The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations Part 11

XIX. Now apply the same arguments to modesty, or temperance, which is a moderation of the appet.i.tes, in subordination to reason. Can we say that a man pays sufficient regard to the dictates of modesty, who indulges his l.u.s.ts in such a manner as to have no witnesses of his conduct? or is there anything which is intrinsically flagitious, even if no loss of reputation ensues? What do brave men do? Do they enter into an exact calculation of pleasure, and so enter the battle, and shed their blood for their country?

or are they excited rather by a certain ardour and impetuosity of courage?

Do you think, O Torquatus, that that imperious ancestor of yours, if he could hear what we are now saying, would rather listen to your sentiments concerning him, or to mine, when I said that he had done nothing for his own sake, but everything for that of the republic; and you, on the contrary, affirm that he did nothing except with a view to his own advantage? But if you were to wish to explain yourself further, and were to say openly that he did nothing except for the sake of pleasure, how do you think that he would bear such an a.s.sertion?

Be it so. Let Torquatus, if you will, have acted solely with a view to his own advantage, for I would rather employ that expression than pleasure, especially when speaking of so eminent a man,-did his colleague too, Publius Decius, the first man who ever was consul in that family, did he, I say, when he was devoting himself, and rus.h.i.+ng at the full speed of his horse into the middle of the army of the Latins, think at all of his own pleasures? For where or when was he to find any, when he knew that he should perish immediately, and when he was seeking that death with more eager zeal than Epicurus thinks even pleasure deserving to be sought with?

And unless this exploit of his had been deservedly extolled, his son would not have imitated it in his fourth consuls.h.i.+p; nor, again, would his son, when fighting against Pyrrhus, have fallen in battle when he was consul, and so offered himself up for the sake of the republic as a third victim in an uninterrupted succession from the same family. I will forbear giving any more examples. I might get a few from the Greeks, such as Leonidas, Epaminondas, and three or four more perhaps. And if I were to begin hunting up our own annals for such instances, I should soon establish my point, and compel Pleasure to give herself up, bound hand and foot, to virtue. But the day would be too short for me. And as Aulus Varius, who was considered a rather severe judge, was in the habit of saying to his colleague, when, after some witnesses had been produced, others were still being summoned, "Either we have had witnesses enough, or I do not know what is enough;" so I think that I have now brought forward witnesses enough.

For, what will you say? Was it pleasure that worked upon you, a man thoroughly worthy of your ancestors, while still a young man, to rob Publius Sylla of the consuls.h.i.+p? And when you had succeeded in procuring it for your father, a most gallant man, what a consul did he prove, and what a citizen at all times, and most especially after his consuls.h.i.+p!

And, indeed, it was by his advice that we ourselves behaved in such a manner as to consult the advantage of the whole body of the citizens rather than our own.

But how admirably did you seem to speak, when on the one side you drew a picture of a man loaded with the most numerous and excessive pleasures, with no pain, either present or future; and on the other, of a man surrounded with the greatest torments affecting his whole body, with no pleasure, either present or hoped for; and asked who could be more miserable than the one, or more happy than the other? and then concluded, that pain was the greatest evil, and pleasure the greatest good.

XX. There was a man of Lanuvium, called Lucius Thorius Balbus, whom you cannot remember; he lived in such a way that no pleasure could be imagined so exquisite, that he had not a superfluity of it. He was greedy of pleasure, a critical judge of every species of it, and very rich. So far removed from all superst.i.tion, as to despise the numerous sacrifices which take place, and temples which exist in his country; so far from fearing death, that he was slain in battle fighting for the republic. He bounded his appet.i.tes, not according to the division of Epicurus, but by his own feelings of satiety. He took sufficient exercise always to come to supper both thirsty and hungry. He ate such food as was at the same time nicest in taste and most easy of digestion; and selected such wine as gave him pleasure, and was, at the same time, free from hurtful qualities. He had all those other means and appliances which Epicurus thinks so necessary, that he says that if they are denied, he cannot understand what is good.

He was free from every sort of pain; and if he had felt any, he would not have borne it impatiently, though he would have been more inclined to consult a physician than a philosopher. He was a man of a beautiful complexion, of perfect health, of the greatest influence, in short, his whole life was one uninterrupted scene of every possible variety of pleasures. Now, you call this man happy. Your principles compel you to do so. But as for me, I will not, indeed, venture to name the man whom I prefer to him-Virtue herself shall speak for me, and she will not hesitate to rank Marcus Regulus before this happy man of yours. For Virtue a.s.serts loudly that this man, when, of his own accord, under no compulsion, except that of the pledge which he had given to the enemy, he had returned to Carthage, was, at the very moment when he was being tortured with sleeplessness and hunger, more happy than Thorius while drinking on a bed of roses.

