Allegory of the Virtuous Life

Jan Bruegel the Younger and Hendrick van Balen the Elder, Allegory of the Virtuous Life (c. 1626) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.5

Similarly with the gifts which Fortune tosses down to us: wretches that we are, we become excited, we are torn asunder, we wish that we had many hands, we look back now in this direction and now in that. 
 
All too slowly, as it seems, are the gifts thrown in our direction; they merely excite our cravings, since they can reach but few and are awaited by all. We are keen to intercept them as they fall down. We rejoice if we have laid hold of anything; and some have been mocked by the idle hope of laying hold; we have either paid a high price for worthless plunder with some disadvantage to ourselves, or else have been defrauded and are left in the lurch. 
 
Let us therefore withdraw from a game like this, and give way to the greedy rabble; let them gaze after such "goods”, which hang suspended above them, and be themselves still more in suspense. 
 
Whoever makes up his mind to be happy should conclude that the good consists only in that which is honorable. For if he regards anything else as good, he is, in the first place, passing an unfavorable judgment upon Providence because of the fact that upright men often suffer misfortunes, and that the time which is allotted to us is but short and scanty, if you compare it with the eternity which is allotted to the Universe. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
Yesterday, I read some lines by one of the “modern” Stoics on the internet, a fellow who is sadly still caught up in courting Fortune: “If you change your attitude, you can build your empire!” 
 
For a brief moment, I hoped he might be talking about a sovereignty over his own soul, but he promptly bragged about how his self-confidence had won him a promotion at work. He’s quite right to pursue a transformation of thinking, even as he hasn’t yet overcome his dependence on the circumstances. 
 
True honor, which is a commitment to virtue for virtue’s sake, does not beg for trophies or titillations. As tough as the hustler would like to appear, he is always at the mercy of opinions and happenstance. When he can no longer charm the crowd, he is suddenly on his own. When Nature throws him a curveball, he is unceremoniously cut from the team. Even when his ducks do happen to be in a row, he must guard over them constantly, lest they wander away. 
 
If I find myself too impressed by the promises of the rat race, I imagine the whole affair to the soundtrack of a Benny Hill skit, and I can then promptly feel at ease. If I am in a more cultured mood, I gaze upon a copy of Balthazar Nebot’s Allegory of Fortune, and I am relieved not to be a part of the mob. For people who are supposedly in a state of bliss, don’t they appear rather miserable? 
 
A few years ago, I went to see one of my favorite musicians, former Marillion frontman Fish, for an appearance at a local record store. After he finished telling his engaging anecdotes, he mentioned that he had a few signed copies of his latest release to give away. In an instant, I was jostling my way forward and thrusting out my hand, together with a few dozen other rabid fans. 
 
I then felt a bitter shame, and I retreated from the scrum. 
 
“What, don’t you want one?” a fellow yelled at me. “It’s the limited-edition double disc!” 
 
“No, thank you, I don’t want it that much.” 
 
Now you may say that pushing through a crowd for a rare freebie is hardly a mortal sin, but it wasn’t really about the album, was it? For me, it was about practicing some basic human decency and exercising a touch of self-restraint. Who would have thought Seneca could rub off on me like that? 
 
Rapacious men blame the world when they don’t get what they want, and they are still aggrieved when they do get what they want. They tussle over cheap baubles. I no longer wish to remain in the company of such men. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Balthazar Nebot, Allegory of Fortune (c. 1730) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Fire

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Fire. A Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary in the Background (1570) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Air

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Air. A Poultry Market with the Prodigal Son in the Background (1570) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Water

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Water. A Fish Market with the Miraculous Draught of Fishes in the Background (1569) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Earth

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Earth. A Fruit and Vegetable Market with the Flight into Egypt in the Background (1569) 

Landscape with Allegories of the Four Elements

Jan Bruegel the Younger and Frans Francken the Younger, Landscape with Allegories of the Four Elements (1635) 

James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 19

19. 

Περισκοπεῖν ἄστρων δρόμους ὥσπερ συμπεριθέοντα καὶ τὰς τῶν στοιχείων εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολὰς συνεχῶς ἐννοεῖν: ἀποκαθαίρουσι γὰρ αἱ τούτων φαντασίαι τὸν ῥύπον τοῦ χαμαὶ βίου. 

Look all around on the courses of the stars, as if running around their races with them; and give mind unceasingly to the mutations of the elements with one another. For the impressions of these things cleanse away the sordidness of the earthly life. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.47 

19. 

