Musonius Rufus, Lectures 6.7

In summary, then, I have tried to tell what the nature of each type of training is. I shall not, however, endeavor to discuss how the training should be carried out in detail, by analyzing and distinguishing what is appropriate for the soul and the body in common and what is appropriate for the soul alone, but by presenting without fixed order what is proper for each.

It is true that all of us who have participated in philosophical discussion have heard and apprehended that neither pain, nor death, nor poverty, nor anything else that is free from wrong is an evil, and again that wealth, life, pleasure, or anything else that does not partake of virtue is not a good.

There can be all sorts of routes to get there, many different paths winding their way up the same hill, but the goal needs to remain the same, to reach the summit. Often, of course, we worry so much about the specifics of the means that we forget to focus on the glory of the end.

It is even worse when we simply run around the base of the hill, insisting that all the paths are either too steep or too slight, too narrow or too broad, too direct or too winding, too difficult or too easy. The movement is without direction and purpose.

I will regularly hear about the particulars of a sound education, about the canon of texts, and the order of disciplines, and the purity of methods. Let us indeed attend to these, but let us first remember that they must all be in service to our very human nature. Will they help us to train the soul and the body to be strong in character? Do they look to moral worth above all over worth? Are they encouraging us to measure all other benefits by the standard of virtue alone?

If they can do that, then the job is getting done, whatever else our preferences may be. As they say, don’t lose the forest for the trees. We can dress people in whatever fashions we like, but behind the finery there must be ladies and gentlemen.

When Musonius speaks of those familiar with philosophy, he must surely mean those more specifically acquainted with the Stoic arguments of his time; I know many esteemed philosophers of our time who would be quite confused by the basic principles he presents.

Still, the goal must be to look beyond this or that school, whether it be narrowly Stoic or not, and embrace a shared humanity. If human nature is defined by the power of the soul to rule the body through sound judgment, then the good life will first and foremost be informed by conscience. Virtue will then be the highest human good.

It is only from this starting point that I can recognize how pleasure and pain, wealth and poverty, or even life and death are never good or bad in themselves, but only in how they are joined to virtue or vice.

It will be easier to say than to do, of course, because in the doing I will learn how confused I have been, how far I have strayed off of the path. But if it is genuinely true in theory, it will also work in practice, however unfamiliar it will at first seem to me.

I am tempted to follow whatever gratifies, and oppose whatever hurts, but whatever may feel preferable, neither is intrinsically worthy of choice. Which one will make me better? That is the one to help me be happy.

I am tempted to make myself rich, and to frown upon being poor, but whatever may feel preferable, neither is intrinsically worthy of choice. Which one will make me better? That is the one to help me be happy.

I am tempted to want a long life, and to fear a short one, but whatever may feel preferable, neither is intrinsically worthy of choice. Which one will make me better? That is the one to help me be happy.

To know this, to live like this, is the goal of all training. Whatever the path may be, there is the summit.

Written in 7/1999

IMAGE: The many possible climbing routes on the south side of K2.