LIAM MILBURN: Rule Your Hearts by Love: Reflections on the Consolation of Boethius

Rule Your Hearts by Love:

Reflections on the Consolation of Boethius

 

Liam Milburn

 

 

O felix hominum genus,

si uestros animos amor

quo caelum regitur regat!

 

O happy race of mortals,

If your hearts are ruled,

As is the Universe, by Love!

 

—Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book 2, Poem 8 (tr Cooper)

 

 

Introduction

 

Choosing my favorite book, or my favorite piece of music, seems like an impossible task, much like being asked to choose a favorite child. I have discovered so many different kinds of insight and appreciation from so many texts, that I find it difficult to speak of most of them as being “better” or “worse”. Each has played a crucial part, at different times and in different ways, so what speaks to me the most on a Monday will not always be what speaks to me the most on a Thursday.

 

Yet if I ask myself not which book I prefer the most, but which book has helped me most often over all the years, my answer is immediately clear. It is The Consolation of Philosophy by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. 

 

Most people will not be familiar with this book, and they should hardly be blamed for that. Though it was the equivalent of a best seller in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, it has faded from popularity in modern times. Despite this change of fashions, I have found that whenever I run across someone who knows it well, or whenever I have introduced it to a new reader, I am also struck by the almost universal acclaim for its profound wisdom. Not everyone knows about Boethius these days, but most everyone who does know about him shares in a deep enthusiasm for the power of the Consolation to change lives to the core. 

 

I was given a copy while I was still in high school, and I read through most of the text on my own time whenever I had the patience to ponder. In college, the medievalists I increasingly admired all reminded me that there was nothing quite like it, and one of my old professors suggested only half in jest that I would be well served to commit it to memory. 

 

I was in awe of the beauty of the language and the structure of the arguments, but I was still considering it from afar, as a sublime work of theory. It took very real events in my own life to bring the Consolation down to earth, and to convince me that this wasn’t just a brilliant exercise in thinking, but also a practical tool for living. I could turn to it not only when I wanted to contemplate grand ideas, but also for comfort when my heart was breaking. 

 

I expected that kind of solace from poetry, novels, and pieces of music, but I did not expect it from a work of philosophy. I suspect its effect comes from the fact that it considers the place of everything under the heavens, while also being a deeply personal work. It begins in a moment of terrible sorrow, and the author finds himself completely adrift. As Boethius engages in a symbolic conversation with Lady Philosophy, he not only learns about the sweeping nature of happiness and misery, of good and evil, of Nature and Fortune, and of freedom and Providence, but he also comes to terms with the struggle of his own situation. 

 

The Consolation crossed into my daily life when I could no longer make sense of why good people seemed to suffer, while bad people seemed to thrive. When I personally began to experience all the selfishness and deceit in those I had thought I could trust, and I felt myself to be spiraling downwards while they appeared to go from strength to strength, I began to gradually break inside. 

 

I opened a copy of this text on a Thursday morning, while sitting on a hill behind the college library, and it started bringing some sense to my confusion. What Boethius had been telling me all along now began to offer meaning in my own living, and I will always remain grateful to him, and for the epiphany of that Thursday morning. I hardly managed to fix everything then and there, of course, but anything I have fixed over the years owes itself largely to that moment. 

 

* * * * *

 

Boethius (c. 480-524 AD) was from an old Roman patrician family, though the glory of old Rome had now passed. He was by all accounts a man of great means and talents, and he rose in power and position in the court of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, as a senator, a consul, and as the master of offices. 

 

He was also a deeply learned man, well versed in both Greek and Latin, and a devoted student of philosophy. The story has it that Boethius intended to not only translate all the major works of Plato and Aristotle from Greek into Latin, but to further demonstrate how these two great systems of Classical philosophy could be understood as being in ultimate harmony with one another. 

 

Boethius was also a Christian, and he wrote a number of theological texts. Quite unlike the common tension between faith and reason of our own day, and much more in line with their complementarity in the Middle Ages, Boethius saw theology and philosophy as both serving the same truth, and he sought to find what was shared between his Christian and pagan heritage. 

 

Yet despite all of his achievements, Boethius found himself caught up in the intrigue of court politics. When he discovered that a fellow senator, Albinus, was being falsely accused of treason, Boethius stood up in his defense. It would seem that his character matched his influence and learning, but such integrity would bring about his worldly downfall. Charges were brought against Boethius as well, and he was awaiting his execution while under house arrest. 

 

The Consolation was written at this time, hardly a work of fiction, but the reflections of a man who had lost all he had built up, who must have felt betrayed at every turn, and who would soon have even his life taken from him. It is one thing to ponder philosophy from the comfort of the academy, and quite another to face philosophy at such an hour of grave loss. The conversation he has with himself, through the personification of Lady Philosophy, comes not from luxury, but from need. 

 

The text is far from being a collection of truisms, or easy answers to difficult questions. Boethius fights tooth and nail against Philosophy’s insistence that life can truly be fair, and struggles with the realization that he has been deluding himself. He even jumps from the fat into the fire, at first bemoaning that all is disordered, and then swinging to despair about the loss of freedom. I have now read it more times than I can count, and each time I feel like I am following along with his every train of thought. 

 

The Consolation is not the expression of a single school of philosophy, but ties together many different traditions, especially that of Plato’s Academy, but also that of Aristotle’s Lyceum, and that of the Stoics. Though Boethius was not a Stoic in the narrow sense, I have long argued that his central argument about the relationship between Nature and Fortune, and between what we do and what happens to us, is thematically about as Stoic as one can get. The influence of Stoicism would have been just as strong with him as it would have been for any other educated Roman, and I owe my own interest in the practice of Stoic philosophy to the first influence of the Consolation. 

 

Boethius never directly mentions his Christian faith in the text, and some have found this odd. At times, it has been suggested that this couldn’t possibly be the same author who wrote the theological treatises, or perhaps that he had actually abandoned his faith in this time of trial. 

 

I do not know if Boethius questioned the faith in his own heart, but his title should certainly tell us something. This is a Consolation of Philosophy, not a Consolation of Theology. He is trying to make sense of his own situation, and to offer comfort and guidance to his readers, not by starting with what God reveals to us, but by what we can discover through our own power of reason. If my belief is in doubt, it seems only right to find reasons to support what I believe. Again, reason need not be in conflict with faith, but can be its supporter and defender. 

 

As a rationalist myself, and often to my detriment quite the Doubting Thomas, I think I can understand exactly what Boethius is doing here. If you have lost everything you hold dear, rebuild from the bottom up. Start with what you know, which in turn can then tell you what you can really trust. If you read all the way to the end, you will see how the last few lines of the text confirm this profound relationship between reason and faith. 