Confirm thyself in meditation oft 

O’ the elements—as fire, and how it burns, 

And water the extinguisher, and soft 

Billow of air that to a tempest turns. 

Reckon their casual conflicts, when they rage 

In civil strife, or banded ’gainst the earth 

In ireful havoc, but soon their wrath assuage 

To bake the meats and green the plain for mirth. 

Then up, beyond these elements surmise, 

Pondering what may be the circling stars, 

Yet as if riding with them through the skies, 

Driving the coursers of those fiery cars. 

This fellow converse scours away the rust 

Gendered of earthy days mid noise and dust. 

IMAGE: Jan Bruegel the Elder, Abundance and the Four Elements (c. 1606) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.4

Picture now to yourself that Fortune is holding a festival, and is showering down honors, riches, and influence upon this mob of mortals; some of these gifts have already been torn to pieces in the hands of those who try to snatch them, others have been divided up by treacherous partnerships, and still others have been seized to the great detriment of those into whose possession they have come. 
 
Certain of these favors have fallen to men while they were absent-minded; others have been lost to their seekers because they were snatching too eagerly for them, and, just because they are greedily seized upon, have been knocked from their hands. 
 
There is not a man among them all, however—even he who has been lucky in the booty which has fallen to him—whose joy in his spoil has lasted until the morrow. 
 
The most sensible man, therefore, as soon as he sees the dole being brought in, runs from the theater; for he knows that one pays a high price for small favors. No one will grapple with him on the way out, or strike him as he departs; the quarreling takes place where the prizes are. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
I regularly encounter those who like to call themselves realists, though I wonder if they are better described as opportunists. They declare that it if you want to get ahead, you need to play the game, a model of life where character is always bowing to convenience, where integrity is naïve, and guile is sophisticated. 
 
It all depends, of course, on where we perceive the true benefit, and what we are willing to surrender. I see no prudence in gratification, no refinement in mistaking the greater for the lesser. I will respectfully propose that anyone who compromises his conscience is a slave to the circumstances, the weakest of men, not the strongest. 
 
There is no need to play anyone else’s game. If the other boys aren’t playing fair, you retain the option to pick up your ball and go home. 
 
As much as I might believe I can outwit Fortune, she has the upper hand from the moment I agree to her terms. If I can somehow manage to keep a hold of her trinkets, I will soon find them wanting, never as exciting as advertised, but it is far more likely that they will be lost in the scuffle. 
 
The toy looked so much better on television than when you held it in your hands, and then promptly broke once you fought over it with your brothers and sisters. In any case, whatever is left ends up in a box pushed to the back of a closet, and yet the pattern repeats itself for the next birthday party. 
 
You’d think the bitter disappointments of childhood would teach us some important lessons for adulthood, but we sadly only increase the stakes. 
 
If I genuinely have no interest in the bickering, if my convictions are sincere and soundly reasoned, I will have the sense to walk in the other direction. No one will try to stop me, because I possess nothing the squabblers could possibly want. Even if they do take off with my property, I have maintained my dignity, and so I have gotten the better end of the deal. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Taddeo Kuntze, Fortune (1754) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 257

Visit not miracle workers. They are wanderers from the path of truth. 

Their minds have become entangled in the meshes of psychic powers, which lie in the way of the pilgrim towards Brahman, as temptations. 

Beware of these powers, and desire them not. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.3

Every man is troubled in spirit by evils that come suddenly upon his neighbor. Like birds, who cower even at the whirr of an empty sling, we are distracted by mere sounds as well as by blows. 
 
No man therefore can be happy if he yields himself up to such foolish fancies. For nothing brings happiness unless it also brings calm; it is a bad sort of existence that is spent in apprehension. 
 
Whoever has largely surrendered himself to the power of Fortune has made for himself a huge web of disquietude, from which he cannot get free; if one would win a way to safety, there is but one road—to despise externals and to be contented with that which is honorable. 
 
For those who regard anything as better than virtue, or believe that there is any good except virtue, are spreading their arms to gather in that which Fortune tosses abroad, and are anxiously awaiting her favors. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
My first real worry in life was that so many people seemed wicked, and this gradually led me to harboring deeper and deeper resentments. Then came a point when I saw the disorder within myself from blaming others for their disorders, a self-perpetuating cycle of frustration. Might it not be wiser to ask why any of us, whatever tribe we belong to, are inclined to feel so unsettled? 
 
