variance.’ ‘Our principles

are very far from being at one,’ said he, ‘for whatever that thing

may be over and above morality, which you declare to be

desirable, and reckon among things good, you thereby quench

morality itself, which we may liken to the light cast by virtue,

11 and virtue too you utterly overthrow.’ ‘ Your words, Cato,’ said

I, ‘are grandiose; but do you not see that you share your high-

sounding phraseology with Pyrrho and Aristo, who are thorough-

going levellers? I should like to know what you think of

them.’ ‘Do you ask what I think of them?’ said he. ‘I think

that all the good staunch upright soberminded statesmen of

whom we have been told, or whom we have ourselves seen,

who without any learning and merely following nature’s

guidance, have performed many meritorious exploits, were better

trained by nature than they could possibly have been trained

by philosophy, if they had accepted any other doctrine than

that which regards nothing save morality as belonging to

the category of good, and as belonging to the category of evil

nothing save baseness; as to the remaining philosophical systems

which, no doubt in different degrees, but still all of them to

some extent count as good or as evil some object unconnected

with virtue, they, as I think, not only fail to aid us or strengthen

us in the struggle to become better, but actually corrupt

nature. Indeed were we not to hold fast to this, that the only

good is morality, it could not possibly by any method be shewn

that happiness is the outcome of virtue; and if the fact were so,

I am at a loss to see why we should devote our energy to

philosophy. If some wise man might be wretched, verily I

should not consider that vaunting and much bruited virtue to

have any great value.’

IV § 15] DE FINIBUS III. 85

IV. ‘Cato,’ said I, ‘all that you have said up to this point 12

you might say in the same words, if you were a partisan of

Pyrrho or Aristo. You surely are not unaware that they

believe the morality of which you speak to be not merely the

chief, but actually, as you maintain it to be, the only good;

and if this is so, the very conclusion follows, which I see you

maintain, that all wise men are always happy. Do you then

applaud these philosophers,’ I said, ‘and do you pronounce that

it behoves us to accept this opinion of theirs?’ ‘Not their

opinion by any means, said he, ‘for’ inasmuch as the charac-

teristic of virtue is to make choice of those objects which are in

harmony with nature, the philosophers who have reduced all

objects to the same level, making their importance so en-

_ tirely equal in both directions that they practised no choice

at all, these philosophers, I say, have actually swept virtue

out of existence.’ ‘What you say is excellent,’ said I, ‘but 13

I ask whether you yourself must not commit the same crime,

since, while asserting that nothing is good but uprightness

and morality, you sweep away every distinction between the

values of all other objects.’ ‘True, he said, ‘if I did sweep

the distinction away, but I leave it untouched.’ ‘How so?’ said 14

I. ‘If virtue alone, that unique thing which you describe as

morality, uprightness, meritoriousness, seemliness (we shall

better understand its nature if it be stamped with several

names having the same import) if then, I say, that is the only.

good thing, what will you find besides, worthy of effort ? Or if

there is nothing evil but baseness, immorality, unseemliness, —

corruption, infamy, disgrace (this too we must render con-

spicuous by several titles) what besides will you declare to

be an object of avoidance?’ ‘As,’ said he, ‘you are not unaware.

of the doctrine I am going to state, but, l fancy, are eager to

snatch some advantage from a brief answer on my side, I shall not

reply to your questions one by one; I shall prefer, as we are at

leisure, to expound (unless you think it out of place) the entire

scheme of Zeno and the Stoics.’ ‘It is by no means out of place,

said I, ‘and your exposition will contribute much to the settlement

of the question under discussion.’ ‘Let us make the attempt 15

then,’ said he, ‘though our Stoic system has something in it

86 CICERO [IV § 15—

which is uncommonly hard and dark. Now at the time when

these very terms applied to new subjects were new to the Greek

language, they were thought intolerable, yet daily habit has

worn them smooth; what do you suppose will happen in the

case of Latin?’ ‘Thé matter is very simple indeed, said

I, ‘for if Zeno was free, when he had discovered some un-

familiar doctrine, to assign to it a phrase equally unknown,

why should Cato not have that freedom? But there will be

no need to represent every sitigle term by a new term, as trans-

lators without style generdlly do, if there already exists a more

familiar term which conveys the same meaning; I am actually

in the habit of explaining by several terms, if I can find no

other way, what the Gteeks represent by means of one. For

all that, however, I think we ought to be allowed to adopt a

Greek phrase, if it proves difficult to meet with a Latin one;

nor should this licence be permitted to ephippia and acrato-

phora any more than to proegmena and apoproegmena. Yet

for these terms it will be permissible to substitute praeposita

16 and reiecta (‘objects preferred’ and ‘objects rejected’). ‘I am

much obliged to you,’ said he, ‘for your assistance, and I shall

prefer to adopt as Latin the terms you just now mentioned ;

in what rémains you will come to my rescue if you see me

in difficulties.’ ‘I will be careful to do so,’ said I,‘ but fortune

favours the brave, so pray make the effort. What occupation

indeed can we find more splendid than this ?’

V. ‘It is the belief,’ said he, ‘of those whose system I follow,

that immediately upon the birth of a sentient creature (for this

must be our starting point) the creature is attracted to its own

being and is impelled to maintain its own existence and to

feel affection for its own constitution, and for all that tends

to maintain that constitution, while it recoils from death,

and from all that seems to induce death. That this is the

case they shew by this consideration, that children, before

pleasure or pain has touched them, yearn after what is

wholesome, and refuse the opposite things; this would by no

means take place, unless they felt affection for their own

constitution and shrank from death. They could by no means

yearn after anything, unless they had consciousness of their

V § 19) DE FINIBUS IIT. 87

own personality and so felt affection for themselves. From this

we are bound to understand that the earliest impulse proceeds

from love of self. Moreover, among the elementary endowments 17

of nature most Stoics think pleasure has no place. To these I

give my emphatic approval; otherwise, if it were believed that

nature introduced pleasure among those objects for which the

earliest yearnings are felt, many abominable consequences will

ensue. It is thought, however, that there is sufficient proof of

the reason we have for attachment to the objects which are

the earliest we embrace on nature’s prompting, in the fact that

there is no one who having both alternatives open to him

would not prefer that all parts of his body should be symmetrical

and sound, rather than dwarfed and warped, even if their useful-

ness remained the same. Now our perceptions of external objects

(which we may call either acts of apprehension or acts of sensa-

tion, or if these phrases are distasteful or not very comprehensible,

we may use the word xaradnWes) we imagine deserve to be

embraced for their inherent worth; because they comprise some-

thing which, so to speak, encircles and holds within it the truth,

This can be clearly seen in children, whom we see to be overjoyed,

if they have discovered something by their unaided reason, even

though they gain no advantage thereby. The sciences too we 18

think are to be chosen for their own sake; not only because

they contain within them something worthy of our choice, but

because they are built up from perceptions; and comprise

certain conclusions established by methodical reasoning. These

philosophers suppose that men recoil more from the ren-

dering of assent to falsehoods than from all other circum-

stances which are out of harmony with nature. Further,

of the limbs, or I should rather say, of the parts of the body,

some seem to have been bestowed upon us by nature on

account of their utility, hands for example, legs, feet and the

internal bodily organs, the extent of whose usefulness is

debated even by physicians; while others have been given

not because of use but in some sense with a view to adorn-

ment; thus the peacock has his tail, the pigeon plumage of

changing colours, men the breasts and the beard. All these 19

matters are perhaps dry, as stated ; they are indeed, so to speak,

88 CICERO [V §19—

the ‘beggarly elements’ of nature, upon which a copious style can

scarce be exercised; though to be sure style is not what I design

` to keep in view; but still whenever you treat of the more sublime

themes, the themes themselves carry the utterance with them ;

so the style acquires not only greater dignity but also greater

brilliance.’ ‘True,’ said I; ‘yet every transparent utterance on an

excellent subject is to my mind admirable. _Now the wish to ex-

pound a subject like yours in rich language is childish, while the

desire tu have the power of giving a clear and lucid explanation

20 well beseems a learned and thinking man.’ VI. ‘Let us proceed

then, said he, ‘ since we have left behind us those first natural en-

dowments, with which all that follows must harmonise. We have

next this fundamental distinction: they call valuable (this is the

right word for us to use, I think) anything which is either itself in

harmony with nature, or gives rise to something of that character,

so that it is worthy of our choice because it has some import-

ance which entitles it to a eertain value, which the Stoics call

a&ia: on the other hand what is opposite to this is, they say, value-

less. As then we have so established our first principles that all

things in harmony with nature are worthy of choice on their own

account, while their opposites are in the same way worthy of re-

jection, the earliest of appropriate actions (I thus render xa@nxov)

is that the ereature should maintain itself in its natural constitu-

tion; next that it should cleave to all that is in harmony with

nature and spurn all that is not; and when once this principle of -

choice and also of rejection has been arrived at, there follows next

in order choice characterised by appropriateness of action, next

such a choice exercised continuously, then finally such a choice

rendered unwavering and in thorough agreement with nature ;

and it is in this state that we first begin to possess within us

and to understand what it is that may truly be called good.

21 Now the earliest attraction of a human being is to those

things which are conformable to nature; but as soon as he has

laid hold of general ideas or rather conceptions (this is what

they call čvvora) and has seen the method and, if I may

say so, the harmony of conduct, he then values that harmony

far higher than all the objects for which he had felt the

earliest affection, and he reaches such conclusions by inquiry and

VII § 23] DE FINIBUS III. 89

reasoning, as make him decide that in this state lies that supreme

human good which is in itself praiseworthy and desirable ; and

seeing that this good depends on what the Stoics name opo-

Aoyia and we may term harmony, if you please—well then,

seeing that on this depends that good by which all things must

be judged, it follows that all morał actions and morality generally,

which is the only matter regarded as belonging to the category

of things good, although it arises at a late stage, yet is alone

desirable for its inherent value and worth, while of the objects

which constitute the first endowments given by nature, no one

is for its own sake desirable. Inasmuch however as those 22

actions, to which I have given the name appropriate, spring

from those primary gifts of nature, it must be these gifts that

the actions have for their aim, so we may rightly declare that

all appropriate actions have for their aim the acquisition of

the primary endowments of nature, yet that this acquisition

is not the crowning good, because among those matters to

which nature first attracts us moral action is not included; it is

of course posterior and arises at a late stage, as I have said.

Yet it is conformable to nature, and far more than all those

earlier objects inspires us with desire to attain it. But from

this statement we must first remove a possibility of mistake,

lest some one should suppose the conclusion to follow that

there are two forms of the highest good. For just as if one

were to set himself the task of taking aim with spear or arrow

at some mark, so we speak of the supreme good. The man,

in the comparison we have made, would be bound to do all

he could to take right aim, and yet while it would he a sort of

supreme end for such a man to take every step conducing to

the attainment of his design, similar to the supreme good

of which we speak in the case of conduct, still the actual hitting

of the mark would be something preferable, so to speak, and not

something desirable. VII. Now seeing that the starting point 23

for all appropriate action lies in the primary endowments of

nature, there too must lie the startmg point for wisdom herself.

But just as it often happens that a man who has a letter of intro-

duction to another, values more highly the man to whom he

is introduced than the man whe gives him the introduction, so

90 CICERO [VII § 23—

it is by no means strange that at the outset we are introduced to

wisdom by the elementary instincts of nature, while at a later

time wisdom herself becomes more precious to us than those

instincts by which we were led up to her. And just as our

limbs were given us on such conditions as make it plain that

they were given us with a view to a particular method of life,

so mental impulse, which in Greek is called óp}, was clearly

given with a view not to any chance mode of living, but to some

particular scheme of life, and so too were reason and especially

24 reason in its perfect form. Just as the actor has assigned to him

gestures and the dancer movements which are not casual but

definite; so we must conduct our life on a plan which is definite

and not arbitrary: and to do this is the kind of thing we call

harmonious and consistent. Nor do we suppose that wisdom is

like pilotage or medicine, but rather like those gestures I have

just mentioned and like the art of dancing, so that its aim, which

is the production of an artistic result, lies in its own being, and is |

not looked for outside that. Yet for all that there is on the other

hand a want of resemblance between these very arts and

wisdom, because in them individual right actions do not imply

right action in all the spheres which the arts comprise; while

(in wisdom) the actions which we may call right or rightly done,

if you please (they call them xatop@wuara) imply every quality

of virtue. For wisdom alone has her glance entirely directed

| to herself; a characteristic not found in the rest of the arts.

25 It shews ignorance to compare the aim of medicine or pilotage

with the aim of wisdom. Wisdom embraces highminded-

ness and justice and the power whereby a man considers

beneath him all that befalls humanity ; and this is not the case

with the other arts. But no one will be able to lay hold on the

very virtues to which I have just made allusion unless he has

determined that there is no essential distinction or difference

between any two things, excepting between morality and vice.

26 Let us see how strikingly the statements which follow

agree with those that I have already made. Inasmuch as

this is the end (you understand, I suppose, that for some

time I have been denoting what the Greeks call rédos by

the terms end, aim, goal; we may also say mark for end or

VIII § 29] DE FINIBUS III. 91

aim) well then, inasmuch as this is our end, to Hve in con-

formity and harmony with nature, it follows of necessity that

all wise men always live fortunately, perfectly, prosperously,

without obstacles, without restriction, without want. One

doctrine which is not more essential to the system concerning

which I am now speaking, than to our lives and possessions,

the doctrine that morality is alone good, may be enlarged

upon and tricked out in rhetorical fashion by the use of

extended and abundant discourse and all the choicest phrases

and most imposing maxims; but the short methods of the

Stoics please me by their terseness and cleverness. VIJI. Their 27

proofs then are put into this shape: all that is good deserves

praise; all that deserves praise is moral; therefore all that

is good is moral. Does this argument seem to you pretty

cogent? Surely it does; for you see the result of the two

premisses is expressed in the conclusion. Of the two pre-

misses on which the. conclusion is based, the first is generally

met by the assertion that not everything good deserves praise,

for it is granted that everything which deserves praise is

moral. It is further very ridiculous to say this, that there is

some good thing which is not desirable; or something desirable,

which is not satisfactory, or if satisfactory, not also worthy of

choice : so it must be also worthy of adoption; so also deserving

of praise and therefore moral. Thus we conclude that what is

good is also moral, Next I ask who can glory either in a 28

wretched life or in a life which is not happy. We can only

then glory in a happy life. It results from this that glorification,

if I may so call it, is the due of happiness, and this due can

only of right belong to a moral life; hence it comes about

that a happy life is a moral life. And seeing that he whose

lot it is to claim praise with justice, has a certain privilege

which marks him out for distinction and renown, so that he

may on the strength of such great advantages justly be styled

happy, it will be perfectly right to make a similar statement

about the life of such a man. So if morality is the criterion of a

life of happiness we must consider what is moral to be alone

good. Well then, would it be possible in any way to contradict 29

the statement that the character of the man whom we call

92 CICERO [VIII § 29—

strong-minded, the man of unmoved and powerful and high

spirit, cannot be produced unless it be a settled point that pain

is no real evil? Just as he who places death in the category of

things evil cannot help dreading it, so no one under any cir-

cumstances can disregard or neglect what he has pronounced

to be an evil; and when this assertion has been made and

allowed by common consent, the further assumption is made

that the man of high and strong spirit scorns and counts as

nought everything that can befall humanity. This being so, the

conclusion follows that there is no evil but vice. Now that

man of lofty and towering spirit, of high soul, and truly strong,

who reckons as far beneath him all human chances, that man, I

say, whom we wish to bring to light, of whom we are in search,

must surely have faith in himself and in all his own life both

past and future, and must pass a favourable judgment on him-

self, being convinced that no ill can happen to the man of wis-

dom. From this once more we perceive that what is moral is

alone good, and that to live happily is to live morally, that is

virtuously.

30 IX. I am not indeed unaware that there has been a divi-

sion of opinion among philosophers, I mean among those who

place the supreme good, which I call our aim, in the

mind. Now although some have pushed these opinions to

wrong conclusions, yet I prefer those philosophers whatever

their opinions, who have placed the supreme good in the mind

and in virtue, to all the others, not only to those three who

have divorced the supreme good from virtue, while laying down

either pleasure or freedom from pain or the primary natural

endowments as the supreme good, but also to those other three

who have supposed that virtue would be crippled if left without

any additions, and so have joined to her one or other of those

31 objects which I have enumerated above. But for all that very

ridiculous are the thinkers who have asserted that a life attended

by knowledge is the final good, and those others who have declared

that no distinctions of value can be drawn between objects and

that the man of wisdom is happy on this condition that he finds

no turn of the scale to make him prefer any one thing to any other,

and again those who say (as some Academics are stated to have

X § 33] DE FINIBUS III. 93

pronounced) that the ultimate good of the wise man and his

highest function is to offer resistance to his impressions and to

resolutely withhold from all phenomena his assent. To each

one of these schools we usually find prolix replies are made ;

but we must not dwell long on what is self-evident. Now what

is plainer than that if no choice be exercised between the

things that conform to nature and the things that are hostile

to nature, all that prudence which is the object of search and the

object of eulogy, would be swept out of existence? If then we

prune away those doctrines with which I have been dealing

and the others that are like them, we have remaining the theory

that the supreme good is to live by the light of a knowledge of

nature’s operations, choosing what accords with nature and

refusing what is at variance with nature, which is equivalent to

a life in harmony and conformity with nature. But in all other 32

arts, when we use the phrase done artistically, we have to

think of a characteristic which comes after the act, so to speak,

and follows upon it, which the Stoics call ézreyevynuatexor ;

when however we speak of an action as done wisely, such an

action is most rightly said to have that character from its.

very first inception. All that proceeds from the man of wisdom

must be from the first moment complete in every respect;

for this is the condition which makes us call a thing desirable.

Now while it is a sin to be traitor to one’s country, to do

violence to one’s parents, to pillage shrines, all of which are

sins by reason of an external result, so fear, sorrow and

passion are sins even though without external result. But

just as these feelings are sins not in their consequence and

their issue but from their verv first inception, so acts which:

proceed from virtue are to be thought upright from the moment

they are undertaken, not from the moment they are completed.

X. The term good of which mention has been so often 33

made in this discourse is moreover made explicit by the process

of definition. But the definitions given by the Stoics do indeed.

disagree with one another just a little, though their general.

purport is the same. I agree with Diogenes, who has defined

good as that which is naturally perfect. Following up this

definition he further declared that which is beneficial (so

94 CICERO [X § 33—

let us translate wheAnpua) to be a process or condition arising

from that which is naturally perfect. And whereas conceptions

concerning objects arise in our minds when something has been

apprehended by experience or by combination or by com-

parison of resemblances or by logical inference; it is by this fourth

process, to which I have assigned the last place, that we arrive

at our conception of the good. When the mind by the aid of

logical inference rises from the contemplation of those objects

which conform to nature, then it arrives at a conception of the

34 good. Now this very good we declare and name good not in con-

sequence of any process of addition or increase or comparison

with the other objects, but on account of its own inherent quali-

ties. Just as honey, although it is the sweetest of things, is pro-

nounced to be sweet by virtue of its own peculiar kind of taste

and not through comparison with other sweet objects, so the good

with which we are dealing must indeed be valued more highly

than all else, but that value is based on qualitative and not

on quantitative considerations. For inasmuch as value, which

the Greeks call aia, has been reckoned as belonging neither

to things good nor, on the other hand, to things evil, it will

remain in its own class, however great additions to it you may

have made. There is therefore another kind of value peculiar

to virtue, whose worth is based on its nature, not on its quantity.

85 Moreover, mental emotions, which render wretched and

bitter the life of the unwise; these the Greeks name mán

and I might have called them diseases, by a literal translation

of the word, which however would not suit all its applications ;

who indeed is there in the habit of calling pity or even anger

a disease? But the Greeks call it wa@os; well then, let us

call it emotion, the very name of which seems to make clear

its faultiness. All emotions belong to four classes which have

a large number of subdivisions, grief, fear, desire, and that

which the Stoics denote by the name 7dov7, equally applicable

to body and mind; I prefer to call it delight, a pleasurable

excitement, so to speak, of the mind in a state of exultation.

Now emotions are excited by no natural impulse, and all such

feelings are fancies and judgments due to instability of character ;

and so the wise man will always be free from emotion.

XI § 38] DE FINIBUS TII. 95

XI. Now the doctrińe that everything moral is in itself 36

desirable, is one which we hold in common with many philo-

sophers of other schools. If we except those three systems which

cut off virtue from the supreme good, all the other philosophers

are bound to maintain this doctrine, but particularly the Stoics,

who have laid down that nothing else but what is moral can

rank in the class of things good. But this doctrine is one that

is very easy and very simple to maintain. Who is there or ever

was there, whose greed was so consuming or his passions so un-

bridled, that he would not far prefer that the very object which

he is determined to achieve by going all lengths in crime, should

fall into his power without any criminal act, rather than in the

other way, even though impunity were assured him to the fullest

extent? What advantage or utility have we in view, when we 37

long to know how those bodies, so mysterious to us, are set in

motion and what are the causesof their movements in the heavens?

Who guides his life by principles so rude, or has become so insen-

sible to the enthusiasm for physical inquiries that he is repelled

by matters which deserve to be known, and feels no need of such

knowledge and accounts it worthless, unless accompanied by

pleasure or advantage? Or who, as he reviews the exploits, the

maxims, the designs of our forefathers, either the Africani or

my great grandfather, whose name is ever on your lips, and the

rest of the heroes who were strong and preeminent for every ex-

cellence, is not touched in his thoughts bysome feeling of pleasure?

What man, if he has been educated in a virtuous household and 38

gently nurtured, does not recoil from vice for what it is in itself,

even although it be not likely to injure him? Who can look un-

moved on one whom he supposes to be leading a foul and infamous

life? Who does not loathe the mean, the vaunting, the inconstant,

the worthless ? If we intend to lay down that vice is not in itself

a thing to shun, what reason will it be possible to urge, to pre-

vent men from running into every sort of indecency, when once

they have the advantage of obscurity and isolation, if vice does

not repel them by its own inherent vileness? Countless argu-

ments may be advanced in support of this opinion, but they are

needless, ‘There is no point on which it is possible to feel less

doubt than that things moral are in themselves desirable, and that

96 ~ CICERO [XI §38—

39 in the same way things vicious are in themselves repellent. Now

that we have established the conclusion mentioned above that

what is moral is alone good, it cannot but be seen that what is

moral must be more highly valued than the things, in themselves

indifferent, which are procured by it. Now whenever we say that

unwisdom and cowardice and injustice and intemperance are

things to be avoided on account of their consequences, we do not

put forward that statement in such a sense as to make our

present speech seem at variance with the principle formerly laid

down, that vice is the only evil—and for this reason, that the con-

sequences mentioned have nothing to do with bodily inconvenience

but with vicious courses which spring from vice. I prefer to use

the word vice rather than badness to express the Greek xaxiau.

