"What then," you say, "is there no difference between joy and unyielding endurance of pain?"
None at all, as regards the virtues themselves; very great, however, in the circumstances in which either of these two virtues is displayed. In the one case, there is a natural relaxation and loosening of the soul; in the other there is an unnatural pain.
Hence these circumstances, between which a great distinction can be drawn, belong to the category of indifferent things, but the virtue shown in each case is equal. Virtue is not changed by the matter with which it deals; if the matter is hard and stubborn, it does not make the virtue worse; if pleasant and joyous, it does not make it better.
Therefore, virtue necessarily remains equal. For, in each case, what is done is done with equal uprightness, with equal wisdom, and with equal honor. Hence the states of goodness involved are equal, and it is impossible for a man to transcend these states of goodness by conducting himself better, either the one man in his joy, or the other amid his suffering.
And two goods, neither of which can possibly be better, are equal. For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honorable ceases to be the only good. If you grant this, honor has wholly perished.
And why? Let me tell you: it is because no act is honorable that is done by an unwilling agent, that is compulsory. Every honorable act is voluntary. Alloy it with reluctance, complaints, cowardice, or fear, and it loses its best characteristic—self-approval.
That which is not free cannot be honorable; for fear means slavery. The honorable is wholly free from anxiety and is calm; if it ever objects, laments, or regards anything as an evil, it becomes subject to disturbance and begins to flounder about amid great confusion. For on one side the semblance of right calls to it, on the other the suspicion of evil drags it back.
Therefore, when a man is about to do something honorable, he should not regard any obstacles as evils, even though he regards them as inconvenient, but he should will to do the deed, and do it willingly. For every honorable act is done without commands or compulsion; it is unalloyed and contains no admixture of evil.
None at all, as regards the virtues themselves; very great, however, in the circumstances in which either of these two virtues is displayed. In the one case, there is a natural relaxation and loosening of the soul; in the other there is an unnatural pain.
Hence these circumstances, between which a great distinction can be drawn, belong to the category of indifferent things, but the virtue shown in each case is equal. Virtue is not changed by the matter with which it deals; if the matter is hard and stubborn, it does not make the virtue worse; if pleasant and joyous, it does not make it better.
Therefore, virtue necessarily remains equal. For, in each case, what is done is done with equal uprightness, with equal wisdom, and with equal honor. Hence the states of goodness involved are equal, and it is impossible for a man to transcend these states of goodness by conducting himself better, either the one man in his joy, or the other amid his suffering.
And two goods, neither of which can possibly be better, are equal. For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honorable ceases to be the only good. If you grant this, honor has wholly perished.
And why? Let me tell you: it is because no act is honorable that is done by an unwilling agent, that is compulsory. Every honorable act is voluntary. Alloy it with reluctance, complaints, cowardice, or fear, and it loses its best characteristic—self-approval.
That which is not free cannot be honorable; for fear means slavery. The honorable is wholly free from anxiety and is calm; if it ever objects, laments, or regards anything as an evil, it becomes subject to disturbance and begins to flounder about amid great confusion. For on one side the semblance of right calls to it, on the other the suspicion of evil drags it back.
Therefore, when a man is about to do something honorable, he should not regard any obstacles as evils, even though he regards them as inconvenient, but he should will to do the deed, and do it willingly. For every honorable act is done without commands or compulsion; it is unalloyed and contains no admixture of evil.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 66
This is the sort of passage that can only make sense in the context of a profound Stoic insight, that the human good depends in essence upon the excellence of our own thoughts and deeds, whatever the accidents of circumstance might be. Yet once this truth is grasped, one cannot help but undergo a remarkable transformation, a “Stoic Turn” of character, where the priorities of value are forever altered.
It may initially seem odd to say that all virtues are equal, when one man is being virtuous while playing with his children, and another man is being virtuous while resisting torture. Surely both men are good in kind, but is not the latter superior to the former in degree? The bearing of pain is seen to be so much nobler than finding rest in pleasure.