When I am anxious, it is ultimately from being in a state of discontent, a desire for something to finally bring me some peace of mind. If I had already held firm to what I truly needed, there would no longer be any fear or lust, and I could be relieved of the constant grasping and scheming. If the exercise of my own nature is enough, why must I make demands of you? If I know how happiness proceeds from my virtues, where is the lure of vice? 
 
Nature has provided all that is required—it must simply be nurtured and cherished. But once I am jealous of his property, or I am diverted by her charms, I have enslaved myself to the circumstances, and there will be no end to the grief. One craving is replaced by another, because no escape to the outside can replace an emptiness on the inside. I remain forever flustered and jittery, unsure of when the amusements will fade. 
 
Though I was once impressed by the important people, intimidated by their show of self-confidence, I slowly began to notice the cracks in the facade. Behind the bravado was nothing but stress, the combination of an insatiable appetite and a lingering terror: they witnessed their rivals falling around them, and they wondered when their turn would come. When they thought no one was looking, you could see the fatigue on their faces. 
 
This calls for pity, not for admiration. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

Michael Leunig 74

Michael Leunig 73

Michael Leunig 72

Michael Leunig 71

 

Michael Leunig 70

Michael Leunig 69

Michael Leunig 68

Vale Michael Leunig (1945-2024)

Regular readers of this blog will know of our great admiration for the Australian cartoonist and poet, Michael Leunig. He will be missed, but his insight, wit, and compassion remain with us. 

This was apparently his last cartoon for The Age, from which he was unceremoniously fired only a few months before his death. 

Stoic Snippets 254

In the writings of the Heracliteans, there was this precept, constantly to think of some one of the men of former times who practiced virtue. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.26 

IMAGE: Seven Sages Mosaic of Baalbek (3rd century AD) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.2

You will readily recall those who have been driven into exile and dispossessed of their property. You will also recall (and this is the most serious kind of destitution) those who are poor in the midst of their riches. 
 
You will recall men who have suffered shipwreck, or those whose sufferings resemble shipwreck; for they were untroubled and at ease, when the anger or perhaps the envy of the populace—a missile most deadly to those in high places—dismantled them like a storm which is wont to rise when one is most confident of continued calm, or like a sudden stroke of lightning which even causes the region round about it to tremble. 
 
For just as anyone who stands near the bolt is stunned and resembles one who is struck, so in these sudden and violent mishaps, although but one person is overwhelmed by the disaster, the rest are overwhelmed by fear, and the possibility that they may suffer makes them as downcast as the actual sufferer. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 

 
We are trained to believe that we will be happy when we “have” plenty, and miserable when we are in a state of want, but the Stoics understood why serenity is not subject to riches or poverty, fame or disgrace, even pleasure or pain. When we do not center ourselves on the content of character, both the presence and the absence of worldly prosperity will make us restless. 
 
I have known a few extremely rich people, along with a good number of extremely poor people, and beyond the accidents of immediate utility, I have slowly discovered how their possessions most certainly did not determine their peace of mind. In my own neck of the woods, far less grand in scale, the security of money in the bank was pointless without the direction of a moral compass, and moments of incredible hardship actually became blessings when I chose to inform my conscience.
 
The problem with a reliance on fortune is that merely the fear of losing our affluence is enough to leave us crippled. As much as I assure myself of a firm grip on my circumstances, there always remains the nagging worry about seeing them disappear. Whatever shall I do when my conveniences have slipped away? If only I had found comfort in what was exclusively mine, I would have no need to fret.
 
However much I try to deceive myself, I know full well how much Nature delights in change. When might the storm come my way? Even when the lightning strikes my neighbor, I cannot help but shudder. This is not the sort of life I was made to live, always on my guard. To think that I commanded an impenetrable fortress this entire time! 
 
For many years, there were two dogs living in the house behind us, who were startled whenever the wind blew through the branches, and they barked frantically if a squirrel climbed his way up a tree. They paced back and forth, incessantly panting, and I can only imagine the living hell their existence must have been. 
 
Once I grew up, I sadly recognized that same anxiety in the scurrying humans all around me. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Eugene Delacroix, Horse Frightened by a Thunderstorm (c. 1824) 

Dhammapada 392

After a man has once understood the law as taught by the Well- awakened, let him worship it carefully, as the Brahmana worships the sacrificial fire. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.1

Letter 74: On virtue as a refuge from worldly distractions 
 
Your letter has given me pleasure, and has roused me from sluggishness. It has also prompted my memory, which has been for some time slack and nerveless. 
 
