Moreover, a lewd epigram adorns the comedy and contributes to its end,
which is to delight the spectators and make them laugh. But Jupiter,
who is surnamed fatherly, supreme, just, and (as Pindar has it) the
most perfect artist, framing the world, not as a great interlude,
full of variety and great learning, but as a common city of Gods
and men, living together in concord and happiness with justice and
virtue,—what need had he, for the attaining to this excellent end,
of thieves, murderers, parricides, and tyrants? For vice entered not
as a morris-dance, pleasing and delightful to the Divinity; nor was
injustice brought in amongst the affairs of men, to cause mirth and
laughter by its raillery and facetiousness, since there is not to be
seen in it so much as a dream of that celebrated agreement with Nature.
Besides, that foolish epigram is a very small part of the poem, and
takes up but a very little place in the comedy; neither do such things
abound in it, nor do they corrupt any of those things which seem to
have been well done, or spoil their grace. But all human affairs are
replete with vice, and the whole life, from the very prologue and
beginning to the end, being disordered, depraved, and disturbed, and
having no part of it pure or irreprehensible (as these men say), is the
most filthy and most unpleasant of all farces.
15. Wherefore I would willingly ask, in what vice is profitable to the
universe. Not surely in respect of heavenly things, and such as are
divine by nature. For it would be ridiculous to say, that if there had
not arisen, or were not amongst men, malice and covetousness and lying,
or that if we did not rob, plunder, slander, and murder one another,
the sun would not run his appointed course, the world enjoy its seasons
and periods of time, or the earth, which is seated in the midst of the
universe, afford the principles of the wind and rain. It remains then,
that the existence of vice must be profitable for us and our affairs;
and that perhaps these men mean. Are we more healthy for being vicious,
or do we more abound with necessaries? Or does vice contribute any
thing to our beauty and strength? They say, no. But where on earth is
virtue to be found? Is it then only a name, and a visionary opinion of
night-walking sophisters, and not a reality lying conspicuous to all,
like vice, so that we cannot partake of any thing as unprofitable,[181]
... but least, O ye Gods! of virtue, for which we were created? Is it
not then absurd, that the utensils of the husbandman, mariner, and
charioteer should be serviceable and aiding towards his intended end,
whilst that which was by God made for virtue destroys and corrupts
virtue? But perhaps it is time now to leave this point, and pass to
another.
16. LAMPRIAS. Not for my sake, my dear friend, I beseech you; for I
desire to understand, in what manner these men bring in evil things
before the good, and vice before virtue.
DIADUMENAS. It is indeed, sir, a thing worth knowing. They babble
indeed much; but in conclusion they say that prudence, being the
knowledge of good and evil, would be wholly taken away if there were no
evil. For as, if there are truths, it is impossible but there must be
some lies also near to them; so it stands with reason, that if there
are good things, there must also be evil things.
LAMPRIAS. One of these things is not said amiss; and I think also
that the other is not unapprehended by me. For I see a difference
here: that which is not true must immediately be false; but that is
not of necessity evil which is not good; because that between true
and false there is no medium, but between good and evil there is the
indifferent. Nor is it of necessity that the one must subsist with the
other. For Nature may have good without having any need of evil, but
only having that which is neither good nor evil. But if there is any
thing to be said by you to the former reason, let us hear it.
17. DIADUMENUS. Many things indeed are said; but at present we shall
make use only of what is most necessary. In the first place, it is a
folly to imagine that good and evil have their existence for the sake
of prudence. For good and evil being already extant, prudence came
afterwards; as the art of physic was invented, there being already
things wholesome and unwholesome. For good and evil are not therefore
extant that there may be prudence; but the faculty by which we judge
good and evil that are already in being is named prudence. As sight
is a sense distinguishing white from black; which colors were not
therefore made that we might have sight, but we rather wanted sight to
discern these things. Secondly, when the world shall be set on fire (as
the Stoics will have it), there will then no evil be left, but all will
then be prudent and wise. There is therefore prudence, though there is
no evil; nor is it of necessity for evil to exist that prudence may
have a being. But supposing that prudence must always be a knowledge
of good and evil, what inconvenience would it be if, evil being taken
away, prudence should no longer subsist; but instead of this we should
have another virtue, not being the knowledge of good and evil, but of
good only? So, if black should be wholly lost from among the colors,
and any one should therefore contend that sight is also lost, for that
there is no longer the sense of discerning black and white, what should
hinder us from answering him: It is no prejudice to us, if we have
not what you call sight, but in lieu of that have another sense and
faculty, by which we apprehend colors that are white and not white. For
I indeed think that neither our taste would be lost, if bitter things
were wanting, nor our feeling, if pain were taken away, nor prudence,
if evil had no being; but that these senses would remain, to apprehend
things sweet and grateful and those that are not so, and prudence to
be the science of things good and not good. But let those who think
otherwise take the name to themselves, leaving us the thing.