Regulus had had the conduct of great wars; he had been twice consul; he had had a triumph; and yet he did not think those previous exploits of his so great or so glorious as that last misfortune which he incurred, because of his own good faith and constancy; a misfortune which appears pitiable to us who hear of it, but was actually pleasant to him who endured it. For men are happy, not because of hilarity, or lasciviousness, or laughter, or jesting, the companion of levity, but often even through sorrow endured with firmness and constancy. Lucretia, having been ravished by force by the king's son, called her fellow-citizens to witness, and slew herself.

This grief of hers, Brutus being the leader and mover of the Roman people, was the cause of liberty to the whole state. And out of regard for the memory of that woman, her husband and her father were made consuls(35) the first year of the republic. Lucius Virginius, a man of small property and one of the people, sixty years after the reestablishment of liberty, slew his virgin daughter with his own hand, rather than allow her to be surrendered to the l.u.s.t of Appius Claudius, who was at that time invested with the supreme power.

XXI. Now you, O Torquatus, must either blame all these actions, or else you must abandon the defence of pleasure. And what a cause is that, and what a task does the man undertake who comes forward as the advocate of pleasure, who is unable to call any one ill.u.s.trious man as evidence in her favour or as a witness to her character? For as we have awakened those men from the records of our annals as witnesses, whose whole life has been consumed in glorious labours; men who cannot bear to hear the very name of pleasure: so on your side of the argument history is dumb. I have never heard of Lycurgus, or Solon, Miltiades, or Themistocles, or Epaminondas being mentioned in the school of Epicurus; men whose names are constantly in the mouth of all the other philosophers. But now, since we have begun to deal with this part of the question, our friend Atticus, out of his treasures, will supply us with the names of as many great men as may be sufficient for us to bring forward as witnesses. Is it not better to say a little of these men, than so many volumes about Themista?(36) Let these things be confined to the Greeks: although we have derived philosophy and all the liberal sciences from them, still there are things which may be allowable for them to do, but not for us. The Stoics are at variance with the Peripatetics. One sect denies that anything is good which is not also honourable: the other a.s.serts that it allows great weight, indeed, by far the most weight, to what is honourable, but still affirms that there are in the body also, and around the body, certain positive goods. It is an honourable contest and a splendid discussion. For the whole question is about the dignity of virtue.

But when one is arguing with philosophers of your school, one is forced to hear a great deal about even the obscure pleasures which Epicurus himself continually mentions. You cannot then, Torquatus, believe me, you cannot uphold those principles, if you examine into yourself, and your own thoughts and studies. You will, I say, be ashamed of that picture which Cleanthes was in the habit of drawing with such accuracy in his description. He used to desire those who came to him as his pupils, to think of Pleasure painted in a picture, clad in beautiful robes, with royal ornaments, and sitting on a throne. He represented all the Virtues around her, as her handmaidens, doing nothing else, and thinking nothing else their duty, but to minister to Pleasure, and only just to whisper in her ear (if, indeed, that could be made intelligible in a picture) a warning to be on her guard to do nothing imprudent, nothing to offend the minds of men, nothing from which any pain could ensue. We, indeed, they would say, we Virtues are only born to act as your slaves; we have no other business.

XXII. But Epicurus (for this is your great point) denies that any man who does not live honourably can live agreeably; as if I cared what he denies or what he affirms. What I inquire is, what it is consistent for that man to say who places the chief good in pleasure. What reason do you allege why Thorius, why Chius, why Postumius, why the master of all these men, Orata, did not live most agreeably? He himself, as I have already said, a.s.serts that the life of men devoted to luxury is not deserving of blame, unless they are absolute fools, that is to say, unless they abandon themselves to become slaves to their desires or to their fears. And when he promises them a remedy for both these things, he, in so doing, offers them a licence for luxury. For if you take away these things, then he says that he cannot find anything in the life of debauched men which deserves blame. You then, who regulate everything by the standard of pleasure, cannot either defend or maintain virtue. For he does not deserve to be accounted a virtuous or a just man who abstains from injustice in order to avoid suffering evil. You know the line, I suppose-

He's not a pious man whom fear constrains To acts of piety ... a man-

And nothing can be more true. For a man is not just while he is in a state of alarm. And certainly when he ceases to be in fear, he will not be just.

