M. But it is the duty of one who would argue accurately to consider not what is said, but what is said consistently. As in that very opinion which we have adopted in this discussion, namely, that every good man is always happy, it is clear what I mean by good men: I call those both wise and good men who are provided and adorned with every virtue.
Let us see, then, who are to be called happy. I imagine, indeed, that those men are to be called so who are possessed of good without any alloy of evil; nor is there any other notion connected with the word that expresses happiness but an absolute enjoyment of good without any evil.
Virtue cannot attain this, if there is anything good besides itself. For a crowd of evils would present themselves, if we were to allow poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss of friends, acute pains of the body, the loss of health, weakness, blindness, the ruin of one’s country, banishment, slavery, to be evils; for a wise man may be afflicted by all these evils, numerous and important as they are, and many others also may be added, for they are brought on by chance, which may attack a wise man; but if these things are evils, who can maintain that a wise man is always happy when all these evils may light on him at the same time?
I therefore do not easily agree with my friend Brutus, nor with our common masters, nor those ancient ones, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, who reckon all that I have mentioned above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man is always happy; nor can I allow them, because they are charmed with this beautiful and illustrious title, which would very well become Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, to persuade my mind that strength, health, beauty, riches, honors, power, with the beauty of which they are ravished, are contemptible, and that all those things which are the opposites of these are not to be regarded.
Then might they declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multitude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasions them any apprehensions; and that they have everything within themselves, and that there is nothing whatever which they consider as good but what is within their own power.
Nor can I by any means allow the same person who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and evil to make use of these expressions, which can only become a great and exalted man.
Struck with which glory, up starts Epicurus, who, with submission to the Gods, thinks a wise man always happy. He is much charmed with the dignity of this opinion, but he never would have owned that, had he attended to himself; for what is there more inconsistent than for one who could say that pain was the greatest or the only evil to think also that a wise man can possibly say in the midst of his torture, “How sweet is this!”
We are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking.
Let us see, then, who are to be called happy. I imagine, indeed, that those men are to be called so who are possessed of good without any alloy of evil; nor is there any other notion connected with the word that expresses happiness but an absolute enjoyment of good without any evil.
Virtue cannot attain this, if there is anything good besides itself. For a crowd of evils would present themselves, if we were to allow poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss of friends, acute pains of the body, the loss of health, weakness, blindness, the ruin of one’s country, banishment, slavery, to be evils; for a wise man may be afflicted by all these evils, numerous and important as they are, and many others also may be added, for they are brought on by chance, which may attack a wise man; but if these things are evils, who can maintain that a wise man is always happy when all these evils may light on him at the same time?
I therefore do not easily agree with my friend Brutus, nor with our common masters, nor those ancient ones, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, who reckon all that I have mentioned above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man is always happy; nor can I allow them, because they are charmed with this beautiful and illustrious title, which would very well become Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, to persuade my mind that strength, health, beauty, riches, honors, power, with the beauty of which they are ravished, are contemptible, and that all those things which are the opposites of these are not to be regarded.
Then might they declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multitude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasions them any apprehensions; and that they have everything within themselves, and that there is nothing whatever which they consider as good but what is within their own power.
Nor can I by any means allow the same person who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and evil to make use of these expressions, which can only become a great and exalted man.
Struck with which glory, up starts Epicurus, who, with submission to the Gods, thinks a wise man always happy. He is much charmed with the dignity of this opinion, but he never would have owned that, had he attended to himself; for what is there more inconsistent than for one who could say that pain was the greatest or the only evil to think also that a wise man can possibly say in the midst of his torture, “How sweet is this!”
We are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.10
We are familiar with the way the lawyers, the politicians, and the journalists are skilled at manipulating the context, and yet we are all prone to being woefully inconsistent. If I were to be held accountable for every word I have ever said, I would surely deserve the fires of hell, so it is fortunate that the best can be so forgiving of the rest.
A man should be judged gradually, by how he lives over time, rather than hastily, by what he exclaims in the heat of the moment. Even the philosopher may be swept along by idle speculation or a wayward mood, so it is wisest to consider the whole instead of picking away at the parts. Given also how we can grow in wisdom, what was proudly declared yesterday might be quite embarrassing today.