You are right, of course, my dear Lucilius, in deeming the chief means of attaining the happy life to consist in the belief that the only good lies in that which is honorable. For anyone who deems other things to be good, puts himself in the power of Fortune, and goes under the control of another; but he who has in every case defined the good by the honorable, is happy with an inward happiness. 
 
One man is saddened when his children die; another is anxious when they become ill; a third is embittered when they do something disgraceful, or suffer a taint in their reputation. 
 
One man, you will observe, is tortured by passion for his neighbor’s wife, another by passion for his own. You will find men who are completely upset by failure to win an election, and others who are actually plagued by the offices which they have won. 
 
But the largest throng of unhappy men among the host of mortals are those whom the expectation of death, which threatens them on every hand, drives to despair. For there is no quarter from which death may not approach. 
 
Hence, like soldiers scouting in the enemy's country, they must look about in all directions, and turn their heads at every sound; unless the breast be rid of this fear, one lives with a palpitating heart. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
The opening of this letter immediately challenges me to address a recurring problem from my daily life: I get confused about what it means to be honorable. As much as I may work out the theory while sitting at my desk, I am inclined to hesitate once I find myself in the trenches, entangling the true merit of my actions with the way others happen to perceive them. 
 
Though I am far from being a scholar of Latin, I couldn’t resist looking up the original term Seneca uses here. As I suspected, he speaks of honestas, honor in the sense of our internal virtues, as distinct from honos, honor in the sense of our external fame. In an ideal world, the latter would mirror the former, but we all know how easily the appearance can stray from the reality. 
 
As much as I might prefer to win esteem, it is far more important that I stand on the principle of private excellence, regardless of any popular reputation. In this, the Stoic will gladly wander from the herd. 
 
There is no great complexity in understanding why my good will be in my own thoughts, words, and deeds, not in the thoughts, words, and deeds of others—the hindrance is rather in my old habits, and in a lingering feeling of insecurity. Yet I do not need to be pleasing to them, only good enough to be myself, with integrity and conviction. 
 
Once the circumstance becomes the measure, we are enslaved to Fortune, at the mercy of what is beyond our power, and so we will never find a moment of peace. At first glance, from a distance, the grasping man looks glorious, but then a closer examination reveals his crippling anxiety. He is in constant need of gaining more, and he is terrified of losing what he believes he already has. If only he clung to the virtues, he would possess what cannot be taken away. 
 
Behind all of our other fears, from being deprived of our children to being shamed for our secrets, lies the greatest dread of all, the very end of our existence. This should only trouble us, however, if we live in a way where having more is mistaken for being good. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Pieter van Aelst, Fortune (c. 1520) 

Allegory of Fortune

Anonymous Dutch, Allegory of Fortune (c. 1530) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 167

Pecuniary gain first suggested to men to make Fortune a goddess. 

Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger 20

Though many invited Cato to become a tribune of the people, he did not think it right to expend the force of a great and power­ful magistracy, any more than that of a strong medicine, on matters that did not require it. 

And at the same time, being at leisure from his public duties, he took books and philosophers with him and set out for Lucania, where he owned lands affording no mean sojourn. 

Then, meeting on the road many beasts of burden with baggage and attendants, and learning that Metellus Nepos was on his way back to Rome prepared to sue for the tribune­ship, he stopped without a word, and after waiting a little while ordered his company to turn back. 

His friends were amazed at this, whereupon he said: "Do you not know that even of himself Metellus is to be feared by reason of his infatuation? And now that he comes by the advice of Pompey he will fall upon the state like a thunderbolt and throw everything into confusion. It is no time, then, for a leisurely sojourn in the country, but we must overpower the man, or die honorably in a struggle for our liberties." 

Nevertheless, on the advice of his friends, he went first to his estates and tarried there a short time, and then returned to the city.​ It was evening when he arrived, and as soon as day dawned he went down into the forum to sue for a tribune­ship, that he might array himself against Metellus. 

For the strength of that office is negative rather than positive; and if all the tribunes save one should vote for a measure, the power lies with the one who will not give his consent or permission. 

Maxims of Goethe 59

Truth belongs to the man, error to his age. 