40 XII. ‘Your language is indeed luminous, Cato,’ said I, ‘and

expresses clearly your meaning! So in my eyes you are teach-

ing philosophy to speak Latin and are, if I may say so, conferring

on her our franchise, for hitherto she was always thought to be a

mere foreigner in Rome and to be shy of entering into conversa-

tion in our language, and particularly your own form of philoso-

phy, because of a certain highly polished subtlety both in matter

and in language. I know indeed that there are men who can

play the philosopher in any tongue you please, since they use

no sub-divisions and no definitions, and themselves assert that

they are only securing approval for opinions to which nature

assents even if no word be uttered ; and so as they deal with

notions that are far from profound they do not toil much over

their argument. Thus I give you my earnest attention and

learn off by heart any terms you apply to the subject-matter

of our conversation, for I shall perhaps have soon to make

use of these same terms myself. Now in my opinion you

were thoroughly right and in accord with the usages of our

native tongue when you laid down that the vices are the

opposites of the virtues. What deserves in itself to be vilified

was I think for that very reason called vice, or perhaps from the

word vice came the phrase to be vilified. But if you had-

used the word malitia, Latin usage would at once lead us

up to the idea of a single definite vice; as things are, vice is

opposed to virtue as a whole, its name implying virtue’s

XIII § 43} - DE FINIBUS II. 97

opposite. Then he said ‘now we have thus laid down our prin- 41

ciples, there follows a serious struggle, which has been carried

on in a spiritless way by the Peripatetics (you know their cus- ``

tomary style is not subtle enough because they are ignorant

of logic) and so your friend Carneades has by his very splendid

practice in logical discussions and his fine eloquence imperilled

the issue to a high degree, because he never ceased to contend

that in this whole inquiry which is described as relating to things

good and things bad, the dispute between the Stoics and Peri-

patetics is not one turning on realities but on words. But to me

there seems nothing so self-evident as that these opinions of the

philosophers I have named are divided from one another more

by reason of their substance than by reason of their expression;

I assert that between the Stoics and Peripatetics the divergence

is much greater in doctrine than in terms, since the Peripatetics

maintain that all the objects which they themselves call good

are esséntial to happiness, while our school do not think that a

life of happiness is furnished forth with every possession which

deserves to have assigned to it a certain value.

XIII. Well, can anything be more sure than this, that on 42

the principles of those who class pain as an evil, the wise man

cannot be happy whenever he is tormented on the rack? But

those who do not consider pain to be an evil are surely bound

by their principles to believe that the happiness of the wise man

is kept intact through all tortures. Further, if the same pains

are found easier to endure by those who submit to them for

their country’s sake than by those who do so on some slighter

ground, then it is fancy, and not nature, that increases or

diminishes the power of pain. Nor again, supposing that, as 43

there are three classes of things good (this is the belief of the

Peripatetics) each man is happy in proportion as he abounds in

bodily and external goods, does it accord with our doctrine to

hold the same view, so that a man who has more of the objects

which are valued in connexion with the body should be happier.

For they think that the life of happiness is furnished forth with

bodily advantages, while our school are as far as possible from

so thinking. Now as we believe that life is not rendered happier.

or more desirable or more valuable even by the numerousness

p

R. C. F. í

98 CICERO [XIII § 43—

of those things which we call really good, the quantity of bodily

advantages has certainly small bearing on the happy life.

44 Moreover, if wisdom and health were both desirable objects, the

combination of the two would be more desirable than wisdom

alone, yet, supposing the two to deserve to be valued, the com-

bination would not be more highly esteemed than wisdom itself

taken apart. For we who pronounce that health to a certain

extent deserves to be valued, and yet do not give it a place

among things good, also declare that it has no value of such im-

portance as to cause it to be preferred to virtue; now this is a

position the Peripatetics do not maintain, for they are bound to

say that a course of action which is moral and at the same time

painless is more desirable than the same course of action would

be if attended by pain. We think differently, whether rightly

or wrongly we shall see by and by; but can there be a greater

disagreement in substantial matters ?

45 XIV. Just as the light of a lamp is darkened and drowned

in the sun’s beams and just as a drop of honey is lost in the

vastness of the Aegean sea, and as in the wealth of Croesus an

added farthing is imperceptible and a single step in the distance

from here to India, so, if the ultimate good has the nature the

Stoics give it, all that value which bodily advantages possess

must inevitably be darkened and overwhelmed and lost in the

blaze and vastness of virtue. And just as seasonableness (so let

us translate evxacpia) does not grow greater by prolongation of

time, since things which are called seasonable have assigned

to them their proper limit, in the same way right accom-

plishment, for so I render xarop@wats, since xatépOwpa is a

single right action, well then, right accomplishment and har-

mony of conduct also, and in a word the good itself, which

46 depends on agreement with nature, admits of no increase. Just

as is the case with that quality of seasonableness, so the things

I have mentioned do not grow more important by prolongation

of time, and for that reason the Stoics do not consider a life of

happiness more an object of wish or desire, though it be long,

than if it were brief; and they use an illustration: just as, on

the supposition that the one merit of a buskin is exactly to fit

the foot, a larger number of buskins would not be preferred to a

XV § 48] DE FINIBUS III. 99

smaller, nor those of larger size to those of smaller size, so in

the case of matters whose whole quality of goodness is defined

by their harmony and seasonableness, neither will a greater

number of them be preferred to a smaller, nor a longer duration

of them to a shorter. Nor do people shew much cleverness 47

when they say that if good health were allowed to deserve a

higher value when long continued than when transient, then

the most protracted enjoyment of wisdom also would be the

most valuable. They do not see that the value of health is

tested by its duration, that of virtue by its seasonableness,

so that those who make this assertion seem just the men to

declare that a good death and a good childbirth would be

better if protracted than if they lasted a short time. They

do not perceive that some things are assigned a higher value

the sooner they pass away, but other things, the longer they

last. Thus so far as the principles of those go, who think 48

that the highest good, which we call the ultimate, the supreme .

good, is capable of increase, it is only consistent with the doc-

trines already stated for tħem also to believe that one man

is actually wiser than another, and further that one man is a

sinner or is virtuous in a higher degree than another, a con-

clusion which we who refuse to believe that the highest good is

capable of increase are not free to maintain. Just as those

who are immersed in water cannot breathe more easily when

they are so close to the surface, as to be on the very point of

finding themselves able to put their heads out, than if at that

very moment they lay at a great depth, and just as a puppy

which is on the very verge of receiving its sight cannot dis-

tinguish objects any more than another which is only just

born, so a man who has made considerable progress towards

the possession of virtue is not at all less in a condition of

wretchedness than another who has made no progress at all.

XV. I know that these statements are thought to be para-

doxes, but the premisses being assuredly strong and true, and

the inferences in harmony and consistent with the premisses, we

cannot question the truth of the inferences either. But though

the Stoics refuse to allow that either the virtues or the vices are

capable of increase, yet they hold that both of them admit of a

1—2

100 CICERO | [XV § 49—

49 sort of extension and expansion, so to speak. Diogenes gives it as

his opinion that while wealth not only has the power of almost

guiding men to pleasure and to good health, but is the essential

condition of those states, it does not perform the same function

in the case of virtue and the other arts, to which money may

act as a guide, but of which it cannot be an indispensable con-

comitant; so he holds that if pleasure and good health be

placed among things good, wealth must be placed there too;

but if wisdom be good, then it does not follow that we should

maintain wealth also to be good. Nor can the existence of any-

thing which belongs to the class of things good be bound up

with the existence of anything which does not belong to that

class, and on that account, because the elements of knowledge

and our certain perceptions of external objects, out of which

the arts are constructed, set in motion our impulses, no art can

be indissolubly connected with wealth, seeing that wealth does

50 not belong to the class of things good. But even if we were to

admit this supposition concerning the arts, still the same principle

would not apply to virtue, because it requires a vast amount

of meditation and practice, which is not equally true of the arts,

and because virtue involves the sureness, solidity and consistency

of life as a whole, and we do not find these accompaniments to

the same extent in the case of the arts.

Next in order is given an exposition of the difference of

value between things, and if we were to assert that no difference

exists, all our life would be made chaotic, as by Aristo, nor

would there be found any function or task for wisdom to

perform, there being no distinctions of value whatever among

the things which concern the conduct of life, and no obligation

to exercise any discrimination. So while on the one hand it

was sufficiently established that what is moral is alone good,

and that what is vicious is alone evil, so on the other these

philosophers pronounced that nevertheless distinctions do exist

between those things which are without influence upon happi-

ness, so that some of them have positive value, some negative,

5l and some neither. Of those things which deserve to have as-

signed to them a positive value, they say one class consists of

those important enough to be preferred to certain others, health

XVI § 53] DE FINIBUS III. 101

for example, soundness of the senses, freedom from pain, fame,

wealth and the like things, while another class is not in the

same case; and, in the same manner, of those which can only

claim a negative value, some supply us with sufficient reason

for rejecting them, pain for example, disease, loss of the senses,

poverty, disgrace, and the like, while others do not. Hence

arose what Zeno termed mponypévov, with its opposite which

he called dzromponypévor, for though his native tongue was rich,

he adopted artificial and new-fangled terms, which we who speak

this poverty-stricken language are not permitted to do, though

you oftentimes say that ours is the richer of the two. But with

a view to more readily grasping the force of these terms, it is

not out of place to explain the principle which Zeno followed

when he constructed them.

XVI. Just as no one asserts (these are his words) that in 52

a palace the prince himself is, as it were, preferred to honour

(for that is what mponypévoy means) but rather that those

have been so preferred who have some official rank, and whose

station brings them close to the princely dignity, and is only

second to it, so in life we must speak not of those things

which are in the front rank, but of those which hold a

secondary position as mponypeva, that is as preferred; and let

us either use this phrase (which will be a literal translation)

or speak of things advanced and things degraded or, as we said

some time back, leading or important things, the opposite class

being things rejected. If facts be clearly understood, we are

bound to be complacent as to the adoption of phrases. Now 53

since we say that everything which is good holds a front rank,

it follows inevitably that what we denote as a thing preferred

or leading thing is neither good nor evil, and we define such a

thing as that which is essentially indifferent, yet has a tolerable

amount of value; for it has struck me to call indifferent what

the Greeks call advagopov. Nor could it by any means have

been brought about that nothing either in harmony with or in

disagreement with nature should be admitted to fill the class of

things indifferent, nor that, such things being admitted, not one of

them should be classed as having a tolerable amount of value, nor,

when this is once allowed, that there should not be some things

102 | CICERO [XVI § 54—

54 which are advanced. This classification then has been laid

down with justice; and to make the matter easier to be

understood, they offer this illustration; for, say they, just

as if we imagine it to be a kind of end or aim to cast a die

go that it may stand right side uppermost, any die which is

thrown so as to fall with its right side uppermost [yet not

so as to stand so] will have about it something which is ad-

vanced towards the attainment of the end, and any die thrown

otherwise will be in the opposite condition, and yet that

advancement of the die will have nothing to do with the actual

attainment of the end, in the same way things which are ad-

vanced are said to be so with reference to the end; yet they

stand in no relation to the end in its essence and nature.

55 Next comes the distinction whereby things good are divided

into those which are closely connected: with the. highest

end (I thus describe what the Greeks call teAcxa; for let

us establish this practice upon which we have agreed, of

denoting by several expressions what we find it impossible to

denote by one expression so as to make the sense clear) while

others are means, which the Greeks call vrounrixa, and others

are both ends and means. Belonging to the class of goods

closely connected with the end, there is no good excepting moral

eonduct, belonging to the class of means, none but the friend,

but these philosophers lay it down that wisdom both directly

bears on the end and is also a means. For inasmuch as wisdom

is harmony of conduct, it belongs to the class of things which

involve the end, of which I have spoken; while in that it

brings with it and is the means to moral actions, it may be

termed a means.

56 XVII. The things which we style preferred are in part

preferred on their own account, in part on account of some result

they produce, in part because of both these reasons; things pre-

ferred on their own account are for example a certain style of

feature and expression, and also certain attitudes and move-

ments, in connexion with which matters there are certain things

to be preferred and certain others to be declined ; other things

again, money fur example, will acquire the name preferred for

the reason that they are productive of some result, others how-

XVII § 58] DE FINIBUS IIT. 103

ever in both ways, as for instance sound senses and good health.

As to fair fame (since it is preferable at this point to represent 57

evdo£ia by fair fame, rather than by glory) Chrysippus, you must

know, and Diogenes maintained that, apart from its usefulness,

it would not be worth while to put out a finger to take it, and

I give these philosophers my emphatic assent. Those however

who came after their time, being unable to withstand the onset

of Carneades, declared that fair fame was in itself and for its own

sake preferred and worthy of choice, and that a man who was

free born and generously nurtured naturally desired to be of

good report in the eyes of his parents, of his relations, and of

good men too, and that for the sake of the thing itself, not on

account of its utility, and they assert that just as we desire to

secure the interests of children, even though they will be born

after we are gone, from our love of them in themselves, so we

must take thought for the reputation we are to have even

though it be after death, and that on account of the thing

itself, even though it is destitute of utility. But although we 58

say that what is moral is alone good, still it is consistent with

this doctrine that we should perform all appropriate actions,

though we place actions having that character neither in the

category of good nor in that of evil. In matters of this kind

there is something which is deserving of approval, and of course

such that a reasonable account of it can be rendered, and therefore

when something has actually been done in a way to deserve ap-

proval a reasonable account can be rendered of it; now appro-

piate action is anything which has been so done that a reason

deserving approval can be assigned to it; this makes it clear

that there is a kind of middling action, which is neither classed

with things good nor with their opposites. And since those

matters which we class neither as virtues nor as vices, neverthe-

less include some things which may be of advantage, we must

not throw away such things. There is moreover a certain kind

of action which concerns this class of things, action such that in

these cases reason requires us to perform it and carry it into

execution ; and what has been done on reason’s prompting we call

appropriate action; appropriate action is therefore of such a kind

that we class it neither with things good nor with their opposites.

104 CICERO [XVIII § 59—

59 XVIII. This too is evident, that the wise man has some

. actions to perform which concern those indifferent things. When

therefore he performs such an action, he delivers his opinion

that it 1s an appropriate action. But since he is never mistaken

in his deliverances, there will be appropriate action concerned

with indifferent things; and this result is arrived at also by the

following proof: inasmuch as we see that there is something to

which we give the name of right action, and that is appropriate

action carried to perfection, there will be also a form of appro-

priate action which is imperfect; for example, if to return trust

funds from just motives were placed among right actions, the

mere restoration of trust funds would be classed as belonging to

appropriate actions; for with the addition of the phrase from

just motives the action becomes a right action, though in itself

the mere act of restoration is put down as an appropriate action.

And as it is unquestionable that among the things which we

term indifferent some are worthy of choice, some of rejection,

every action which is done or is spoken of in connexion with

this principle, is entirely included within the bounds of appro-

priate action. From this it is seen that, inasmuch as all men

by nature love themselves, the unwise man and the wise man

alike will choose those things which accord with nature, and

reject their opposites. So there is a certain appropriate action

which is the meeting ground of the wise and the unwise

man; this shews that it is concerned with the field of things

60 which we call indifferent. But since these indifferent things

form the starting point for all appropriate actions, it is not

without reason said that they constitute the test for deciding

on all our plans, and among them those about departure from

life and continuance in life. When the bulk of a man’s cir-

cumstances are in accord with nature, it is appropriate for

him to remain in life; when the balance is on the other side,

or seems likely to be so, it is appropriate for such a man to

quit life. ‘This proves that it is sometimes appropriate for the

wise man to quit life though he is in possession of happiness,

61 and for the fool to continue in life, though wretched. For

that good and that evil of which we have already often spoken

are secondary products, while those elementary natural circum-

XIX § 63] — DE FINIBUS III. 105

stances, whether prosperous or adverse, are submitted to the

wise man’s judgment and discrimination, and are, so to say,

the subject-matter of wisdom. So any plan for continuing

in life or departing from it is entirely to be estimated with

reference to those matters of which I have spoken above. For

it is not virtue that keeps a man among the living, nor are

those who are destitute of virtue bound to seek for death. So it

is often an appropriate action for the wisc man to turn his back

on life, though enjoying happiness to the full, if he can do it

seasonably, that is consistently with a life in harmony with

nature, since these philosophers are of opinion that seasonable-

ness is the characteristic of happiness. And so wisdom herself

enjoins upon the wise man that he should leave her if need re-

quire. Thus inasmuch as vice has not the effect of affording a

motive for suicide, it is plain that the appropriate course even

for fools, who are ipso facto wretched, is to continue in life if

they are surrounded by circumstances, the majority of which

are, as we phrase it, in accord with nature. And seeing that

the fool, whether he quits life or continues in it, is equally

wretched, and long duration does not make life any more for

him a matter to be avoided, it is not without reason main-

tained that men who can enjoy a preponderance of things in

accord with nature must continue in life.

XIX. These philosophers believe it to be important for our 62

purpose to understand that nature prompts parents to love

their offspring. It is to this principle that we trace the com-

mencement of the association of the human race into commu-

nities. Now this principle must in the first place become clear

from the structure and parts of the body, which themselves

shew that nature has designed the continuance of the race;

while the two statements that nature desired offspring and yet

was indifferent about the love of offspring, could never be made

consistent with one another. And so even in brutes the power

of nature can be conspicuously seen ; and when we discern the

distress they suffer in the production and in the rearing of their

young, we believe ourselves to be listening to the cry of nature

herself. So while it is plain that nature causes us to recoil

from pain, yet it is evident that nature herself instigates us to

love those of whose being we are the authors. Hence it arises 63

106 CICERO . [XIX § 63—

that men feel a general attraction inspired by nature towards

one another, so that a man is bound to think himself no stranger

to his fellow man, owing to the mere fact of a common hu-

manity. Just as among our bodily parts some have been as it -

. were created for themselves, the eyes for instance and the ears,

while others contribute to the advantage of the remaining parts,

the legs for example and the hands, so certain monstrous

creatures are born to live for themselves, but that creature

which lives in a broad shell and is called a sea-pen, and also

the animal which is called the sea-pen’s guardian because it

keeps watch over it, that sails out of the shell, and retreats

into the shell on its return, so that it seems to have given

the sea-pen warning to be on its guard, and in the same way

ants, bees, and storks all do some actions for the sake of others.

This union between human beings is much closer. And so we

-are formed by nature for congress, for combination, and for

64 common life. It is the opinion of these philosophers that the

universe is controlled by a divine will and is, if we may say so,

a city and community shared by gods and men, and that every

individual among us is a member of this universe, from

which naturally follows this conclusion, that we should place

the general interest before our own. Just as the statutes place

the security of the nation before that of individuals, so a man

who is good and wise and obedient to the statutes and is not

_ unaware of what behoves him as a citizen, takes more thought

for the general interest than for that of some definite person, or

his own. . Nor is one who is a traitor to his country more repre-

hensible than he who to assure his own interest and his own

security turns his back on the interest or security of the com-

monwealth. Hence any one is meritorious who confronts death

on behalf of the nation, because it is fitting that our country

should be more precious to us than our own lives. And since

that speech is regarded as cruel and abominable, wherein

men declare that they do not mind if, on their own death, a

universal consumption of the world by fire should ensue (an

opinion to which expression is usually given in a certain hack-

neyed Greek line) the conclusion surely is true that we

should take thought for those who are to live after us, for their

65 own sake merely. XX. This attitude of our minds gives rise

XX § 67] DE FINIBUS III. 107

to wil!s and trusts executed by men on the point of death. And

whereas no one would choose to pass away his life in absolute

loneliness, even if attended by a limitless supply of pleasures, it

is easy to see that we came into being in order to combine and

associate with our fellow men and to form a society after

nature’s law. Nature herself inspires in us the desire to do good

to as many men as possible, and particularly by instructing them

and imparting to them the principles of wisdom, And so it is 66

not easy to find any one who refuses to impart to another what

he knows himself: such a bent have we not only towards

receiving but towards imparting instruction. And exactly as

by natural instinct cattle fight with the utmost energy and

vigour in defence of their young against lions, so nature impels

to protect the human race those who are strong in resources,

and have the power to do so, as we learn from story in the

case of Hercules and Liber. And when we give to Jove the

titles best and greatest, and again god of health, god of friend-

ship, god of safety, we wish it to be understood that the security

of mortals depends on his guardian care. Now it is entirely

inconsistent to demand that the eternal gods should hold us

dear and love us though we are cheap and unregarded in the

eyes of each other. Therefore exactly as we use our bodily

parts before we have been taught the useful purpose for which

they were given us, so nature has linked and bound us one with

another in social fellowship. And if this were not so, there

would be no room either for justice or for kindness. And as 67

on the one hand the Stoics believe that men are bound to their

fellow men by bonds of law, so on the other they think that no

law binds men to the brute creation. Chrysippus well says indeed

that for the use of men and gods all other things exist, and

these exist for association and fellowship among themselves, so

that without wrong men may, to secure advantage to them-

selves, employ the services of animals, And inasmuch as the

nature of man is so constituted that the individual is connected

with the whole race by a sort of civil law, he who supports that

law will be just, he who contravenes it unjust. But as, although

the theatre belongs to all, it 1s right to say that the place which

each man has taken belongs to him, so in the general city or

universe the law docs not forbid that each man should have his

108 CICERO [XX § 68—-

68 own property. Now as we see that the individual man is born

for the support and protection of mankind, it is consistent with

the purpose of his nature that the wise man should desire to par-

ticipate in and conduct public affairs, and that, to enable him to

live as nature directs, he should take to himself a wife and desire

issue by her. Nor do our philosophers think that the passion

of love, if pure, is foreign to the person of the wise man. Some

Stoics say that the Cynic principle and their mode of life befit

the wise man, if any circumstances like theirs come upon him,

others think this is by no means the case.

69 XXI. With the view of maintaining the communion, fel-

lowship and affection which bind every man to every other,

the Stoics have laid it down that benefits and injuries (which

they call wdeAnuara and BrAappata) are universal in their

effect, the one class being beneficial and the other class harm-

ful; and they have asserted them all to be not only universal, but

also of equal value. Conveniences however and inconveniences

(for so I render evypnotnuata and dvaoypnotnpata) they have

declared to be universal, but denied to be equal in value.

