as if Chrysippus had given great advantages against himself to those
who would disturb and calumniate his doctrines.
But of those things which he has written against custom they are so
proud and boasting, that they fear not to affirm, that all the sayings
of all the Academics together, if they were collected into one body,
are not comparable to what Chrysippus has writ in disparagement of
the senses. Which is an evident sign of the ignorance or self-love
of the speakers; but this indeed is true, that being afterwards
desirous to defend custom and the senses, he was inferior to himself,
and the latter treatise was much weaker than the former. So that he
contradicts himself; for having always directed the proposing of an
adversary’s opinions not with approbation, but with a demonstration
of their falsity, he has showed himself more acute in opposing than
defending his own doctrines; and having admonished others to take heed
of contrary arguments, as withdrawing comprehension, he has been more
sedulous in framing such proofs as take away comprehension, than such
as confirm it. And yet he plainly shows that he himself feared this,
writing thus in his Fourth Book of Lives: “Repugnant arguments and
probabilities on the contrary side are not rashly to be proposed, but
with caution, lest the hearers distracted by them should let go their
conceptions, not being able sufficiently to apprehend the solutions,
but so weakly that their comprehensions may easily be shaken. For even
those who have, according to custom, preconceived both sensible objects
and other things depending on the senses quickly forego them, being
distracted by Megarian interrogatories and by others more numerous and
forcible.” I would willingly therefore ask the Stoics, whether they
think these Megarian interrogatories to be more forcible than those
which Chrysippus has written in six books against custom; or rather
this should be asked of Chrysippus himself. For observe what he has
written about the Megarian reason, in his book concerning the Use of
Speech, thus: “Some such things fell out in the discourse of Stilpo
and Menedemus; for, whereas they were renowned for wisdom, their
disputing has turned to their reproach, their arguments being part
clumsy, and the rest violently sophistical.” And yet, good sir, you
fear lest those arguments which you deride and term the disgrace of
their proposers, as having a manifest faultiness, should divert some
from comprehension. And did not you yourself, writing so many books
against custom, in which you have added whatever you could invent,
ambitiously striving to exceed Arcesilaus, expect that you should
perplex some of your readers? For neither does he use slender arguments
against custom; but as if he were pleading, he with some passion in
himself stirs up the affections of others, telling his opponent that he
talks foolishly and labors in vain. And that he may leave no room to
deny his speaking of contradictions, he has in his Natural Positions
written thus: “It may be lawful for those who comprehend a thing to
argue on the contrary side, applying to it that defence which the
matter itself affords; and sometimes, when they comprehend neither,
to discourse what is alleged for either.” And having said in his book
concerning the Use of Speech, that we ought no more to use the force
of reason than of arms for such things as are not fitting, he subjoins
this: “For they are to be employed for the finding out of truths and
for the alliance of them, and not for the contrary, though many men
do it.” By “many” perhaps he means those who withhold their assent.
But these philosophers, comprehending neither, argue on both sides,
believing that, if any thing is comprehensible, thus only or chiefly
does truth afford a comprehension of itself. But you, who accuse them,
and do yourself write contrary to those things which you comprehend
concerning custom, and exhort others with assurance to do the same,
confess that you wantonly use the faculty of disputing, out of vain
ambition, even on unprofitable and hurtful things.
11. They say, that a good deed is the command, and sin the prohibition
of the law; and therefore that the law forbids the wicked many things,
but commands them nothing, because they cannot do a good deed. But
who is ignorant that he who cannot do a good deed cannot also sin?
Therefore they make the law to contradict itself, commanding men those
things which they cannot perform, and forbidding them those things from
which they cannot abstain. For a man who cannot be temperate cannot but
act intemperately; and he who cannot be wise cannot but act foolishly.
And they themselves affirm, that those who forbid say one thing, forbid
another, and command another. For he who says “Thou shalt not steal” at
the same time that he says these words, “Thou shalt not steal,” forbids
also to steal, and commands not to steal. The law therefore forbids the
wicked nothing, unless it also commands them something. And they say,
that the physician bids his disciple to cut and cauterize, omitting to
add these words, “seasonably and moderately;” and the musician commands
his scholar to play on the harp and sing, omitting “tunably” and
“keeping time.” Wherefore also they punish those who do these things
unskilfully and faultily; for that they were commanded to do them
well, and they have done them ill. If therefore a wise man commands
his servant to say or do something, and punishes him for doing it
unseasonably or not as he ought, is it not manifest that he commanded
him to do a good action and not an indifferent one? But if wise men
command wicked ones indifferent things, what hinders but the commands
of the law may be also such? Moreover, the impulse (called ὁρμή) is,
according to him, the reason of a man commanding him to do something,
as he has written in his book of the law. Is not therefore also the
aversion (called ἀφορμή) a prohibiting reason, and a disinclination a
disinclination agreeable to reason? Caution therefore is also reason
prohibiting a wise man; for to be cautious is proper only to the wise,
and not to the wicked. If then the reason of a wise man is one thing
and the law another, wise men have caution contrary to the law; but if
the law is nothing else but the reason of a wise man, the law is found
to forbid wise men the doing of those things of which they are cautious.