 

There are many books, from writers like Plato and Aristotle to Augustine and Aquinas, from Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius to Pascal and Lewis, from Dostoyevsky and Joyce to Twain and O’Connor, that strike deep to the bottom of my soul. Yet in the odd little journey that has been my life, it was always a beaten-up copy of The Consolation of Philosophy that became my best literary friend. 

 

* * * * *

 

The collection I have put together is not a work of scholarship on Boethius, or any sort of attempt to claim special insight on his thought. As with my previous Stoic Breviary, the intent is never to tell you what you should think, or to reveal any hidden meaning. I have simply provided the text of the Consolation, in small bits that can hopefully be read easily at any time during the day, and then added my own informal reflections on what they have meant to me. Your own interpretations and applications may well vary, as they most certainly should. Consider this as a sort of jumping off point, and never as a final say.

 

None of my writing has ever been intended for financial or professional profit, but only to share what little I might have with others. Accordingly, I have chosen to make use of an older but venerable translation of the text, by W.V. Cooper. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles of the newer versions, but I believe it gets the job done with more than enough accuracy, and with quite a bit of dignity. I have only made a few minor changes where the choice or order of words may confuse the modern reader. 

 

Each Book of the Consolation alternates between verse and prose sections, and my only regret is that Cooper’s version loses the meter of the original Latin poetry. For public domain purposes, however, this seemed the best route to follow, and I would encourage the reader to seek out different versions, or even, heaven forbid, to learn Latin just for the sake of this brilliant text! If I had the skill and time available to me, I would venture my own translation, but sadly I have neither. 

 

I will think myself a happy man if someone picks up a copy of this humble collection, and then finds comfort in the truths that Boethius has offered to all of us. 

 

 

 

Book 1

 

1.1

 

To pleasant songs my work was once given, 

and bright were all my labors then; 

but now in tears to sad refrains am I compelled to turn. 

Thus my maimed Muses guide my pen, 

and gloomy songs make no feigned tears bedew my face. 

Then could no fear so overcome to leave me companionless upon my way. 

They were the pride of my earlier bright-lived days. 

In my later gloomy days they are the comfort of my fate; 

for hastened by unhappiness age has come upon me without warning, 

and grief has set within me the old age of her gloom. 

White hairs are scattered untimely on my head, 

and the skin hangs loosely from my worn-out limbs.

 

— from Book 1, Poem 1 (tr W.V. Cooper)

 

We are all familiar with feeling sorry for ourselves, and how there is an odd sort of comfort in dwelling upon our sadness. I suspect I am more susceptible than some others to this weakness, first because I am by disposition already melancholic, and second because I have grappled with what I have called the Black Dog since my early twenties. Faced with pain, loss, or disappointment we may feel that there is no source of relief, and that there is no hope for healing. 

 

Left with the impression that we possess nothing else, we cling only to the disappointment itself, to the certainty we have been wronged, because the absence of any meaning is the only meaning we have left. The sole purpose apparent to us is the complete absence of purpose. It is the false security of being certain we are victims. 

 

I do not know if all of us must endure a dark night of the soul, though I suspect we all do in our own way and in our own time, even if we never reveal it to others. Some of us may slip into it many times, some may find their way out quickly, some may never escape it at all. 

 

I remember once coming across the most confident and strong-willed person I ever knew desperately crying in a hidden corner of a library. I offered what comfort I could, not by giving solutions but simply by pledging friendship. The moment passed, and it was never spoken of again, as if it had never happened. I don’t think another person ever knew of it. 

 

I myself struggle with a crippling sadness on many days, and I resist the temptation to succumb to it. I feel it gnawing deep inside of me, though most people who know me would never suspect it. I was once described, much to my confusion, as the quiet happy fellow that smiles in the corner. 

 

The Muses, the spirits of our creativity, have a way of magnifying our feelings, such that we feel even greater elation when we express our joy, even greater gloom when we express our misery. Music, poetry, or film will always give more weight to what is already in my heart. In modest doses this can be a helpful tool, but in excess it becomes a horrible burden. I can be swept back and forth between extremes of delight and dread, insisting at one moment I am the happiest man on earth, bemoaning at another that nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. 

 

I think I understand what Boethius is describing. His writing once mirrored his triumphs, but now it mirrors only his tragedies. He has lost everything he holds dear, and he finds he can only contemplate his sadness, even as his reflections merely draw him deeper into despair. 

 

Is there any way to break out of such a destructive cycle of grief?

 

 

 

1.2

 

Happy is that death which thrusts itself not upon men in their pleasant years,

yet comes to them at the often repeated cry of their sorrow. 

Sad is it how death turns away from the unhappy with so deaf an ear, 

and will not close, cruel, the eyes that weep. 

Ill is it to trust to Fortune's fickle bounty, 

and while yet she smiled upon me,

the hour of gloom had well-nigh overwhelmed my head. 

Now has the cloud put off its alluring face, 

wherefore without scruple my life drags out its wearying delays.

Why, O my friends, did you so often puff me up, 

telling me that I was fortunate? 

For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand.

 

— from Book 1, Poem 1

 

With sadness can come despair, and with despair can come a loss of the will to live. Suffering becomes so savage in its intensity that the very cessation of human existence itself can seem preferable to struggling any further. The agony may be compounded by the fact that we might feel ready for death, but death does not seem ready to take us. 

 

I have sadly known the feeling, and I have also learned to recognize it in others. It seems like more than anyone should ever have to bear, though the good I have somehow managed to extract from it is a far greater willingness to feel empathy for the pain in others. If you have the dubious distinction of ever having felt so low, you will surely never again be able to easily ignore or dismiss someone else’s misery. 

 

When I was working in social services, I would regularly help out with a support group for clients who had suffered great personal loss. I recall one fellow who seemed to be in much the same state of mind as the one Boethius writes about. He was not only in the advanced stages of illness, but he had lost all of his income, and been abandoned by most everyone he had considered a friend. 

 

On a particular day he seemed even more weighed down than usual, and he expressed how he had an overwhelming sense that he wanted his life to end, even as it also made him feel deeply ashamed that he was thinking in this way. 

 

Another participant immediately spoke up, and suggested that it was surely just a matter of willpower, of facing the pain with conviction and moving on from the disappointments. It would eventually get better, she said.

 

I know her words were meant to be helpful, but the look on the man’s face spoke volumes. It wasn’t that he lacked willpower, or that he didn’t want to face the pain and get over the loss, or that he didn’t desperately hope it could get better. He simply didn’t know how to do these things. Wishing harder, or being tough, or ignoring the pain would not make it all go away. 