But he will not be afraid if he is able to conceal his actions, or if he is able, by means of his great riches and power, to support what he has done. And he will certainly prefer being regarded as a good man, though he is not one, to being a good man and not being thought one. And so, beyond all question, instead of genuine and active justice, you give us only an effigy of justice, and you teach us, as it were, to disregard our own unvarying conscience, and to go hunting after the fleeting vagabond opinions of others.

And the same may be said of the other virtues also; the foundation of all which you place in pleasure, which is like building on water. For what are we to say? Can we call that same Torquatus a brave man? For I am delighted, though I cannot, as you say, bribe you; I am delighted with your family and with your name. And, in truth, I have before my eyes Aulus Torquatus,(37) a most excellent man, and one greatly attached to me; and both of you must certainly be aware how great and how eminent his zeal in my behalf was in those times which are well known to every one. And that conduct of his would not have been delightful to me, who wish both to be, and to be considered, grateful, if I did not see clearly that he was friendly to me for my own sake, not for his own; unless, indeed, you say, it was for his own sake, because it is for the interest of every one to act rightly. If you say that, we have gained our point. For what we are aiming at, what we are contending for, is, that duty itself is the reward of duty. But that master of yours will not admit this, and requires pleasure to result from every action as a sort of wages.

However, I return to him. If it was for the sake of pleasure that Torquatus, when challenged, fought with the Gaul on the Anio, and out of his spoils took his chain and earned his surname, or if it was for any other reason but that he thought such exploits worthy of a man, then I do not account him brave. And, indeed, if modesty, and decency, and chast.i.ty, and, in one word, temperance, is only upheld by the fear of punishment or infamy, and not out of regard to their own sanct.i.ty, then what lengths will adultery and debauchery and l.u.s.t shrink from proceeding to, if there is a hope either of escaping detection, or of obtaining impunity or licence?

What shall I say more? What is your idea, O Torquatus, of this?-that you, a man of your name, of your abilities, of your high reputation, should not dare to allege in a public a.s.sembly what you do, what you think, what you contend for, the standard to which you refer everything, the object for the sake of which you wish to accomplish what you attempt, and what you think best in life. For what can you claim to deserve, when you have entered upon your magistracy, and come forward to the a.s.sembly, (for then you will have to announce what principles you intend to observe in administering the law, and perhaps, too, if you think fit, you will, as is the ancient custom, say something about your ancestors and yourself,)-what, I say, can you claim as your just desert, if you say that in that magistracy you will do everything for the sake of pleasure? and that you have never done anything all your life except with a view to pleasure? Do you think, say you, that I am so mad as to speak in that way before ignorant people? Well, say it then in the court of justice, or if you are afraid of the surrounding audience, say it in the senate: you will never do so. Why not, except that such language is disgraceful? Do you then think Triarius and me fit people for you to speak before in a disgraceful manner?

XXIII. However, be it so. The name of pleasure certainly has no dignity in it, and perhaps we do not exactly understand what is meant by it; for you are constantly saying that we do not understand what you mean by the word pleasure: no doubt it is a very difficult and obscure matter. When you speak of atoms, and s.p.a.ces between worlds, things which do not exist, and which cannot possibly exist, then we understand you; and cannot we understand what pleasure is, a thing which is known to every sparrow? What will you say if I compel you to confess that I not only do know what pleasure is (for it is a pleasant emotion affecting the senses), but also what you mean by the word? For at one time you mean by the word the very same thing which I have just said, and you give it the description of consisting in motion, and of causing some variety: at another time you speak of some other highest pleasure, which is susceptible of no addition whatever, but that it is present when every sort of pain is absent, and you call it then a state, not a motion: let that, then, be pleasure. Say, in any a.s.sembly you please, that you do everything with a view to avoid suffering pain: if you do not think that even this language is sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently honourable, say that you will do everything during your year of office, and during your whole life, for the sake of your own advantage; that you will do nothing except what is profitable to yourself, nothing which is not prompted by a view to your own interest. What an uproar do you not suppose such a declaration would excite in the a.s.sembly, and what hope do you think you would have of the consuls.h.i.+p which is ready for you? And can you follow these principles, which, when by yourself, or in conversation with your dearest friends, you do not dare to profess and avow openly? But you have those maxims constantly in your mouth which the Peripatetics and Stoics profess. In the courts of justice and in the senate you speak of duty, equity, dignity, good faith, uprightness, honourable actions, conduct worthy of power, worthy of the Roman people; you talk of encountering every imaginable danger in the cause of the republic-of dying for one's country. When you speak in this manner we are all amazed, like a pack of blockheads, and you are laughing in your sleeve: for, among all those high-sounding and admirable expressions, pleasure has no place, not only that pleasure which you say consists in motion, and which all men, whether living in cities or in the country, all men, in short, who speak Latin, call pleasure, but even that stationary pleasure, which no one but your sect calls pleasure at all.

