But to store up and to keep with diligence and labor such things as
are for no use is not seemly or honorable, but ridiculous. If Ulysses
indeed had tied up with the knot which Circe taught him, not the
gifts he had received from Alcinous,—tripods, caldrons, cloths, and
gold,—but heaping up trash, stones, and such like trumpery, should
have thought his employment about such things, and the possession and
keeping of them, a happy and blessed work, would any one have imitated
this foolish providence and empty care? Yet this is the beauty,
gravity, and happiness of the Stoical consent, being nothing else but a
gathering together and keeping of useless and indifferent things. For
such are things according to Nature, and still more exterior things;
if indeed they compare the greatest riches to fringes and golden
chamber-pots, and sometimes also, as it happens, to oil-cruets. Then,
as those who seem proudly to have affronted and railed at some Gods or
demi-gods presently changing their note, fall prostrate and sit humbly
on the ground, praising and magnifying the Divinity; so these men,
having met with punishment of this arrogancy and vanity, again exercise
themselves in these indifferent things and such as pertain nothing
to them, crying out with a loud voice that there is but one thing
good, specious, and honorable, the storing up of these things and the
communication of them, and that it is not meet for those to live who
have them not, but to dispatch out of the way and famish themselves,
bidding a long farewell to virtue.
They esteem indeed Theognis to have been a man altogether of a base and
abject spirit, for saying, as one over-fearful in regard to poverty,
which is an indifferent thing:
From poverty to fly, into the deep
Throw thyself, Cyrnus, or from rocks so steep.
Yet they themselves exhort the same thing in prose, and affirm that a
man, to free himself from some great disease or exceedingly acute pain,
if he have not at hand sword or hemlock, ought to leap into the sea or
throw himself headlong from a precipice; neither of which is hurtful,
or evil, or incommodious, or makes them who fall into it miserable.
23. With what then, says he, shall I begin? And what shall I take for
the principle of duty and matter of virtue, leaving Nature and that
which is according to Nature? With what, O good sir, do Aristotle and
Theophrastus begin? What beginnings do Xenocrates and Polemo take?
Does not also Zeno follow these, who suppose Nature and that which is
according to Nature to be the elements of happiness? But they indeed
persisted in these things, as desirable, good, and profitable; and
joining to them virtue, which employs them and uses every one of
them according to its property, thought to complete and consummate a
perfect life and one every way absolute, producing that concord which
is truly suitable and consonant to Nature. For these men did not fall
into confusion, like those who leap up from the ground and presently
fall down again upon it, terming the same things acceptable and not
desirable, proper and not good, unprofitable and yet useful, nothing to
us and yet the principles of duties. But their life was such as their
speech, and they exhibited actions suitable and consonant to their
sayings. But they who are of the Stoic sect—not unlike to that woman in
Archilochus, who deceitfully carried in one hand water, in the other
fire—by some doctrines draw nature to them, and by others drive her
from them. Or rather, by their deeds and actions they embrace those
things which are according to Nature, as good and desirable, but in
words and speeches they reject and contemn them, as indifferent and of
no use to virtue for the acquiring felicity.
24. Now, forasmuch as all men esteem the sovereign good to be joyous,
desirable, happy, of the greatest dignity, self-sufficient, and
wanting nothing; compare their good, and see how it agrees with this
common conception. Does the stretching out a finger prudently produce
this joy? Is a prudent torture a thing desirable? Is he happy, who
with reason breaks his neck? Is that of the greatest dignity, which
reason often chooses to let go for that which is not good? Is that
perfect and self-sufficient, by enjoying which, if they have not also
indifferent things, they neither can nor will endure to live? There
is also another principle of the Stoics, by which custom is still
more injured, taking and plucking from her genuine notions, which are
as her legitimate children, and supposing other bastardly, wild, and
illegitimate ones in their room, and necessitating her to nourish and
cherish the one instead of the other; and that too in those doctrines
which concern things good and bad, desirable and avoidable, proper and
strange, the energy of which ought to be more clearly distinguished
than that of hot and cold, black and white. For the imaginations of
these things are brought in by the senses from without; but those have
their original bred from the good things which we have within us. But
these men entering with their logic upon the topic of felicity, as on
the sophism called Pseudomenos, or that named Kyrieuon, have removed no
ambiguities, but brought in very many.