 

I can’t simply tell someone in agony to stop feeling it. It is not only the presence of suffering, but the sense that there is no meaning or purpose behind it all, and that all the things in life that seemed to provide security are now completely unreliable. Good luck simply seems to have become bad luck, with no discernible rhyme or reason. One feels betrayed by circumstances. 

 

I could tell the man that I understood, but I would hardly blame him if he didn’t believe me. I myself had been advised time and time again to stick it out, and that everything would finally clear itself up. 

 

In the end, the only way I ever found to make any of it better was to rebuild entirely. Yes, I had fallen, and yes, I had not been standing on a firm foundation. But maybe the problem wasn’t with what the world was doing, but with the way I was thinking about what the world was doing. 

 

Perhaps I was only seeing what was bad because I hadn’t been looking for what was good, in the right way and in the right places. 

 

The process Boethius will soon undergo in the text is, I suspect, the same one that any of us must undergo to start making things right. It entails a serious reevaluation of priorities. 

 

 

 

1.3

 

While I was pondering thus in silence, and using my pen to set down so tearful a complaint, there appeared standing over my head a woman's form, whose countenance was full of majesty, whose eyes shone as with fire and in power of insight that surpassed the eyes of men, whose color was full of life, whose strength was yet intact though she was so full of years that none would ever think that she was subject to such age as ours. 

 

One could but doubt her varying stature, for at one moment she repressed it to the common measure of a man, at another she seemed to touch with her crown the very heavens. And when she had raised higher her head, it pierced even the sky and baffled the sight of those who would look upon it. 

 

Her clothing was wrought of the finest thread by subtle workmanship brought to an indivisible piece. This had she woven with her own hands, as I afterwards did learn by her own showing. Their beauty was somewhat dimmed by the dullness of long neglect, as is seen in the smoke-grimed masks of our ancestors. 

 

On the border below was enwoven the symbol Π (Pi), on that above was to be read a Θ (Theta). And between the two letters there could be marked degrees, by which, as by the rungs of a ladder, ascent might be made from the lower principle to the higher. Yet the hands of rough men had torn this garment and snatched such morsels as they could from there. 

 

In her right hand she carried books, in her left was a scepter brandished. 

 

— from Book 1, Prose 1

 

The idea that philosophy can be a cure for the ills of this life, and that her appearance can bring relief from our everyday fear and pain, may seem quite odd to our modern sensibilities. Philosophy would appear to refer either to some very vague and general approach to any subject, or it is that very specific subject that academics pursue in their ivory towers. It’s a clever term to insert into business and marketing proposals, or a career pursued by fancy intellectuals. Philosophy hardly saves lives, does it?

 

Yet that is precisely why Lady Philosophy comes to Boethius now. She may not choose to save his body from death, but she intends to save his soul from despair. I came to see in my own life that this was the sort of philosophy I needed, and perhaps why I have always had trouble making myself understood to those who used the word differently. 

 

I have read many wonderful accounts of what Lady Philosophy’s appearance signifies, and how all the aspects of the description point to different historical and thematic concepts. I can add only what her qualities have come to mean to me over the years. 

 

Philosophy is, of course, not an exclusive domain for men or women, but exists as something essentially human. Yet philosophy is here depicted as feminine. The Ancients had understood something we often overlook, that an equality of gender is not the same thing as an identity of gender. A man may lead, but his instinct will often be to confront and protect. A woman may also lead, with no less strength, but her instinct will often be to comfort and nurture. Boethius does not need the power of a father right now, but the understanding of a mother. 

 

Her insight appears greater than anything human, and she seems both very old, yet with all the vibrancy of youth. Perhaps this is because philosophy is certainly about human things, but transcends such things to also include the order of all things, and their relationship to what is absolute. It is about the human mind rising to what is greater than itself. Truth, furthermore, which is eternal and unchanging, is neither young nor old. 

 

She seems smaller and larger at different times, human at one point, divine at another. It is to this intersection of what is mortal and immortal, changing and unchanging, finite and infinite that we must dedicate our attention. 

 

She is clothed in a beautiful robe, and it is seamless, crafted from only one piece, just as wisdom is never divided, but always one. She had made the fabric herself, as is appropriate for philosophy, where man can employ his own powers of reason to come to understand truth for himself. Lady Philosophy will soon show Boethius how to become a weaver of wisdom. 

 

Yet the robe is somewhat dull and worn, surely not just because it was made so long ago, but because generations of mankind have failed to maintain it and give it due attention. It is much like that section of a library with all the most insightful books, yet they are covered in dust, and no one wishes to read them. We are much more interested in the shallow trends of the day, than the profound wisdom of the ages. 

 

The letters Pi and Theta represent practice and theory respectively, and they are joined together by the steps we can all take from the immanence of particular experience to the transcendence of universal contemplation. 

 

Why is the fabric also torn? Small minds rip a piece from here or there, and they think they possess the whole truth. It is as if they gather the stray crumbs from under the table, and believe themselves to be enjoying the whole banquet. They are interested in their own glory, not the glory of all truth. 

 

She holds books containing wisdom, and her scepter indicates the true power this wisdom grants her. This is the Philosophy Boethius needs right now, one that can bring order to chaos, and meaning to confusion. 

 

 

 

1.4

 

When she saw that the Muses of Poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and she said:

 

“Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do they ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions. 

 

“They free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them to it. I would think it less grievous if your allurements drew away from me some uninitiated man, as happens in the vulgar herd. In such a one my labors would not be harmed, but this man has been nourished in the lore of the Eleatics and the Academics. To him you have reached? Away with you, Sirens, seductive unto destruction! Leave him to my Muses to be cared for and to be healed.”

 

Their band, thus berated, cast a saddened glance upon the ground, confessing their shame in blushes, and passed forth dismally over the threshold. 

 

For my part, my eyes were dimmed with tears, and I could not discern who was this woman of such commanding power. I was amazed, and turning my eyes to the ground I began in silence to await what she should do. 

 

Then she approached nearer and sat down upon the end of my couch. She looked into my face heavy with grief and cast down by sorrow to the ground, and then she raised her complaint over the trouble of my mind in these words: 

 

— from Book 1, Prose 1

 

As dangerous as completely ignoring our feelings is also dwelling on them too heavily. It is never feelings themselves that are the problem, but what I may choose to do with those feelings, and how I will act to help them make me better. 

 

The Muses of Poetry are not encouraging Boethius to move forward, but are allowing him to languish in place, and he is sinking under his own weight. 