XXIV. Take care lest you find yourselves obliged to use our language, though adhering to your own opinions. But if you were to put on a feigned countenance or gait, with the object of appearing more dignified, you would not then be like yourself; and yet are you to use fict.i.tious language, and to say things which you do not think, or, as you have one dress to wear at home, and another in which you appear in court, are you to disguise your opinions in a similar manner, so as to make a parade with your countenance, while you are keeping the truth hidden within? Consider, I intreat you, whether this is proper. My opinion is that those are genuine sentiments which are honourable, which are praiseworthy, which are creditable; which a man is not ashamed to avow in the senate, before the people, in every company and every a.s.sembly, so that he will be ashamed to think what he is ashamed to say.

But what room can there be for friends.h.i.+p, or who can be a friend to any one whom he does not love for his own sake? And what is loving, from which verb (_amo_) the very name of friends.h.i.+p (_amicitia_) is derived, but wis.h.i.+ng a certain person to enjoy the greatest possible good fortune, even if none of it accrues to oneself? Still, you say, it is a good thing for me to be of such a disposition. Perhaps it may be so; but you cannot be so if it is not really your disposition; and how can you be so unless love itself has seized hold of you? which is not usually generated by any accurate computation of advantage, but is self-produced, and born spontaneously from itself. But, you will say, I am guided by prospects of advantage. Friends.h.i.+p, then, will remain just as long as any advantage ensues from it; and if it be a principle of advantage which is the foundation of friends.h.i.+p, the same will be its destruction. But what will you do, if, as is often the case, advantage takes the opposite side to friends.h.i.+p? Will you abandon it? what sort of friends.h.i.+p is that? Will you preserve it? how will that be expedient for you? For you see what the rules are which you lay down respecting friends.h.i.+p which is desirable only for the sake of one's own advantage:-I must take care that I do not incur odium if I cease to uphold my friend. Now, in the first place, why should such conduct incur odium, except because it is disgraceful? But, if you will not desert your friend lest you should incur any disadvantage from so doing, still you will wish that he was dead, to release you from being bound to a man from whom you get no advantage. But suppose he not only brings you no advantage, but you even incur loss of property for his sake, and have to undertake labours, and to encounter danger of your life; will you not, even then, show some regard for yourself, and recollect that every one is born for himself and for his own pleasures? Will you go bail to a tyrant for your friend in a case which may affect your life, as that Pythagorean(38) did when he became surety to the Tyrant of Sicily? or, when you are Pylades, will you affirm that you are Orestes, that you may die for your friend? or, if you were Orestes, would you contradict Pylades, and give yourself up? and, if you could not succeed then, would you intreat that you might be both put to death together?

XXV. You, indeed, O Torquatus, would do all these things. For I do not think that there is anything deserving of great praise, which you would be likely to shrink from out of fear of death or pain: nor is it the question what is consistent with your nature, but with the doctrines of your school-that philosophy which you defend, those precepts which you have learnt, and which you profess to approve of, utterly overthrow friends.h.i.+p-even though Epicurus should, as indeed he does, extol it to the skies. Oh, you will say, but he himself cultivated friends.h.i.+p. As if any one denied that he was a good, and courteous, and kind-hearted man; the question in these discussions turns on his genius, and not on his morals.

Grant that there is such perversity in the levity of the Greeks, who attack those men with evil speaking with whom they disagree as to the truth of a proposition. But, although he may have been courteous in maintaining friends.h.i.+ps, still, if all this is true, (for I do not affirm anything myself), he was not a very acute arguer. Oh, but he convinced many people. And perhaps it was quite right that he should; still, the testimony of the mult.i.tude is not of the greatest possible weight; for in every art, or study, or science, as in virtue itself, whatever is most excellent is also most rare. And to me, indeed, the very fact of he himself having been a good man, and of many Epicureans having also been such, and being to this day faithful in their friends.h.i.+ps, and consistent throughout their whole lives, and men of dignified conduct, regulating their lives, not by pleasure, but by their duty, appears to show that the power of what is honourable is greater, and that of pleasure smaller. For some men live in such a manner that their language is refuted by their lives; and as others are considered to speak better than they act, so these men seem to me to act better than they speak.