Those actions which are beneficial and those which are harm-

ful are in the one case good and in the other evil, and so

must inevitably be all of equal value, while conveniences and

inconveniences are things of the kind to which we applied the

names preferred and rejected, and these things may be of unequal

value. Now benefits are asserted to be universal, while right

70 actions and sins are not held to be universal. Friendship, they

pronounce, is to be welcomed because it belongs to the class of

things which confer benefit. Now though in the case of friend-

ship some maintain that the circumstances of the friend are as

dear to the wise man as his own, while others hold that each

man’s own circumstances must be to him dearer, still the latter

class too allow it to be inconsistent with justice, for which we

are believed to exist, that any one should strip another man

of something in order to appropriate it to his own use. The

theory that either justice or friendship is acquired or adopted

with a view to profit finds absolutely no favour with the school

of which I am speaking. For profit will be strong enough

again to undermine and ruin them. Indeed it will be altogether

impossible for either justice or friendship to exist, unless they

XXII § 74] DE FINIBUS III. 109

be desired for their own worth. Now law, so far as it can be 71

called and styled by that name, exists, they say, naturally ; and

it is abhorrent to the wise man, not merely to do wrong, but

even to do harm to any one. Nor is it right to associate or

combine with friends or benefactors to commit wrong; and it

is maintained with very great dignity and truth, that equity

can never be severed from utility and that whatever is equitable

and just is also moral, and vice versa whatever is moral will be

also just and equitable. And to those virtues of which we have 72

already discoursed, they add also dialectic and natural science,

and describe them both by the name virtue, the former because

it establishes principles which save us from assenting to any

falsity, or from ever being deluded by any deceptive plausibility,

and enables us to cling to and uphold the lessons we have

learned about matters good and evil, for without this science

they think it possible that any man whatever may be seduced

from the truth and deluded. With justice then, if a general

recklessness and ignorance are vicious, has this science, which

does away with them, been entitled a virtue. XXII. The 73

same honour has not without reason been bestowed on natural

science, because he who is to live a life in harmony with nature

must start from a survey of the universe, and of its government.

Nor indeed can any man pass. a fair opinion upon things good

and things evil, unless he has discovered the principles that

govern nature and govern too the life of the gods, and whether

or no the nature of man accords with the nature of the All.

And as to the ancient maxims propounded by the wise men,

who bid us bow to opportunity and to follow after God, and to

know ourselves, and to exceed in nothing, the force of these (and

they have very great force) no one can see apart from natural

science. And only this branch of inquiry can teach us the

power nature exerts in the cultivation of justice, in the main-

tenance of friendship, and of the other affections, Nor, unless

nature is revealed to us, can we understand the meaning of

filial reverence to the gods, nor the extent of the debt which we

owe to them. But I now perceive that I have allowed myself 74

to be carried away farther than the plan I laid down required

me to go. But I was drawn away by the wonderful orderliness

of the system, and the marvellous arrangement of its topics, and

110 | CICERO. [XXII § 74

I ask you with all solemnity whether you do not admire it?

What can you find either in nature, who is unsurpassed for

symmetry and exactness, or in the works of men’s hands, which

is so well ordered and constructed and fitted together? What

minor premiss is there which does not suit its major premiss,

or what conclusion which does not follow from the premisses ?

At what point are the arguments not so linked together that

if you displace a single letter the whole chain falls to ees

And yet there is nothing which can be displaced.

75 But how lofty, how splendid, how unwavering the dusan

the wise man is shewn to be! He, inasmuch as true reason

has proved to him that what is moral is alone good, must of

necessity enjoy perpetual happiness and must in very truth be

in possession of all those titles which the ignorant love to deride.

He will be styled a king by a fairer right than Tarquin, who

was too feeble to govern either himself or his people, and lord

of the nation (for such is the dictator) by a fairer claim than

Sulla, who was lord of three baneful vices, self-indulgence,

greed, and barbarity, rich by a fairer title than Crassus, who but

for his wants would never have sought to cross the Euphrates,

without reason for declaring war. It will be right to say that

all things are his, who alone knows bow to use all things; right

to call him beautiful, since the features of the mind are fairer

than those of the body; right to name him the only freeman,

for he bows to no tyranny nor yields to any passion; right to.

declare him invincible, since though his body may be chained

76 no shackles can be cast round his mind. Nor would he ever

wait for any period of life, that the question whether he has

enjoyed happiness may be decided after he has spent in dying

the last day of his existence ; such was the far from wise advice

given to Croesus by one of the seven wise men. For if he ever

had been happy he would have carried his happiness with him

to the funeral pyre built for him by Cyrus. Now if it is true

that no one but the good man is happy and all good men are

happy, what is there more deserving of worship than philosophy

. or more divinely glorious than virtue ?’

END OF BOOK III,

BOOK IV.

I. Wir these words he ceased. Then I said, ‘indeed, 1

Cato, you have set forth your argument with great power of

memory, if we look to its extent, and luminously, considering

its profundity. So let me either abandon altogether any desire

to controvert it, or let me take some time for reflection; for it

is no easy task to learn thoroughly a system which has not only

been grounded but built up with such thoroughness, perhaps

not on truths (though I do not yet venture to say so much)

but still with painstaking. Then he answered, ‘do you say so ?

While I see you reply to the prosecutor’s speech, according to the

provisions of this new statute, on the same day on which it was

delivered, and wind up your own in the space of three hours, do

you expect me to grant you an adjournment in the present

case? And in any event you will find it no better to argue than

some are which you sometimes win. So address yourself to this

case also, with the more confidence, in that it has often already

been handled both by others and by yourself, so that you can-

not possibly be at a loss what to say. Then I said, ‘in good 2

sooth, I am not fond of lightly attacking the Stoics; not be-

cause I agree with them very much; but modesty prevents me;

they make so many statements I find it hard to grasp. ‘I ad-

mit,’ said he, ‘that certain doctrines are difficult; though they

are not purposely made so by the mode of statement; on the

contrary the difficulty lies in the subject-matter itself? ‘ How is

it then,’ said I, ‘that when the Peripatetics deal with the same

subject-matter, I do not find a word that I cannot grasp?’ ‘The

same subject-matter?’ said he; ‘why, have I not argued strongly

112 CICERO [I § 2—

enough that the Stoics do not differ from the Peripatetics in

phraseology only, but over the whole field and throughout

their entire doctrines?’ ‘But, Cato,’ said I, ‘if you make good

your point, you shall carry me over entirely to your side.’ ‘For

my part,’ said he, ‘I thought I had said enough. So pray

answer my statements on this head first, if you so please, or

afterwards, if you prefer another course.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘I shall

use my own judgment on that subject unless you think me

unreasonable, and shall take each matter as it turns up.’ ‘As

you please, said he; ‘though my proposal was more suitable,

still it is fair to let each man have his own way.’

8 II. ‘Well then, Cato, said I, ‘I think that Plato’s pupils of

old time, Speusippus, Aristotle and Xenocrates, and their pupils

again, Polemo and Theophrastus, possessed a system which was

formulated with perfect fulness and exactness, so that there

was no reason why Zeno, having been a pupil of Polemo, should

dissent from his own master and from those who went before

him; now the outlines of their system I am about to describe,

and I want you to notice anything you think ought to be

altered and not to look for an answer from me to everything

you said, since I judge that their scheme as a whole should

be pitted against yours as a whole.

4 Now these philosophers, seeing we are so constituted by

nature, that we one and all are suited for the cultivation of

those virtues which are far famed and conspicuous, I mean

justice, temperance and the others of the same description

(all of which resemble the other arts, and are separated from

them only by their finer subject-matter and treatment) and

- seeing our yearning after these same virtues to be accompanied

by much greatness of soul and enthusiasm, seeing further that

we have a deeply rooted or rather inbred passion for knowledge,

and exist for association with our fellow men and for union and

fellowship with mankind, and that these tendencies are most

conspicuous in the highest intellects, distributed the whole

of philosophy into three branches, a division which, as we

5 know, Zeno retamed. Now one of these divisions being the

art whereby it is deemed that character is moulded, I delay to

speak of this division, which forms so to speak, the tap root of our

III § 7] DE FINIBUS IV. 113

inquiry, for I shall by and by discuss what the ultimate good is;

at this point I only say thus much, that the old Peripatetics

and Academics, who, though essentially at one, were at vari-

ance in their terminology, dealt seriously and fully with the

topic which I think we shall be right in describing as that

which treats of society (the Greeks call it aroActexov).

III. At what length did they write upon statesmanship, upon

legislation! How many maxims they laid down in their trea-

tises, and also how many models of eloquence did they bequeath

to us in their speeches! In the first place, they stated in re-

fined and felicitous terms precisely those doctrines which needed

accurate discussion, now using definitions now divisions, as your

school also does, but you do it in rougher fashion; you see

how bright their style is. In the next place, how loftily, 6

how brilliantly did they discourse on matters which called

for a rich and dignified style! What they wrote of justice,

temperance, courage, friendship, the conduct of life, philo-

sophy, the practice of statesmanship, came from men who

were no splitters of hairs like the Stoics, no skinners of flints,

but from men who chose to state high arguments in rich, and

the lesser doctrines in lucid language. And so how fine are

their consolatory writings, their exhortations, the warnings and

advice too that they addressed to the most illustrious persons!

Their practice in oratory was twofold, as is the nature of the

themes themselves. For every matter of inquiry involves

either a dispute about a mere general question apart from par-

ticular characters or occasions, or, when these are taken into

account, a dispute concerning a question of fact or a point of

law, or the appellation of the fact. Well then, they were

trained in both kinds, and this exercise was the cause of

the extraordinary richness of their oratory in both depart-

ments. This entire field Zeno and his followers have certainly 7

neglected, either from lack of capacity or lack of inclination.

Yet Cleanthes wrote a treatise on rhetoric, and Chrysippus

too, but in such fashion that any one who has conceived a

desire to become dumb has only to read it. You see, then, in

what style they talk. They trump up new words and abandon

those that are familiar. But what tasks they set themselves !

R. C. F. 8

114 CICERO — [III § 7—

The whole universe they say is the township to which we

belong. You see what an important business it is; it enables

an inhabitant of Circeii to suppose that our whole universe is

his own country town. So the hearts of the listeners are set

on fire. What? Set on fire? The Stoic is more likely to quench

his pupil, if he receives him all aflame. The very theories of

which you gave a brief description, that the wise man is the

only king, dictator and capitalist, were treated by you in neat

and rounded periods; of course, since you get them from

the teachers of rhetoric; but how poor are the deliverances of

your school about the potency of virtue, which they make out

to be so great that it can of itself render its possessor happy!

They prick people with tiny cramped arguments like pins: and

even the men who give to these their assent are not a whit

changed at heart, but go away just as they came; since doc-

trines which are perhaps true, and assuredly important, are not

handled as they should be, but in a far too petty style.

8 IV. We now come to the principles of logic and scientific

inquiry; for we shall look to the supreme good presently, as I

said, and shall direct the whole discussion to its elucidation.

Well, in these two branches of philosophy there existed no

reason why Zeno should hanker after change; for matters were

in a splendid condition, and I say so of both branches alike.

What point in that department which bears upon logic was

missed by the ancients? They laid down plenty of definitions

and left behind them formal treatises on definition; and the

division of a class into species, which is closely connected with

definition, is not only practised by them, but they impart the

proper method for the process ; so too they dealt with the opposite

processes, which enabled them to mount upwards to the species

and the classes which contain the species. Further they declare

the self-evident impressions, as they call them, to be the source

of syllogistic proof; then they attend to the arrangement of

the premisses: the final conclusion shews what the true infer-

9 ence is in each case. What a number they propose of dif-

ferent proofs which arrive at their conclusion by reasoning, and

how unlike these are to the sophistical arguments! Think again

how in very many passages they give us almost formal warning .

V $12) DE FINIBUS IV. 115

not to look for truth in the senses apart from reasou, nor in the

reason apart from the senses, and never to disjoin one of these -

things from the other! Why! Were not the rules which logi-

cians now teach and demonstrate, established by them? Though

Chrysippus toiled immensely over these, yet they were far less

regarded by Zeno than by the ancients, and Chrysippus treated

some matters no better than the older men, while some he left

untouched altogether. And there being two arts whereby 10

reason and speech receive their full developement, one the art

of discovery, the other the art of discourse; the latter has been

taught by both Stoics and Peripatetics, while as regards the

former the Peripatetics have left us brilliant maxims, but the

Stoics have never even dabbled in it. Your friends have never

dreamed about the regions from which proofs were to be drawn

as though from treasure-houses, while the earlier philosophers

bequeathed to us the art and method thereof. It is this art

that frees us from the need of always harping upon an old

lesson, so to speak, concerning the same themes, and of never

getting away from our note-books, For he who knows where

each argument lies, and by what road he is to approach it, will

be able, even if anything lies below the surface, to disinter it,

and always to shew originality in a debate. Although some

men who are gifted with extraordinary natural parts do attain

to a full style of oratory apart from theory, yet art is‘a more

unerring guide than nature. It is one thing to pour out words

after the manner of poets, quite another by the aid of theory

and practice to use discrimination about your language.

V. The same statements may be made concerning the 11

elucidation of natural phenomena, which your school and the

ancients alike undertake, and that not merely for the two

reasons which commend themselves to Epicurus, the banishment .

of the fear of death and of superstition; but inquiry into the

heavenly bodies inspires also a sense of moderation in those who

see how great self-control the gods exert, and how vast is their

orderliness, while the discernment of the divine functions and

achievements produces highmindedness, and justice arises when

we thoroughly understand what the will of our supreme ruler

and lord is like, what are his plans, what are his feelings; and

8—2

116 CICERO [V $ 11—

when reason has been brought into harmony with his nature

12 then philosophers say the true and paramount law exists. In

the elucidation of nature again we find a certain inexhaustible

pleasure springing from the acquisition of knowledge; and in

this pleasure alone, after performing our inevitable duties, when

once freed from troubles, can we live a moral and generous life.

So in their theories on these matters from first to last the Stoics

have followed the ancients upon nearly all the most important

points, declaring both that gods exist and that the universe is

composed of four elements. And whereas a very difficult matter

was under discussion, whether it was to be decided that there

is a certain fifth substance, which gives rise to reason and

understanding, an inquiry embracing the nature of the soul,

Zeno said it consisted of fire; he then made changes in some

other points, but very few; on the most important matter of

all he gave out identical opinions, that by the divine intellect

and divine nature the whole universe and its chief parts

are governed. But the store of doctrines and resources pos-

sessed by the one school we shall find to be poor, by the other

13 most abundant. How many facts did the ancients observe and

record about the family, the origin, the parts, the lives of ani-

mals of every kind, how many too about the vegetable world ?

How numerous and how manifold in their application are not

only the causes they assigned for each phenomenon, but also

their proofs of the mode in which it occurs! And out of all this

abundance we can take numerous proofs of the highest cer-

tainty, which make clear the construction of each individual

object. Thus up to this point, so far as I see, we must believe

that no reason existed for any change of name, for it does not

follow, just because he did not accept every doctrine, that he

did not owe his origin to the old school. For my part I think

that Epicurus too, in science at least, belongs to Democritus ;

he makes a few changes or a large number if you like; but

on the majority of subjects he holds the same language, and

assuredly on the most important. And while your friends do

just the same, they do not bestow upon their founders any

very great amount of gratitude.

14 VI. But enough of this. Now, if you please, with regard

VII § 16] DE FINIBUS IF. . 117

to the supreme good, which is the essence of philosophy, let

us see what contribution he actually did make, such as justified

him in his schism against his own founders, and I might almost

say his forefathers. At this point, though you, Cato, have given

a careful explanation of the nature of their ethical standard

and of the terms applied to it by the Stoics, yet I will give

a fresh account of it, that we may clearly understand, if we

find that possible, what new contributions were made by

Zeno. Now whereas the earlier school, and Polemo most un-

mistakeably, had pronounced the supreme good to be life in

accordance with nature, the Stoics maintain that this formula

is capable of three interpretations, one somewhat thus: life

accompanied by a knowledge of the operations of nature; this

they say is the very final good indicated by Zeno, being equiva-

lent to your doctrine of life in harmony with nature; the second 15

interpretation amounts to putting it thus: life devoted to the

performance of all or most of the ordinary appropriate actions.

This explanation of the doctrine ditfers from that which pre-

cedes it, for the one formerly given implies right action (which

you called xarópfwpa) and suits the lot of the wise man alone;

while the one now put forward refers to a sort of crude form

of duty and not a perfect form, and so can concern some

who are not wise men. The third interpretation is this: life

in the enjoyment of all or the most important of the things

which are in accord with nature. This does not follow on

anything we do ourselves; it depends for its fulfilment on that

form of life which is attended by the enjoyment of virtue, and

on those objects which accord with nature and are not subject

to our wills. But the supreme good indicated by the third

interpretation, along with the kind of life which is lived as a

consequence of that supreme good, falls within the province

of the wise man alone, because it is closely connected with

virtue, and this is the ultimate good which was set up by Xeno-

crates and Aristotle, as we see the Stoics admit in their writings.

So that ground plan of nature with which you too started is

explained by them almost in the following terms, VII. The 16

constitution of every creature inclines it to self-preservation, to

the end that it may be sound and retain its position in the class

118 CICERO [VII § 16—

to which it belongs. For this purpose they say that the sciences

too have been invented, to bring aid to nature, and the chief

among them is reckoned to be the science of conduct, which

helps the creature to maintain whatever nature has bestowed,

and to obtain that which is lacking; and further they distin-

guished two divisions in the constitution of man, his mind and

his body, and having declared each of these two divisions to

be in itself the object of our desires, they asserted the excel-

lences peculiar to each portion to be also in themselves desir-

able; as they preferred mind to body owing to its boundless

intrinsic worth, they preferred excellences of mind also to ad-

17 vantages pertaining to the body. But, maintaining that wisdom

exercises guardianship and supervision over the whole man, by

reason of being the attendant and assistant of nature, they

stated that the function of wisdom, as it has for its ward a being

composed of mind and body, is to aid that being-and support

him in both parts of his nature. And after placing the doctrine

before us at first in this plain way, they in the rest of their

statements went minutely into detail, and pronounced that the

theory of bodily advantages is easy enough; about mental ad-

vantages they made a more laborious inquiry, and especially

discovered that among them are found the germs of justice, and

they were the first of all philosophers to reason out the doctrine

that the love which parents have for their offspring is a natural

attribute, and (a fact which in order of time comes earlier)

that nature ordains the unions of men and women, from which

source spring those ties that depend on blood relationship.

And starting from these elementary notions they traced the

inception and the developement of all the virtues. Hence

was derived elevation of soul, rendering it easy for men to

resist and repel fortune, for the reason that the most import-

ant matters lie within the wise man’s own control. .A life

grounded upon the maxims of the old philosophers easily tri-

18 umphed over the fickleness and wrongfulness of fortune. Out

of the elements imparted by nature arose a rich harvest of

blessings which in part resulted from the consideration of the

mysteries of nature, due to the passion for knowledge inbred in

the mind, which passion produced the desire for a theory of

VIII § 20] DE FINIBUS IV. 119

reason and of discourse ; and as man is the only animal which

naturally shares the sense of honour and modesty, and yearns

after a common life and social union, and in all his actions and

words is anxious that nothing should be done by him unless in a

moral and seemly fashion, —wel!, starting from these elements,

or, as I called them before, these germs bestowed on us by

nature, self-control, moderation, justice, and every form of mo-

rality has received its full completion.

VIII. You now understand, Cato’, said I, ‘the scheme put 19

forward by the philosophers of whom I am speaking. Now

that I have explained it I want to know what reason Zeno

found for abandoning this ancient system, what part of their

scheme it was to which he did not give his sanction ; whether

because they declared that every creature is impelled to self-

preservation, or that every animal feels a love for its own ex-

istence and so desires to maintain itself sound. and unharmed in

the class to which it belongs, or that inasmuch as the aim of all

arts is to find that which nature strongly desires, therefore we

must say the same of the art which bears on life as a whole, or

that because we are composed of mind and body, these parts of

our nature themselves and the excellences pertaining to them

are to be chosen for their inherent worth? Or was he annoyed

at the vast preeminence which was assigned to the excellences

` of the mind? Or at the statements they make about pru-

dence, knowledge of phenomena, the association of mankind,

and again about self-control, moderation, nobleness of soul, and

every form of morality? The Stoics will allow that all these

statements are splendidly put, and afforded Zeno no reason for

his revolt. I suppose they will lay some other matters to the a

charge of the ancients as serious sins, such that Zeno, in his

- eagerness for the exploration of the truth, found it impossible to

endure them. What could be more wrong-headed, more in-

sufferable, more stupid than‘to class good health, freedom from

all pains, soundness of the eyes and the remaining senses as

things good, instead of saying that between these conditions and

those opposite to them there is no difference whatever? All

those things, Zeno said, which the ancients called good, are

preferable, not good; and in the same way the ancients had

120 CICERO [VIII § 20—

been foolish in asserting that all bodily excellences were in

themselves desirable, since they are rather chowceworthy than

desirable; finally, a whole life based on virtue alone was not

surpassed in desirability, but only in choiceworthiness by a life

enriched in addition with all the other possessions which are

in agreement with nature, and though virtue herself is so en-

‘tirely the cause of happiness that he who possesses her cannot

possibly be happier, still the wise men, at the very moment

of their highest happiness, yet lack some things, and so make

it their business to defend themselves from pain, disease, and

weakness.

21 IX. What splendid intellectual power! How sufficient a

= reason for the creation of a new system! Proceed a little

farther. We next come to those topics over which you shewed

such a thorough scientific mastery, how unwisdom, injustice,

and other moral defects are in the cases of all persons exactly

alike, and how all sins are exactly equal, and how those who by

their disposition and acquirements are far advanced on the road

to virtue, are supremely wretched unless they have entirely

attained to it, how there is not the slightest difference whatever

between the lives of such persons and those of the most con-

summate scoundrels, so that Plato, great man as he was,

supposing him not to have been the man of perfect wisdom,

passed a life no better and no happier than any thorough-

going rascal you like to name. Here we have, forsooth, a

reform and improvement of the old philosophy, though one

that can never possibly win its way into the city, the market, or

the senate. Pray who could tolerate such speech from one who

claimed to be a guide to a life of seriousness and wisdom, and

while his views were the same as those of all other men, simply

assigned a new terminology to doctrines whose essence he left

unchanged, and merely made verbal alterations, without in-

22 fringing upon the opinions in the least? Would any advocate

in a case, while delivering his peroration for the prisoner at the

bar, maintain that exile and forfeiture of property were no

evils? That they were things to be rejected, not things to be

avoided, and that no juryman ought to be merciful? If he were

speaking at a public meeting, after Hannibal had marched up to

X $25] DE FINIBUS IV. 121

the city gates and had hurled a javelin across the walls, would

he declare it no evil to be taken prisoner, to be sold into

slavery, to be put to death, to be cut off from one’s native land ?