This is why it has been said that, while the misfortune of the age caused his error, the force of his soul made him emerge from the error with glory. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 73.6

The gods are not disdainful or envious; they open the door to you; they lend a hand as you climb. 
 
Do you marvel that man goes to the gods? God comes to men; nay, he comes nearer—he comes into men. 
 
No mind that has not God, is good. 
 
Divine seeds are scattered throughout our mortal bodies; if a good husbandman receives them, they spring up in the likeness of their source and of a parity with those from which they came. 
 
If, however, the husbandman be bad, like a barren or marshy soil, he kills the seeds, and causes tares to grow up instead of wheat. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 73 
 
In assuming a vast chasm between the human and the Divine, which follows from stressing transcendence at the expense of immanence, we may believe that the work of coming to know God depends entirely upon our own efforts. We are sadly forgetting how the force of the good flows from the higher down to the lower. 
 
As much as a finite creature can strive to approach an infinite Creator, doesn’t it seem like a futile effort? How could we ever rise to such a height? It can only become possible if the Divine is also reaching down to lift us up, to offer us a helping hand. While the lesser can never contain the greater, the greater can always subsume the lesser. 
 
There was once a time when I rolled my eyes at the idea of God “talking” to me, but now I begin to recognize how every aspect of Nature is itself a message. I was only looking within the narrow confines of spoken or written words, when all along the expression was one of the Logos that communicates through a living essence. From this perspective, some of the poets and the mystics are far ahead of the philosophers. 
 
What is the relative without the absolute? How can the part exist separately from the whole? Who am I in the absence of my ultimate beginning and end? Neither the true nor the good are within me when I divorce my being from Being. It has all been given, and now it remains for me to decide if I am willing to make the most of such graces. 
 
When Seneca says that a man cannot be good without God, the secular humanist will have none of it, and a “modern” Stoic will brush such a claim aside, dismissing it as unscientific and outdated. I can only suggest that it is the height of arrogance to make man the measure, and that the principle of causality is about as logical as one can possibly get. 
 
I will, however, grant that a reverence for God is primitive, though I use the term in a somewhat different sense. Rather than being crude, obsolete, or naïve, piety is instead something simple, elementary, and primeval. It is ancient by being perennial, and those who seek wisdom should never have to apologize for their obedience to the supreme authority. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

IMAGE: William Blake, Elohim Creating Adam (1795) 

Level 42, "Man"

As a fellow who has a long history with the Black Dog, and as a lifelong lover of music, I have a mixed relationship with songs about melancholy. Sometimes I find strength from experiencing another’s struggle, but more often I just end up feeling sorry for myself. 

I must tread carefully, for the fickle feeling of the moment can quickly sweep me away. Art has a creeping way of magnifying who we already are, for better or for worse. 

Much of the new wave or progressive rock I so adore can dwell too much on the loss and the sadness. Yes, it is necessary to mourn, but then it is even more necessary to heal. 

Why have I found myself in this state? How might I work my way out of it? To cast blame on others is never a solution, and to merely bemoan my fate is an act of surrender. 

Many years ago, I picked up the newest album by Level 42, expecting more of the same funky pop I so enjoyed. Instead, I was surprised to find the band in a state of transition, with two new members, guitarist Alan Murphy and drummer Gary Husband, along with a number of tunes that displayed a far more refined sound. 

I was especially taken with a longer track, simply titled “Man”, which almost seemed to be composed of two separate movements, each with its own mood. I had always known that Boon Gould could write introspective lyrics, but these struck me with their remarkable depth and sincerity. 

It was only much later that I learned about Boon’s own battle with depression—now it all made more sense. 

There isn’t just brooding in these words. There is also an attempt at coming to terms with the causes, and at finding a means to escape from the cycle. 

There is then that painful moment when I recognize how I have, however unwittingly, brought this upon myself, and that my vanity has fixed me in my stubborn ways. 

Let me stop making excuses and demanding attention. I can choose to be my own man. 

—1/2016 

Level 42, “Man” from Staring at the Sun (1988) 

Hey man where you been? 
You can't run away
From the life you made your own
Now that it's gone and left you down and out
You're not so complete
Now what do you say? 
All the answers you propose
Nobody chose to hear this time around 

Hey man you're so vain
You rise up again
To perform to pressure now
No way to treat that precious heart at all
Calm down you're too proud
Now what do you know? 
You present some facts to face
But nobody chose to look this time around 

Head in the clouds
No silver lining
What could be wrong? 