XXVI. However, all this is nothing to the purpose. Let us just consider those things which have been said by you about friends.h.i.+p, and among them I fancied that I recognized one thing as having been said by Epicurus himself, namely, that friends.h.i.+p cannot be separated from pleasure, and that it ought on that account to be cultivated, because without it men could not live in safety, and without fear, nor even with any kind of pleasantness. Answer enough has been given to this argument. You also brought forward another more humane one, invented by these more modern philosophers, and never, as far as I know, advanced by the master himself, that at first, indeed, a friend is sought out with a view to one's own advantage, but that when intimacy has sprung up, then the man is loved for himself, all hope or idea of pleasure being put out of the question. Now, although this argument is open to attack on many accounts, still I will accept what they grant; for it is enough for me, though not enough for them: for they admit that it is possible for men to act rightly at times, without any expectation of, or desire to acquire pleasure.

You also affirmed that some people say that wise men make a kind of treaty among themselves, that they shall have the same feelings towards their friends that they entertain for themselves, and that that is possible, and is often the case, and that it has especial reference to the enjoyment of pleasures. If they could make this treaty, they at the same time make that other to love equity, moderation, and all the virtues for their own sake, without any consideration of advantage. But if we cultivate friends.h.i.+ps for the sake of their profits, emoluments, and advantages which may be derived from them, if there is to be no affection which may make the friends.h.i.+p desirable for its own sake, on its own account, by its own influences, by itself and for itself, is there any doubt at all that in such a case we must prefer our farms and estates to our friends? And here you may again quote those panegyrics which have been uttered in most eloquent language by Epicurus himself, on the subject of friends.h.i.+p. I am not asking what he says, but what he can possibly say which shall be consistent with his own system and sentiments.

Friends.h.i.+p has been sought for the sake of advantage; do you, then, think that my friend Triarius, here, will be more useful to you than your granaries at Puteol? Think of all the circ.u.mstances which you are in the habit of recollecting; the protection which friends are to a man. You have sufficient protection in yourself, sufficient in the laws, sufficient also in moderate friends.h.i.+ps. As it is, you cannot be looked upon with contempt; but you will easily avoid odium and unpopularity, for precepts on that subject are given by Epicurus. And yet you, by employing such large revenues in purposes of liberality, even without any Pyladean friends.h.i.+p, will admirably defend and protect yourself by the goodwill of numbers. But with whom, then, is a man to share his jests, his serious thoughts, as people say, and all his secrets and hidden wishes? With you, above all men; but if that cannot be, why with some tolerably intimate friend. However, grant that all these circ.u.mstances are not unreasonable; what comparison can there be between them and the utility of such large sums of money? You see, then, if you measure friends.h.i.+p by the affection which it engenders, that nothing is more excellent; if by the advantage that is derived from it, then you see that the closest intimacies are surpa.s.sed by the value of a productive farm. You must therefore love me, myself, and not my circ.u.mstances, if we are to be real friends.

XXVII. But we are getting too prolix in the most self-evident matters; for, as it has been concluded and established that there is no room anywhere for either virtues or friends.h.i.+ps if everything is referred to pleasure, there is nothing more which it is of any great importance should be said. And yet, that I may not appear to have pa.s.sed over any topic without a reply, I will, even now, say a few words on the remainder of your argument.

Since, then, the whole sum of philosophy is directed to ensure living happily, and since men, from a desire of this one thing, have devoted themselves to this study; but different people make happiness of life to consist in different circ.u.mstances; you, for instance, place it in pleasure; and, in the same manner you, on the other hand, make all unhappiness to consist in pain: let us consider, in the first place, what sort of thing this happy life of yours is. But you will grant this, I think, that if there is really any such thing as happiness, it ought to be wholly in the power of a wise man to secure it; for, if a happy life can be lost, it cannot be happy. For who can feel confident that a thing will always remain firm and enduring in his case, which is in reality fleeting and perishable? But the man who distrusts the permanence of his good things, must necessarily fear that some day or other, when he has lost them, he will become miserable; and no man can be happy who is in fear about most important matters. No one, then, can be happy; for a happy life is usually called so, not in some part only, but in perpetuity of time; and, in fact, life is not said to be happy at all till it is completed and finished. Nor is it possible for any man to be sometimes happy and sometimes miserable; for he who thinks it possible that he may become miserable, is certainly not happy. For, when a happy life is once attained, it remains as long as the maker of the happy life herself, namely, wisdom; nor does it wait till the last period of a man's existence, as Herodotus says that Crsus was warned by Solon.

