Now, though Claranus and I have spent very few days together, we have nevertheless had many conversations, which I will at once pour forth and pass on to you.
The first day we investigated this problem: how can goods be equal if they are of three kinds?
For certain of them, according to our philosophical tenets, are primary, such as joy, peace, and the welfare of one's country.
Others are of the second order, molded in an unhappy material, such as the endurance of suffering, and self-control during severe illness. We shall pray outright for the goods of the first class; for the second class we shall pray only if the need shall arise.
There is still a third variety, as, for example, a modest gait, a calm and honest countenance, and a bearing that suits the man of wisdom. Now how can these things be equal when we compare them, if you grant that we ought to pray for the one and avoid the other?
If we would make distinctions among them, we had better return to the First Good, and consider what its nature is: the soul that gazes upon truth, that is skilled in what should be sought and what should be avoided, establishing standards of value not according to opinion, but according to nature—the soul that penetrates the whole world and directs its contemplating gaze upon all its phenomena, paying strict attention to thoughts and actions, equally great and forceful, superior alike to hardships and blandishments, yielding itself to neither extreme of fortune, rising above all blessings and tribulations, absolutely beautiful, perfectly equipped with grace as well as with strength, healthy and sinewy, unruffled, undismayed, one which no violence can shatter, one which acts of chance can neither exalt nor depress—a soul like this is virtue itself.
There you have its outward appearance, if it should ever come under a single view and show itself once in all its completeness. But there are many aspects of it. They unfold themselves according as life varies and as actions differ; but virtue itself does not become less or greater.
For the Supreme Good cannot diminish, nor may virtue retrograde; rather is it transformed, now into one quality and now into another, shaping itself according to the part which it is to play. Whatever it has touched it brings into likeness with itself, and dyes with its own color. It adorns our actions, our friendships, and sometimes entire households which it has entered and set in order. Whatever it has handled it forthwith makes lovable, notable, admirable.
The first day we investigated this problem: how can goods be equal if they are of three kinds?
For certain of them, according to our philosophical tenets, are primary, such as joy, peace, and the welfare of one's country.
Others are of the second order, molded in an unhappy material, such as the endurance of suffering, and self-control during severe illness. We shall pray outright for the goods of the first class; for the second class we shall pray only if the need shall arise.
There is still a third variety, as, for example, a modest gait, a calm and honest countenance, and a bearing that suits the man of wisdom. Now how can these things be equal when we compare them, if you grant that we ought to pray for the one and avoid the other?
If we would make distinctions among them, we had better return to the First Good, and consider what its nature is: the soul that gazes upon truth, that is skilled in what should be sought and what should be avoided, establishing standards of value not according to opinion, but according to nature—the soul that penetrates the whole world and directs its contemplating gaze upon all its phenomena, paying strict attention to thoughts and actions, equally great and forceful, superior alike to hardships and blandishments, yielding itself to neither extreme of fortune, rising above all blessings and tribulations, absolutely beautiful, perfectly equipped with grace as well as with strength, healthy and sinewy, unruffled, undismayed, one which no violence can shatter, one which acts of chance can neither exalt nor depress—a soul like this is virtue itself.
There you have its outward appearance, if it should ever come under a single view and show itself once in all its completeness. But there are many aspects of it. They unfold themselves according as life varies and as actions differ; but virtue itself does not become less or greater.
For the Supreme Good cannot diminish, nor may virtue retrograde; rather is it transformed, now into one quality and now into another, shaping itself according to the part which it is to play. Whatever it has touched it brings into likeness with itself, and dyes with its own color. It adorns our actions, our friendships, and sometimes entire households which it has entered and set in order. Whatever it has handled it forthwith makes lovable, notable, admirable.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 66
People will often say they wish to do the “good” or the “right” thing, vaguely accepting it as some sort of highest human standard, and yet they then attach so many conditions and exceptions to it that the very concept becomes meaningless. The moral relativism so especially in fashion these days isn’t really a coherent theory at all, since it is grounded in a contradiction, but it is rather a practical consequence of foolishly assuming the premise that the beneficial is only to be found in whatever happens to be convenient or gratifying at the moment.
Or, as Plato would put it, we believe something to be good because it is subjectively desirable, not that something is desirable because it is objectively good. This is one of those contrasts we must come to terms with if we wish to procced in life, and which side we end up on will make a world of difference.