25. Indeed, of two good things, of which the one is the end and the
other belongs to the end, none is ignorant that the end is the greater
and perfecter good. Chrysippus also acknowledges this difference, as
is manifest from his Third Book of Good Things. For he dissents from
those who make science the end, and sets it down.... In his Treatise of
Justice, however, he does not think that justice can be safe, if any
one supposes pleasure to be the end; but grants it may, if pleasure
is not said to be the end, but simply a good. Nor do I think that you
need now to hear me repeat his words, since his Third Book of Justice
is everywhere to be had. When therefore, O my friend, they elsewhere
say that no one good is greater or less than another, and that what is
not the end is equal to the end, they contradict not only the common
conceptions, but even their own words. Again, if of two evils, the one
when it is present renders us worse, and the other hurts us but renders
us not worse, it is against common sense not to say that the evil which
by its presence renders us worse is greater than that which hurts us
but renders us not worse. Now Chrysippus indeed confesses, that there
are some fears and sorrows and errors which hurt us, but render us not
worse. Read his First Book of Justice against Plato; for in respect of
other things, it is worth the while to note the babbling of the man in
that place, delivering indifferently all matters and doctrines, as well
proper to his own sect as foreign.
26. It is likewise against common sense when he says that there may
be two ends or scopes proposed of life, and that all the things we do
are not to be referred to one; and yet this is more against common
sense, to say that there is an end, and yet that every action is to be
referred to another. Nevertheless they must of necessity endure one of
these. For if those things which are first according to Nature are not
eligible for themselves, but the choice and taking of them agreeably
to reason is so, and if every one therefore does all his actions for
the acquiring the first things according to Nature, it follows that
all things which are done must have their reference to this, that the
principal things according to Nature may be obtained. But they think
that they who aim and aspire to get these things do not have the things
themselves for the end, but that to which they must refer, namely, the
choice and not the things. For the end indeed is to choose and receive
these things prudently. But the things themselves and the enjoying of
them are not the end, but the material object, having its worth only
from the choice. For it is my opinion that they both use and write this
very expression, to show the difference.
LAMPRIAS. You have exactly related both what they say and in what
manner they deliver it.
DIADUMENUS. But observe how it fares with them, as with those that
endeavor to leap over their own shadow; for they do not leave behind,
but always carry along with them in their speech some absurdity
most remote from common sense. For as, if any one should say that he
who shoots does all he can, not that he may hit the mark, but that
he may do all he can, such a one would rightly be esteemed to speak
enigmatically and prodigiously; so these doting dreamers, who contend
that the obtaining of natural things is not the end of aiming after
natural things, but the taking and choosing them is, and that the
desire and endeavor after health is not in every one terminated in the
enjoyment of health, but on the contrary, the enjoyment of health is
referred to the desire and endeavor after it, and that certain walkings
and contentions of speech and suffering incisions and taking of
medicines, so they are done by reason, are the end of health, and not
health of them,—they, I say, trifle like to those who say, Let us sup,
that we may sacrifice, that we may bathe. But this rather changes order
and custom, and all things which these men say carry with them the
total subversion and confusion of affairs. Thus, we do not desire to
take a walk in fit time that we may digest our meat; but we digest our
meat that we may take a walk in fit time. Has Nature also made health
for the sake of hellebore, instead of producing hellebore for the sake
of health? For what is wanting to bring them to the highest degree of
speaking paradoxes, but the saying of such things? What difference
is there between him who says that health was made for the sake of
medicines and not medicines for the sake of health, and him who makes
the choice of medicines and their composition and use more desirable
than health itself?—or rather who esteems health not at all desirable,
but placing the end in the negotiation about these things, prefers
desire to enjoyment, and not enjoyment to desire? For to desire,
forsooth (they say), is joined the proceeding wisely and discreetly.
It is true indeed, we will say, if respect be had to the end, that is,
the enjoyment and possession of the things it pursues; but otherwise,
it is wholly void of reason, if it does all things for the obtaining of
that the enjoyment of which is neither honorable nor happy.
27. Now, since we are fallen upon this discourse, any thing may
rather be said to agree with common sense, than that those who have
neither received nor have any conception of good do nevertheless
desire and pursue it. For you see how Chrysippus drives Ariston into
this difficulty, that he should understand an indifference in things
inclining neither to good nor to bad, before either good or bad is
itself understood; for so indifference will appear to have subsisted
even before itself, if the understanding of it cannot be perceived
unless good be first understood, while the good is nothing else than
this very indifference. Understand now and consider this indifference
which the Stoa denies and calls consent, whence and in what manner it
gives us the knowledge of good. For if without good the indifference
to that which is not good cannot be understood, much less does the
knowledge of good things give any intelligence of itself to those
who had not before some notion of the good. But as there can be no
knowledge of the art of things wholesome and unwholesome in those who
have not first some knowledge of the things themselves; so they cannot
conceive any notion of the science of good and evil who have not some
foreknowledge of good and evil.