But, as you yourself were saying, Epicurus denies that length of time has any influence on making life happy, and that no less pleasure can be felt in a short time than would be the case if the pleasure were everlasting.

Now these statements are most inconsistent. For, when he places the chief good in pleasure, he denies that pleasure can be greater in infinite time, than it can in a finite and moderate period. The man who places all good in virtue, has it in his power to say that a happy life is made so by the perfection of virtue; for he consistently denies that time can bring any increase to his chief good. But he who thinks that life is made happy by pleasure, must surely be inconsistent with himself if he denies that pleasure is increased by length of time: if so, then pain is not either.

Shall we, then, say that all pain is most miserable in proportion as it is most lasting, and yet that duration does not make pleasure more desirable?

Why, then, is it that Epicurus always speaks of G.o.d as happy and eternal?

For, if you only take away his eternity, Jupiter is in no respect more happy than Epicurus; for each of them is in the enjoyment of the chief good, namely, pleasure. Oh, but Epicurus is also liable to pain. That does not affect him at all; for he says that if he were being burnt, he would say, "How pleasant it is." In what respect, then, is he surpa.s.sed by the G.o.d, if he is not surpa.s.sed by him because of his eternity? For what good has the G.o.d, except the highest degree of pleasure, and that, too, everlasting! What, then, is the good of speaking so pompously, if one does not speak consistently? Happiness of life is placed in pleasure of body, (I will add of mind also, if you please, as long as that pleasure of the mind is derived from the pleasure of the body.) What? who can secure this pleasure to a wise man in perpetuity? For the circ.u.mstances by which pleasures are generated are not in the power of a wise man; for happiness does not consist in wisdom itself, but in those things which wisdom provides for the production of pleasure. And all these circ.u.mstances are external; and what is external is liable to accident. And thus fortune is made the mistress of happiness in life,-Fortune, which, Epicurus says, has but little to do with a wise man.

XXVIII. But you will say, Come, these things are trifles. Nature by herself enriches the wise man; and, indeed, Epicurus has taught us that the riches of nature are such as can be acquired. This is well said, and I do not object to it; but still these same a.s.sertions are inconsistent with one another. For Epicurus denies there is less pleasure derived from the poorest food, from the most despised kinds of meat and drink, than from feasting on the most delicious dishes. Now if he were to a.s.sert that it makes no difference as to the happiness of life what food a man ate, I would grant it, I would even praise him for saying so; for he would be speaking the truth; and I know that Socrates, who ranked pleasure as nothing at all, said the same thing, namely, that hunger was the best seasoning for meat, and thirst for drink. But I do not comprehend how a man who refers everything to pleasure, lives like Gallonius, and yet talks like that great man Frugi Piso; nor, indeed, do I believe that what he says is his real opinion. He has said that natural riches can be acquired, because nature is contented with a little. Certainly, unless you estimate pleasure at a great value. No less pleasure, says he, is derived from the most ordinary things than from the most valuable. Now to say this, is not only not to have a heart, but not to have even a palate. For they who despise pleasure itself, may be allowed to say that they do not prefer a sturgeon to a herring. But the man who places his chief good in pleasure, must judge of everything by his sensations, not by his reason, and must p.r.o.nounce those things best which are most pleasant.

However, be it so. Let him acquire the greatest possible pleasures, not only at a cheap rate, but, as far as I am concerned, for nothing at all, if he can manage it. Let there be no less pleasure in eating a nasturtium, which Xenophon tells us the Persians used to eat, than in those Syracusan banquets which are so severely blamed by Plato. Let, I say, the acquisition of pleasure be as easy as you say it is. What shall we say of pain? the torments of which are so great that, if at least pain is the greatest of evils, a happy life cannot possibly exist in company with it.

For Metrodorus himself, who is almost a second Epicurus, describes a happy man in these words. When his body is in good order, and when he is quite certain that it it will be so for the future. Is it possible for any one to be certain in what condition his body will be, I do not say a year hence, but even this evening? Pain, therefore, which is the greatest of evils, will always be dreaded even if it is not present. For it will always be possible that it may be present. But how can any fear of the greatest possible evil exist in a happy life?