Or would the senate in granting Africanus a triumph be able to

base its decree upon his virtue or his fortune, if no one but the

wise man can be truly said to possess either virtue or fortune?

What kind of philosophy is this, which in the market speaks

after the fashion of ordinary men, but in its literature after a

fashion of its own? This is all the stranger, as there is nothing

new in the meaning which they intend their words to carry, for

the doctrines remain the same though their dress is changed.

What difference does it make whether you describe wealth, 23

power, health, as things good, or as things preferred, when the

man who calls these things good assigns no greater value to

them than you who entitle them preferred? So Panaetius, a

man of great honour and dignity, and thoroughly worthy of his

friendship with Scipio and Laelius, when he addressed a book

to Quintus Tubero on the subject of pain, nowhere laid down

what ought to have been the fundamental proposition, had it

been capable of proof, that pain is no evil, but defined its

essence and qualities, and how much it comprised that was

repugnant, and then in what way it might be endured; and his

view, as he was a Stoic, seems to me to pass a censure on the

empty phraseology of which I am speaking.

X. But, to take a closer view of your speech, let us criticise 24

it more rigorously and compare the doctrines you stated with

those which I prefer to yours. Any points which you and your

school maintain in common with the ancients let us take for

granted; let us debate, if you please, the topics which are matters

for dispute.’ ‘I certainly agree,’ said he, ‘that we should carry

on the discussion in a more refined way and, as you said your-

self, more rigorously. All the considerations you have advanced

as yet are to please the mob, while I expect from you some-

thing in better taste. ‘You expect it from me? said I; ‘well,

at all events I will try hard, and if such arguments do not

suggest themselves to me in sufficient numbers, I shall not

shrink from those which please the mob, as you say. But let 25

it be postulated first that we look with favour on our own

122 CICERO [X $ 25—

existence, and that the earliest impulse nature implants in us is

the instinct of self-preservation. On this we are agreed; next

we must give our attention to a knowledge of ourselves, that

we may maintain ourselves in that condition which beseems us.

We are, then, human beings; we are composed of body and

mind, which have their own definite constitution, and it is

proper for us to feel affection for these endowments, as indeed

the earliest natural impulse requires of us, and on these to

build up that moral purpose which constitutes the supreme and

highest good; and this purpose, if our first principles are true,

must be laid down to consist in the attainment of as many as

possible from among the most important of those primary en-

26 dowments which harmonise with nature’s plan. This then is

the moral purpose to which the ancients clung; and so they

believed the ultimate good to be that which I have explained

at length, but which they described more tersely as life in

accordance with nature.

XI. Come then, let your school explain to us (or rather you

yourself; who indeed could do it better?) how it is that starting

from the same fundamental ideas you arrive at the result that

a moral life (which is what you mean by life according to virtue

or life in harmony with nature) is the supreme good, and how or

at what point you suddenly abandoned first the body, then the

whole class of things which, though they are 1n accordance with

nature, do not lie within our control, and finally appropriate

action itself. I ask then how it is that these matters to which

nature introduces us, important as they are, have been suddenly

27 rejected by wisdum. Now if we were not searching for that

supreme good which is suited to man, but one adapted for a

creature so constituted as to consist entirely of mind (be it

permitted to us to imagine some creature of the kind, that we

may more easily discover the truth) still this ultimate good of

your school would not suffice for the mind I am considering.

It would feel the need of sound health and freedom from pain,

it would also be impelled to the preservation of its own consti-

tution and to the maintenance of these advantages, and would

determine that the proper end for it to pursue is the life accord-

ing to nature, which implies as I have said the acquisition of

XII § 30] DE FINIBUS IV. | 123

either all or most of the chief among those things which are in

agreement with nature. In fact, whatever be the structure 28

you assign to the creature, even if it be destitute of body, as

we, are imagining it to be, still there needs must exist in the

case of the mind certain circumstances resembling those that

exist in the case of the body, so that the ultimate good cannot

by any means be.constructed except in the manner I have

set forth. Chrysippus again, when he is explaining the dis-

tinctions between living creatures, says that some of them are

eminent for their bodily powers, some again for power of mind,

while some are strong on both sides; he next discusses the end

which it is proper to lay down for each class of living creatures.

But though he had so classified man as to assign to him in-

tellectual preeminence, he established for him a supreme good

of such a kind as to make it appear not that. his intellect is

preeminent, but that he consists of nothing but intellect.

XII. Only in one way would it be right to make the supreme

good consist in virtue alone; that is if there were a creature

entirely composed of mind, and its mind were of such sort that

it had attached to it no natural condition resembling health.

But we cannot even conceive the nature of any such creature 29

without falling into inconsistency.

Now if they assert that the importance of certain objects is

overshadowed and lost because they are very insignificant, we

too grant that, and Epicurus also makes the same statement

about pleasure, saying that the trivial pleasures are often over-

shadowed and overwhelmed; but we cannot assign to this class

of objects the bodily aptitudes, important and enduring and

numerous as they are. Thus in cases where this overshadowing

takes place, owing to the triviality of the objects, we often find

ourselves admitting that it makes no difference to us whether

the objects are in existence or not; so in the sunlight, as you

kept asserting, we do not care to employ a lamp, nor do we

care to add a farthing to the treasure of Croesus; in the 30

case of objects again where so complete an overshadowing

does not occur, it still may happen that their importance is

not considerable. For instance when a man has lived an agree-

able life for ten years, supposing an addition of a month of

124 CICERO [XII s 30—

life equally agreeable were made, it would be a good thing,

because the addition has some actual importance in respect of

its agreeableness; if however the addition were not granted,

it does not at once follow that the man’s happiness is de-

stroyed. Now these good things which pertain to the body are

more like the instance which I last gave. They bring with

them an addition to happiness which is worth an effort to pro-

cure; so that I sometimes think the Stoics are jesting when

they say that if on the life which is spent in the pursuit of

virtue a flask or a flesh-brush were bestowed, the wise man will

prefer the life to which these objects have been attached, and

31 yet that he will be not a whit happier on that account. Pray

is this an illustration? Does it not deserve to be driven off

by laughter rather than by debate? What man would not be

most deservedly ridiculed if he vexed himself about the pre-

sence or absence of a flask? But surely if one man were to

cure another’s distorted limbs or his excruciating torments, he

would earn great gratitude; nor would the ideal wise man, if

forced by a despot to face the inquisitor’s rack, wear an ex-

pression like that he would assume if he had lost a flask, but

reflecting that he was entering on a serious and severe struggle,

inasmuch as he saw before him a deadly battle with a baneful

enemy, pain, he would summon to his aid all principles that

Inspire courage and endurance, that under their protection he

might proceed as I have said to that severe and serious conflict.

Next we are not inquiring what objects are overshadowed or

lost to view because they are to the last degree insignificant, but

what objects are required to complete the tale of things good.

Suppose that in the life of pleasure a single pleasure out of many

is so overshadowed; for all that, insignificant though it be,

it is a portion of that life which is grounded on pleasure.

Amid the wealth of Croesus a single piece is lost to view; for

all that it forms a part of that wealth. So let us even suppose

that the objects we assert to be in agreement with nature are

overshadowed in the midst of the life of happiness; only be it

granted that they are parts of that life.

32 XIII. Further if, as we surely are bound to agree, there is

a certain natural instinct which seeks after objects that are in

XIII § 34] DE FINIBUS IY. 125

agreement with nature, it must be proper to reckon up the

sum of all such objects. If we once decide this, we shall then

be free to examine at our leisure such questions as these, what

-is the importance of each thing, and how great influence each

exerts in producing happiness; what are those things which

are lost to view, and on account of their paltriness are scarcely

or perhaps not even scarcely observable. What of this: other

matter, about which there is no disagreement? Surely no one

ever refused to allow that the ultimate standard by which all

things are judged, that is, the highest of all objects for which

instinct yearns, must in the case of every creature constituted

by nature shew analogies; since every nature values its own

existence. Indeed what nature is there which ever abandons

itself, or any portion of itself, or the natural conditions or

faculties assigned to any portion of itself, or the state of

change or the state of rest required by any of those objects

which are in agreement with that nature? What nature

was ever oblivious of the fundamental principles of its con-

struction? There is assuredly none which does not preserve

its own characteristics from first to last. How then did it come 38

to pass that the nature of man (singular among natures) should

disregard the human constitution by becoming oblivious of the

body, and should lay down a supreme good which is concerned

not with the whole man but with a part of the man? How

again shall we save that principle which these philosophers

themselves also allow, and which all admit, namely the analogy

which that highest good, the subject of our inquiry, preserves

in the case of all natures alike? Such analogy would. exist if

in the case of the other natures also that faculty, which is most

conspicuous in each, constituted for it the supreme good. It

was in something of this kind that the supreme good of the

Stoics has been held to consist. Why do you delay then to 34

change the fundamental principles of nature? Why indeed do

you say that every creature, as soon as it is born, is driven to prize

its own existence, and to busy itself with the task of preserving

it? Why do you not rather put it in this way, that every

creature is drawn towards that which forms the most excellent

part of itself, and busies itself with the guardianship of that

126 CICERO [XIII 34—

part alone, and that the other natures carry out no other task

but that of preserving what forms the most excellent portion of

each? How can you speak of a most excellent portion, if no

other portion is good? But if the other portions also attract

our desires, why is the highest of things desirable not defined

by our desire either for all desirable objects, or for the most nu-

merous and the most important of them? Wisdom is like Phi-

dias who may plan a statue from the first and complete it, but

may also take over one that some other artist has begun, and

may finish it; wisdom did not herself create man, but took him

over from nature when he already existed in outline; to nature

then must wisdom look in completing that statue, so to speak,

85 of which the outlines had been already designed. What con-

stitution then did nature mark out for man, and what is the

office, what the function of wisdom? What is the form of that

work which she must finish and complete? If in the structure

which must be brought to completion there is nothing but a cer-

tain intellectual activity, by which I mean the reasoning powers,

then the highest good for such a being must be to live as virtue

directs, for virtue is the perfect state of the reason; if there is

nothing but body, the chief matters will be these, health, freedom

86 from pain, beauty and the rest. As it is, we are inquiring what

is the ultimate good for man; (XIV) why then do we hesitate

to explore what good has been accomplished in connexion with

his whole nature? Although it is admitted by all that the

whole duty and office of wisdom is concerned with the cultiva-

tion of man’s nature, yet some (you must not suppose I am

speaking against the Stoics only) put forward such views that

they place the supreme good in the class of objects which lie

beyond our control, as though they were talking about some

soulless creature, while others on the contrary, as though man

possessed no body, pay no attention to anything but his mind,

and are the more in error because even the mind itself is not

some indefinite thing destitute of substance (indeed I cannot

understand anything of the sort) but belongs to a particular

kind of material substance, so that even it cannot be satisfied

with virtue only but longs for freedom from pain. So both

these sets of philosophers act as though they were to disregard

XIV § 38] DE FINIBUS IY. 127

the left side while taking care of the right, or as if they’ were

to ardently accept the knowledge which the mind itself holds,

like Erillus, and to neglect its activity. All those who pass

by a number of matters with the intention of selecting some one

to which they may attach themselves, hold a view which is

maimed so to speak; but the really complete and perfect view

is that of these philosophers who, as they are seeking after the

supreme good for.man, have not refrained from taking under

their patronage every endowment he has, whether of mind or of

body. You and your friends on the other hand, Cato, because 37

virtue, as we all confess, holds the most lofty and conspicuous

position in the nature of man, and because we suppose those

who are called wise men to be wholly perfect, dazzle our mental

vision by the brilliance of virtue. Now in every being there

is some quality which is its highest and best, in the case

of the horse for example, or the dog, yet it is needful for

these creatures to be free from pain and strong; similarly

then in the case of man we bestow the highest praise on

the perfection of that in him which is most excellent, namely

` upon his virtue. So, to my mind, you do not properly reflect

what is the course of nature and what her method of advance.

For when she has led man on to the rational state, she

does not deal with him as she does with the corn, neglecting

the green stalk and treating it as worthless, when once she

has brought the ear out of the stalk. On the contrary, she

always confers new gifts without abandoning those which she

has bestowed at first. And so she associated reason with the 38

senses, yet did not turn her back on the senses when she had

brought reason to completion. So if viniculture, whose office

is to bring the vine with all its parts into a condition as ex-

cellent as possible—well then, let us so represent the matter

in our thoughts, since we may, as is the habit of you and your

friends too, imagine something for the sake of instruction—if

then this viniculture were a power within the vine itself, it.

would desire, I suppose, all those external operations which

concern the culture of the vine, just as they went on before,

while this power would prefer itself to all the members of

the vine, and would be persuaded that the vine comprised

128 CICERO [XIV § 38—

nothing better than itself; in the same way, when the senses

have been bestowed upon our nature, they protect that nature

indeed, but also protect themselves; but when the gift of

reason has been added, it is seated on such a throne of empire,

that all those early natural endowments are placed beneath

39 its sway. So it does not desert the guardianship of those

endowments over which it is placed, and thus is bound to

guide every department of life; so that I cannot express my

wonderment at the inconsistency of our opponents. For that

natural instinct, which they call dpyy, likewise appropriate

action and even virtue herself, all these they are persuaded

belong to the class of those things which are in agreement

with nature. When however they desire to reach the supreme

good, they overleap all obstacles, and prefer to leave us with

two tasks to complete, instead of one, rather than to include

both tasks under one and the same moral purpose; thus we

must choose some objects and desire others.

40 XV. But as you people tell me, you declare that virtue

cannot be firmly established, if those objects which are ex-

traneous to virtue be allowed any influence upon happiness.

The exact opposite is the truth, since virtue can by no means

be brought upon the stage, unless all those objects which she

is to select and to refuse are made to form parts of one and the

same whole. Now if we are altogether careless about our own

constitution, we shall fall into the errors and sins of Aristo,

and shall forget those first principles which we laid down for

the guidance of virtue herself; whereas if without disregarding

these principles we nevertheless do not allow them to have any

bearing upon the ethical standard, we shall be going astray in

a way not much differing from the light-mindedness of Erillus,

since we shall have to embrace two sets of maxims suited to

two different lives. He in fact sets up two distinct views of the

ultimate good; to make his system true, the two ought to have

been combined ; now they are so kept apart as to be thoroughly

41 divorced; and nothing can be more preposterous than this. So

the case is different from your statement of it; since virtue can

by no means be firmly established, unless she is to embrace

those primary natural endowments as though they did contri-

XVI § 43. ] DE FINIBUS IV. 129

bute to the sum of things good. Virtue has been summoned

not to abandon our nature but to protect it; but she, in your

opinion, protects only a certain portion of it, while the rest she

betrays. And if man’s fundamental scheme had itself a voice,

it would say that its earliest essays, so to speak, were moved

by the impulse to maintain itself in possession of that consti-

tution which the man had at birth. But up to now it has not

been made sufficiently clear what the most urgent desire of

nature is. Let it be made clear then. How else shall we

understand it, unless it be that no portion of the natural con-

stitution should be disregarded? Now if this constitution

comprises nothing but reason, let the final good consist in

virtue alone; but if it also comprises body, this clear voice

of nature is forsooth to have this result, that we should

abandon those objects to which we were clinging before the

voice spoke! So to live in harmony with nature means turning

our backs on nature. As certain philosophers, starting from a 42

consideration of the senses, abandoned the senses because they

afterwards saw certain endowments which were grander and

more godlike, so your friends, starting from our instinctive

yearnings after objects, spurned from them those endowments;

other than virtue herself, which they had discerned, because they

had gained a view of the splendour of virtue, forgetting that |

the whole natural influence of instinctive impulse has such far

reaching effect as to extend from our earliest principles to our

ultimate conclusions, nor do they perceive that they are under-

mining the bases of those fair and marvellous faculties, of which

they speak. |

XVI. And so in my view all those who have laid down 43

that ultimate good means the life of morality, have gone astray,

but in different degrees; Pyrrho, I am sure, most of all, who,

placing virtue on a firm foundation, leaves no object whatever

for which yearning may be felt; next Aristo, who did not

venture to leave a mere blank, but produced, as the objects

which arouse yearning in the mind of the wise man, such

things as chanced to present themselves to his mind and .such

things as, so to say, threw themselves in his way. He is in this

respect better than Pyrrho, that he allowed impulse of a kind

R. C, F. 9

130 CICERO [XVI § 43—

to exist, but is inferior to the rest, because he was entirely

disloyal to nature. Now the Stoics are like these philosophers

because they declare final good to consist in virtue only; in

that however they seek out a starting point for appropriate

action they are superior to Pyrrho; because they do not invent

those chance presentments, they have the advantage over Aristo ;

but in that they do not annex to their ultimate good those

objects which they declare to be adapted to nature’s scheme and

in their essence worthy of choice, therein they set up a revolt

against nature, and in a certain degree are not unlike Aristo.

He invented certain vague chance presentments ; these philoso-

phers however do indeed assume primary natural endowments,

but they dissociate them from nature’s final conclusions and

from the sum of things good; now in declaring their preference

for these objects, to the end that there may be some choice from

among external things, they appear to follow nature’s guidance;

in denying however that these things have any bearing what-

4A ever on happiness, they turn round and desert nature. Further,

the plea I have put in as yet is that there was no reason why

Zeno should be disloyal to the authority of his predecessors ;

now let us look to what remains, unless, Cato, you either want

to make some reply to what I have stated, or think that I have

already been too prolix.’ ‘By no means, said he; ‘I indeed want

you to conclude your discussion, nor can your speech possibly

appear to me diffuse.’ ‘Thank you much, said I. ‘What could

I desire more than to discuss the virtues with Cato, the patron

45 of every virtue? But first look to this point; your most import-

ant doctrine, which rules your whole scheme, that what is moral

is alone good and that the final good is a life of morality, will

be shared by you along with all those who affirm that the final

good is found in virtue alone; and your declaration that no

scheme of virtue can be sketched out, if account be taken of

anything but morality, will be made in the same terms by the

philosophers I have just quoted. It seemed to me the fairer

course that Zeno, in his controversy with Polemo, from whom

he had taken over his view of the fundamental principles of

nature, should in his progress after leaving the elements which

were common to the two, mark the point at which he first

XVII § 47.] DE FINIBUS IV. 131

halted, ahd the source from which the dispute between them

first arose, and should not take his stand with men who did not

even assert that their views of the supreme good were based

on nature, using the same arguments that they used and stating

the same opinions.

XVII. I cannot possibly commend your action, in that 46

after proving, as you believe yourselves to have proved, that

the only good thing is morality, you turn round and say that

- elementary objects must be set before us which are in agree-

ment and harmony with nature, from the choice of which

objects virtue may ultimately spring. You ought not to have

laid down virtue to consist’ in this choice, so that the very

thing which you declared to be your ultimate good, takes to

itself some other objects; since everything which we ought to

choose or adopt or aspire to, must be included in the sum of

things good, so that he who has attained to this sum, may feel

no lack of anything besides. Do you not see how clear it is what

those persons must do or not do whose good is summed up in

pleasure? How no one is in doubt as to the aim all their

appropriate actions ought to keep in view, the end they ought

to pursue, the objects they are bound to avoid? Let the view

of the final good which I am now maintaining be accepted,

rt at once becomes plain what actions and what undertakings

are appropriate. You however, who set before yourselves no

aim but righteousness and morality, will not be able to dis-

cover what is the source from which flow the first principles of

appropriate action or conduct. In the search after this source 47

all men, not only those who declare that they are guided by the

notions which occur to their minds or by any chance present-

ment, but you yourselves also, will have to return to nature.

And nature will with justice give you the answer that it is

not right for the standard of happiness to be sought in some-

thing extraneous to herself, while from her you seek your first

principles of action; that there is a single purpose which

embraces the first principles of action and the final views of

good, and that exactly as the world had rejected with scorn the

theory of Aristo that there was no essential difference in the

values of objects, and that no things existed, between which

9—2

132 CICERO [XVII § 47—

definite distinctions could be drawn, excepting virtue and vice,

so in the same way Zeno was wrong in saying that in nothing

but in virtue or its opposite was there power to affect the balance

in the slightest as regards the attainment of the supreme good,

and though all other objects were without importance so far

as happiness was concerned, yet so far as instinctive yearning

was concerned, these objects did possess various degrees of 1m-

portance ; as though indeed this instinct had no bearing on the

48 attainment of the final good! What statement is more incon-

`- sistent than their assertion that when once they have acquired

a knowledge of the supreme good they turn back to nature to

demand from her a first principle for conduct, that is for appro-

priate action? For it is not our view of conduct or appropriate

action which drives us to seek the objects that are in agreement

with nature, but it is by these objects that all appropriate action

and all activity are called into being. |

XVIII. Now I pass to your terse arguments, which you

called short methods, and I take first this, which is as terse as

anything can be; all good is praiseworthy, everything praise-

worthy is moral; everything good is therefore moral. What

a dagger of lath! Who would ever grant you your first pre-

miss? And if that is granted you, you have no need of the

49 second, since if all good is praiseworthy, it is all moral; who

then will grant you your first premiss except Pyrrho, Aristo

and others who resemble them? And these are men whom

you do not favour. Aristotle, Xenocrates, and their whole

school will not grant it, since they call health, strength, wealth,

fame, and many other things good, but do not call them

praiseworthy. Now these philosophers, while they do not sup-

pose that the supreme good is limited to virtue alone, never-

theless give virtue the precedence over all else; what do you

think will be the verdict of those who have altogether severed

virtue from their form of ultimate good, Epicurus I mean,

Hieronymus and those too who are minded to champion the

50 view of final good proposed by Carneades? Further, how will

either Callipho or Diodorus be able to make you the admission

you want, when they join with morality something else which does

not belong to the same class? Are you determined then, Cato,

XIX § 52.] DE FINIBUS IV. 133

after making assumptions which no one allows you, to draw from

them any conclusion you please? Let us turn to this chain-

inference, a kind of argument which you think more faulty than

any other; all good is matter for our aspiration; all matter for our

aspiration is matter for our desire; all matter for our desire is

worthy of our praise; then come the remaining steps. But I

oppose you at this point; just as before, no one will grant you

that what is matter for our desire is worthy of our praise. Next

comes what is by no means a short method but to the last degree

stupid; it belongs of course to your school and not to you per-

sonally; that happiness is worthy of glorification, whereas it

cannot possibly be the case that any one should have a nght

to glory unless he possesses morality. Polemo will make Zeno 51

this admission; Polemo’s teacher too and the whole family to

which he belongs, and all others who, while they put virtue

far above all other possessions, still associate something else

with it when they give their definition of the supreme good.