 

How many medicines have I taken that have hardly been cures at all, but have ultimately made the agony worse? They only compounded the suffering by messing about with the appearances and symptoms, and neglecting the root causes. 

 

I once faced the worst bout of the flu I had ever come across, and I knew that my body needed rest and nourishment to fight the infection, and to rebuild its strength. 

 

Yet I foolishly took some pills that repressed my fever, numbed my pain, and turned my thinking into mush, because I was so sure I had to be at work. Yes, what I did for pennies apparently mattered more than my health. I then had to spend twice as much time later doing the reasonable thing by embracing a proper recovery. 

 

As it is with the body, so it is with the soul. It isn’t just a matter of rearranging, blocking, or wallowing in my passions. Reason can show me how to make it right, by going to the source, and making it right there. 

 

My own first response to the coming of the Black Dog was to wash him away in drink. When I only woke up with even more despair, I tried to simply ignore him. Lying to myself didn’t change the reality of it, of course, and I then tried to wish him away with all sorts of diversions and ways of busying myself. It was much like spending my time repainting a house infested by termites. 

 

What could possibly be left? Conventional medicine offered various drugs and therapy, but these had very little lasting effect. I began to recognize that the feelings were not going anywhere. Yet what could my own thinking, my own most powerful tool, begin to do with the presence of those feelings? 

 

The first thing I ever really noticed about this passage, once I began to read it not as an intellectual exercise but as an opportunity for healing, was the way Boethius described how both he and the Muses can stare at nothing but the ground beneath them in silence. 

 

I related to that immediately, since I had started doing much the same when I lost my anchor in the affection of another person. It had been an illusion I had created for myself, but it had seemed there on one day, and suddenly it was gone on the next. 

 

It was quite literal, not just figurative. My eyes began to be lowered, because I was afraid to see anyone else or to meet a passing gaze, and I spoke very little, because I was afraid of being bitten in response. There was a cringing shame behind all of it. 

 

I felt sorry for myself. No one sat down next to me, though I really just needed to sit down with myself, and have a really good heart-to-heart. 

 

 

 

1.5

 

“Ah me! How blunted grows the mind 

when sunk below the overwhelming flood! 

Its own true light no longer burns within, 

and it would break forth to outer darknesses. 

How often care, when fanned by earthly winds, 

grows to a larger and unmeasured bane. 

This man has been free to the open heaven. 

His habit has it been to wander into the paths of the sky. 

His to watch the light of the bright sun, 

his to inquire into the brightness of the chilly moon.

He, like a conqueror, held fast bound in its order 

every star that makes its wandering circle, 

turning its peculiar course. 

Nay, more, deeply has he searched into the springs of Nature, 

whence came the roaring blasts 

that ruffle the ocean's bosom calm. 

What is the spirit that makes the firmament revolve? 

Wherefore does the evening star sink into the western wave 

but to rise from the radiant East? 

What is the cause that so tempers the season of Spring 

that it decks the earth with rose-blossoms? 

Whence comes it to pass that Autumn is prolific in the years of plenty 

and overflows with teeming vines?

Deeply to search these causes was his wont, 

and to bring forth secrets deep in Nature hid.

 

“Now he lies there; extinct his reason's light, 

his neck in heavy chains thrust down, 

his countenance with grievous weight downcast. 

Ah! The brute earth is all he can behold.”

 

—from Book 1, Poem 2

 

I was born into a family deeply committed to the love of wisdom, and despite our missteps and blunders, to the practice of virtue. I was never nearly as gifted or insightful as Boethius was, of course, but I had been offered all the tools I needed to be a thoughtful man, and to be a good man. I never needed to look any further than the example of my own kin to follow the right path. 

 

I was certainly always curious to understand how anything and everything worked, from a vacuum cleaner to the source of law, from a nuclear reactor to Divine Providence, and when all the other pieces were set up comfortably, my interest was insatiable. But there was the rub. When things that were immediate threatened me, I quite quickly lost track of what was ultimate. I simmered, I stewed, and I spat all sorts of nastiness and doom. 

 

As long there was nothing dragging me down, I rose to great heights. Once a burden was added, however, I flopped back to the ground. I suspect Lady Philosophy is describing something similar about Boethius’ own struggle. Reason was brilliant when all seemed right, but it darkened as soon as all seemed wrong. 

 

It is fairly easy to dedicate myself to thinking, when thinking is abstracted from living. Intellectual pursuits are quite satisfying, as long as they serve to satisfy the profit of my comfort and convenience.

 

But what am I to do when the world doesn’t go the way I want it to go? Was my commitment to wisdom a waste of time? 

 

This would actually be the best time to put that wisdom to use. The secrets of Nature are never more needed than at such a time. 

 

Then why do they appear to fall away, and why am I suddenly feeling lost and hopeless?

 

 

 

1.6

 

“But now,” said she, “is the time for the physician's art, rather than for complaining.” 

 

Then fixing her eyes wholly on me, she said, “Are you the man who was nourished upon the milk of my learning, brought up with my food until you had won your way to the power of a manly soul? Surely I had given you such weapons as would keep you safe, and your strength unconquered, if you had not thrown them away. 

 

“Do you know me? Why do you keep silence? Are you dumb from shame or from dull amazement? I would it were from shame, but I see that amazement has overwhelmed you.”

 

When she saw that I was not only silent, but utterly tongue-tied and dumb, she put her hand gently upon my breast, and said, “There is no danger. He is suffering from drowsiness, that disease which attacks so many minds that have been deceived. He has forgotten himself for a moment and will quickly remember, as soon as he recognizes me. That he may do so, let me brush away from his eyes the darkening cloud of thoughts of matters perishable.” 

 

So saying, she gathered her robe into a fold and dried my swimming eyes.

 

—from Book 1, Prose 2

 

Complaining about anything, bemoaning my circumstances, has never made my circumstances any better, and it certainly has never made me any better. There is a certain stubborn satisfaction in feeling wronged, itself a form of vanity, but it will only feed upon itself when there is nothing else to make it right. 

 

I have sometimes admired people who seemed to be so tough, who never seemed affected by the ups and downs of life. It took me some time to recognize that this appearance of toughness was very often just heartlessness, only possible by a rejection of conscience, and it often worked only when conditions were still largely convenient. Remove one aspect of my success, and I can still grasp for the others. Remove them all, and my fall will be all the harder. 

 

If I were, for example, to make the value of my life contingent upon my money, my power, my pleasure, or my position, I might lose one or the other, but I could try to use what remains to get it all back. But now imagine that none of these remain. What do I have left? I have been using all of the wrong means for all of the wrong ends. 