18. Besides all this, what should hinder but there may be an
understanding of evil, and an existence of good? As the Gods, I
believe, enjoy health, but understand the fever and pleurisy. Since
even we, who, as they say, have abundance of evils but no good, are
not yet destitute of the knowledge what prudence, what goodness, and
what happiness is. And this also would be wonderful, that if virtue
were absent, there should be those who could teach us what it is and
give us a comprehension of it, while if vice were not extant, it should
be impossible to have any understanding of it. For see what these men
persuade us who philosophize against the conceptions,—that by folly
indeed we comprehend prudence, but prudence without folly cannot so
much as comprehend folly itself.
19. And if Nature had absolutely stood in need of the generation of
evil, yet might one or two examples of vice have been sufficient; or
if you will, it might have been requisite that ten, a thousand, or
ten thousand vicious men should be brought forth, and not that the
multitude of vices should be so great as “to exceed in number the
sands of the sea, the dust of the earth, and the feathers of all the
various kinds of birds in the world,” and yet that there should not
be so much all this while as a dream of virtue. Those who in Sparta
had the charge of the public halls or eating places called Phiditia,
were wont to bring forth two or three Helots drunken and full of wine,
that the young men, seeing what drunkenness was, might learn to keep
sobriety. But in human life there are many such examples of vice. For
there is not any one sober to virtue; but we all stagger up and down,
acting shamefully and living miserably. Thus does reason inebriate us,
and with so much trouble and madness does it fill us, that we fall in
nothing short of those dogs of whom Aesop says, that seeing certain
skins swimming on the water, they endeavored to drink the sea up, but
burst before they could get at them. For reason also, by which we hope
to gain reputation and attain to virtue, does, ere we can reach to it,
corrupt and destroy us, being before filled with abundance of heady and
bitter vice;—if indeed, as these men say, they who are got even to the
uppermost step have no ease, cessation, or breathing from folly and
infelicity.
20. But let us see what manner of thing he shows vice to be who says
that it was not brought forth unprofitably, and of what use and what a
possession he makes it to be to those who have it, writing in his book
of right actions, that a wicked man wants nothing, has need of nothing,
nothing is useful to him, nothing proper, nothing fit for him. How
then is vice useful, with which neither health nor abundance of riches
nor advancement in virtue is profitable? Who then does not want these
things, of which some are “preferable” and “acceptable,” and therefore
highly useful, and others are “according to Nature,” as themselves term
them? But (they say) no one has need of them, unless he become wise.
Therefore the vicious man does not even stand in need of being made
wise. Nor are men hungry and thirsty before they become wise. When
thirsty, therefore, they have no need of water, nor when hungry, of
bread.
Be like to courteous guests, and him
Who only fire and shelter asks:
does this man now not need entertainment? Nor had he need of a cloak,
who said,
Give Hipponax a cloak, for I’m stiff with cold.
But will you speak a paradox indeed, both extravagant and singular?
Say then that a wise man has need of nothing, that he wants nothing,
he is fortunate, he is free from want, he is self-sufficient, blessed,
perfect. Now what madness is this, that he to whom nothing is wanting
has need of the goods he has, but that the vicious indeed wants many
things, and stands in need of nothing. For thus indeed says Chrysippus,
that the vicious wants but stands not in need; removing the common
notions, like chessmen, backwards and forwards. For all men think that
having need precedes wanting, esteeming him who stands in need of
things that are not at hand or easy to be got, to want them. For no man
wants horns or wings, because no man has need of them. But we say that
those want arms and money and clothes who are destitute of them, when
they have occasion for them. But these men are so desirous of seeming
always to say something against the common notions, that for the love
of novelty they often depart from their own opinions, as they do here.
21. But recall yourself to the consideration of what has been said
a little above. This is one of their assertions against the common
conception, that no vicious man receives any utility. And yet many
being instructed profit; many being slaves are made free; many being
besieged are delivered, being lame are led by the hand, and being sick
are cured. “But possessing all these things, they are never the better,
neither do receive benefits, nor have they any benefactors, nor do they
slight their benefactors.” Vicious men then are not ungrateful, no more
than are wise men. Ingratitude therefore has no being; because the
good receiving a benefit fail not to acknowledge it, and the bad are
not capable of receiving any. Behold now, what they say to this,—that
benefit is ranked among mean or middle things, and that to give and
receive utility belongs only to the wise, but the bad also receive a
benefit. Then they who partake of the benefit partake not also of
its use; and whither a benefit extends, there is nothing useful or
commodious. Now what else is there that makes a kind office a benefit,
but that the bestower of it is, in some respect, useful to the needy
receiver?
22. LAMPRIAS. But let these things pass. What, I beseech you, is
this so highly venerated utility, which preserving as some great and
excellent thing for the wise, they permit not so much as the name of it
to the vicious?
DIADUMENUS. If (say they) one wise man does but any way prudently
stretch out his finger, all the wise men all the world over receive
utility by it. This is the work of their amity; in this do the virtues
of the wise man terminate by their common utilities. Aristotle then and
Xenocrates doted, saying that men receive utility from the Gods, from
their parents, from their masters, being ignorant of that wonderful
utility which wise men receive from one another, being moved according
to virtue, though they neither are together nor yet know it. Yet all
men esteem, that laying up, keeping, and bestowing are then useful
and profitable, when some benefit or profit is recovered by it. The
thriving man buys keys, and diligently keeps his stores,