Seneca, On the Happy Life 58: Spurs and Curbs

. . . I shall make whatever befalls me become a good thing, but I prefer that what befalls me should be comfortable and pleasant, and unlikely to cause me annoyance. For you need not suppose that any virtue exists without labor, but some virtues need spurs, while others need the curb.

As we have to check our body on a downward path, and to urge it to climb a steep one, so also the path of some virtues leads downhill, that of others uphill.

Can we doubt that patience, courage, constancy, and all the other virtues that have to meet strong opposition, and to trample Fortune under their feet, are climbing, struggling, and winning their way up a steep ascent?

Why! Is it not equally evident that generosity, moderation, and gentleness glide easily downhill? With the latter we must hold in our spirit, lest it run away with us, with the former we must urge and spur it on.

We ought, therefore, to apply these energetic, combative virtues to poverty, and to riches those other more thrifty ones that trip lightly along, and merely support their own weight. This being the distinction between them, I would rather have to deal with those that I can practice in comparative quiet, than those that can only be a trial trial through blood and sweat.

"Wherefore," says the sage, "I do not talk one way and live another, but you do not rightly understand what I say. The sound of my words alone reaches your ears, but you do not try to find out their meaning."

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 25 (tr Stewart)

Sometimes I need to push myself forward, and sometimes I need to hold myself back. Virtue always consists in the mean or balance between too little and too much, and will therefore need either drive or restraint to find the mark.

I understand Seneca’s point immediately, because it is a common pattern. Just as it is easier to go downhill than it is to go uphill, there is less effort in withholding force than applying more. Now some virtues demand that we drive ourselves on, and others that we rein ourselves in. Fortitude, for example, requires that we push forward, while temperance requires that we pull back.

This can also apply to having greater or lesser gifts of fortune. Having more and spending less is a far easier thing than having less and acquiring more. A preference for the former should make perfect sense.

Here I confront a difficulty, though it has far less to do with the truth of Seneca’s general observation that the quirks of my own temperament. Aristotle argued that while the mean of virtue tends to be similar for all of us, the mean for a certain individual might rest in a rather different place, depending on disposition or habit. If I am already a forceful person, fortitude may require me to curb myself from recklessness rather than spur myself out of cowardice. If I am already satisfied with too little, temperance may require me to spur myself out of self-denial rather than curb myself from gluttony.

Now Seneca has repeatedly argued that wealth is preferable to poverty, because it is better to work with more than with less, and as a rule he is quite right. Yet I have found that my personal tendencies often seem to work in the opposite way. This isn’t because Seneca has it backwards, because, as Aristotle said, there will be exceptions on both sides of what is most common. I suspect I’m the one who has it a bit backwards.

I regularly find it harder to restrain myself from excess and easier to drive myself out of deficiency. When more is given to me, I usually make less of it, and when less is given to me, I have better success at making more of it. This hardly means I enjoy having less, but I meet a far greater resistance when I have more.

Some horses are easier to rein in and other horses are easier to drive on. I am that second kind of horse. I am happier with the wind in my face than at my back.

Perhaps if someone is already bit more practiced in virtue, someone like a Seneca, pulling back is easier than pushing forward. I am still a beginner, and work best when I struggle through something. Hopefully when I have found my right balance, I can start coasting instead of climbing. Right now, I will tend to fall flat on my face when I go downhill.

Written in 6/2004

Image: John Vanderbank, A Young Gentleman Riding a Schooled Horse (c. 1728)