If indeed virtue is worthy of glorification, as it is, and excels

all other possessions in a degree which can scarce be expressed

in words, then a man endowed with virtue only will be able

to feel happy, though he lacks all else, without allowing what

you ask, that nothing must be regarded as good except virtue.

Those whose ultimate good has nothing to do with virtue will

perhaps not admit that happiness supplies a just cause for glori-

fication, though they indeed sometimes represent the pleasures

as subjects for glorification.

XIX. You see then that you either make assumptions 52

which are not admitted, or such that even though they

are admitted, they are of no use to you. For my part, in

regard to all such arguments, I should imagine the only result

worthy of philosophy and of our own characters (and more

particularly so when we are seeking after the supreme good)

to be the reform of our lives, our designs, and our inclina-

tions, not merely of our words. Who can possibly change his

opinion because he has listened to those terse and pointed

arguments which you say cause you pleasure? Well, when

people are eager and desirous to be told the reason why pain

is not an evil, these philosophers say to them that to feel pain

134 | CICERO [XIX § 52—

is troublesome, vexatious, annoying, unnatural, and hard to

endure, but is no evil because pain brings with it neither

deceit, nor bad principles, nor spite, nor crime, nor infamy.

Any one who is told this, supposing him not to feel a desire to

mock, will nevertheless depart with no greater strength to bear

53 pain than he had when he came. But you say that no one can

be strong who thinks pain an evil. Why should he be any

stronger, if he thinks it troublesome and barely endurable, as

you allow him to think? Cowardice is created by. facts and not

by names. And you say that if a single letter of your scheme

be disturbed it will all topple over. Well then, do you think I

am now disturbing one letter merely, or whole pages? For even

though we find that these philosophers have maintained an or-

derly system, and that all their doctrines fit in with one another

and hang together (these were your words) still we are not bound

to follow the doctrines to their conclusions, because starting from

false premisses they are self-consistent and never swerve from

54 their purpose. Well then, in dealing with the fundamental

plan of human life, your Zeno abandoned nature, and placing

the supreme good in that intellectual excellence which we call

virtue, asserting too that nothing else was good but what was.

moral, and that virtue could not stand its ground if among all

other objects any distinctions of goodness and badness were

found, he embraced all the consequences that flow from these

axioms. What you say is correct; I can give it no denial;

but so untrue are the consequences that the premisses from

56 which they spring cannot possibly be true. The logicians,

as you know, prove to us that if the consequences of any

proposition be false, the proposition itself from which they

flow is false. So arises the following argument, which is not

only true, but so evident that logicians do not even feel bound

to give any account of it; if this is true, then that is; but

this is not true, neither then is that. So by the overthrow

of your results, your premisses are also overthrown. What

are the results then? That all men who are not wise are

alike wretched; that wise men are all supremely happy,

that all right actions are of equal excellence, all sins equally

heinous; statements which though they seemed splendid on

XX § 57.] DE FINIBUS IV. 135

a first hearing, on reflection proved less attractive. For

every man’s feelings and the constitution of the world and

truth herself cried aloud, if we may say so, that they could

not be brought to believe that no differences of value were

traceable in those objects which Zeno placed on the same

level. |

XX. Next that little Phoenician of yours (of course you 56 `

are aware that your clients, the inhabitants of Citium, emi-

grated from Phoenicia) this keen-witted man, then, finding

that he was losing his case, since nature was up in arms against

him, began to quibble on words, and in the first place those

objects which we entitle good he allowed to be considered as

valuable and in accord with nature, and began to grant that his

wise man, that is to say the supremely happy man, would still

be better off, if he possessed those things also which Zeno does

not venture to call good, but admits to be in agreement with

nature; then he says that Plato, even though he be not a wise

man, is still in different circumstances from the despot Dionysius;

for the latter it is best to die, because he is hopeless of attain-

ing wisdom; for the former it is best to live because he has

hope; sins again are partly endurable, partly by no means

endurable, because some sins transgress more and some fewer

of the points, if we may call them so, of duty; further, un-

wise men were in some instances of such a character as to

make it impossible for them to arrive at wisdom, while in

other cases it was possible for them, if they gave their minds

to it, to attain to wisdom. This man talked in a different 57

style from us all; yet his thoughts were the same as those

of the rest. Nor indeed did he consider that a smaller value

was to be set on those things which he himself denied’ to be

good, than those who maintained them to be actually good.

What then was his purpose in making those changes? He

might at least have made some deduction from the importance

of the things in question, and might have valued them at a

little lower rate than the Peripatetics, in which case he would

be thought to differ in his opinions and not merely in his

statements. Well, what do you and your friends say about

happiness itself, which is the end of all effort? You deny it to

136 CICERO [XX § 57—

be ‘such that it is furnished forth with all those objects for

which nature longs; and so you make it wholly to reside in

virtue and in nothing else. And whereas every dispute is

usually about either some fact or some term, a dispute of

both kinds arises if there is want of knowledge about the fact,

or a mistake is made about the term; and even if neither of

these accidents occurs we must do all we can to make use of

terms which are exceedingly familiar and in the highest degree

58 suitable, that is terms which convey facts clearly. Is there

then any doubt that, if the ancients are not in error about the

facts themselves, they use their terms in a more suitable way ?

Let us glance then at their opinions; after that let us return

to the consideration of the terms.

XXI. They say that an impulse is aroused in the mind,

when something is presented to it which is in harmony with

-nature; and that all things which are in harmony with nature

deserve to be credited with a certain value, and that they

must be valued in proportion to the importance which each

possesses; and that the things which are in accordance with

nature have in part no power of arousing that impulse of which

we have often already spoken, such things not being called

either moral or praiseworthy, while they are in part things

which rouse pleasure in every sentient being, and in man

an exercise of the reason also; and all things that depend

on reason are moral, beautiful and praiseworthy, while the

former class of things is called natural, and these when com-

bined with things moral render happiness perfect and complete.

59 Of all those advantages, however, to which those who call

them by the name of things good do not assign any higher

value than is allowed them by Zeno, who denies that they

are good, by far the most excellent class is that which has the

characteristic of morality and praiseworthiness; but if two

objects of a moral character be set before us, the one accom-

panied by good health, the other by disease, there is no doubt

to which of these nature herself would recommend us; but

still so great is the power of morality, and so far does it

overcome and surpass all other objects, that by neither punish-

ments nor bribes of any kind can it be driven from the pursuit

XXII § 61.] DE FINIBUS IV. 137

of that which it has decided to be righteous; and all things

which seem cruel, hard and severe, may be trampled under

foot by the virtues with which nature has equipped us; not

with ease indeed, nor so that the task seems trivial (otherwise

where would be the great value of virtue?) but so as to lead us

to pronounce that such matters have not the most important

share in producing happiness or its opposite. In fine they call 60

those very possessions good which Zeno declared to be valuable

and worthy of choice, and fitted for nature’s wants; happiness

they said depended on the attainment of those re I have

mentioned, either the majority of them or the most important.

Zeno, on the other hand, gives the name good only to that

which has some peculiar characteristic of its own which renders

it desirable, and says happiness is found only in that life which

is passed in the company of virtue.

XXII. If we are to debate about facts, Cato, there « can be

no disagreement between me and you; there is indeed nothing

on which you and I hold different opinions, if only we change

the expressions and compare the facts together. Nor did your

founder fail to see this, but his heart rejoiced in splendour

and pomp of language; for if he understood by his statements

what the words point to, what difference would there be be-

tween him and either Pyrrho or Aristo? But if he did not

look on these philosophers with favour, how did it concern him

to set up a verbal disagreement with men to whose opinions he

assented? How would it be if those old pupils of Plato and 61

those who in regular succession were their pupils, were to come

to life again and to hold with you discourse such as this?

“ While we listened to you, Marcus Cato, a most enthusiastic

adherent of philosophy, the most upright of men, a most excel-

lent judge, a most scrupulous witness, we wondered what reason

you could have for preferring the Stoics to us, though they

assent to the views about objects good and bad which Zeao

had learned from our Polemo, and merely employ phrases

which on a first view excite astonishment, but ridicule when

their sense is made clear. But if you yourself accepted the

old doctrines, why did you not hold them in their own proper

forms of expression? If it was authority that influenced you,

62

138 CICERO [XXII § 61—

did you prefer to our whole company and to Plato himself

your obscure founder? This is all the stranger, as you desired

to be a leading statesman, and might have been with the best

effect equipped and armed by us for the maintenance of the

state with the highest honour to yourself. It is our school

which has explored such subjects and written about them, and

observed them, and taught them, and we have described at

length the different constitutions, conditions, and revolutions

in the history of all governments, the laws too with the prin-

ciples and practices of communities. How greatly you would

have enriched from the records we have left that eloquence

which is the greatest distinction of statesmen and which, as we

are told, you wield very powerfully!” After such a speech,

pray what answer would you make to such distinguished men?’

‘I would beg you, said he, ‘after putting that discourse in their

mouths, to make a speech for me in turn, or, better still, to give

me a little space to reply to them, only I would rather now

listen to you, and shall besides give them an answer on another

_ occasion, I mean when I reply to you.’

XXIII. ‘Now, Cato, if you were anxious to give them a

truthful answer, you would have to tell them this, that you did

not regard with disfavour men of such splendid abilities and

such high authority, but that you observed how the Stoics had

seen through difficulties of which they, because of their early

date, had taken a narrow view, and that the later school had

argued more cleverly and had given a grander and stronger

verdict on these same difficulties, denying first of all that good

health is a thing desirable, but affirming it to be choiceworthy,

not because health is a good thing, but because it has some

slight value (though indeed it has no higher value in the eyes

of those who do not shrink from naming it good); but this was

what you could not endure, I mean the belief which these old

bearded ancients, so to call them (for thus we are accustomed to

speak of our own ancestors) maintained, that the life of a man

who lived morally and was also in good health and in good

repute and prosperous would be more to be wished for and

altogether better and more desirable than the life of another

who, though an equally good man, was, like the Alcmaeon of

XXIV § 65.] DE FINIBUS IV. i 139

Ennius, on many sides encompassed by sickness, exile, and dis-

tress. Those ancients then do not shew much shrewdness in 63

thinking such a life more to be wished for, more excellent, more

happy; the Stoics on their part think it should merely have

the preference when choice is being made, not because such a

life is happier, but because it is more in harmony with nature ;

and they believe all men who are not wise to be alike unhappy.

This forsooth is what the Stoics saw, and what had escaped

the notice of their predecessors, that men polluted by crimes

and foul murders were not a whit more wretched than men

who, though they lived a pure and stainless life, had not yet

reached the perfection of wisdom. Now at this point you 64

quoted those most incongruous illustrations which the Stoics

are fond of employing. Pray who fails to see that if several

men want to get their heads out of deep water, those will be

nearer to drawing a breath who are already approaching the

surface of the water, but yet are no better able to breathe

than those who are still deep down? So to make advances and

gradual steps towards virtue does not help a man to escape

` from being as wretched as it is possible to be, unless he has

actually reached the goal of virtue, because the persons in the

water are no better off, and again since the whelps who are

on the point of gaining their sight are blind as much as those

just born, it needs must follow that Plato, because his eyes

were not yet set on wisdom, was just as blind of heart as

Phalaris himself.

XXIV. The instances you quote, Cato, are not appropriate, 65

for in them, however great the advance you may have made,

yet the evil you wish to escape remains the same until you

have actually surmounted it. For the man in the water draws

no breath till his head is above it, and the whelps are every bit

as blind before they have actually got their sight, as they

would be if they were doomed ever to remain so, The follow-

ing cases are really in point; suppose some man’s eyesight is

dim, and another’s body is weak; and that such men are being

daily relieved by treatment; one gets stronger every day; the

other sees better every day; such is the case of all who de-

vote themselves to virtue ; they get relief from their faults and

140 CICERO | [XXIV § 65—

their mistakes, unless indeed you are of opinion that Tiberius

Gracchus the father was no happier than his son, though one

made it his aim to strengthen the state, and the other to over-

throw it. Yet he was no man of wisdom, for who was ever so,

or when or where, or by what means? But because he gave

his heart to uprightness and honour, he had made much pro-

66 gress in the pursuit of virtue. Am I to compare your grand-

father Drusus with Gaius Gracchus, who was almost his contem-

porary? He cured the wounds which the other inflicted on his

country. If there is nothing which makes men so wretched

as wickedness and crime, although we allow that all men who

are not wise are wretched, as they certainly are, yet a man

who serves his country’s interest is not on the same level of

wretchedness with another who desires her ruin. Those then

who can point to a considerable advance towards wisdom are

67 to a great extent relieved from their faults. Your school admit

however that the advance towards virtue takes place, while they

refuse to allow that the relief from faults takes place. But it

is worth while to reflect upon the proof which these shrewd

men use to demonstrate their doctrine. In the case of those

arts to whose degree of perfection an addition can be made, it

will be possible for the degree of imperfection of their opposites

to be increased; now to the perfection of virtue no addition can

be made; nor therefore will it be possible for vices, which are

the opposites of virtues, to increase. Well then, in this case

are plain facts used to explain doubtful matters, or are doubtful

matters used to destroy plain facts? Now this is a plain fact,

that vices differ in degree; the other question, whether any

addition can be made to that which you affirm to be the

supreme good, is doubtful. But whereas you ought to make

plain facts throw light on those which are doubtful, you really

try to destroy facts that are plain by means of those which are

68 doubtful. And so you will fall into a difficulty of the kind

which I already pointed out. If you deny a difference in the

importance of vices, for the reason that the final good which

you set up is not capable of extension, then you will have to

make a change in your view of final good, since it is plain

that vices are not in fact of equal importance in the case of

XXV §71.] DE FINIBUS TIV. 141

all persons. We are bound to cling to the doctrine that. where

some inference is untrue the fact from which it is inferred can-

not possibly be true.

XXV. What then is the source of all these difficulties ?

Pompous display in determining the supreme good. When in-

deed it is asserted that what is moral is alone good, all attention

to health is at once abolished, all care of family property, all

public service, all system in the conduct of private business, alk

duties. of daily life; even that morality on which, as you make

out, everything depends, must be abandoned; and all this is

most carefully set forth by Chrysippus in his argument against |

Aristo. From this dilemma arise those deceitful-tongued chica-

neries, as Attius calls them. Whereas upon the abolition of all 69

appropriate actions wisdom found no space for the sole of her

foot, and whereas appropriate actions certainly were abolished

when all exercise of choice and all distinctions were swept away,

and such actions could not exist because all objects had been

brought so entirely to the same level that differences ceased to

be traceable, consequently from all these difficulties your doc-

trines, worse than those of Aristo, were the outcome. His were

at all evénts straightforward ; yours are tricky. If you were to

ask Aristo whether all these things, absence of pain, riches, health

are in his eyes good, he would say no. Well, are their opposites

bad? No more than the others are good. Were you to question

Zeno, he would give identically the same answer. Let us in our

astonishment ask both of them in what way we can conduct

our life, if we suppose that it matters not in the least to us

whether we are well or ill, whether we are free from pain or

tortured by it, whether we find it possible to stave off cold and

hunger or not. You will live, says Aristo, in a grand and

splendid style; whatever course seems proper at the moment,

that you will take; you will never feel vexation, passion or

_ alarm. What says Zeno? He says these doctrines are mons- 70

trous, and that no one can possibly live on such principles;

his own doctrine however is, he says, that there is a vast, and

in some sense measureless interval between morality and vice ;

but between all other objects there are no differences whatever.

Up to this point the statements are identical; listen to the rest 71

142 CICERO [XXV § 71—

and restrain your laughter if you can. Those intermediate

objects, says he, between which no distinctions are to be traced,

yet are of such a nature that some of them are to be chosen

and others to be refused and others to be altogether dis-

regarded, that is to say, you are to wish for some of them, turn

against others and treat others with indifference. But you said

a little while since that no distinctions existéd among these

objects. And I say so now again, he will say, but the absence

of distinctions appears when they are compared with the virtues

and the vices.

72 XXVI. Who, pray, was unaware of that? Let us hear

nevertheless. Well, says he, the conditions you named, the

being well, rich, free from pain, these I do not call good but

shall dub them in the Greek tongue zrponypéva, while in Latin

they may be called preferred (but I would rather say advanced

or leading objects; such a translation would be less harsh and

smoother) while the other conditions, sickness, penury, pain, I do

not name evils but if you please things refusable. So I do not

say that I desire the former class of conditions, but that I choose

them, not that I aspire to them but that I adopt them, while

their opposites I do not avoid but, so to say, put away from

me. What does Aristotle say and the rest of Plato’s pupils?

That they name good all conditions which accord with nature,

and all conditions bad which are of the opposite character. Do

you not see that your friend Zeno is at one with Aristo so far as

words go, while he is hostile to him in his opinions; but that he

is opposed in his language to Aristotle and the old school, while

in his opinions he is in harmony with them? Why, then, inas-

much as our opinions agree, do we not prefer to adopt ordinary

language? Or else let him prove to me that I shall be more

likely to think lightly of money if I class it among objects pre-

ferred rather than good, and shall have greater strength to

endure pain if I name it severe and hard to bear and unnatural

73 rather than evil. Our friend Marcus Piso, who said many witty —

things, jested at the Stoics on this wise. “ Well,” he used to

say: “you declare wealth to be no good thing, but assert it to

be a thing preferred; how do you help us? Do you weaken

avarice? How? To begin with, if we examine the phrase, the

XXVII § 75.] DE FINIBUS IV. 143

word preferred is longer than the word good.” “That has nothing

to do with the matter!” “ Possibly not, but the word is certainly

more imposing. For I do not know the derivation of the term

good, but what is preferred: is so called, I suppose, because it

is put before other things. This seems to me a great fact.” So

Piso used to say that greater honour was done to wealth by

Zeno who classed it among things preferred than by Aristotle,

who admitted it to be a good thing, though a good thing of no

great consequence, and one which deserved to be disregarded

and even scorned in comparison with righteousness and morality,

as being an object in no high degree desirable; and Piso dis-

cussed in the same way all these terms as a class, upon which

Zeno had made innovations, maintaining that Zeno in dealing

. With those objects to which he refused the name good and

again with those he would not allow to be evil, denoted the

one set by more attractive and the other set by gloomier

titles than we give them. This then was Piso’s fashion: and

he was a man, as you know, of high excellence and your own

devoted admirer; as for myself I must at last conclude, after I

have said a few words more; it is a tedious task to answer

every single statement you advanced.

XXVII. Now it is a consequence of the same juggling 74

with words that you have acquired kingdoms and empires. and

riches, and riches so great that you say all property wherever

found belongs to the wise man. Moreover he is alone beautiful,

alone free; alone possessed of citizenship, while of the fools you

say everything that is opposite to this, and even try to make

them out to be lunatics. These are what the Stoics call

mapadoga; let us call them marvels. But what is there in

them to marvel at when once you have taken a close view

of them? I will compare notes with you to see what meaning

you attach to each expression; in no case shall there be any

doubt. You say all sins are equal. I shall not jest with you

as I did about these same topics when I was counsel for Lucius

Murena, and you were against him. What I said then was

said among ignorant people; I had actually to humour the

crowd to some extent; now I must plead my case in a more

refined manner. Sins are equal. How so? Because no one 75

144 CICERO = [XXVIL§75—

thing is more moral than another, and no one thing is more

vicious than another. Go on; that is indeed the very point about

which there is serious disagreement ; let us glance at your pe-

culiar proofs which demonstrate that all sins are equal. Well,

says my opponent, just as when several harps are played together,

if no one of them were to have its strings exactly tuned so as to

harmonise with the rest, all of them would be equally out of

tune, so sins because they jar, all jar equally; so then they are

all equal. Here we have a play on two senses of a word. It

indeed equally happens in the case of all the harps that they

are out of tune; but it does not at once follow that they are

all equally out of tune. Your comparison therefore is useless

to you; it will certainly not follow that when we have once-

asserted all forms of avarice to be equally avarice, we should

76 call all forms of avarice equal. Next we come to another

incongruous comparison. We are told that, just as a captain

sins equally whether he capsizes a vessel loaded with straw, or

loaded with gold, so he who flogs his parent and he who

unjustly flogs his slave both sin equally. Fancy the inability

to see that the nature of the cargo which the ship is carrying

has nothing to do with the art of the pilot, and so that the

question whether she is laden with gold or straw makes no

difference to his skill in pilotage ; but any one can and ought to

perceive what difference there is between a parent and a poor

slave. So in piloting a ship it matters not under what cir-

cumstances the offence is committed, but in a case of obligation

circumstances are of the utmost importance. And if in the

course of actual navigation the ship capsizes through careless

handling, the offence is more serious if the cargo be gold than

if it be straw. We expect to find the practice of all arts

attended by ordinary foresight, as it is called, and this all are

bound to possess, whatever be the craft to which they are

appointed. So in this way again sins are not equal.

77 XXVIII. Still they press their case, and do not a whit

relax their efforts. Say they, seeing that every sin is a testi-

mony of weakness and instability, and these faults are found

to an equally serious extent in all fools, it follows that all sins

must be equal. You talk as though it were granted that in the

XXVIII § 80] DE FINIBUS IV. 145

case of all fools certain defects exist in equal degree, and that

Lucius Tubulus exhibited the same amount of weakness and

instability as that man did under whose bill he was convicted,

I mean Publius Scaevola ; and as though no differences existed

in the circumstances under which sins are committed, so that

in proportion as these circumstances are more or less serious, |

in that proportion the sins committed in connexion with them

are either more or less serious ! ;

So (for now my speech must cease) your friends the Stoics 78

seem to me to labour under this one defect more than any

other, that they suppose themselves able to support two

contradictory views. What inconsistency is there like that

of the man who says that what is moral is alone good, and

says again that from nature flows the impulse to seek those

objects which are suited to preserve our life? So in their

desire to uphold the considerations which suit the former

opinion, they fall into the ditch along with Aristo; when

they try to avoid that fate, they maintain substantially the

same doctrines as the Peripatetics, while they cling tenaciously

to their own form of expression. Again, because they refuse

to allow this form of expression to be torn out of their

system, they become very rough, rugged and hard, both in

speech and in manners. Now Panaetius, shrinking from this 79

gloom and severity of theirs, did not sanction either the

bitterness of their doctrines or their thorny dialectic, and in

the one department shewed himself gentler, in the other

more luminous, and always had on his lips the names of

Plato Aristotle Xenocrates Theophrastus and Dicaearchus,

as his own writings shew. Now I give it as my strong

opinion that you ought to thumb these philosophers with

earnest and careful attention. But as the evening is closing 80

in, and I have to return to my house, for the present this

must be enough; but let us often imitate this precedent.’