Now while philosophers do like to distinguish and categorize, this should not deter us from embracing the good as being supremely one. While it expresses itself in many aspects and manifestations, that which is the fulfillment of a nature is also that which binds it together and grants its highest purpose. It is not subject to any other ends, and it may not be compromised for any further gains. The good is the absolute measure of human action, and it cannot be relative to what is inferior.
The three “classes” of good things, as often presented by the Stoics, are hardly a dilution of this integrity, and they simply distinguish between different layers, so to speak, of application.
First is virtue itself, and the happiness it brings, which is the innate perfection of any creature endowed with reason and will. It is inherently good for a man to find joy in being prudent, brave, temperate, and just.
Second is the presence of hardship, which is certainly not in itself a good, but does become good when it is transformed into a means for the exercise of the virtues. It is consequently good for a man to bear sickness, or poverty, or contempt if this practice strengthens his character.
Third is the presence of certain attractive qualities, which are properly matters to which we should be indifferent, however much we may prefer them. We speak of them as being good if they happen to accompany or reflect an inner nobility, though they can just as easily appear in the company of vice.
I often turn to the passage where Seneca describes the First Good, as it combines a profound meaning with a noble style. When I wish to describe the sort of person I admire the most, and the sort of person I yearn to be, these words embody what is best about us, and encourage me to find what is great in our condition, however sullied it may seem during the darker times.
While the good proclaims itself in many ways, and under wildly varying accidents, it stands firm as always being one and the same. The good does not admit to degrees, for it is complete and self-sufficient, even as its instances can admit of containing more or less. The good cannot be added too, and it cannot be reduced, for in its perfection it is purely simple. As that which is preeminent in human nature, it bows to nothing but the Divine from which it springs.
The Stoics regularly speak of the way the totality of Nature is constantly being transformed, while the Logos that guides it remains firm and constant. So it is with the virtue within us, and the countless ways we are called to practice it.
People will often say they wish to do the “good” or the “right” thing, vaguely accepting it as some sort of highest human standard, and yet they then attach so many conditions and exceptions to it that the very concept becomes meaningless. The moral relativism so especially in fashion these days isn’t really a coherent theory at all, since it is grounded in a contradiction, but it is rather a practical consequence of foolishly assuming the premise that the beneficial is only to be found in whatever happens to be convenient or gratifying at the moment.
Or, as Plato would put it, we believe something to be good because it is subjectively desirable, not that something is desirable because it is objectively good. This is one of those contrasts we must come to terms with if we wish to procced in life, and which side we end up on will make a world of difference.
Now while philosophers do like to distinguish and categorize, this should not deter us from embracing the good as being supremely one. While it expresses itself in many aspects and manifestations, that which is the fulfillment of a nature is also that which binds it together and grants its highest purpose. It is not subject to any other ends, and it may not be compromised for any further gains. The good is the absolute measure of human action, and it cannot be relative to what is inferior.
The three “classes” of good things, as often presented by the Stoics, are hardly a dilution of this integrity, and they simply distinguish between different layers, so to speak, of application.
First is virtue itself, and the happiness it brings, which is the innate perfection of any creature endowed with reason and will. It is inherently good for a man to find joy in being prudent, brave, temperate, and just.
Second is the presence of hardship, which is certainly not in itself a good, but does become good when it is transformed into a means for the exercise of the virtues. It is consequently good for a man to bear sickness, or poverty, or contempt if this practice strengthens his character.
Third is the presence of certain attractive qualities, which are properly matters to which we should be indifferent, however much we may prefer them. We speak of them as being good if they happen to accompany or reflect an inner nobility, though they can just as easily appear in the company of vice.
I often turn to the passage where Seneca describes the First Good, as it combines a profound meaning with a noble style. When I wish to describe the sort of person I admire the most, and the sort of person I yearn to be, these words embody what is best about us, and encourage me to find what is great in our condition, however sullied it may seem during the darker times.
While the good proclaims itself in many ways, and under wildly varying accidents, it stands firm as always being one and the same. The good does not admit to degrees, for it is complete and self-sufficient, even as its instances can admit of containing more or less. The good cannot be added too, and it cannot be reduced, for in its perfection it is purely simple. As that which is preeminent in human nature, it bows to nothing but the Divine from which it springs.
The Stoics regularly speak of the way the totality of Nature is constantly being transformed, while the Logos that guides it remains firm and constant. So it is with the virtue within us, and the countless ways we are called to practice it.
—Reflection written in 7/2013
IMAGE: Andrea Mantegna, Triumph of the Virtues (1502)
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