Oh, says he, Epicurus has handed down maxims according to which we may disregard pain. Surely, it is an absurdity to suppose that the greatest possible evil can be disregarded. However, what is the maxim? The greatest pain, says he, is short-lived. Now, first of all, what do you call short-lived? And, secondly, what do you call the greatest pain? For what do you mean? Cannot extreme pain last for many days? Aye, and for many months? Unless, indeed, you intend to a.s.sert that you mean such pain as kills a man the moment it seizes on him. Who is afraid of that pain? I would rather you would lessen that pain by which I have seen that most excellent and kind-hearted man, Cnaeus Octavius, the son of Marcus Octavius, my own intimate friend, worn out, and that not once, or for a short time, but very often, and for a long period at once. What agonies, O ye immortal G.o.ds, did that man use to bear, when all his limbs seemed as if they were on fire. And yet he did not appear to be miserable, (because in truth pain was not the greatest of evils,) but only afflicted. But if he had been immersed in continued pleasure, pa.s.sing at the same time a vicious and infamous life, then he would have been miserable.

XXIX. But when you say that great pains last but a short time, and that if they last long they are always light, I do not understand the meaning of your a.s.sertion. For I see that some pains are very great, and also very durable. And there is a better principle which may enable one to endure them, which however you cannot adopt, who do not love what is honourable for its own sake. There are some precepts for, and I may almost say laws of, fort.i.tude, which forbid a man to behave effeminately in pain.

Wherefore it should be accounted disgraceful, I do not say to grieve, (for that is at times unavoidable,) but to make those rocks of Lemnos melancholy with such outcries as those of Philoctetes-

Who utters many a tearful note aloud, With ceaseless groaning, howling, and complaint.

Now let Epicurus, if he can, put himself in the place of that man-

Whose veins and entrails thus are racked with pain And horrid agony, while the serpent's bite Spreads its black venom through his shuddering frame.

Let Epicurus become Philoctetes. If his pain is sharp it is short. But in fact he has been lying in his cave for ten years. If it lasts long it is light, for it grants him intervals of relaxation. In the first place it does not do so often; and in the second place what sort of relaxation is it when the memory of past agony is still fresh, and the fear of further agony coming and impending is constantly tormenting him. Let him die, says he. Perhaps that would be the best thing for him; but then what becomes of the argument, that the wise man has always more pleasure than pain? For if that be the case I would have you think whether you are not recommending him a crime, when you advise him to die. Say to him rather, that it is a disgraceful thing for a man to allow his spirit to be crushed and broken by pain, that it is shameful to yield to it. For as for your maxim, if it is violent it is short, if it lasts long it is slight, that is mere empty verbiage. The only real way to mitigate pain is by the application of virtue, of magnanimity, of patience, of courage.

x.x.x. Listen, that I may not make too wide a digression, to the words of Epicurus when dying; and take notice how inconsistent his conduct is with his language. "Epicurus to Hermarchus greeting. I write this letter," says he, "while pa.s.sing a happy day, which is also the last day of my life. And the pains of my bladder and bowels are so intense that nothing can be added to them which can make them greater." Here is a man miserable, if pain is the greatest possible evil. It cannot possibly be denied. However, let us see how he proceeds. "But still I have to balance this a joy in my mind, which I derive from the recollection of my philosophical principles and discoveries. But do you, as becomes the goodwill which from your youth upwards you have constantly discovered for me and for philosophy, protect the children of Metrodorus." After reading this, I do not consider the death of Epaminondas or Leonidas preferable to his. One of whom defeated the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea,(39) and finding that he had been rendered insensible by a mortal wound, when he first came to himself, asked whether his s.h.i.+eld was safe? When his weeping friends had answered him that it was, he then asked whether the enemy was defeated? And when he received to this question also the answer which he wished, he then ordered the spear which was sticking in him to be pulled out. And so, losing quant.i.ties of blood, he died in the hour of joy and victory.

But Leonidas, the king of the Lacedaemonians, put himself and those three hundred men, whom he had led from Sparta, in the way of the enemy of Thermopylae,(40) when the alternative was a base flight, or a glorious death. The deaths of generals are glorious, but philosophers usually die in their beds. But still Epicurus here mentions what, when dying, he considered great credit to himself. "I have," says he, "a joy to counterbalance these pains." I recognise in these words, O Epicurus, the sentiments of a philosopher, but still you forgot what you ought to have said. For, in the first place, if those things be true, in the recollection of which you say you rejoice, that is to say, if your writings and discoveries are true, then you cannot rejoice. For you have no pleasure here which you can refer to the body. But you have constantly a.s.serted that no one ever feels joy or pain except with reference to his body. "I rejoice," says he, "in the past." In what that is past? If you mean such past things as refer to the body, then I see that you are counterbalancing your agonies with your reason, and not with your recollection of pleasures which you have felt in the body. But if you are referring to your mind, then your denial of there being any joy of the mind which cannot be referred to some pleasure of the body, must be false.