‘That we will,’ said he; ‘what indeed is there better for us

to do? And the first favour I shall require of you will

be that you should listen to me when I refute the state-

ments you have made. But do not forget that you hold all

R. C. F. 10

146 CICERO [XXVIII § 80

the opinions in which we believe, only you do not like our dif-

ferent use of terms, while I cannot sanction any of the dogmas

of your school? ‘You prick my conscience as I am going

away, said I, ‘but we shall see.’ When we had said this we

separated.

END OF BOOK IV.

BOOK V.

I. ONcE, Brutus, when as my custom was I had attended, 1

in company with Marcus Piso, a lecture by Antiochus in the

place of exercise called the Ptolomaeum, at which time there

were present with us my brother Quintus and also Titus

Pomponius with Lucius Cicero, by relationship my father’s

brother’s son, but by attachment my true brother, we agreed

to take our afternoon exercise in the Academia, chiefly

because the spot: was at that time of day entirely undis-

turbed by the crowd. So we all met in Piso’s house at the

appointed hour. On leaving we whiled away with general

conversation the six stades outside the Double Gate. When

however we arrived at the walks of the Academia, so justly

famous, we found the quiet which we had desired. Then said 2

Piso: ‘shall I call it a natural instinct or in some sense a

delusion whereby whenever we cast our eyes on the spots at

which, as we have been told, men worthy of a place in history

passed much of their time, we are then more excited than

we are in listening to a description of their achievements, or

in reading some of their works? I for instance feel at this

moment such excitement. I call to mind Plato, who, so we have

been told, was the first to use this place habitually for debate ;

and his little garden, which lies quite near us, not only brings

him back to my recollection, but seems to place the very man

before my eyes. Here stood Speusippus, here Xenocrates, here

Polemo his pupil, whose chair was that which we see before us.

For my part when I looked at our own senate’s assembly hall (I

mean the hall of Hostilius, not the new one, which seems in my

eyes smaller, since it was enlarged) I used to picture to myself |

Scipio, Cato, Laelius and dbove all my own ancestor; such a

10—2

148 CICERO [I §2—

power have places to rouse our attention; so that there is

good reason why they have been employed in the training of

8 the memory.’ Then Quintus said: ‘your remarks are perfectly

true. Indeed, in my own case, as I` came here, I found my

thoughts drawn towards the site of Colone, whose citizen

Sophocles flitted before my eyes—you know the admiration

I feel for him and the pleasure I take in him. A kind of

vision too, empty phantom though it was, nevertheless aroused

me to consciousness of the still older story of Oedipus, as he

came here and begged in that tenderest of strains to know

what was the name of that very spot? Then Pomponius inter-

posed: ‘but I, against whom you ofien inveigh as a slave of

Epicurus, do indeed spend a good deal of my time along with

Phaedrus, my dearest friend, as you all know, in the garden of

Epicurus, which we just now passed ; but still, as the old saw

enjoins, I bear the living in mind ; though of course I cannot

forget Epicurus, even though I were to wish it, for my frends

of our school preserve his likeness not only in pictures but even

on cups and signet rings.

4 II. Hereupon I remarked: ‘so far as our friend Pomponius

is concerned I think he is jesting, and perhaps he has earned

the right to do so; since he has so entirely established himself

at Athens, that he is almost one of the Athenians and seems

likely to bear the title Atticus as his surname; for myself, I

agree with you, Piso, that the associations of particular places

give greatly increased keenness and vividness to our thoughts

‘about men of fame. You know of course that on a certain

occasion I visited Metapontum along with you, and did not

seek my host’s house until I had gazed upon the very spot

where Pythagoras ended his life, and upon his chair too. At the

present moment however, though in every quarter of Athens

the mere sites contain many mementoes of the most illustrious

men, yet the seat yonder particularly affects me, as it was once

occupied by Carneades; and the man seems present to my view

(indeed his portrait is familiar) and I fancy that even the chair,

since such a mighty genius was taken from it, yearns for his

5 well-known voice. Whereupon Piso said: ‘ well then, as we all

have spoken something, what thinks our friend Lucius? Does

III § 7] DE FINIBUS V. 149

he feel pleasure in surveying the arena where Demosthenes

and Aeschines were accustomed to fight out their battles? Of

course every one is especially influenced by his own hobby.’

Then he replied with a blush: ‘don’t ask me: I have been

down to the Phaleric strand at the spot where, as the story

goes, Demosthenes used to speak ageinst the waves, that he

might accustom himself to drown an uproar by his voice. Just

now too I turned aside off the main road a little to the right,

to go close to Pericles’ tomb. But in this city such memorials

are endless ; wherever we tread, our steps bring us upon some

historic memory.’ Then Piso remarked: ‘well, Cicero, such 6

enthusiasm, if it tends to the emulation of renowned persons,

marks the man of ability, hut if only directed to making ac-

quaintance with the memorials of ancient history, it betrays the |

inquisitive man. Now we all of us urge you to make up your

mind actually to emulate the men you long to know, though, as

I hope, you are already set on that course.’ Here I interposed :

‘though our friend here, Piso, is already, as you can see, prac-

tising what you preach, still I am pleased with the encourage-

ment you give him.’. Then he said, in the kindliest words

(such was his fashion) ‘let us all however bestow on our friend’s

young years all the gifts we have, and in particular let us

bring him to give some of his attention to philosophy also,

either from a desire to follow in your steps, for he loves you,

or that he may be able to achieve with greater brilliance the

purpose he has at heart. But, Lucius,’ said he, ‘must we press

this upon you, or are you actually of yourself inclined in this

direction? I for my part think you listen very nicely to the

lectures of Antiochus, which you are attending.’ Then the

youth replied with some nervousness or rather modesty: ‘I do

so indeed, but have you heard lately the doctrine of Carneades ?

I am strongly drawn to him; while Antiochus tries to reclaim

me, and there is no. other teacher for me to hear.’

III. Then Piso spoke: ‘though perhaps my purpose will not 7

be so easily brought to pass, since our friend is close beside us’

(it was me he meant) ‘yet I will venture to summon you away

from the new Academy to join the old family, among whom

are to be reckoned, as you heard Antiochus say, not only the

150 CICERO [III § 7—

men who are called Academics, Speusippus Xenocrates Polemo

Crantor and the rest, but also the ancient Peripatetics, whose

chief is Aristotle, a man whom I think I may with justice call

the chief of all philosophers, with the exception of Plato. Set

your face then towards this family, I entreat you. Not only

may you derive from their writings and systems all liberal

learning, all history, every choice form of style, but accomplish-

ments in such variety that no one without such equipment can

be properly prepared to approach any task of any distinction.

From this school sprang the orators, from this school the

generals and the governors of states. To come to less import-

ant matters, mathematicians, poets, musicians and, last of all,

physicians have been sent forth from this laboratory (if I may

8 so call it) of all accomplishments,” Then I remarked: ‘you

know, Piso, that I am of just the same opinion as yourself; but

your observations are in good season; for my dear Cicero is

anxious to learn what is the opinion of the ancient Academy,

about which you are talking, and of the Peripatetics, touching -

the various views of ultimate good. Now in our judgment you

are best fitted to make this plain, because you entertained

Staseas of Naples for many years in your house, and we see

that for a good many months you have been seeking from

Antiochus an account of these very topics. ‘ Well, well,’ said

he with a smile, ‘since you have rather cleverly decided that

our discussion should begin with myself, let us give our young

friend any explanations we can. Our retirement indeed allows,

what I never should have believed had any god foretold it,

that I should debate in the Academy in the character of philo-

sopher. But I hope I am not troublesome to you all in yield-

ing to our friend’s wish.’ ‘To me, said I, ‘when I have just

made the request of you? Then Quintus and Pomponius

having’ expressed their concurrence, Piso began: and I pray

you, Brutus, to give your mind to his speech, to see whether

you think it sufficiently represents the doctrine of Antiochus,

to which I believe you give your sanction in particular, since

you were a frequent listener at the lectures of his brother

Aristus, |

9: IV. This then was his speech, ‘A little while ago, I suf-

IV §11] DE FINIBUS V. 151

ficiently made clear in the fewest words I could use what rich

culture the Peripatetic system supplies. Now that system, as

do most of the rest, proposes a threefold scheme: one portion re-

lates to nature, another to discourse, the third to conduct. The

men of this school have so thoroughly explored nature that no

region in sky sea or earth (to speak in poetic style) has been

neglected by them. Moreover, after they had spoken of the

elements of things and the universe as a whole, demonstrating

many points not merely by probable proofs but also by the in-

evitable principles of mathematics, they contributed to the know-

ledge of hidden phenomena a vast store of facts examined by

themselves. Aristotle traced the origin, habits and forms of all 10

living creatures, while Theophrastus dealt with the structure

of vegetables, and the principles and theories concerning almost

all objects which spring from the earth, and this knowledge has

rendered easier the inquiry into the most mysterious phenomena.

And the same philosophers put forth maxims on discourse,

suited not only to logicians but to orators also; and Aristotle

their chief established the practice of arguing on either side

concerning individual questions, not on the principle of always

combating, like Arcesilas, all opinions, yet so as to bring out

on every question all that can be said on both sides. As it was 11

the function of the third branch to search for the maxims leading

to a life of happiness, they moreover brought this branch into

connexion not only with the principles that rule the life of indi-

viduals, but also with the government of states. We know from

Aristotle the customs, principles and institutions of nearly all

communities not only in Greece but also outside Greece, and

from Theophrastus we know their laws as well. And after each

of them had shewn what character a leading statesman ought to

possess, and had moreover compiled at length a description

of the best form of government, Theophrastus treated the sub-

ject more fully still, shewing what turning points and critical

occasions are met with in government, which must be controlled

as circumstances demand. The plan for the conduct of life

which found most favour with them was that peaceful one,

devoted to the consideration and investigation of phenomena,

which from its great resemblance to the life of the gods was

152 CICERO [IV § 11—

thought most worthy of the man of wisdom. And on these

topics their utterances are brilliant and luminous.

12 V. Now because the works which deal with the supreme

good are of two classes, one written in popular style, to which

they gave the name exoteric, the other more elaborate, which

they left behind them in their notebooks, it follows that they

do not always seem consistent in their statements; though so

far as essentials are concerned there are no contradictions to be

found in the writings of the men whom I have just named, nor

did they disagree among themselves, But whenever the ques-

tion discussed is the life of happiness, and whenever philoso-

phy has to consider exclusively and solve the problem whether

. happiness is entirely placed within the wise man’s control, or

whether it may be either undermined or torn from him by

misfortune, then in dealing with this problem there some-

times appears among them contradiction and indecision. This

is especially shewn by the work of Theophrastus about happi-

ness, in which a large influence is allowed to fortune, though

if his statements were true wisdom would not have the

power to insure happiness. This is in my opinion a softer

and, if I may say so, more effeminate scheme than is re-

quired by the power and dignity of virtue. Solet us cleave

to Aristotle and his son Nicomachus, whose carefully written

treatise on morals is indeed reputed to be by Aristotle, but I

see nothing to prevent the son from having been like the

father. Still let us consult Theophrastus on most points, only

let us retain for virtue more solidity and vigour than he retained.

13 Let us be satisfied then with these, since their successors,

though, as I believe, better than the philosophers of other

schools, are yet so fallen away as to seem self-taught, First

Strato the pupil of Theophrastus gave himself out for a natural

philosopher; and notwithstanding that he is great in that

field, still he was full of novelties and said very little about

ethics. His pupil Lyto was rich in style, but barren in his

results; his successor was the choice and dainty Aristo; but

he lacked the seriousness which is expected of a great thinker ;

his writings, I admit, were both numerous and finished, but

14 his style somehow or other is wanting in dignity. I pass by

VI § 16] DE FINIBUS V. 153

many, and among them that learned and gentle man Hierony-

mus, though, when we get to him, I fail to see why I should call

him a Peripatetic, since he set forth for the supreme good the

absence of pain, and any one who is heterodox on the sub-

ject of the supreme good, is heterodox on the whole scheme

of philosophy. Critolaus professed to take the ancients as his

models, and in dignity he approaches them, while his style is

flowing; yet he no more than others is true to the doctrines of

his ancestors. Diodorus his pupił adds to morality the absence

of pain. He too is original, and as being heterodox on the

subject of the supreme good, cannot truly be called a Peri-

patetic. Our friend Antiochus seems to me to follow out most

faithfully the views of the ancients, and these views he proves

to have been common to Aristotle and Polemo.

VI. Our friend Lucius then is sensible in wishing above all 15

things to be informed about the supreme good, since when once

we have established this in philosophy we have established every-

thing. Now in all other subjects if any point has been forgotten

or has remained unknown, the inconvenience has no greater

importance than have in each case those subjects in connexion

with which the omission has occurred ; but if the supreme good

remains unknown, the guiding principle of life must needs

remain unknown; and the result is such aimless wandering

that men cannot discover to what haven to betake themselves..

But when once we have learned the limits of things, when we

understand what ultimate good is and what ultimate evil is,

then we have discovered our path in life and the way to

shape all our duties therein, then we perceive how the aim 16

of each action is to be determined; whence we can discover

and master the conditions of happiness, the thing that all men

desire. But since there is great disagreement on the ques-

tion wherein happiness consists, we must avail ourselves of

the classification of Carneades, which our friend Antiochus is

generally glad to adopt. He, then, saw plainly not merely how

many opinions concerning the supreme good had existed among

philosophers up to his time, but how many in all could possibly

come into existence. So he began by denying that there is any

science which finds within itself its own starting point; for the

154 CICERO [VI § 16—

matters which are handled by the science always lie outside it.

There is no need to prove this at length by instances; it is

indeed evident that no science can be self-contained, but that

the science itself 1s one thing and the object at which it aims is

another; since, then, just as medicine is the science of health,

and pilotage the science of navigation, so wisdom is the science

of conduct, it is inevitable that it too should be based on some-

thing and should take something for its point of departure.

17 Now almost all have admitted that the object with which

wisdom is concerned and the purpose it desires to attain should

be in conformity and agreement with nature and such that in

itself it entices and allures that mental impulse which the

~ Greeks call opyn. But what that object is which exercises this

attraction and is in this way sought by nature at the very

moment of birth, is not agreed, and on this matter great

divergence appears among philosophers during the search for

the supreme good. But as concerns the whole inquiry which

is carried on about the limits of good and evil, when we debate

in regard to them what is their farthest point and end, we must

discover some source in which are contained the earliest at-

tractions of nature; and when this has been found, the whole

discussion about good and evil takes its rise in this as though

in a fountain head.

18 VII. Some think that the attraction earliest felt is towards

pleasure and that the earliest aversion is to pain ; others declare

that the condition first sought after is freedom from pain, and

the condition first avoided is that of pain; others again begin

with those objects which they denote as the primary endow-

ments in harmony with nature, among which they reckon the

security and protection of all the bodily members, health, sound-

ness of the senses, freedom from pain, strength, comeliness, and

all the remaining things which belong to the same class, and

the primary mental endowments are like these; and form so

to speak the sparks and the germs of the virtues. Since

it must be by one of these three classes of objects that

nature is first roused to impulses of attraction or aversion, and

there can be no other class in addition to these three, it is

by one of these that we must needs determine in general the

VIII § 21] DE FINIBUS V. 155

propriety of avoiding or seeking anything ; thus wisdom, which

we have declared to be the science of conduct, is concerned

with some one of these three matters, so as to derive from it

the first start on the path of life. From that object which 19

wisdom shall have decided to be the first cause of natural im-

pulse, there will arise also the principles of uprightness and

morality, such that they may harmonise with some one of the

three classes of objects already named; thus morality will

consist in doing all actions for pleasure’s sake, even though you

may not achieve it, or for freedom from pain, even if you cannot

attain to it, or for the acquisition of those objects which are in

accord with nature, even though you may not acquire one of

them. Thus it comes about that according to the variety of

view concerning the elementary natural endowments, so is the dis-

agreement between the various views concerning the boundaries

of good and evil. Others again starting from the same elemen-

tary principles will refer all appropriate action to the actual —

acquisition either of pleasure or of freedom from pain or of

those primary objects which are in accord with nature. Now 20

that we have explained six doctrines concerning the supreme .

good, we find these to be the authors of the three last named:

_ Aristippus of the doctrine of pleasure, Hieronymus of the doc-

trine of freedom from pain, while of the scheme for enjoying

those objects which we have called the earliest that are in

accord with nature, Carneades was not indeed the founder, but

merely the champion for purposes: of argument. The three

doctrines first named were such as might arise; though only

one of them has been maintained, and vigorously maintained.

Now no one ever said that we do all our actions for pleasure’s

sake, meaning that the intention to act so is a thing in

itself desirable and moral and alone good, even though we

may not succeed. Nor did any one ever imagine that the

shunning of pain (unless actual escape be possible) belongs in

itself to things desirable. But nevertheless the Stoics declare

that the complete effort to acquire those objects which accord

with nature, even though we do not attain to them, is moral

and alone essentially desirable and alone good. l

= VIIL We find then these six uncomplex doctrines con- 21

156 CICERO [VIII § 21—

cerning the essence of things good and things evil, of which

doctrines two have not found a defender while four have been

maintained. The compound and two-fold systems of expound-

ing the supreme good have been three in all, nor indeed

could they possibly have been more numerous, if you examine

thoroughly the constitution of things; since with morality

either pleasure may be combined, which was the view of Cal-

lipho and Dinomachus, or freedom from pain, as Diodorus held,

or the elementary natural endowments, according to the opinion

of the ancients, under which title we rank the Academics and

Peripatetics alike. But as we cannot state all the arguments

at once, we shall be bound at this present moment to make

it known that pleasure must be banished, since we men are

born to a certain higher destiny, as shall soon be made plain.

Almost the same arguments are usually advanced concerning

22 freedom from pain, as concerning pleasure. Nor is it needful to

search for any special refutation of the doctrine of Carneades,

for whatever be the form in which the supreme good is stated,

if it is divorced from morality, in such a system neither duty,

nor virtue, nor friendship can find a place. Now the attach-

ment to morality of either pleasure or the absence of pain

changes even morality, which it professes to support, into vice.

For to determine your course of action by looking to two

matters, of which one implies that a man who is free from

trouble is in the enjoyment of the highest possible good,

while the other is concerned with the most worthless part

of the human constitution, this is the same as dimming not

to say defiling all the glory of morality. There are still left

the Stoics, who having borrowed all their doctrines from the

Peripatetics and Academics, expressed the same opinions by

a different terminology. The better plan is to argue against

these schools one by one, but we must now attend to our

present task and speak of the other philosophers whenever we

23 tind it desirable. Now that ease of Democritus, by which is

meant peace of mind—he called it ev@vuéa—was plainly to

be kept out of this discussion, because peace of mind is itself

identical with happiness, and we are seeking not for a defini-

tion of happiness, but for the source from which it springs.

IX § 24] DE FINIBUS V. 157.

Further we were by no means bound to pay any heed to the

condemned and banished doctrines of Pyrrho, Aristo and

Erillus, because they cannot come within the range which we

have marked out for our subject. Indeed whereas this whole

investigation of the limits and boundary lines, so to call them,

of things good and things evil takes its start from that class

of objects which we have declared to be in agreement and

conformity with nature, and such as to be for their own sakes

the first objects of pursuit, this whole class of objects is abolished

not only by those who refuse to allow that when things are un- -

connected with virtue or vice we have any reason for preferring

any one of them to any other, and who declare that such

things are wholly indifferent, but also by Erillus, who, in giving

his opinion that nothing is good but knowledge, swept away

every motive for deliberation, and every means of ascertaining

what actions are appropriate. So seeing that we have rejected

the other opinions, and none besides. those enumerated can

exist, the system of the ancients must needs win the day. Let

us therefore make a beginning as follows, after the example of

the old thinkers, which even the Stoics follow.

IX. Every creature feels love for itself, and as soon as it 24

comes into existence directs its efforts towards self-preserva-

tion, because the earliest impulse which nature bestows on the

creature for the protection of its whole life leads it to maintain

its own existence and to secure for itself the best conditions

which are possible for it according to nature’s law. Its hold on

this first principle is, to begin with, doubtful and unsteady,

merely impelling it te protect itself whatever be its nature, but

it is not conscious what its being is, nor what its own capaci-

ties are, nor what is the form of its own natural constitution.

When however it has advanced somewhat, and has begun to

possess a clear notion how each thing affects it and what

. importance each thing has for it, then it begins to feel its

way and to be conscious of its own being, and to comprehend

the reason for which that mental instinct of which we have

spoken was bestowed on it, and it begins regularly to yearn

after those objects which it feels to be in conformity with

nature, and to repel the opposites of those objects. So the

158 | CICERO {IX § 24—

objects which every creature pursues are determined by the

class of things which is suited to the creature’s natural con-

stitution, Thus the supreme good proves to be this, namely,

to live in harmony with nature under conditions which are

the best possible and the best adapted to the natural constitu- `

25 tion. Now since each creature has a constitution of its own,

it follows inevitably that while the supreme good for all consists

in the perfection of their nature (for nothing prevents us from

assuming that the lower animals have some things in common,

and that man has something in common with the animals, since

all belong alike to the realm of nature) yet those ultimate

and highest aims, which are the subjects of our inquiry, are

severally apportioned and distributed among the different spe-

cies of living creatures, and are peculiar in the case of each

class, and adapted to the objects which the constitution of each

26 class requires. Therefore when we assert that the highest good

for all creatures is a life in accordance with nature, the state-

ment must not be taken to mean that we declare all creatures

to have one and the same highest good; but just as it can

with propriety be said to be a common characteristic of all

arts that they are concerned with some branch of knowledge,

while each art requires its own peculiar knowledge, so it

may be said to be a common characteristic of all creatures

that they live in accordance with nature, while their natures are

distinct, so that one thing is natural for a horse, another for an

ox, another for a man, yet good as a whole preserves an analogy

not only in the case of living creatures but even in the case

of all those things which nature nurtures, rears, and sustains;

and herein we see the objects which spring out of the soil

produce one may say many results for themselves of their own

motion, such as promote | their life and growth, so that they

reach the ultimate aim which their class assigns to them.