 

Boethius has lost all of the trappings of success. This will end up being a blessing for him, and not a curse, because it will allow him to look behind that veil of shallow values. 

 

All of this seems so odd, since I surely had learned what made life worth living. They told me it was about character, about conviction, about integrity, about dedication. If I worked hard according to these principles, I would get everything I wanted. It was that American Dream, after all.

 

Distinguish. What was I dreaming about? The success I craved was about making more for myself, not making more ofmyself. If the American Dream is about moral growth, you’ve already got me right there. You had me at “Hello”. If the American Dream is about a growth of finance or influence, you have now lost me. 

 

I constantly forget what I already know. This also seems odd, because I may forget an impression or an image in the memory, but how do I forget principles?

 

Perhaps I never really knew them to begin with, or I loved them only when they were a good fit for my gratification, or they were passed by when they suddenly stood in conflict with my selfishness. 

 

I was originally very confused by Plato’s doctrine of Recollection, that learning is really just remembering what we have forgotten. I leave all of the epistemology and metaphysics aside for a moment, and I simply observe that what I always needed was always there to begin with. I have forgotten it, and I must remember. 

 

I have grown drowsy with distractions. I pay attention to tempting and shiny things, and I neglect true and beautiful things. I now ask Philosophy to help me recollect. 

 

There is no greater cure for sadness than Wisdom. Perhaps her robes are also old and worn because they have helped wipe away so many tears. 

 

 

1.7

 

Then was dark night dispelled, 

the shadows fled away, 

and my eyes received returning power as before. 

It was just as when the heavenly bodies 

are enveloped by the west wind's rush, 

and the sky stands thick with watery clouds; 

the sun is hidden and the stars are not yet come into the sky, 

and night descending from above

overspreads the earth: 

but if the north wind smites this scene, 

launched forth from the Thracian cave, 

it unlocks the imprisoned daylight; 

the sun shines forth, and thus sparkling Phoebus 

smites with his rays our wondering eyes.

 

—from Book 1, Poem 3

 

There are all sorts of wonderful and inspiring images to describe a moment of insight, a revelation of clarity, or a liberation from confusion and worry. It is surely no accident, however, that we so often appeal to the symbols of light and darkness to represent the corresponding states of wisdom and ignorance, of happiness and misery. 

 

The Platonists, and all those who followed and were inspired by them over the ages, were arguably the masters of this analogy, though it is to be found in most any tradition of philosophy and religion, in vastly diverse deposits of reason and faith. Just as the eye can only see objects in the physical world through the medium of light, so we might also say that the mind can only understand the world of ideas through the medium of truth. In each case, what is visible or intelligible depends upon the presence of another, greater source that provides for the very possibility of awareness. 

 

We will speak of seeing in a room because it is illuminated, and we will also speak of understanding in a world because it is illuminated. It can be quite fitting to consider the sun as a likeness of what is Divine.

 

Conversely, darkness, shadow, haze, or mist are fitting representations of being lost, disoriented, and unaware. I was never afraid of the dark until I first found myself deep in the woods, far from any city or town, and with the moon and the stars blocked out by thick clouds. I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face, and I lost all sense of direction or distance. What strange blurs I occasionally glimpsed around me become monstrosities in my imagination, and the slightest sound would set me on edge. I suddenly understood why being terrified of darkness, as a form of fearing the unknown, can have such a powerful effect.

 

The eyes are powerless when they receive no light, and the mind is lost when it is separated from truth. Boethius’ vision, remember, was clouded by the distraction of perishable things. Who has not experienced that sort of blindness? Who has also not, to whatever degree, experienced the sort of moment, when light and warmth flood back in, and one is back among the things that provide genuine comfort?

 

Over the years, I have always intensely disliked having to work in windowless rooms, buried deep in climate-controlled slabs of steel and concrete, my eyes pained by the fluorescent lighting, and my ears annoyed by their incessant hum. Escaping back out into natural light and fresh air, however hot or cold, wet or dry the season may be, comes as such a relief. 

 

When I was in college, many of the best classes I took were also sadly in some of those restrictive little boxes, and whatever I had learned about in that stale air and cold light only really started becoming real for me when I made it back into the life of the world outside. I would joke about this being my own little version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, or of Boethius coming back into the sunlight, and maybe I wasn’t that far off. 

 

Give me a brisk wind over plastic mustiness, and the lights of the heavens over artificial dullness. With Boethius, I would like to pass from gloom to color. 

 

 

 

1.8

 

In such a manner were the clouds of grief scattered. Then I drew breath again and engaged my mind in taking knowledge of my physician's countenance. So when I turned my eyes towards her and fixed my gaze upon her, I recognized my nurse, Philosophy, in whose chambers I had spent my life from earliest manhood. 

 

And I asked her, “Why have you, mistress of all virtues, come down from heaven above to visit my lonely place of banishment? Is it that you, as well as I, may be harried, the victim of false charges?”

 

 “Should I,” said she, “desert you, my nursling? Should I not share and bear my part of the burden that has been laid upon you from spite against my name? Surely Philosophy never allowed herself to let the innocent go upon their journey without a friend. 

 

“Do you think I would fear calumnies? That I would be terrified as though they were a new misfortune? Do you think that this is the first time that wisdom has been harassed by dangers among men of shameless ways?”

 

“In ancient days before the time of my child, Plato, have we not as well as nowadays fought many a mighty battle against the recklessness of folly? And though Plato did survive, did not his master, Socrates, win his victory of an unjust death, with me present at his side? 

 

“When after him the followers of Epicurus, and in turn the Stoics, and then others did all try their utmost to seize his legacy, they dragged me, for all my cries and struggles, as though to share me as plunder. 

 

“They tore my robe which I had woven with my own hands, and snatched away the fragments thereof, and when they thought I had altogether yielded myself to them, they departed.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 3

 

I fear I was born to be a reflective and philosophical person. That doesn’t mean I’ve ever managed to do it well, but it is my disposition nonetheless. There are those joyous times when I remember who I really am, and when I can thankfully put things in their proper perspective. These are the times I can be completely happy with myself, and with my appreciation of what is true and good, only for its own sake. 

 

These are the times when I recognize Philosophy as my nurse. 

 

None of it is about intellectual grandeur; I outgrew that illusion fairly quickly. No, it is about finding freedom and peace, living without all of the bells and the whistles, the trinkets and the trophies. It is about being able to know without a desire to manipulate by means of that knowledge, and being able to love without any ulterior motive for giving that love. 

