But Epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere that if a wise man were to be burned or put to the torture—you expect, perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support himself under it with resolution, he would not yield to it (and that by Hercules! would be very commendable, and worthy of that very Hercules whom I have just invoked): but even this will not satisfy Epicurus, that robust and hardy man!
No; his wise man, even if he were in Phalaris’s bull, would say, How sweet it is! How little do I regard it! What, sweet? Is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable?
But those very men who deny pain to be an evil are not in the habit of saying that it is agreeable to anyone to be tormented; they rather say that it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would pronounce it sweet.
I do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which Epicurus uses—a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no difference, if he pleases, between Phalaris’s bull and his own bed; but I cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain.
If he bears it with courage, it is sufficient: that he should rejoice in it, I do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter, against Nature, hard to submit to and to bear.
Observe Philoctetes: We may allow him to lament, for he saw Hercules himself groaning loudly through extremity of pain on Mount Oeta. The arrows with which Hercules presented him were then no consolation to him, when
“The viper’s bite, impregnating his veins
With poison, rack’d him with its bitter pains.”
And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wishing to die,
“Oh that some friendly hand its aid would lend,
Into the briny deep! I’m all on fire,
And by this fatal wound must soon expire.”
It is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this manner was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too.
No; his wise man, even if he were in Phalaris’s bull, would say, How sweet it is! How little do I regard it! What, sweet? Is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable?
But those very men who deny pain to be an evil are not in the habit of saying that it is agreeable to anyone to be tormented; they rather say that it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would pronounce it sweet.
I do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which Epicurus uses—a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no difference, if he pleases, between Phalaris’s bull and his own bed; but I cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain.
If he bears it with courage, it is sufficient: that he should rejoice in it, I do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter, against Nature, hard to submit to and to bear.
Observe Philoctetes: We may allow him to lament, for he saw Hercules himself groaning loudly through extremity of pain on Mount Oeta. The arrows with which Hercules presented him were then no consolation to him, when
“The viper’s bite, impregnating his veins
With poison, rack’d him with its bitter pains.”
And therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wishing to die,
“Oh that some friendly hand its aid would lend,
Into the briny deep! I’m all on fire,
And by this fatal wound must soon expire.”
It is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this manner was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.7
I am of a mixed mind about Epicurus, and I am relieved to see how Cicero shares in my confusion about his philosophy.
On the one hand, here is a philosopher of remarkable temperance and self-control, enough to make even the most committed Stoic envious. On the other hand, when I dig deeper into his arguments, I find that I cannot get around his reduction of human happiness to a merely sensitive state, or his rejection of purpose and design in the workings of the Universe.
For a man who can be so reasonable, he throws me for a loop by then saying things I find to be quite unreasonable, sometimes to the point of the ridiculous. For now, I can only continue following the example of Seneca, who went out of his way to present the good in Epicurus, and then respectfully left aside the rest.
Much like David Hume, Epicurus is often mistaken for an indulgent hedonist, when his real concern was to achieve a form of “untroubled” balance, where excessive pleasure or pain could not overwhelm an inner peace. The Stoic can, at least with a broad sweep, be on board with that.
What Cicero, describes here, however, is a rather odd development of this idea, where the one who defines his very life by pleasure and pain actually begins to stress a pleasure in the pain. Along with Cicero, I’m not sure what I can make of that.
My own dabbling in Stoicism has never taken me to claiming that suffering is somehow enjoyable. I know it must happen, and I know it has a deeper meaning, and I know it can be transformed into a blessing, but I have not been able to perceive an agony as “sweet”.
Cicero always helps me to ground myself, especially if I have been flirting with grossly exaggerated points of view. His eclecticism and practicality are an anchor for me whenever I drift away into nebulous abstractions.
No, just because I recognize that pleasure and pain are not the beginning and the end of me doesn’t mean that I try to deny the distinction between them. Sometimes it just hurts like hell, and there’s no getting around it.
A few years back, I finally admitted to myself that it was quite acceptable for me to cry, or to scream when I was in pain, because, as Viktor Frankl put it:
There was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
Bear it nobly and use it for the good, if need be with clenched fists and grinding teeth, but don’t be so foolish as to deny it. The intensity of the hurting should itself be a badge of honor—go with it, not against it.
When Hercules passed from this word, it didn’t go smoothly for him. Tricked into wearing a shirt soaked in the acid blood of the Hydra, his flesh was slowly eaten away from his bones, and yet he strove to build his own funeral pyre, which only Philoctetes was daring enough to light.
There was much virtue in it, though nothing “sweet” in it.
I am of a mixed mind about Epicurus, and I am relieved to see how Cicero shares in my confusion about his philosophy.
On the one hand, here is a philosopher of remarkable temperance and self-control, enough to make even the most committed Stoic envious. On the other hand, when I dig deeper into his arguments, I find that I cannot get around his reduction of human happiness to a merely sensitive state, or his rejection of purpose and design in the workings of the Universe.
For a man who can be so reasonable, he throws me for a loop by then saying things I find to be quite unreasonable, sometimes to the point of the ridiculous. For now, I can only continue following the example of Seneca, who went out of his way to present the good in Epicurus, and then respectfully left aside the rest.
Much like David Hume, Epicurus is often mistaken for an indulgent hedonist, when his real concern was to achieve a form of “untroubled” balance, where excessive pleasure or pain could not overwhelm an inner peace. The Stoic can, at least with a broad sweep, be on board with that.
What Cicero, describes here, however, is a rather odd development of this idea, where the one who defines his very life by pleasure and pain actually begins to stress a pleasure in the pain. Along with Cicero, I’m not sure what I can make of that.
My own dabbling in Stoicism has never taken me to claiming that suffering is somehow enjoyable. I know it must happen, and I know it has a deeper meaning, and I know it can be transformed into a blessing, but I have not been able to perceive an agony as “sweet”.
Cicero always helps me to ground myself, especially if I have been flirting with grossly exaggerated points of view. His eclecticism and practicality are an anchor for me whenever I drift away into nebulous abstractions.
No, just because I recognize that pleasure and pain are not the beginning and the end of me doesn’t mean that I try to deny the distinction between them. Sometimes it just hurts like hell, and there’s no getting around it.
A few years back, I finally admitted to myself that it was quite acceptable for me to cry, or to scream when I was in pain, because, as Viktor Frankl put it:
There was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
Bear it nobly and use it for the good, if need be with clenched fists and grinding teeth, but don’t be so foolish as to deny it. The intensity of the hurting should itself be a badge of honor—go with it, not against it.
When Hercules passed from this word, it didn’t go smoothly for him. Tricked into wearing a shirt soaked in the acid blood of the Hydra, his flesh was slowly eaten away from his bones, and yet he strove to build his own funeral pyre, which only Philoctetes was daring enough to light.
There was much virtue in it, though nothing “sweet” in it.
—Reflection written in 7/1996
IMAGE: Gabriel Salmon, The Death of Hercules (c. 1500)
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