Hey man why so blue? 
What's come over you? 
Sentimental apathy
Ain't gonna buy no sympathy today
Wide world wearing thin
Wild words deafening
Shout about integrity
And then you go and throw your dignity away 

We're all the same
We're all to blame
What could be wrong, yeah? 

Hey man you got carried away
Carrying on the games that you play
Playing is not the way to win
’cause winning can be a way that you lose
And losing is not the way you would choose
Given the choice you're trying to change
Changing again you're carried away 

Do you remember the day? 
So long ago so far behind 
That history wrought in the fire
That filled your mind with mad desire
Chasing the centuries down
Long roads you cut through flesh and field
Pulling the past as you run
And it's dragged you to your knees
It's time to pray 

It's getting harder to pay
Too many people
For the rent 

Given a number of ways
Is there no way that you can change? 

Fire, the heart of history 

Time marching on . . . 
Face the future 
Fall and fade away 

Hey man sing the blues 

Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.7

What and how many things do disturb constancy. That outward good and evil things do it. Evils are of two sorts, public and private. Of these two, public evils seem more grievous and dangerous. 

Langius having uttered these words with a more earnest voice and countenance than accustomed, I was somewhat inflamed with a spark of this good fire. 

"And then, my Father," I said, "let me rightly without dissimulation call you so, lead me and learn me as you list: direct and correct me; I am your patient prepared to admit any kind of curing, be it by razor or fire, to cut or sear." 

"I must use both those means," said Langius, "for that one while the stubble of false opinions is to be burned away, and another while the tender slips of affections to be off by the root. 

"But tell me whether had you rather walk or sit? Sitting would please me best, say I, for I begin to be hot." 

 So then Langius commanded stools to be brought into the porch, and I sitting close by him, he turned himself toward me and began his talk in this manner.

"Hitherto, Lipsius, have I laid the foundation whereupon I might erect the building of my future communication. Now, if it please you, I will come nearer the matter, and inquire the causes of your sorrow, for I must touch the sore with my hand. 

"There are two things that do assault this castle of constancy in us: false goods, and false evils. I define them both to be such things as are not in us but about us, and which properly do not help nor hurt the inner man, that is, the mind. 

"Wherefore I may not call those things good or evil simply in subject and in definition: but I confess they are such in opinion, and by the judgment of the common people. In the first rank of false goods I place riches, honor, authority, health, long life. In the second rank of false evils, poverty, infamy, lack of promotion, sickness, death. And to comprehend all in one word, whatsoever else is accidental and happens outwardly." 

"From these two roots do spring four principal affections which do greatly disquiet the life of man: desire and joy, fear and sorrow. The first two have respect to some supposed or imagined good, the two latter unto some supposed or imagined evil. All of them do hurt and distemper the mind, and without timely prevention do bring it out of all order, yet not each of them in like sort. For whereas the quietness and constancy of the mind rests, as it were, in an even balance, these affections do hinder this upright poise and evenness; some of them by puffing up the mind, others by pressing it down too much. 

"But here I will let pass to speak of false goods, which lift up the mind above measure (because your diseases proceeds from another humor) and will come to false evils, which are of two sorts, public and private. Public are those, the sense and feeling whereof touches many persons at one time. Private do touch some private men. Of the first kind are war, pestilence, famine, tyranny, slaughters, and such like. Of the second are sorrow, poverty, infamy, death and whatsoever else of like nature that may befall any one man. 

"I take it there is good cause for me thus to distinguish them, because we sorrow after another sort at the misery of our country, the banishment and a destruction of a multitude, than of one person alone. Besides that, the griefs that grow of public and private adversities are different, but yet the first sort are more heavy and take deeper root in us. For we are all subject to those common calamities, either for that they come together in heaps, and so with the multitude oppress such as oppose themselves against them, or rather because they beguile us by subtlety, in that we perceive not how our mind is diseased by the apprehension of them. 

"Behold if a man is overcome with any private grief, he must confess therein his frailty and infirmity, especially if he reclaim not himself, then is he without excuse. Contrarily, we are so far from confessing a fault in being disquieted at public calamities, that some will boast thereof, and account it for a praise: for they term it piety and compassion. So that this common contagion is now reckoned among the catalog of virtues, yea and almost honored as a God. 