Thus we may now embrace all objects in a single statement and

affirm without hesitation that every nature tends to preserve

itself, and keeps before itself, as its ultimate and supreme good,

the preservation of its being in the best circumstances of which

its class admits; so it inevitably follows that for all creatures

which draw their life from nature, ultimate good is analogous

X § 28] DE FINIBUS V. 159

not identical. Hence we are bound to understand that for man

the highest good is a life in harmony with nature, which we

explain to mean a life in accordance with man’s constitution

when it has been on all its sides brought to completion, and

lacks nothing further. This then we must further expound ; 27

but if we do so in great detail you will excuse us. We must

bow to the interests of our friend’s youth, who possibly listens

to these doctrines for the first time. ‘Quite ‘true,’ said I;

‘though all you have yet stated would be properly addressed to

any age in that form.’

X. ‘Well then,’ said he, ‘now that we have made plain the

mode of defining the objects of desire, we must next in order,

as I said, point out how it is that the conclusions we have

stated hold good. So let us begin with the consideration to

which I have given the first place, which is first also in point

of fact, that we understand every créature to feel love for itself.

Now although this principle does not admit of doubt (since it

is rooted in nature herself, and is made plain to each man by

his own feelings in such a way that if any wanted to speak

against it he would not obtain a hearing) still, that our exposi-

tion may not be incomplete, I think I must produce arguments

also to shew how this is so. Yet how can we comprehend 28°

or Imagine that there is some sort of creature which hates

itself? We shall thus have two opposite things clashing

together. For as soon as the mental instinct of which I have

spoken has begun in a conscious manner to draw towards

itself some external object injurious to it, prompted by

hostility to its own existence, since it will therein act from

regard for its own interest, it will feel both hatred and

love for itself at one and the same time, which is an im-

possible result. And it is inevitable that if any one is his

own foe, he must look upon things that are actually good as

evil, and vice versd, upon things that are actually evil as good,

and must shun objects which are in fact attractive, and be

attracted by objects which are in fact to be shunned; and

this indubitably amounts to turning life upside down. Nor

indeed can we regard as enemies to themselves those who

are found eager for the noose or other modes of destruction,

160 3 CICERO [X § 28—

nor yet the character in Terence who determined that he was

lessening the injustice done to his son so long as he made

29 himself wretched (which is the way he puts it himself). But

some are influenced by grief, others by their passions; many too

are maddened by anger, and when they rush with their eyes open

into mischief suppose at the moment that they are doing what

is most to their interest. So they say without hesitation Z must

have it so; as for you do as you like. If these had really pro-

claimed war against themselves, they would desire to be racked

by day and tortured by night, while they would not blame

themselves on the grourd that they had been careless about

their own interests ; such a complaint indicates that they feel

love and affection for their own being. -So whenever it is de-

clared that any one is doing disservice to himself and is his own

enemy and his own open foe and in fine loathes his life, there

must be understood to be beneath the surface some reason of

such a kind as to shew in itself that each man is dear to

30 himself. Nor however is it sufficient that there should be no

one who hates himself, but we must also see this, that there

is no one who thinks his own condition a matter of no import-

ance to himself. For mental instinct will be swept away if in

the case of our own existence we suppose that our own state

does not concern us any more than the class of indifferent

objects, which do not incline us in one direction more than

another. | i

XI. Now again it would be utterly ridiculous if any one

chose to say that the love of each man for himself implies’

that this faculty of loving looks beyond to some other object

than the being of the man himself who feels this love for him-

self. When such a doctrine is put forward with regard to

friendship, duty and virtue, in . whatever language it is ex-

pressed, the purport of it is at least intelligible ; but we cannot

even understand with regard to our own persons a statement

to the effect that we love ourselves for the sake of some thing

other than ourselves, pleasure for instance; since we love it

because we love ourselves, and not ourselves because we love

31l it. Yet what is there plainer than that each man is not merely

dear to himself but even intensely dear? Who indeed is there

XI § 33] DE FINIBUS V. 161

or rather how few are there who when death approaches do

not find their blood flow back cravenly, and their colour grow

pale with fear! Though indeed it is a fault to shrink so

strongly from the extinction of our natural existence (and we

have to blame a similar fault in connexion with pain); but

the fact that almost all have this feeling is adequate proof

that nature dreads destruction ; and the greater the degree to

which some persons carry this feeling, incurring thereby justly

our censure, the more clearly must we see that these extravagant

forms of the sentiment which are found in some would never

have existed unless the moderate form in some way were an

ordinance of nature. But I am not now speaking of the fear

of death felt by those whose reason for shrinking from it is that

they imagine themselves about to be robbed of the advantages

of life, or that they quake before some terrors to come after

death, or are afraid lest the act of dying should be attended by

pain, for we often find in the case of children, who have no

imaginations of that kind, that when we threaten in sport to

fling them down from some height they are alarmed. Nay even

the wild beasts which (as says Pacuvius) lack all cleverness of

wit for the exercise of forethought, shudder when the dread of

death is held before their eyes. Now who has any other notion 32

of the wise man himself but this, that even when he has deter-

mined that he must die, he yet is affected by parting with his

friends and by merely leaving behind him the light of day?

Again the force of nature in such cases is made especially

evident when many endure beggary, if only they may live, and

men who are tottering with old age feel horror at the approach

of death, and endure sorrows like those of Philoctetes which we

see upon the stage, who though racked by intolerable anguish,

yet protracted his life by catching birds; though slow he pierced

the swift and though at rest, those on the wing, as we find in

Attius, and he made a covering for his body by weaving together

the feathers. What need to talk about the human race or about 33

living creatures at all, seeing that nature produces almost the

same effect upon trees and vegetables? For whether it be that,

as the wisest men have thought, some power higher and more

godlike has implanted this tendency, or that it is due to chance,

R. C. F. 11

162 CICERO [XI § 33—

we do see that the things which the earth produces are kept

in health by their bark and their roots, a result which is arrived

at in the case of living creatures by the way in which the

senses are distributed and by a certain solid union of the limbs.

Touching this subject, although I agree with those who believe

that all these phenomena are governed by a natural power,

and that nature could not exist herself if she disregarded

them, yet I allow those who hold a different view of the matter

to think as they please, and even to understand that whenever I

speak of the nature of man, I mean man; for the expressions

do not differ in sense, Now it is easier for each man to

escape consciousness of himself than to lose his yearning

after those objects which are favourable to his own existence.

With justice therefore have the weightiest thinkers sought

for the source of the supreme good in nature, and have sup-

posed that the instinct which seeks such objects as conform

to nature is inbred in all men, because such objects are in-

separable from that prompting of nature whereby men love

their own being.

-34 XII. Next in order we must see wherein man’s nature

consists, since it is sufficiently plain that nature endears to each

man his own existence. Here we find our problem. But it

is evident that man is composed of body and mind, though

the rôle of the mind is superior, and that of the body in-

ferior. Next we find this too, that man’s body is so shaped

as to be superior to other bodies, and his mind is so formed

that it bas the senses for its instruments and possesses tran-

scendent intellectual power, to which the whole nature of man

yields homage, since it comprises very marvellous faculties for

reasoning and inquiry and knowledge and for all the virtues.

Now the bodily faculties, while their influence cannot be

measured against that of the mental functions, are easier to

35 understand. So let us begin with them. It is easily seen

then how agreeable to nature are the members of our body and

its whole form and shape and pose, nor can we have any

difficulty in understanding what form of the forehead and eyes

and ears and of the other members is appropriate to man ;

but assuredly he has need that his limbs should be sound and

XIII § 36] DE FINIBUS V. 163

strong and should admit of their natural motions and uses, no

one member being either wanting, or infirm, or impaired.

These are the conditions which nature requires. There is

again a certain form of bodily activity which preserves those

movements and attitudes that accord with nature; and if

any fault be committed in connexion with these either by

reason of some deformity or injury or some movement or

attitude which is unseemly, as for example if a man were to

walk on his hands or were to walk not forwards but backwards,

he would be seen entirely to desert his own constitution, and

by stripping his manhood of its humanity, to shew hatred for

nature. So also certain postures and certain contorted and

cramped movements such as lewd or effeminate men affect,

are against nature; thus in spite of the fact that this happens

through some defect in the soul, nevertheless the perversion of

man’s nature is outwardly exhibited in the body. So on the 36

other hand all well controlled and regulated conditions, states

and applications of the body are seen to conform to nature.

Again the soul must not only exist but exist with a certain

character; it must possess all its faculties unmarred, and no

one of its excellences must be wanting. So with the senses ;

each has its own excellence, which prevents anything from

obstructing each as it exercises its function of making quick

and free observations upon the objects which come within the

sphere of sense. XIII. The soul however and that part of

the soul which is supreme and which bears the name of intel-

lect, has numerous excellences, but there are two primary

classes; one comprising the faculties which are, as their nature

shews, inbred and are styled independent of the will, the

other those which, being dependent on the will, usually bear,

by a better title than the others, the name of virtue, and their

high quality makes them preeminent among the merits of the

soul. To the former class belong aptness for learning and

memory; almost all such faculties are denoted by the single

word gifts, and men who possess these virtues are called

gifted. The second class however consists of the great and true

virtues which we describe as dependent on the will, prudence for

example, temperance, courage, justice and the rest of the same

11—2

164 CICERO [XIII § 37—

37 kind. Now it was necessary to make these general statements

about the body and the soul, which pretty well define in outline

what it is that nature demands. Whence it is evident (inas-

much as we love ourselves and desire all the faculties of our souls

and bodies to reach perfection) that all our powers are dear to

us for their own sake, and that they exercise the greatest influ-

ence on the goodness of life. Now when a man aims at pre-

serving his whole being it follows inevitably that his several

members are dear to him also and are more dear in. proportion

as they are more perfect and more admirable each in its own

class. The life which is the object of our desires is one which

is fully endowed with excellences of soul and body, and we

needs must make the supreme good consist in this life, since

in it by its very nature all objects of desire must culminate.

When this is understood, we cannot doubt (inasmuch as men

are essentially and for their own sakes dear to themselves) that

the different classes of mental and bodily faculties and of cir-

cumstances attendant on the activity or cessation from activity

of both, are cherished for their inherent preciousness, and so

38 are desired in and for themselves. Now that we have given

this explanation, the inference is easy that of all our possessions

those are the most desirable which claim the highest distinc-

tion, so that the most desirable things are the excellences of

our most valuable endowments, which are in themselves ob-

jects of desire. So it will come to pass that the excellence

of the soul is preferred to bodily excellence, and that the

excellences of the soul which are independent of will are sur-

passed by those which depend on will, to which excellences the

name virtue peculiarly belongs, and which are vastly superior,

because they spring from reason, the most godlike attribute

of man. In fact for all those things which nature produces

and sustains, so far as they are either without soul, or nearly

without soul, the supreme good lies in the body, so that there

seems some point in the well-known remark about the pig,

that its soul was given to it instead of salt, to keep it from

rotting. XIV. Now there are certain animals which possess

some semblance of virtue, as is the case with lions and dogs

and horses, in which we see certain activities due to the

XIV § 40] . DE FINIBUS VFV. 165

partial possession of a soul, and not merely of a body, like the

swine. In man however the whole importance belongs to the

soul, and in the soul itself to reason, which is the fount of

virtue, this being defined as the perfection of the reason; and

philosophers think that of this definition repeated expositions

are necessary. |

In the case even of the objects which the earth bears we find 39

a certain form of nurture and maturity which does not fail to

remind us of living creatures; so we say that a vine lives and

dies, and that trees young and old flourish and grow feeble;

hence it is not amiss to suppose that these, like living crea-

tures, have conditions which are suited to and others which

are hostile to their nature, and that a certain form of science

and practice, that which belongs to the farmer, superintends

their growth and nurture, so that it trims and prunes them,

raises, trains, and props them, to allow of their advancing

to the goal whither nature impels them; so that the vines

themselves, if they had a voice, would admit that this is

the treatment and fostering care which they need. And

in the present instance, speaking especially of the vine, the

power which tends it comes from without, since the vine

itself possesses too little strength to secure for itself the best

conditions, if no supervision were exercised. But suppose 40

the vine endowed with feeling, so as to possess a certain

instinct, and to act on an impulse of its own; what do you

imagine it will do? Will it not. unaided see to those results

which it formerly attained by aid of the vinegrower? But

do you not see that it will now feel anxiety to protect its

senses also and all their instincts, and all the limbs which

are attached to it? So it will link with the endowments,

which it always had, those which have been subsequently

added, nor will it propose to itself quite the same supreme good

which he who tended it laid down for it, but will desire to live

in accordance with that nature which has been subsequently

bestowed on it. So its supreme.good will be like that which

formerly existed for it but without being the same, since it will

no longer seek after the supreme good of a vegetable but of a

sentient creature. What if not merely feeling has been given to

166 CICERO [XIV § 40—

it but a human soul as well? Is it not inevitable that while

the old endowments remain and so must be maintained, the

endowments which have been added are far dearer, and that

the soul’s most excellent gifts are the dearest of all, and that

the supreme good reaches its final limit along with the full

perfection of the natural constitution, though thought and

reason have an infinite superiority? Thus we have arrived

at the limit of the whole class of objects which are sought

after, and we have attained to it by a very gradual ascent

from the earliest prompting of nature, and the highest object

at which we arrive is one which is enriched by faultless bodily

faculties along with the perfected reasoning faculties of the

mind.

41 XV. Since nature’s scheme then is such as I have described,

if, as I said at the outset, each person at the moment of birth

were conscious of his being and capable of judging what faculties

his whole nature as well as its several parts possessed, he would

at once see the true essence of that thing which is the subject of

our inquiry, I mean that good which is ultimate and supreme

over all the objects of our desires, nor would it be possible for him

to err in any way. The fact is however that at all events in our

early days our nature is marvellously hidden from our eyes, and

cannot be clearly viewed or comprehended; but as our lives

advance we insensibly or rather by slow degrees acquire, I

may say, a knowledge of ourselves. Thus that earliest intro-

duction of ourselves to ourselves with which nature supplies us

is dubious and dim, and our earliest mental impulse only

aims at enabling us to continue healthy and strong; when

however the light begins to dawn on us and we begin to feel

what we are and wherein we differ from the lower animals,

then we begin to pursue the destiny to which we were born.

42 And we observe something like this in animals, which at first

do not stir from the place in which they were born, then each is

roused by its own peculiar instinct ; we find that young snakes

crawl, ducks swim, larks take the wing, oxen use their horns,

and hornets their stings, in fine that each creature's nature is

its guide in the conduct of life. And similar facts are evident

in the case of the human race likewise. For children when

XVI § 44] DE FINIBUS V. 167

first born lie still, as though they were entirely devoid of mind;

when however their strength has a little increased, they make

use of their minds as well as their senses, and strive to raise

themselves up, and bring their hands into use, and recognise

those who have charge of their nurture; afterwards they rejoice

in their little companions and are delighted to associate with

them and give themselves up to play, and eagerly listen to

stories, and desire to bestow upon others something out of their

own abundance, and examine inquisitively all that happens in

their home, and begin to devise things and to learn, and are

anxious not to remain ignorant of the names of people they see,

and if they are victorious in the contests which they have with

their young companions, they are beside themselves with de-

light, if defeated, they are depressed and their spirits fall; and

we must not suppose that any of these things occur without a

reason. Nature indeed has so created the human faculties as 43

to make it plain that they are formed with a view to the ac-

quisition of all virtue, and for that reason children are stirred

by their little mimic virtues, the seeds of which they possess

within themselves—and that quite apart from learning; for

these are primary natural gifts, and when these have grown

the budding virtues (so to speak) are developed. Now inas-

much as we are so born and so constructed that we hold within

us the first beginnings of action and affection and generosity

and gratitude, and we possess minds which incline to know-

ledge, wisdom, and courage, and recoil from the opposites of

these, the fact is not fortuitous that we see in children

those sparks as it were of virtues, which I have mentioned,

which must kindle the flame of philosophic thought, so that by

following the guidance of thought, as though of something

divine, one may reach the goal to which nature points him.

Indeed, as I have often already observed, in the weak period

of life, when the intellect is feeble, our natural faculties are

seen as though through a mist, but when the mind as it ad-

vances becomes robust, it indeed feels conscious of the natural

faculties, but in this sense that they are seen to be capable of

further progress, though they exist of themselves merely in

outline. XVI. We must force our way therefore into nature’s 44

168 CICERO | [XVI § 44—

secrets, and thoroughly see what it is that she demands; in no

other way can we get a knowledge of ourselves. This maxim,

because it was too high to be thought to have proceeded from

man, was on that account attributed to a god. The Pythian

Apollo then bids us learn to know ourselves; now knowledge

of ourselves can only mean this, that we should get to know our

bodily and mental powers, and pursue that kind of life which

leads to the full enjoyment of those powers. Since however

the earliest mental impulse was such as to incline us to acquire

those conditions of which I have spoken, in the most fully

developed form that nature allows, we must agree that when

we have attained to that which our impulse aimed at, nature

halts at that point, having reached, as it were, her goal, and

there finds the ultimate good; and this good in its entirety

must be an object of desire on its own account, and in and for

itself, inasmuch as we have before shewn that its individual

45 parts also are in themselves desirable. Now if it occurs to any

one that in reckoning .up the bodily advantages we have over-

looked pleasure, let the discussion of it be postponed till

another occasion. For our present purpose it makes no differ-

ence whether pleasure is one of those objects which we have

described as the earliest in the order of nature, or not. If as

is my opinion, pleasure is not wanted to complete the list of

natural advantages, we have been right in neglecting it; but if -

pleasure possesses the attributes which some assign to her, that

is no objection to the general view of the supreme good which

we have put forward, for if pleasure is added to the list of

elementary natural objects laid down by us, there will only

be one bodily advantage the more, nor will it disturb the

settlement of the supreme good which we have put forward.

46 XVII. As yet, indeed, our system has been so developed

as to derive its principles entirely from the first promptings of

nature. Now however it is time for us to trace out another form

of demonstration, to shew that, not merely because we love our

own personality, but because each portion of our nature, whether

bodily or mental, has its own faculties, therefore we are in the

fullest sense of the words roused to action in respect of these

matters because we regard ourselves. And to begin with the

j

XVIII § 48] DE FINIBUS V. 169

body, do you not see how studiously men conceal any distortions

or afflictions or deformities of their limbs? They even strive

and toil in the hope of being able to render the bodily defect

either not noticeable at all, or as little noticeable as possible,

and tolerate many tortures to arrive at a remedy, so that the

limbs may be brought back to their natural form, even though

their utility will thereby be not only not increased, but actually

impaired. [Further, inasmuch as all believe that their whole

personality is by nature’s ordinance a thing desirable, and that

too for their own sake merely, and not from any other motive,

it follows inevitably that we must regard as desirable for

their own sake the several portions of that whole which we

feel to be for its own sake desirable.] Well, is there in the 47

movements or positions of the body, nothing to which nature

herself declares we ought to pay heed? How we are to walk

and sit, how each one is to compose his features and arrange his

expression? Is there nothing connected with all these matters

which we account to be worthy or unworthy of a free-born

man? Do we not look upon as meriting our dislike many

whom we believe to have shewn their disregard of nature’s law

and nature’s limits by a certain kind of movement or a certain

attitude? And since the body is usually kept free from all such

practices, why should it not be right to consider comeliness

- also as in itself an object worthy of our desires? For if we

suppose bodily deformities and defects to be in themselves

matters which we should shun, why should we not feel at-

tracted in the same or perhaps in a greater measure by the

distinction of beauty, and that for its own sake? And if we

shun ugliness as exhibited in movement or repose, why should

we not aim at comeliness? And so we shall desire health,

strength and freedom from pain, not merely with a view to

their uses but also in and for themselves. Inasmuch as nature

desires perfection in all her parts, she desires for their own

sake such bodily positions as are most in accord with her own

laws, and nature is entirely thrown into confusion when the

body is either sick, or in pain, or wanting in strength.

XVIII. Let us glance at the mental faculties, for the 48

light in which we view them is more brilliant; and in propor-

170 CICERO [XVIII § 48—

tion as they are more lofty, so the information they give us

about nature is more lucid. Well then, we have inbred in us

so great a passion for inquiry and knowledge, that no one can

have any doubt that man’s nature is urged to the pursuit of

these objects without the allurement of any utility. Do we

not see how children are not frightened away from considering

and inquiring into things even by being beaten? How though

driven off they return to them? How they delight in the

possession of some knowledge? How they hanker to tell the

story to others? How intent they are upon processions, races,

and other shows of the kind, and how for such an enjoyment

they tolerate even hunger and thirst? Again do we not see

those whose delight is in liberal pursuits and accomplishments,

neglecting health and property alike, and enduring everything

because fascinated by inquiry and knowledge in themselves,

and always paying for the pleasure which learning brings them,

49 by the most serious anxiety and toil? I believe that Homer

had some such idea when he imagined his tale of the Sirens’

music. They indeed do not seem to have been wont to stay

the passer by through any sweetness in their voices or any

freshness or picturesqueness in their music, but because they

proclaimed themselves to know much, so that men were dashed

against their crags because they longed to learn. This is how

they entice Ulysses (for I have translated that very passage,

like others of Homer). Ulysses, pride of the Greeks, why not

steer hitherward thy bark, that thy ears may catch our songs?

For none has ever sped past these blue deeps, but first he did

stay when our sweet notes charmed him, then, his yearning

heart full of subtle lore, did he glide on, more knowing far,

till he reached the coast of his fatherland. We know about

the stern struggle of the war and the doom which Greece by

the will divine brought upon Troy, and all that eer befell,

the wide earth over. Homer saw that his tale could not

please his readers if so mighty a hero were to be snared and

spell-bound by a mere ditty; it is knowledge they offer him,

and it was no wonder that one eager after wisdom found it

more precious than his fatherland. Now to long to know

everything of whatever kind, betrays the inquisitive man, but

XIX § 52] DE FINIBUS VFV- 171

we must think that he who by reflecting on matters of great

import is led to an ardent pursuit of science, takes rank with

the highest of men.

