Seneca, On the Happy Life 28: What Better Guide?

. . . "Who can know this without having been admitted to its inner mysteries?" Its very outside gives opportunity for scandal, and encourages men's baser desires. It is like a brave man dressed in a woman's gown: your chastity is assured, your manhood is safe, your body is submitted to nothing disgraceful, but your hand holds a drum, like a priest of Cybele.

Choose, then, some honorable superscription for your school, some writing which shall in itself arouses the mind. That which at present stands over your door has been invented by the vices. He who ranges himself on the side of virtue gives thereby a proof of a noble disposition. He who follows pleasure appears to be weakly, worn out, degrading his manhood, likely to fall into infamous vices unless someone discriminates his pleasures for him, so that he may know which remain within the bounds of natural desire, which are frantic and boundless, and become all the more insatiable the more they are satisfied.

But come! Let virtue lead the way! Then every step will be safe. Too much pleasure is hurtful, but with virtue we need fear no excess of any kind, because moderation is contained in virtue herself. That which is injured by its own extent cannot be a good thing: besides, what better guide can there be than reason for beings endowed with a reasoning nature?

So if this combination pleases you, if you are willing to proceed to a happy life thus accompanied, let virtue lead the way, let pleasure follow and hang about the body like a shadow. It is the part of a mind incapable of great things to hand over virtue, the highest of all qualities, as a handmaid to pleasure.

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 13 (tr Stewart)

Even if the Epicureans had some hidden doctrines that might explain more about their teachings, a trait that was common to many Greek and Roman schools, Seneca insists that the outward appearance itself has already done the harm. It has been the draw of pleasure alone that has attracted followers. It will make little difference if some virtue on the inside is cloaked in a vice on the outside.

The analogy of the Galli, the eunuch priests of Cybele, refers to men who appeared in public like women. This reference may seem insensitive to our current cultural norms about gender, but a Roman reader would surely have seen that Seneca was pointing to the contrast between the external and the internal.

Seneca summarizes his entire core argument nicely here. Happiness must be something good in itself, and nothing good in itself would ever do us harm. But pleasure can do us great harm, and it can therefore never be the end of happiness. Only moderation can give balance and meaning to our pleasures, and moderation, in turn, is a part of virtue.

How can we come to this virtue? It is through the exercise of reason, which can perceive what is good by understanding the very nature of things themselves. Reason is the guide, and the passions should follow. Each is a necessary aspect of who we are, but they are aspects in a proper order.

The very fact that we are able to reflect upon the meaning of our existence, the nature of the good life, or the path to happiness is an immediate indication of our distinct human nature. I am a being with a body, with instincts and feelings, acting and being acted upon by the world around me. Yet what remains constant and at the core of that human experience is the power to think and to decide, to not merely be moved by other things, but to move my own actions through awareness.

We live in a very appetitive age, with so much of our attention directed at feelings and images. These are indeed part of our existence, but they are hardly the whole, and they are hardly the most vital part. A feeling must be measured by right to be good, and an image must be judged by truth to be understood.

This is the role of virtue, of excellence in action, which is the fulfillment of a being with a rational nature. It highlights the critical difference between a man who defines himself by how good he feels, and a man who defines himself by how well he acts. 

Written in 8/2011