Why, then, do you recommend the children of Metrodorus to Hermarchus? In that admirable exercise of duty, in that excellent display of your good faith, for that is how I look upon it, what is there that you refer to the body?

x.x.xI. You may twist yourself about in every direction as you please, Torquatus, but you will not find in this excellent letter anything written by Epicurus which is in harmony and consistent with the rules he laid down. And so he is convicted by himself, and his writings are upset by his own virtue and goodness. For that recommendation of those children, that recollection of them, and affectionate friends.h.i.+p for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater evidence can we require that those things which are honourable and right are desirable of themselves for their own sake, than the sight of a dying man so anxious in the discharge of such important duties? But, as I think that letter deserving of all commendation of which I have just given you a literal translation, (although it was in no respect consistent with the general system of that philosopher,) so also I think that his will is inconsistent not only with the dignity of a philosopher, but even with his own sentiments. For he wrote often, and at great length, and sometimes with brevity and suitable language, in that book which I have just named, that death had nothing to do with us; for that whatever was dissolved was void of sensation, and whatever was void of sensation had nothing whatever to do with us. Even this might have been expressed better and more elegantly. For when he lays down the position that what has been dissolved is void of sensation, that is such an expression that it is not very plain what he means by the word dissolved. However, I understand what he really does mean. But still I ask why, when every sensation is extinguished by dissolution, that is to say, by death, and when there is nothing else whatever that has any connexion with us, he should still take such minute and diligent care to enjoin Amynomachus and Timocrates, his heirs, to furnish every year what in the opinion of Hermarchus shall be enough to keep his birthday in the month Gamelion, with all proper solemnity. And also, shall every month, on the twentieth day of the month, supply money enough to furnish a banquet for those men who have studied philosophy with him, in order that his memory, and that of Metrodorus, may be duly honoured. Now I cannot deny that these injunctions are in keeping with the character of a thoroughly accomplished and amiable man; but still I utterly deny that it is inconsistent with the wisdom of a philosopher, especially of a natural philosopher, which is the character he claims for himself, to think that there is such a day as the birthday of any one. What? Can any day which has once pa.s.sed recur over again frequently. Most indubitably not; or can any day like it recur? Even that is impossible, unless it may happen after an interval of many thousand years, that there may be a return of all the stars at the same moment to the point from which they set out. There is, therefore, no such thing as anybody's birthday. But still it is considered that there is. As if I did not know that. But even if there be, is it to be regarded after a man's death? And is a man to give injunctions in his will that it shall be so, after he has told you all, as if with the voice of an oracle, that there is nothing which concerns us at all after death? These things are very inconsistent in a man who, in his mind, had travelled over innumerable worlds and boundless regions, which were dest.i.tute of all limits and boundaries. Did Democritus ever say such a thing as this? I will pa.s.s over every one else, and call him only as a witness whom Epicurus himself followed to the exclusion of others.

But if a day did deserve to be kept, which was it more fitting to observe, the day on which a man was born, or that on which he became wise? A man, you will say, could not have become wise unless he had been born. And, on the same principle, he could not if his grandmother had never been born.

The whole business, Torquatus, is quite out of character for a learned man to wish to have the recollection of his name celebrated with banquets after his death. I say nothing of the way in which you keep these days, and to how many jokes from witty men you expose yourselves. There is no need of quarrelling. I only say that it would have been more becoming in you to keep Epicurus's birthday, than in him to leave injunctions in his will that it should be kept.

x.x.xII. However, to return to our subject, (for while we were talking of pain we digressed to that letter of his,) we may now fairly come to this conclusion. The man who is in the greatest evil, while he is in it, is not happy. But the wise man is always happy, and is also occasionally in pain.

Therefore, pain is not the greatest evil. What kind of doctrine, then, is this, that goods which are past are not lost to a wise man, but that he ought not to remember past evils. First of all, is it in our power to decide what we will remember. When Simonides, or some one else, offered to Themistocles to teach him the art of memory, "I would rather," said he, "that you would teach me that of forgetfulness; for I even now recollect what I would rather not; but I cannot forget what I should like to." This was a very sensible answer. But still the fact is that it is the act of a very arbitrary philosopher to forbid a man to recollect. It seems to me a command very much in the spirit of your ancestor, Manlius, or even worse, to command what it is impossible for me to do. What will you say if the recollection of past evils is even pleasant? For some proverbs are more true than your dogmas. Nor does Euripides speak all when he says, I will give it you in Latin, if I can, but you all know the Greek line-

Sweet is the memory of sorrows past.(41)