 

I smile and nod when I hear Boethius ask Lady Philosophy if she is going to suffer just like him. I have often been angry when people insult and slander truth, but it is foolish of me to think that truth itself can really ever suffer from malice or manipulation. Truth is timeless, eternal, and invincible. I may choose to ignore it, but it always remains there for whenever I choose to return. 

 

Wisdom will never abandon me, though I have often sadly abandoned her. A real mother will never abandon her child, a dedicated lover never disposes of the beloved, and Philosophy will never neglect her followers. 

 

The world has many shameless and hateful people, who have chosen their own selfish profit as the measure of their actions, whatever the cost to others may be. They can be quite fond of harassing Philosophy, because they know that truth and virtue stand in their way.

 

Yet the world also has many wise and loving people, who will give of themselves at every turn. They will turn to Philosophy as a comforter and as a friend. 

 

We see more of the former, because they enjoy drawing attention to themselves. We don’t always see the latter, because they serve something greater than themselves. 

 

When I first read this passage, I had to do the classic double take. How could Socrates possibly be said to have won a victory by being killed unjustly? Surely his shameless persecutors won the victory, and he was defeated? I had to read further to make any sense of this, but it reflects the incredible way that Boethius turns our expectations around by asking us to reconsider our most basic values. Stay tuned. 

 

I hesitate to use such an ugly and powerful word, but I feel that I must. Some people attempt to symbolically rape Philosophy, because they try to make themselves masters of the truth. The shameless and hateful folks grab onto what little bit they think might be useful to help them feel powerful, they take it for themselves by force, and they leave behind everything else. 

 

She won’t have any of it. A good man should surely know the greatness of a better woman. Wisdom is far stronger than the shallowness of my greedy passions. 

 

 

 

1.9

 

“And since among them were to be seen certain signs of my outward bearing, others ill-advised did think they wore my livery. Thus were many of them undone by the errors of the herd of uninitiated. 

 

“But if you have not heard of the exile of Anaxagoras, nor the poison drunk by Socrates, nor the torture of Zeno, which all were of foreign lands, yet you may know of Canius, Seneca, and Soranus, whose fame is neither small nor passing old. 

 

“Nothing else brought them to ruin but that, being built up in my ways, they appeared at variance with the desires of unscrupulous men. So it is no matter for your wonder if, in this sea of life, we are tossed about by storms from all sides; for to oppose evil men is the chief aim we set before ourselves. 

 

“Though the band of such men is great in numbers, yet is it to be condemned, for it is guided by no leader, but is hurried along at random, only by error running riot everywhere. If this band when warring against us presses too strongly upon us, our leader, Reason, gathers her forces into her citadel, while the enemy are busied in plundering useless baggage. 

 

“As they seize the most worthless things, we laugh at them from above, untroubled by the whole band of mad marauders, and we are defended by that rampart to which riotous folly may not hope to attain.”

 

—from Book 1, Prose 3

 

The mere appearance of wisdom, simply wearing the right colors, should never be confused with a commitment to wisdom. I know exactly what Lady Philosophy speaks of, because I have been guilty of it myself. I have mistaken the trappings of education for genuine understanding, and the image of cleverness for the presence of character. 

 

I have sadly done this whenever I lose sight of the example of real philosophers in this life, not the folks who mouth mere words, but those who will face danger for the love of truth. Some of them, like those that Lady Philosophy mentions, may have earned fame for their actions, but it was never fame that they sought. I have known many more in my life, however, who never wrote any profound books, or gave any great speeches, or received any recognition for their efforts. They not only pursued what was right through their deeds, but they were happy to do so. 

 

Making enemies simply for its own sake is hardly a good thing, but being thought an enemy by vicious men can well be a sign that we are starting to get something right. I’m told Winston Churchill never actually said it, but Victor Hugo apparently did:

 

You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud that thunders around everything that shines.

 

There are times I really need to remember what Philosophy says about bearing misfortune in order to oppose what is evil. The path of least resistance is not necessarily the right path. 

 

All of this may seem very noble to me, but it may also seem quite discouraging. It may suggest that in order to be a good man, I must be willing to lose everything for its sake. Here, however, I should be careful not make any assumptions of doom and gloom, because I must ask myself what it is really is that a wicked man gains, and what it might be that a good man actually loses?

 

This question is at the very heart of the Consolation. The vicious give the appearance of success, and the virtuous give the appearance of suffering, but all of this hinges on how we define victory or defeat, and what it is in life that will truly bring us happiness. 

 

I should consider the sorts of spoils that the brutal actually seek. They will run about the land seeking wealth, pleasure, or fame. Are those the same things that I should want? Perhaps these are not worthy goals at all, in which case I can leave them to those that desire them. Perhaps the very things I should seek can be like a fortress for me, impregnable to outside wickedness?

 

 

 

1.10

 

“He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, 

and set proud death beneath his feet, 

can look fortune in the face, 

unbending both to good and bad: 

His countenance he can show unconquered. 

The rage and threatening of the sea will not move him, 

though they stir from its depths the upheaving swell. 

Vesuvius' furnaces may never so often burst forth, 

and he may send rolling upwards smoke and fire. 

The lightning, whose wont it is to smite down lofty towers, 

may flash upon its way, 

but such men they shall never move. 

Why then do they stand wretched and aghast 

when fierce tyrants rage in impotence? 

Fear nothing, and hope nothing. 

Thus shall you have a weak man's rage disarmed. 

But whoever fears with trembling,

or desires anything from them, 

he stands not firmly rooted, but dependent. 

Thus has he thrown away his shield. 

He can be rooted up, 

and he links for himself the very chain whereby he may be dragged.”

 

—from Book 1, Poem 4

 

On the one hand, I am encouraged by the idea that it is possible to both live well and live happily in the face of suffering. On the other hand, some of these obstacles still seem too overwhelming. 

 

Reconciling myself to fate may sound ominous and defeatist, and setting death beneath my feet may seem rash and careless. Perhaps I can begin with an aspect that is more manageable for my wounded sensibilities? What does it mean to say that I can face fortune, and be unbending in the face of whatever is good or bad?

 

At first, even this may also feel like too much. Surely I want too pursue good things, and I want to avoid bad things? If I do not bend in the face of either, one way or the other, is that not a foolish thing to do? It hardly seems strong or brave to neglect the difference between things that are beneficial or harmful. 

 

But Lady Philosophy is not telling me to be indifferent to anything and everything, but to be firm particularly in the face of fortune. Fortune, of course, is about the things that happen to me, the events in the world around me that can affect me one way or another. I will usually assume that these external circumstances are what make me happy or miserable, and very many people will likely agree. But is that necessarily the case?