LAMPRIAS. What then is good?
DIADUMENUS. Nothing but prudence.
LAMPRIAS. And what is prudence?
DIADUMENUS. Nothing but the science of good.
LAMPRIAS. There is much then of “Jupiter’s Corinth” (that is, much
reasoning in a circle) admitted into their arguments. For I would
have you let alone the saying about the turning of the pestle, lest
you should seem to mock them; although an accident like to that has
insinuated itself into their discourse. For it seems that, to the
understanding of good, one has need to understand prudence, and to
seek for prudence in the understanding of good, being forced always
to pursue the one by the other, and thus failing of both; since to
the understanding of each we have need of that which cannot be known
without the other be first understood.
DIADUMENUS. But there is yet another way, by which you may perceive
not only the perversion but the eversion of their discourse, and the
reduction of it entirely to nothing. They hold the essence of good
to be the reasonable election of things according to Nature. Now the
election is not reasonable which is not directed to some end, as has
been said before. What then is this end? Nothing else, say they, but
to reason rightly in the election of things according to Nature. First
then, the conception of good is lost and gone. For to reason rightly in
election is an operation proceeding from an habit of right reasoning;
and therefore being constrained to learn this from the end, and the end
not without this, we fail of understanding either of them. Besides,
which is more, this reasonable election ought in strict justice to be
a choice of things good and useful, and co-operating to the end; for
how can it be reasonable to choose things which are neither convenient
nor honorable nor at all eligible? For be it, as they say, a reasonable
election of things having a fitness for the causing felicity; see then
to what a beautiful and grave conclusion their discourse brings them.
For the end is (it seems), according to them, to reason rightly in the
choice of things which are of worth in causing us to reason rightly.
LAMPRIAS. When I hear these words, my friend, what is said seems to me
strangely extravagant; and I farther want to know how this happens.
DIADUMENUS. You must then be more attentive; for it is not for every
one to understand this riddle. Hear therefore and answer. Is not the
end, according to them, to reason rightly in the election of things
according to Nature?
LAMPRIAS. So they say.
DIADUMENUS. And are these things according to Nature chosen as good, or
as having some fitness or preferences ... either for this end or for
something else?
LAMPRIAS. I think not for any thing else but for this end.
DIADUMENUS. Now then, having discovered the matter, see what befalls
them. They hold that the end is to reason rightly in the choice of
things which are of worth in causing us to reason rightly, for they say
that we neither have nor understand any other essence either of good or
of felicity but this precious rectitude of reasoning in the election
of things that are of worth. But there are some who think that this is
spoken against Antipater, and not against the whole sect; for that he,
being pressed by Carneades, fell into these fooleries.
28. But as for those things that are against the common conceptions
taught in the Stoa concerning love, they are all of them concerned
in the absurdity. They say, that those youths are deformed who are
vicious and foolish, and that the wise are fair; and yet that none of
these beautiful ones is either beloved or worthy of being beloved. Nor
yet is this the worst; but they add, that those who love the deformed
ones cease to do so when they are become fair. Now whoever knew such
a love as is kindled and has its being at the sight of the body’s
deformity joined with that of the soul, and is quenched and decays at
the accession of beauty joined with prudence, justice, and temperance?
These men are not unlike to those gnats which love to settle on the
dregs of wine, or on vinegar, but shun and fly away from potable and
pleasant wine. As for that which they call and term an appearance
of beauty, saying that it is the inducement of love,—first, it has
no probability, for in those who are very foul and highly wicked
there cannot be an appearance of beauty, if indeed (as is said) the
wickedness of the disposition fills the face with deformity. And
secondly, it is absolutely against all common conceptions that the
deformed should be worthy of love because he one day will be fair and
expects to have beauty, but that when he has obtained it and is become
fair and good, he should be beloved of none.
LAMPRIAS. Love, they say, is a certain hunting after a young person who
is as yet indeed imperfect, but naturally well-disposed towards virtue.
DIADUMENUS. And what do we now else, O my best friend, but demonstrate
that their sect perverts and destroys all our common conceptions with
improbable things and unusual expressions? For none would hinder the
solicitude of these wise men towards young persons, if it were free
from all passionate affection, from being called hunting or love of
instruction; but they ought to call love that which all men and women
understand and call by this name, like that which Penelope’s suitors in
Homer seem to acknowledge,