To this the Peripatetics retort: “Therefore, poverty will make even the wise man worse, and so will pain, and so will anything else of that sort. For although those things will not rob him of his virtue, yet they will hinder the work of virtue.”
This would be a correct statement, were it not for the fact that the pilot and the wise man are two different kinds of person. The wise man’s purpose in conducting his life is not to accomplish at all hazards what he tries, but to do all things rightly; the pilot’s purpose, however, is to bring his ship into port at all hazards.
The arts are handmaids; they must accomplish what they promise to do. But wisdom is mistress and ruler. The arts render a slave’s service to life; wisdom issues the commands.
For myself, I maintain that a different answer should be given: that the pilot’s art is never made worse by the storm, nor the application of his art either. The pilot has promised you, not a prosperous voyage, but a serviceable performance of his task—that is, an expert knowledge of steering a ship. And the more he is hampered by the stress of fortune, so much the more does his knowledge become apparent.
He who has been able to say, “Neptune, you shall never sink this ship except on an even keel,” has fulfilled the requirements of his art; the storm does not interfere with the pilot’s work, but only with his success.
This would be a correct statement, were it not for the fact that the pilot and the wise man are two different kinds of person. The wise man’s purpose in conducting his life is not to accomplish at all hazards what he tries, but to do all things rightly; the pilot’s purpose, however, is to bring his ship into port at all hazards.
The arts are handmaids; they must accomplish what they promise to do. But wisdom is mistress and ruler. The arts render a slave’s service to life; wisdom issues the commands.
For myself, I maintain that a different answer should be given: that the pilot’s art is never made worse by the storm, nor the application of his art either. The pilot has promised you, not a prosperous voyage, but a serviceable performance of his task—that is, an expert knowledge of steering a ship. And the more he is hampered by the stress of fortune, so much the more does his knowledge become apparent.
He who has been able to say, “Neptune, you shall never sink this ship except on an even keel,” has fulfilled the requirements of his art; the storm does not interfere with the pilot’s work, but only with his success.
—from Seneca Moral Letters 85
The calculating cynic will laugh at such Stoic claims, because he thinks it more important to get something good than to be someone good. Whenever I suggest that an unaffected decency is its own reward, I am now accustomed to hearing the following sort of harangue:
“You can talk about virtue all you like, but it won’t be of any use to you without the means to put it into effect. If you don’t have any money, you can’t practice charity. If you don’t build your influence, you can’t promote an agenda. If you aren’t working from a position of strength, you won’t be able to beat your competitors.”
This might be true, if our happiness hinged upon the comforts of the body, and not upon an excellence of the soul. Perhaps love isn’t about a balance sheet, and the best way to improve the world is to first improve ourselves, and the profit of one never requires a loss for another. What we believe to be the most practical way of life follows from what we discern to be the most real about this life.
Like every analogy, the example of the pilot will fall short, once we recognize how a trade must still be bound to an external product, while the virtues remain complete in themselves, and are able to thrive under any conditions. Prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are possible both in plenty and in want.
Even so, as Seneca observes, the task of the pilot may be hindered from the outside, though he can maintain his skill from the inside. Only a fool expects a batter to hit the ball every time he takes a swing, and we may be all the more impressed by his merits when the odds are firmly stacked against him.
I get worried for example, when I hear people making promises they might not be able to keep. It is one thing to pledge that we will absolutely do our best, but it is quite another to guarantee a certain outcome, however preferable it may be. A man has already done more than enough if he has given everything of himself, for that is far more valuable than any other state of affairs.
A husband cannot assure his wife that he will live a long life, yet he can assure her that he will be faithful as long as he shall live. It is in a like manner that our human worth is always to be found in the content of our character before the arrangement of our circumstances.
The calculating cynic will laugh at such Stoic claims, because he thinks it more important to get something good than to be someone good. Whenever I suggest that an unaffected decency is its own reward, I am now accustomed to hearing the following sort of harangue:
“You can talk about virtue all you like, but it won’t be of any use to you without the means to put it into effect. If you don’t have any money, you can’t practice charity. If you don’t build your influence, you can’t promote an agenda. If you aren’t working from a position of strength, you won’t be able to beat your competitors.”
This might be true, if our happiness hinged upon the comforts of the body, and not upon an excellence of the soul. Perhaps love isn’t about a balance sheet, and the best way to improve the world is to first improve ourselves, and the profit of one never requires a loss for another. What we believe to be the most practical way of life follows from what we discern to be the most real about this life.
Like every analogy, the example of the pilot will fall short, once we recognize how a trade must still be bound to an external product, while the virtues remain complete in themselves, and are able to thrive under any conditions. Prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are possible both in plenty and in want.
Even so, as Seneca observes, the task of the pilot may be hindered from the outside, though he can maintain his skill from the inside. Only a fool expects a batter to hit the ball every time he takes a swing, and we may be all the more impressed by his merits when the odds are firmly stacked against him.
I get worried for example, when I hear people making promises they might not be able to keep. It is one thing to pledge that we will absolutely do our best, but it is quite another to guarantee a certain outcome, however preferable it may be. A man has already done more than enough if he has given everything of himself, for that is far more valuable than any other state of affairs.
A husband cannot assure his wife that he will live a long life, yet he can assure her that he will be faithful as long as he shall live. It is in a like manner that our human worth is always to be found in the content of our character before the arrangement of our circumstances.
—Reflection written in 1/2014
IMAGE: Carl Wilhelm Barth, Pilot Boat in Heavy Sea (1882)
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