 

I need to ask myself what kind of life it will really be if I make fortune my master. Things will occur, some pleasing and some disturbing, and everything about my own existence will now depend on those things. Very often, we have absolutely no control over these occurrences. 

 

This suddenly appears as quite a weak life, quite a directionless life, and quite a dependent life. An infant can provide virtually nothing for himself, and requires most everything for his well-being to come from outside of himself, but this doesn’t seem to be the same for a full-grown man, who can think, choose, and act for himself. 

 

If I could learn to rely on myself, instead of what happens to me, I could also learn to be stronger in the face of what opposes me. I could find ways to not let fortune bend me as much as it does. I wouldn’t need to fear certain events, or hope for certain events, if I could make my own value less contingent on those events. I would discern good and bad in a different way. 

 

Fate and death suddenly don’t feel so intimidating when seen in this sort of a light. Fate is what is going to happen, and death is one of those things that are going to happen, in some manner or form. These conditions won’t disturb me if what is good in my life isn’t shaped by them. It isn’t defeatism or carelessness if I only recognize that they aren’t what matters in life. 

 

The images of the forces of Nature, of the seas, the earth, and the skies lashing out at us, are surely grand, but they can point me to a very practical truth. If a captain confident in his seamanship can ride through a raging storm, why can’t I ride through the raging of a tyrant? 

 

I can try to make a shield for myself, or I can resign myself to forging the links of the very chains that enslave me. 

 

 

 

1.11

 

“Are such your experiences, and do they sink into your soul?” she asked. 

 

“Do you listen only as the dull ass to the lyre? Why do you weep? Wherefore flow your tears? 

 

“Speak, nor keep secrets in your heart. If you expect a physician to help you, you must lay bare your wound.”

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

I take only these very few lines as a separate entry, because they are charged with meaning for me. Whenever I reread the Consolation, I always end up stopping right here for a moment, and I gather my bearings. 

 

First, what is it that is driving me to despair? Second, what am I actually doing to find a cure? It is the very act of despair, of course, the very assumption that there can be no comfort, that leads me to think that there can be no solution. 

 

It isn’t necessarily a sign of personal weakness to be lost, but I am certainly giving up entirely when I fail to seek help, when I don’t ask for directions, or when I don’t bother to understand those directions. If they make no sense, I should not be afraid to ask again. 

 

My wife tells me this is a distinctly masculine failing, an unwillingness to admit that I can’t do it all for myself. I don’t know if it’s only a manly sort of weakness, but I do know it is a very foolish thing. The strength of self-reliance is never the same thing as stubbornly closing myself off to all the sources of inspiration and wisdom that are around me. 

 

Now how often have I stared blindly at a map, trying to get somewhere, while not even knowing where I am to begin with? What shame would there be in rolling down the window, admitting I am befuddled, and asking a local to point the way? 

 

Despair for me, and the accompanying Black Dog, have always been about seeing everything that’s wrong, and recognizing nothing that’s right. 

 

When I perceived everything about my life going down the tubes, the few people who stuck with me offered all sorts of advice. Much of it suggested denial, repression, or mere force of will. I was grateful for the concern, but I saw immediately how that was not the right path. That was about dodging reality, not about managing it. 

 

I saw red, for example, when someone urged me to make myself rich and famous, and then I could stick it to all the people who had done me wrong. Someone else told me I should pray harder to make myself tougher, and someone else told me it was just all about getting seriously medicated by a doctor. My favorite was someone who told me I should just stop caring, and then there would be no more worries. 

 

I saw some misguided advice, and decided that there could never be any good advice. I clammed up, and said as little as I possibly could. 

 

One day, I somehow ended up sitting with someone who wouldn’t let me weasel my way out of it. 

 

“I can’t help you if you won’t even tell me what’s wrong!”

 

When I was child, my mother would ask me where it hurt, and I would point right to the spot, whether I had twisted my ankle, bumped my head, skinned my knee, or felt sad. If I felt sad, I would point to my heart. She always had a remedy. 

 

Lady Philosophy is like the mother who can only help you if you point to where it hurts. Nothing will ever turn out right, if I cannot first admit what is wrong. There can be no diagnosis without revealing the signs and symptoms. 

 

Boethius will go on for some time now about his worries, but I don’t think he’s just complaining. He’s also finally explaining what is ripping him apart. 

 

 

 

1.12

 

Then did I rally my spirit until it was strong again, and answered, “Does the savage bitterness of my fortune still need recounting? Does it not stand forth plainly enough of itself? 

 

“Does not the very aspect of this place strike you? Is this the library that you had chosen for yourself as your sure resting place in my house? Is this the room in which you would so often tarry with me, expounding the philosophy of things human and divine? 

 

“Was my condition like this, or my countenance, when I probed with your aid the secrets of Nature, when you marked out with a wand the courses of the stars, when you shaped our habits and the rule of all our life by the pattern of the Universe?

 

“Are these the rewards we reap by yielding ourselves to you? No, you yourself have established this saying by the mouth of Plato, that commonwealths would be blessed if they were guided by those who made wisdom their study, or if those who guided them would make wisdom their study.

 

“By the mouth of that same great man did you teach that this was the binding reason why a commonwealth should be governed by philosophers, namely that the helm of government should not be left to unscrupulous or criminal citizens, lest they should bring corruption and ruin upon the good citizens.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

Boethius’ grief has here made him indignant, even resentful. I can usually tell that my own thinking is off balance when I respond to a question by saying something like “isn’t it obvious?”

 

Bitter sarcasm can also be a symptom of my closed mind and short temper. Lady Philosophy had offered Boethius rest and comfort through the pursuit of wisdom, and she had assured him that a life of virtue would provide the greatest blessings. Apparently being attacked from all sides, the loss of position and honor, and the approach of impending death are the fullness of that comfort and blessing? 

 

I think it fitting that Boethius appeals to some of the arguments from Plato’s Republic, and I have also found myself deeply affected by them. The Republic is a sprawling text, touching on most every aspect of philosophy, but it grows from a quest for the definition of justice, and proceeds by means of a discussion on the qualities of an ideal society. We can only know what it means to be a just man when we discover how it is that all people in a community should come to live together, all of them with their own distinct strengths and contributions. 

 

Whose judgment should be the highest authority in the state? Surely we must ask ourselves what sort of human excellence can be of benefit not just for some, but for all. Merely being smart or clever, having riches and power, or possessing popularity and charm will not be enough, because each of those attributes can be both used and abused. What is required first and foremost is the ability to distinguish true from false, and right from wrong to begin with, the virtue of wisdom. Nothing in life will be good if we are not guided toward a proper end. 