Beyond the foibles, and after a deep breath, how am I to define being good and being happy? The grand theories aside, how does this play itself out in my daily living? Cicero clearly and concisely identifies goodness with virtue, as the perfection of our nature, and happiness with a satisfaction in that good, without being subject to any evil.
Now if virtue is indeed our only good, then the man of character requires nothing beyond it, but if there are other human goods besides virtue, then he is subject to miseries outside the power of his own judgments. When I consider wealth as a further good, then I will be troubled by poverty. When I seek after fame, I will be laid low by obscurity. When I expect pleasures for the flesh, I will be devastated by the coming of disease and the prospect of death.
Though I can strive to be the most prudent, brave, temperate, and just fellow, these noble traits will not be enough for my contentment, because money, popularity, or health are at the whims of fortune. I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry when I come across a particular sort of privileged attitude, that of the bigwig who believes he has somehow earned his prosperity; for all of his efforts, none of it would have come to pass without the accidents of circumstance.
Both kingpins and philosophers will often be working from a contradiction, by first insisting that we must rise above our lusts and our fears, and then later turning around to bemoan the horrors of deprivation and hardship. If the human good derives from what is on the inside, there is no place for faulting evils on the outside—they are hardly evils at all if we rightly understood the true source of our blessings.
In some cases, it is pure hypocrisy, but in many others, it is a fundamental perplexity, an unstable model that changes depending upon whatever is most convenient at the time. We see exactly why it is best to observe the constancy of deeds, instead of the volatility of words.
While I am desperately trying not to denounce Epicurus, I can grant Cicero’s point: it is nonsense to abide by wisdom and virtue while simultaneously fleeing from pain and adversity. Even if this is reading the Epicureans out of context, the world is lamentably full of those who would like to have their cake and eat it too.
Beware of the pampered tycoons and the highbrows in their ivory towers: they don’t always practice what they preach.
We are familiar with the way the lawyers, the politicians, and the journalists are skilled at manipulating the context, and yet we are all prone to being woefully inconsistent. If I were to be held accountable for every word I have ever said, I would surely deserve the fires of hell, so it is fortunate that the best can be so forgiving of the rest.
A man should be judged gradually, by how he lives over time, rather than hastily, by what he exclaims in the heat of the moment. Even the philosopher may be swept along by idle speculation or a wayward mood, so it is wisest to consider the whole instead of picking away at the parts. Given also how we can grow in wisdom, what was proudly declared yesterday might be quite embarrassing today.
Beyond the foibles, and after a deep breath, how am I to define being good and being happy? The grand theories aside, how does this play itself out in my daily living? Cicero clearly and concisely identifies goodness with virtue, as the perfection of our nature, and happiness with a satisfaction in that good, without being subject to any evil.
Now if virtue is indeed our only good, then the man of character requires nothing beyond it, but if there are other human goods besides virtue, then he is subject to miseries outside the power of his own judgments. When I consider wealth as a further good, then I will be troubled by poverty. When I seek after fame, I will be laid low by obscurity. When I expect pleasures for the flesh, I will be devastated by the coming of disease and the prospect of death.
Though I can strive to be the most prudent, brave, temperate, and just fellow, these noble traits will not be enough for my contentment, because money, popularity, or health are at the whims of fortune. I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry when I come across a particular sort of privileged attitude, that of the bigwig who believes he has somehow earned his prosperity; for all of his efforts, none of it would have come to pass without the accidents of circumstance.
Both kingpins and philosophers will often be working from a contradiction, by first insisting that we must rise above our lusts and our fears, and then later turning around to bemoan the horrors of deprivation and hardship. If the human good derives from what is on the inside, there is no place for faulting evils on the outside—they are hardly evils at all if we rightly understood the true source of our blessings.
In some cases, it is pure hypocrisy, but in many others, it is a fundamental perplexity, an unstable model that changes depending upon whatever is most convenient at the time. We see exactly why it is best to observe the constancy of deeds, instead of the volatility of words.
While I am desperately trying not to denounce Epicurus, I can grant Cicero’s point: it is nonsense to abide by wisdom and virtue while simultaneously fleeing from pain and adversity. Even if this is reading the Epicureans out of context, the world is lamentably full of those who would like to have their cake and eat it too.
Beware of the pampered tycoons and the highbrows in their ivory towers: they don’t always practice what they preach.
—Reflection written in 2/1999
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