And yet we are failing to distinguish between the act itself, which proceeds from within, and the conditions for the act, which are offered from without. However different those circumstances, my choice to respond with integrity and conviction is always the same in merit, and so I have acted to the fullness of my humanity whenever and wherever I take my stand; I can’t make this any “more” virtuous, since it already perfects my nature at that time and place.
Yes, going for a walk is a mundane deed, and going to war is an extraordinary deed, and there is certainly a vast difference of degree in the weight of such events. Nevertheless, these acts share an identical inner dignity if they proceed from a knowledge of the true and a love of the good. It is high time I reevaluate my measure of the greater and the lesser, finding worth in the depth of my commitment rather than in the breadth of the setting.
This will seem quite ridiculous to some, though that is because they continue to define character by its trappings. The trick is to stop believing that bigger is always better, and to discover how the best is often to be found in the humblest of packages. The strength of conscience is the only benchmark, and the limit is reached when understanding and love are pure and simple.
While people will often speak of certain actions as being more or less important in this life, each choice, regardless of its sweep, expresses the totality of a particular person, and each choice is also equally necessary to the workings of the whole—the smallest nail is as significant as the mightiest king.
Like some highbrow historian, I can stack up all kinds of consequences to an action, and I can argue its effects on countless other lives. Still, the only thing that can make the action good or bad, virtuous or vicious, is the individual freedom with which it was done, and that makes a lowly herdsman on the Asian steppes as noteworthy as a Caesar or a Napoleon. Scholars should pay more attention to morality than to economics.
This is the sort of passage that can only make sense in the context of a profound Stoic insight, that the human good depends in essence upon the excellence of our own thoughts and deeds, whatever the accidents of circumstance might be. Yet once this truth is grasped, one cannot help but undergo a remarkable transformation, a “Stoic Turn” of character, where the priorities of value are forever altered.
It may initially seem odd to say that all virtues are equal, when one man is being virtuous while playing with his children, and another man is being virtuous while resisting torture. Surely both men are good in kind, but is not the latter superior to the former in degree? The bearing of pain is seen to be so much nobler than finding rest in pleasure.
And yet we are failing to distinguish between the act itself, which proceeds from within, and the conditions for the act, which are offered from without. However different those circumstances, my choice to respond with integrity and conviction is always the same in merit, and so I have acted to the fullness of my humanity whenever and wherever I take my stand; I can’t make this any “more” virtuous, since it already perfects my nature at that time and place.
Yes, going for a walk is a mundane deed, and going to war is an extraordinary deed, and there is certainly a vast difference of degree in the weight of such events. Nevertheless, these acts share an identical inner dignity if they proceed from a knowledge of the true and a love of the good. It is high time I reevaluate my measure of the greater and the lesser, finding worth in the depth of my commitment rather than in the breadth of the setting.
This will seem quite ridiculous to some, though that is because they continue to define character by its trappings. The trick is to stop believing that bigger is always better, and to discover how the best is often to be found in the humblest of packages. The strength of conscience is the only benchmark, and the limit is reached when understanding and love are pure and simple.
While people will often speak of certain actions as being more or less important in this life, each choice, regardless of its sweep, expresses the totality of a particular person, and each choice is also equally necessary to the workings of the whole—the smallest nail is as significant as the mightiest king.
Like some highbrow historian, I can stack up all kinds of consequences to an action, and I can argue its effects on countless other lives. Still, the only thing that can make the action good or bad, virtuous or vicious, is the individual freedom with which it was done, and that makes a lowly herdsman on the Asian steppes as noteworthy as a Caesar or a Napoleon. Scholars should pay more attention to morality than to economics.
I know an elderly woman who has spent the last thirty years in silent mourning for the loss of her husband. She showed me why this is no less of an achievement than enduring the brutal torture of Prometheus. There is the same nobility in both the common and the uncommon.
—Reflection written in 7/2013
IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Prometheus Bound (c. 1612)
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