12. Chrysippus says, that nothing is profitable to the wicked, that the
wicked have neither use nor need of any thing. Having said this in his
First Book of Good Deeds, he says again, that both commodiousness and
grace pertain to mean or indifferent things, none of which, according
to them, is profitable. In the same place he affirms, that there is
nothing proper, nothing convenient for a vicious man, in these words:
“On the same principle we declare that there is nothing foreign or
strange to the good man, and nothing proper or rightfully belonging to
the bad man, since the one is good and the other bad.” Why then does
he break our heads, writing particularly in every one of his books, as
well natural as moral, that as soon as we are born, we are appropriated
to ourselves, our parts, and our offspring? And why in his First Book
of Justice does he say that the very brutes, proportionably to the
necessity of their young, are appropriated to them, except fishes,
whose young are nourished by themselves? For neither have they sense
who have nothing sensible, nor they appropriation who have nothing
proper; for appropriation seems to be the sense and perception of what
is proper.
13. And this opinion is consequent to their principal ones. It is
moreover manifest that Chrysippus, though he has also written many
things to the contrary, lays this for a position, that there is not
any vice greater or any sin more grievous than another, nor any virtue
more excellent or any good deed better than another; so that he says
in his Third Book of Nature: “As it well beseems Jupiter to glory in
himself and his life, to magnify himself, and (if we may so say) to
bear up his head, have an high conceit of himself, and speak big, for
that he leads a life worthy of lofty speech; so the same things do not
misbeseem all good men, since they are in nothing exceeded by Jupiter.”
And yet himself, in his Third Book of Justice, says, that they who make
pleasure the end destroy justice, but they who say it is only a good
do not destroy it. These are his very words: “For perhaps, if we leave
this to pleasure that it is a good but not the end, and that honesty is
one of those things which are eligible for themselves, we may preserve
justice, making the honest and the just a greater good than pleasure.”
But if that only is good which is honest, he who affirms pleasure to
be a good is in an error, but he errs less than he who makes it also
the end; for the one destroys justice, the other preserves it; and
by the one human society is overthrown, but the other leaves a place
to goodness and humanity. Now I let pass his saying farther in his
book concerning Jupiter, that the virtues increase and go on, lest I
may seem to catch at words; though Chrysippus is indeed in this kind
very sharp upon Plato and others. But when he forbids the praising
of every thing that is done according to virtue, he shows that there
is some difference between good deeds. Now he says thus in his book
concerning Jupiter: “For since each virtue has its own proper works,
there are some of these that are more to be praised than others; for he
would show himself to be very frigid, that should undertake to praise
and extol any man for holding out the finger stoutly, for abstaining
chastely from an old woman ready to drop into the grave, and patiently
hearing it said that three are not exactly four.” What he says in
his Third Book of the Gods is not unlike to this: “For I moreover
think that the praises of such things as to abstain from an old
woman who has one foot in the grave, and to endure the bite of a fly,
though proceeding from virtue, would be very impertinent.” What other
reprehender of his doctrines does this man then expect? For if he who
praises such things is frigid, he who asserts every one of them to be a
great—nay, a very great good deed—is much more frigid. For if to bear
the bite of a fly is equal to the being valiant, and to abstain from
an old trot now at the pit’s brink is equal to the being temperate,
there is, I think, no difference whether a virtuous man is prized
for these or for those. Moreover, in his Second Book of Friendship,
teaching that friendships are not for every fault to be dissolved, he
has these very expressions: “For it is meet that some faults should be
wholly passed by, others lightly reprehended, others more severely, and
others deemed worthy a total dissolution of friendship.” And which is
more, he says in the same book, that we will converse with some more
and some less, so that some shall be more and some less friends; and
this diversity extending very far, some are worthy of such an amity,
others of a greater; and these will deserve to be so far trusted, those
not so far, and the like. For what else has he done in these places,
but shown the great diversity there is between these things? Moreover,
in his book concerning Honesty, to demonstrate that only to be good
which is honest, he uses these words: “What is good is eligible; what
is eligible is acceptable; what is acceptable is laudable; and what is
laudable is honest.” And again: “What is good is joyous; what is joyous
is venerable; what is venerable is honest.” But these speeches are
repugnant to himself; for either all good is commendable, and then the
abstaining chastely from an old woman is also commendable; or all good
is neither venerable nor joyous, and his reason falls to the ground.
For how can it possibly be frigid in others to praise any for such
things, and not ridiculous for him to rejoice and glory in them?
14. Such indeed he frequently is; but in his disputations against
others he takes not the least care of speaking things contrary and
dissonant to himself. For in his books of Exhorting, reprehending
Plato, who said, that to him who has neither learned nor knows how to
live it is profitable not to live, he speaks in this manner: “For this
speech is both repugnant to itself, and not at all persuasive. For
first insinuating that it is best for us not to live, and in a sort
counselling us to die, he will excite us rather to any thing else than
to be philosophers; for neither can he who does not live philosophize,
nor he who shall live long wickedly and ignorantly become wise.” And
going on, he says that it is convenient for the wicked also to continue
in life. And afterwards thus, word for word: “First, as virtue, barely
taken, has nothing towards our living, so neither has vice any thing
to oblige us to depart.” Nor is it necessary to turn over other books,
that we may show Chrysippus’s contradictoriness to himself; but in
these same, he sometimes with commendation brings forth this saying of
Antisthenes, that either understanding or a halter is to be provided,
as also that of Tyrtaeus,
Come nigh the bounds of virtue or of death.
Now what else will this show, but that to wicked men and fools not
to live is more profitable than to live? And sometimes correcting
Theognis, he says, that the poet should not have written,