XIX. What, think you, was the enthusiasm for research 50

by which Archimedes was possessed, who, while drawing some

figure with great care on the sand, was unconscious that his

native city had fallen into the enemy’s hand? What great

gifts did Aristoxenus lavish, as we read, upon music! With

what keen zest, as we believe, did Aristophanes pass his

life in pursuit of literature! What need to speak of Pytha-

goras, of Plato or of Democritus? All these, as we read,

wandered to the ends of the earth in their eagerness for in-

formation. Now any who do not understand all this have

never felt a passion for any subject which is important and

worthy of inquiry. And as regards this point, those who say

that these pursuits of which I have spoken are followed with

an eye to mental pleasures, do not perceive that they are shewn

to be in and for themselves desirable by the fact that our minds

delight in them even without hope of advantage and take

pleasure in the knowledge merely, even with the prospect of

inconvenience. But what profits it to seek for more argu-

ments concerning facts which are so patent? Let us put the

question to ourselves how it is that the movement of the stars

and the spectacle of the heavenly bodies and the theories of all

phenomena which are veiled in nature’s mystery cause excite-

ment in us, and why we are pleased with history and often

trace it out in its most remote details; we go back again to

points we had overlooked and follow up the clue we have just

found. Nor am I unaware that history brings with it use, and

not merely pleasure. But how is it when we read with

pleasure stories founded on imagination, from which we cannot

possibly extract profit? How is it when we desire to become 52

familiar with the names of those who have achieved something

great, and their lineage, their country and many other alto-

gether unessential details? How about the fact that men of

the lowest rank who have no expectation of sharing in the

government, and in fact artisans, feel a pleasure in history ?

And more than all others we may see men who because age

172 CICERO. [XIX § 52—

has impaired their strength are cut off from the hope of

achieving anything, yet desire to hear and read of what has

been achieved in the past. On that account we must needs

understand that the subjects themselves which are learned and

examined possess certain allurements which incite us to learn-

53 ing and inquiry. Now the old thinkers feign a description of the

life that wise men will lead in the islands of the blest; these,

as they think, when once freed from all trouble and needing

none of the services or preparations indispensable in life, will

find nothing to do but to spend all their time in acquiring a

knowledge of nature by investigation and study. We however

see that such pursuits do not only form the delight of a happy

life but are also the mitigation of wretchedness, and therefore

many when in the power of their foes, or of despots, many

in -prison and many in exile have lightened their grief by

54 devoting themselves to learning. A leading statesman of this

city, Demetrius Phalereus, having been unjustly driven from

his country, took refuge with king Ptolemy at Alexandria.

Being proficient in the very system of philosophy which I am

now advising you to adopt, and a pupil of Theophrastus, he

wrote during that disastrous leisure many splendid works, not

for any practical uses of his own, for he was cut off from all

such, but this was for him mental cultivation and a kind of

food, so to speak, for his cultured soul. I have often heard

Gnaeus Aufidius, the former praetor, a well-informed man but

blind, say that he was stirred by a longing rather for the light

than for any practical advantage. Moreover we should think

that the gift of sleep was unnatural did it not bring with it rest

for our bodies, and a kind of remedy for toil; it does indeed

deprive us of perception and all activity; so if nature did not

demand rest or could gain it by some other method, we would

cheerfully bear the loss of it, seeing that we often as it is

submit to wakefulness almost in nature’s despite when we wish

to do some business or to learn something. |

55 . XX. There are moreover many signs that are more evi-

dent, or rather entirely plain and beyond possibility of doubt,

by which nature shews, most conspicuously of course in man,

but in every living creature as well, how the mind yearns

XX § 57] DE FINIBUS V. 173

after constant activity, and cannot on any terms endure un-

interrupted repose. It is easy to see this in the first tender

years of children’s lives. Now although I am afraid of being

thought to push on in this line of argument too far, still all

the older thinkers, particularly those of our school, go back to

the nursery because they think that in childhood they can

most readily observe the tendencies of nature. We see then

how impossible even babes find it to keep still: when again

they have grown a little older, they are pleased even with toil-

some amusements, from which they cannot be kept even by

flogging. And this passion for occupation matures with the

maturing years. So we should decline the boon of Endymion’s

sleep even if we believed we should enjoy the most delightful

dreams, and if it were bestowed upon us, we should consider

it the same as death. Again, we see the laziest men, even if 56

characterised by the most unsurpassable worthlessness, roused

nevertheless continually to bodily and mental activity, and

when they are not tied down to any compulsory employment,

we see them either call for a dice-board or look about for some

recreation, or try to find some one to chat with, and though

destitute of the liberal pleasures which learning brings, yet

eager to join some street groups or cliques at the board.

Nay, the beasts which we imprison for our own amusement,

though more plentifully fed than if they were free, do not pa-

tiently endure their confinement, and feel the loss of those free

and capricious movements which nature herself allowed them.

So the better a man’s birth and education, the less willing would 57

he be to continue in life, if he were cut off from active business,

even though he might revel in the most exquisite pleasures.

In.fact, people prefer either to carry on business of their own,

or where their spirit 1s more lofty, by rising to office and com-

mands, they take in hand public business; or else they give all

their energy to the pursuit of learning; and amid such a life so

far are they from havirg pleasure in view, that they actually

tolerate vexations, troubles and sleepless nights, and they de-

light in the keenness of their talent and understanding, which ©

is the most excellent part of man, and must be reckoned as a

godlike essence dwelling within us, nor do they either seek

174 CICERO [XX § 57—

pleasure or avoid toil, nor again do they flag in their passion

for those discoveries which were made by the men of old, or for

the tracking out of new ones; as their enthusiasm can never

grow weary, they forget all things outside them and put away

from them all mean and sordid thoughts; and so great is the

hold which these pursuits have upon them that we even see the

men who have adopted quite other views of the ultimate good,

which they shape by the idea of advantage or pleasure, still

pass their lives in investigating and elucidating the realm of

nature.

58 XXI. Hence we see this fact, that we are born to a life

of activity. Now activities are of several kinds, so that the

less important are thrown into the shade by the more im-

portant, the most important being in the first place, as I think,

and as those too think with whose system we are now con-

cerned, reflection upon and inquiry into the phenomena of

the heavens, especially those which nature has studiously con-

cealed but whose mysteries reason is competent to explore;

next in importance comes the government of commonwealths, or

the science of their government, then a method of life based on

prudence, temperance, courage, justice and the other virtues, and

such actions as accord with the virtues, all of which matters we

embrace in a single expression and call morality; and under

nature’s own guidance we are led to know and practise them,

when once we have reached the age of steadiness. Indeed the

first beginnings of all things are small, but when they have

put forth their power of improvement, they shew increase, and

naturally so; for human beings at birth exhibit a certain frailty

and softness, so that they cannot discern or carry out the courses

which are best. For the splendour of virtue and happiness, the

two objects most worthy of desire, only dawns on them at a late

period, and only at a much later period still is their nature

fully understood. For Plato nobly said: blessed is he to whom

it has been given in old age to be able to arrive at wisdom and

right opinion. So inasmuch as we have said enough about the

primary endowments of nature, let us now cast a glance at the

59 more important matters which are posterior to them. The

body of man then has been so created and moulded by nature,

XXII § 61] DE FINIBUS V. 175

that she brings to completion some of its faculties at birth,

and shapes others as life advances, certainly without availing

herself much of aids lying outside the body, and accidental to

it; the mind she has endowed in nearly all respects as fully

as the body; for she equipped it with the senses, which are so

well adapted for making observations of external objects, that

they need little or no extraneous aid to establish them ; but

nature did neglect one thing which is most excellent and most

important in man. Although she bestowed upon him a mind

capable of grasping all virtue, and, apart from any teaching,

implanted in him rudimentary ideas of the most important

matters, and began, so to speak, his education, and included

among his constitutional endowments the ground-work, as we

may call it, of the virtues, yet virtue itself she merely sketched

in outline, nothing more. So it is our business (when I say our 60

business I mean it is the business of our science) to draw out

from those elements which have been given us their appropriate

results, until we have arrived at the end which we propose to

ourselves ; which end is considerably more valuable and more

inherently desirable than are either our senses or those bodily ©

faculties of which we have spoken, which are so completely

inferior to the preeminent perfection of the mind, that it is

scarcely possible to imagine the gap which separates them.

_ So every distinction, every form of admiration, every pursuit is

judged by a reference to virtue and the actions which accord

with it, and all thoughts and actions agreeing with it are

denoted by the one expression moral. And what are the

ideas pertaining to all moral actions, and what actions are

denoted by the various names, and what is the peculiarity

and the essence of each, all this we shall examine soon;

(XXII) at this point let us merely make this plain, that 61

these moral actions of which I speak are (quite apart from the

love which we bear to our own personalities) in their own

essential nature inherently desirable. This is seen in children,

in whom nature is reflected as in a mirror. What passion

they throw into their contests! How serious are the struggles

themselves! How they are overpowered by delight when they

have won the victory, how disgraced they are by defeat! How

176 | CIUERO = [XXI § 61—

they loathe to be blamed; what an appetite they have for

praise! What toils do they endure that they may take the

first rank among their companions! How strong is their re-

membrance of those who are kind to them, how great their

eagerness to requite a kindness! And these qualities are most

conspicuous in the best dispositions, in which this morality,

which is now in our thoughts, is so to speak drawn by nature

62 in outline. But this is the case with children; the outlines

are filled in when life has advanced to its period of strength.

Who is so unlike a true man, as to be careless about

the hatred excited by baseness and the approval secured by

virtue? Who does not revolt from a youth spent in lust

and wantonness? On the other hand, who would not esteem

honour and steadiness in one of that time of life, even if it

were not at all to his own advantage? Who does not dislike

the traitor Pullus Numitorius of Fregellae, though he did ser-

vice to our own country? Who does not greatly extol Codrus

the saviour of this city, and the daughters of Erechtheus?

Who does not loathe the name of Tubulus? Who does not

love Aristides, dead though he be? Do we forget how greatly

we are affected when we hear or read the tale of some deed

- 63 that bespeaks affection, friendship or greatness of soul? Why

do I speak of ourselves, who were born and reared and edu-

cated with a view to honesty and good fame? What shouts

are raised in the theatre by the mob and all ignorant men,

when the passage is spoken I am Orestes; and on the other

hand the friend answers No indeed, I am Orestes, I declare.

When again, they both actually prompt to a decision the con-

fused and troubled king: we both then pray to die together:

whenever this is acted, is it ever received except with the

most unbounded admiration? There are none then who do not

sanction and applaud this attitude of the mind, whereby it not

merely aims at the attainment of no advantage, but actually

64 maintains honour in the teeth of all advantage. Not only

the fictions of the imagination but also the pages of history

and more particularly our own history, are rich in instances of

the kind. We indeed selected to take over the sacred rites

of Ida a man of the highest character; such men we have

XXIII § 66] DE FINIBUS V. 177

dispatched to be guardians to princes; our generals have often

sacrificed their lives for their country’s deliverance; our consuls

have given to a prince who was their deadly foe and was

drawing near to their walls, a warning to beware of poison;

in our community one was found who expiated by a self-

inflicted death the shame she had suffered through violence;

one too who put his own child to death, to save her from

shame; and who does not understand that the actors in all these

and many like scenes were guided by the brilliant light of

honour, and thought nothing of advantage to themselves, and

that we too in eulogising them are impelled by nothing but a

regard for morality ?

XXIII. Now that we have given these brief explanations

(for I have not of course gone through the whole store of

examples I might have used, inasmuch as the facts could

not be doubtful) but these considerations assuredly prove that

all the virtues with morality, which springs from them and is in-

herent in them, are in themselves a thing worthy to be desired.

In the whole field of morality, which is our present theme, 65

there is nothing so splendid or so far-reaching as the union

of men with men and their fellowship (if I may so call it)

and their interchange of services, and the mere affection for

the human race, which taking its rise in our earliest origin,

(inasmuch as the offspring is the object of regard to its pro-

genitors, and the family is entirely held together by marriage

and community of blood) then extends itself by degrees to

those outside, first by means of relationships, then by marriage

connexions, then by friendships, then by the tie of neighbour-

hood, then by the aid of fellow citizens and all who are on

public grounds associated and intimate with us, then by em-

bracing in its scope the whole of mankind. This disposition

of the mind, because it assigns to each individual: what is his

own, and because it. liberally and fairly maintains the bonds

of human society, receives the name of justice, and with it are

connected reverence, goodness, generosity, kindliness, courtesy,

and all virtues of the same class, which while peculiarly con-

nected with justice, have yet ties that bind them to the other

virtues. Now inasmuch as the constitution of man has been 66

R. C. F. 12

178 CICERO [XXIII § 66—

so constructed that it contains within it a certain instinct

for what we may term association and common life, which the

Greeks call the political instinct, each individual virtue will,

whatever its practice, be not averse to that common life and

affection for and fellowship with the human race, of which I

have given an account, and justice in turn, as she will in

practice herself expand into the other virtues, so will feel the

need of them. For only a strong man or a wise man can main-

tain justice. This whole concord and harmony of the several

virtues gives a character to morality itself, since morality is

either in itself virtue or something exhibiting virtue in practice;

and when a life is in harmony with. such conditions and

answers to the call of the virtues it may be pronounced upright

and moral and consistent and in agreement with nature.

67 Further, this union and inter-penetration of the virtues is

nevertheless by a certain method disentangled by philosophers.

For though they are so closely linked and united that each

claims a share in every other, and they cannot be disjoined one

from another, nevertheless each has its own peculiar office, so

that courage is displayed in hardships and hazards, temperance

in the rejection of pleasures, prudence in the selection from

among things good and things evil, justice in the assignment

to each man of that which is his due. Since then every virtue

implies a certain anxiety which looks beyond self, so to speak,

and seeks out and fosters others, we have this result, that

friends, brothers, relations, connexions, fellow countrymen, all

men in fine (since we suppose all men to be bound in one

association) are objects of regard in and for themselves. Yet

none of these objects of regard is of such a nature as to be

68 comprised within the ultimate and supreme good. Thus we

discover two kinds of matters which are in and for them-

selves desirable, one consisting of those circumstances which

go to make up the supreme good, I mean such as are con-

nected with the mind and the body ; while these other matters,

which are external, by which I mean that they form part

neither of mind nor body, friends, for example, parents,

children, relations, our country itself, are indeed dear to us

for what they are in themselves, but they do not belong to

~. XXIV §71] DE FINIBUS V. | 179

the same class as the rest. Indeed no one would ever be

able to attain to the ultimate good, if all the external objects,

however desirable they may be, were comprised within the su-

preme good. XXIV. How then, you will say, can it possibly 69

be true that the value of all objects is determined by compari-

son with the supreme good, if friendships, relationships and all

other external circumstances form no part of the supreme good?

The principle, you see, is this, that we sustain our external

relations by practising those moral actions which spring from

the several classes of virtues. For attention bestowed on a

friend or a parent benefits the person who does his duty to-

wards them, by the mere fact that performance of such duty

belongs to the class of moral actions to which the virtues have

given rise. And such actions are pursued by men of wisdom

under nature’s guidance; but men who have not arrived at

perfection, though they possess striking natural powers, are

often influenced by fame, which exhibits a likeness and re-

semblance to morality. Now if they could see into the inner

essence of faultless and perfect morality, which vastly surpasses

all things in splendour and merit, what ecstasy would fill

their minds, delighted as they are with a dim suggestion of the

original! What man is there who, being the slave of pleasure 70

and having his nature all ablaze with the fire of his passions,

excited by the enjoyment of the objects which he had with the

greatest intensity desired, yet can be supposed to be steeped

In joy so vast as that felt either by the elder Africanus on

the conquest of Hannibal, or by the younger at the ruin of

Carthage? Who ever felt so keen a zest over the voyage

down the Tiber on the general holiday, as was experienced

by Lucius Paulus when he sailed up the same stream bringing

with him the captive king Perses? Well then, dear Lucius, rear 71

in your mind a towering and imposing structure of the vir-

tues; you will then have no doubt that men who possess

these, who live like men of great and lofty souls, are at all

times happy, inasmuch as they know that all the revolutions

of fortune and the changes of circumstances and occasions

will prove insignificant and feeble if they come into con-

flict with virtue. Those good things, in fact, which we classed

12—2

180 CICERO [XXIV § 71—

as bodily advantages, do indeed go to complete the greatest

possible happiness, yet happiness may be achieved without

them. The addition of these advantages is of such slight

and trivial consequence that just as starlight is extinguished

by the sun’s beams, so we do not descry these matters amid

72 the brilliant light of the virtues. Again, as it is truly said

that the influence exerted upon happiness by those bodily

blessings is small, so on the other hand it is too overbearing to

say that they have none; and the men who put forward this

opinion seem to me to have forgotten even those fundamental

natural endowments which they have themselves laid down.

We must therefore allow these matters a certain amount of

consideration, provided that you clearly understand how much

ought to be allowed them. A philosopher who is in search not

so much of boastful phrases as of truths must on the one hand

not wholly disregard objects which the boastful men them-

selves admit to be in agreement with nature, and on the other

must see that so great is the power of virtue and so great the

prestige, so to speak, of morality, that all else is not indeed

actually worthless but so trifling as to appear to us worthless.

This language befits a man who while he does not pour con-

tempt on everything but virtue, yet lavishes on virtue her-

self all the praise that is her due; in fine in this way our

exposition of the supreme good receives its full completion on

all its sides. The other schools have tried to catch at some

elements of this supreme good, and each has desired to get

78 credit for putting forward an original opinion. XXV. Aristotle

and Theophrastus have often extolled in a surprising way the

pursuit of knowledge for its own sake; fascinated by this be-

yond all else, Erillus supported the view that knowledge is the

supreme good, and that nothing else is an object intrinsically

worthy of our desires. The ancients have spoken much about

disregarding and scorning human chances; this was the one

consideration to which Aristo clung; he declared that with the

exception of vice and virtue there was nothing worth either

shunning or desiring. Our school have laid down that free-

dom from pain is one of the conditions in accord with

nature; Hieronymus affirmed it to be the supreme good. But

XXVI § 76] DE FINIBUS V. 181

again Callipho and after him Diodorus, the one having fallen

in love with pleasure, the other with freedom from pain, could

neither of them dispense with morality, which has been ex-

tolled in the highest degree by the men of our school. Nay, 74

even the partisans of pleasure look out for ways of escape

and chatter about virtue for whole days together, and say

that pleasure is only in the early stages an object of desire,

that afterwards habit gives rise to a sort of second nature,

whereby men are induced to do many actions without keeping

pleasure in view. There only remain the Stoics. These in-

deed have not adopted from us one or two points, but have

taken to themselves our whole philosophy. And just as the

ordinary thieves change the marks of the objects which they

have stolen, so these, desiring to pass off our opinions as

their own, changed the terms which were so to speak the

marks impressed on the doctrines. Thus our system is left as

the only one worthy of those who are devoted to the liberal

arts, worthy of scholars, of distinguished men, of leading states-

men, of princes.’ When he had spoken thus, and had paused a 75

little, he said: ‘how now? Do you not think that I have used

sufficiently my privilege of trying your ears with my rehearsal?’

‘I declare, Piso, said I, ‘that to-day as often before, you have

shewn yourself to be so familiar with the subject, that if you

would give us more frequent opportunities of hearing you, I

should not think it necessary to beg many lessons of the

Greeks. And I have been the better pleased with your ex-

position, because I recollect that Staseas of Naples, your old

instructor, an undoubtedly eminent Peripatetic, used to give

a considerably different account of the matter; agreeing with

those who attached a good deal of importance to fortune’s

smiles and frowns and to bodily advantages and disadvantages,’

‘What you say is true, said he, ‘but our friend Antiochus gives

a better and stronger view of the subject than that which

Staseas used to support. Yet I do not ask in what respects

I have secured your approval, but rather that of our friend

Cicero, whom I am anxious to steal away from your tutelage.’

XXVI. Then said Lucius: ‘indeed I highly approve of your 76

views, and I think my cousin does so too. Then Piso said:

182 CICERO [XXVI § 76—

‘well, well, are you going to forgive our young friend? Or

would you rather that he learned doctrines which will land him

in ignorance when he has thoroughly mastered them?’ ‘So far

as Lucius is concerned,’ I answered, ‘I let him go; but do you

not remember that I am quite free to express my liking for

the statements put forward by you? Who can refrain from

expressing his liking for doctrines which seem to him full of

. likelihood ? ‘Or rather,’ said he, ‘can any one express a liking

for any doctrine which he does not hold as perceived, appre-

hended and thoroughly known?’ ‘The difference between us,

Piso, is not important, I replied. ‘The only reason I have

for thinking perception impossible is that the essential marks

of a perception are explained by the Stoics in such terms as to

make a perception altogether impossible, unless it wears such

an aspect of truth as a deceptive perception cannot possibly

present. So my disagreement is with the Stoics; with the Peri-

patetics I have certainly none. But let us pass the matter over;

it opens up indeed a very long and rather contentious debate ;

77 but there is one statement I think you have made with too

much precipitation, namely, that all wise men are at all times

happy. Somehow or other your speech flew past this point.

Unless formal proof of it is given, I fear that everything Theo-

phrastus said may prove true, I mean about prosperity and pain

and bodily torments, with which he thought happiness could

not co-exist; since it is glaringly inconsistent to say that a man

is happy and at the same time weighed down by many miseries.

I for my part do not perceive how two such assertions agree

with one another. ‘Which doctrine, then, said he, ‘do you

deny, the doctrine that virtue is so powerful as to supply

happiness out of her own resources, or if you believe this, do

you assert it to be impossible that men who are in possession

of virtue should be happy even if attacked by certain evils?’

‘I for my part would like the power of virtue to be as great as

possible, but the question of its greatness is for another occasion ;

I only ask now whether it can be so great, if anything lying

78 outside virtue is admitted to be good.’ ‘Well but,’ said he, ‘if

you grant the Stoics that the mere presence of virtue produces

happiness, you grant it to the Peripatetics likewise; since all

gy

XXVII § 81] DE FINIBUS V. 183

the objects which they have not the courage to call evils,

though they allow them to be hardships and inconveniences,

and matters to be declined, and matters at variance with na-

ture, all these we call evils, though evils of slight and almost

infinitesimal consequence. So if he who is surrounded by cir-

cumstances such as are hard and deserve to be declined can

be happy, then so can he be happy who is surrounded by trivial

evils. Then I said: ‘Piso, if there is a man who is always

keen-sighted in detecting the question at issue in a case, you

assuredly are the man. So pray give me your attention. For

as yet you do not see the drift of my question, though perhaps

that is my fault. ‘I am at your service,’ said he, ‘and eager

to hear your answer to the question I put to you? XXVII. ‘My 79

answer will be that I am not at this moment asking what

nature has the power to bring about, but what statements are

consistent and what are at variance with themselves.” ‘How

do you mean?’ said he. ‘The matter is thus, I answered;

‘when Zeno pronounces this splendid sentence, as though from

the shrine of prophecy: virtue asks no extraneous aid to pro-

duce happiness, some one says “why so?” and he replies:

because nothing else 1s good but that which 1s moral. Iam no