"Poets and orators do everywhere extol to the skies a fervent affection to our country; neither do I disallow it, but hold and maintain that it ought to be tempered with moderation: otherwise it is a vice, a note of intemperance, a deposing of the mind from his right seat. On the other side I confess it to be a grievous malady, and of great force to move a man, because the sorrow that proceeds thereto is manifold, in respect of yourself and of others. 

"And to make the matter more plain by example: see how your country of Flanders is afflicted with sundry calamities, and swung on every side with the scorching flame of civil wars: the fields are wasted and spoiled, towns are overthrown and burned, men taken captive and murdered, women defiled, virgins deflowered, with such other like miseries as follow after wars. 

"Are you not grieved herewith? Yes I am sure, and grieved diversely, for yourself, for your countrymen, and for your country. Your own losses trouble you; the misery and slaughter of your neighbors; the calamity and overthrow of your country. One where you may cry out with the poet, 'O unhappy wretch, that I am.' Another while, 'O my father, O my country!' And who is not so moved with these matters, nor oppressed with the multitude of so many and manifold miseries must either be very stayed and wise, or else very hardhearted." 

IMAGE: Anonymous Dutch, The Spanish Fury in Antwerp (c. 1585) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 73.5

Sextius used to say that Jupiter had no more power than the good man. 
 
Of course, Jupiter has more gifts which he can offer to mankind; but when you are choosing between two good men, the richer is not necessarily the better, any more than, in the case of two pilots of equal skill in managing the tiller, you would call him the better whose ship is larger and more imposing. 
 
In what respect is Jupiter superior to our good man? His goodness lasts longer; but the wise man does not set a lower value upon himself, just because his virtues are limited by a briefer span. 
 
Or take two wise men; he who has died at a greater age is not happier than he whose virtue has been limited to fewer years: similarly, a god has no advantage over a wise man in point of happiness, even though he has such an advantage in point of years. That virtue is not greater which lasts longer. 
 
Jupiter possesses all things, but he has surely given over the possession of them to others; the only use of them which belongs to him is this: he is the cause of their use to all men. 
 
The wise man surveys and scorns all the possessions of others as calmly as does Jupiter, and regards himself with the greater esteem because, while Jupiter cannot make use of them, he, the wise man, does not wish to do so. 
 
Let us therefore believe Sextius, when he shows us the path of perfect beauty, and cries: "This is 'the way to the stars'; this is the way, by observing thrift, self-restraint, and courage!" 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 73 
 
It is fitting that any discussion on philosophers and kings will ultimately turn to the highest authority of the Divine. Those who choose to make themselves the center can, of course, have no place for God, but those who see themselves as but a part of the whole are always in search of the Absolute. 
 
Sometimes we deny God because we think too much of ourselves, while sometimes we seek a diversion in God because we think too little of ourselves, and in either case the mistake is from assuming some impassable divide between the human and the Divine. 
 
No, the creature should never be confused with the Creator, and yet the human participates directly with the Divine, just as the cause is present in every effect, and the fullness of the One is expressed in the variety of the many. 
 
What is infinite and perfect does not exclude what is finite and imperfect—the former includes the latter. The difference in degree, however vast, still admits of an equivalence in kind, such that there is no vanity or blasphemy in stating that the good in man is like the good in God. 
 
As Sextius observed, a good man has the same power as Jupiter to be the master of himself, even as the breadth of their might cannot be compared. At a level closer to home, I may recognize how wealth, or fame, or any sort of worldly influence do not increase or decrease our moral worth, and so the virtue of a king is no better than the virtue of a pauper. 
 
Similarly, there is no greater excellence in something being of a longer duration, because the very same excellence, complete in itself, is simply being repeated. I am a mortal, and Jupiter is immortal, and it remains an identical virtue that is present in both of us. They say it is such a shame when someone dies young, though the real shame is when someone dies wicked. 
 
I am especially taken by the further insight that Jupiter might “have” everything, while he has no “need” for any of those things, already being complete in his own nature. What does he then do with them? He passes them on to man, whose nature remains in the process of becoming complete. 
 
I am reminded of an old Thomistic exercise, where the question is “Why would God create the Universe, if it adds nothing to Him?” The answer is then that “God created the Universe for the sake of His creatures.” That is surely the ideal form of love, which we are called to imitate, and it is that sort of self-giving for which we should always be grateful. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

IMAGE: Nicolai Abildgaard, Jupiter Weighing the Fate of Man (1793)