 

For this reason, Plato has Socrates suggest a novel solution. We shouldn’t have rulers who are career politicians, who have learned how to play the game, or generals, who have learned to impose military might, or businessmen, who have learned how to buy influence with their money, or even fine orators, who have learned how to rouse popular opinion with their words. Instead, a community will be on the road to justice when philosophers become kings, or when kings become philosophers. 

 

None of this will make any sense if we misunderstand what Plato means by a philosopher, or if we neglect to even consider the ultimate purpose of human nature. But Boethius seems to have understood that only wise men, committed to the knowledge of the truth and the love of the good, can help to keep us safe from the schemes of wicked and selfish men. Virtue is the only antidote to vice. 

 

Lady Philosophy, through the mouth of Plato, taught Boethius these things, but there seems to be no sign of justice. Where is the resting place, and where are the rewards? Instead, he sees only more of the same corruption and ruin. 

 

I can almost picture Boethius gritting his teeth and boiling with anger. I think of the times when someone may have promised me the world, but it all came to nothing, and the frustration I have felt both at another for deceiving me, and at myself for allowing myself to be deceived. When I get into this kind of dark mood, I immediately think of my favorite cynical joke:

 

What are three biggest lies in the world? “The check is in the mail”,  “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”, and “I love you”. Boethius surely feels like Lady Philosophy seems to have made a promise she didn’t keep. 

 

Yet even the first time I read these passages, before I knew where Lady Philosophy was going to go with her arguments, I already thought I saw something of a problem with Boethius’ lament. He understands that the philosopher, the wise man who is best suited to discover meaning in life, must oppose the greed of the vicious man. Now the vicious man is misled by a desire for wealth, power, gratification, and fame, and Boethius is bemoaning the loss of precisely these things. 

 

Why should I even seek those same things? Why should I define my character by the terms of criminal wants? Why am I assuming that a life of justice should yield the same rewards as a life of corruption? I surely can’t claim to order my life around a higher measure, and then complain about losing the trappings of a lower measure. 

 

 

 

1.13

 

“Since, then, I had learned from you in quiet and inaction of this view, and I followed it further, for I desired to practice it in public government. 

 

“You, and God Himself, who has grafted you in the minds of philosophers, are my witnesses that never have I applied myself to any office of state except that I might work for the common welfare of all good men. 

 

“From there followed bitter quarrels with evil men which could not be appeased, and, for the sake of preserving justice, contempt of the enmity of those in power, for this is the result of a free and fearless conscience.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

I suppose Boethius is angry that Lady Philosophy had told him about all sorts of wonderful things, but that she had never done any work to actively make them happen. 

 

Yet perhaps she had done quite a few things to make them happen, not least among them encouraging Boethius to act for himself. He did indeed decide he wished to go into politics, so that he could work to make the wrong things right. 

 

When I was a child, my father would often use the term “Crusader Rabbit” for anyone who was fired up to change the world. It was only years later that I realized this was a reference to one of the first television cartoons from his own childhood, with our titular hero and his sidekick, Ragland T. Tiger, righting wrongs in the face of the evil Dudley Nightshade. Those of us from a later generation may know something similar, with Rocky and Bullwinkle. 

 

In the comics, cartoons, and most of our popular films, the ‘good guy’ always ends up winning. The Crusader Rabbit is always triumphant. But define winning, and define triumph. I was told in college, for example, that winning was success, and success was becoming rich, and becoming important. 

 

How many of us have dedicated our lives to that false ideal, and how many of us are just as dazed and confused as we were to begin with? What you have, or what you are given, will make you no better. Who you are will make you better. 

 

Consider Boethius himself. How could the political life make him better and happier? He wanted to change the world. He wanted his countrymen, no longer the citizens of Ancient Rome but the subjects of a Gothic king, to live with justice, and he apparently did everything he could to make that happen.

 

Now look where that got him. 

 

I think of Socrates from Plato’s Apology, where he explains what politics would be to an honest man:

 

For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself. And don't be offended at my telling you the truth. 

 

For the truth is that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of unrighteousness and wrong in the state, will save his life. 

 

He who will really fight for the right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station, and not a public one.

 

Did Boethius really think that playing the game of power, while still inspired by a sense of justice, would somehow make him rich, popular, or mighty? It certainly would have done so if he had played it a certain way, but integrity and honesty were not that way. He brought all the wrongs cards to the table. 

 

I should fight evil men, and I should fight for my conscience, but I should never expect to defeat evil men on their own terms. I should hope to help myself, and to help others, on quite different terms. 

 

I fear I was always made to be a Crusader Rabbit. I itch and I burn when I see the entitled take advantage of the dispossessed. I should fight the good fight, and I should engage in a quarrel when called for, but I should use love as my weapon, not my hatred. 

 

 

 

1.14

 

“How often have I withstood Conigastus to his face, whenever he has attacked a weak man's fortune! How often have I turned by force Trigulla, the overseer of the Emperor's household, from an unjust act that he had begun or even carried out! How many times have I put my own authority in danger by protecting those wretched people who were harried with unending false charges by the greed of barbarian Goths which ever went unpunished! 

 

“Never, I say, has any man depraved me from justice to injustice. My heart has ached as bitterly as those of the sufferers when I have seen the fortunes of our subjects ruined both by the rapacity of persons and the taxes of the state. 

 

“Again, in a time of severe famine, a grievous, intolerable sale by compulsion was decreed in Campania, and devastation threatened that province. Then I undertook for the sake of the common welfare a struggle against the commander of the Imperial guard. Though the king was aware of it, I fought against the enforcement of the sale, and fought successfully. 

 

“Paulinus was a man who had been consul. The jackals of the court had in their own hopes and desires already swallowed up his possessions, but I snatched him from their very gaping jaws. I exposed myself to the hatred of the treacherous informer Cyprian, so that I might prevent Albinus, also a former consul, being overwhelmed by the penalty of a trumped-up charge. Think you that I have raised up against myself bitter and great quarrels enough? 

 

“But I ought to have been safer among those whom I helped; for, from my love of justice, I laid up for myself among the courtiers no resource to which I might turn for safety. 

 

“Who, further, were the informers upon whose evidence I was banished? One was Basilius. He was formerly expelled from the royal service, and was driven by debt to inform against me. Again, Opilio and Gaudentius had been condemned to exile by the king for many unjust acts and crimes. This decree they would not obey, and they sought sanctuary in sacred buildings, but when the king was aware of it, he declared that if they departed not from Ravenna before a certain day, they should be driven forth branded upon their foreheads. What could be more stringent than this? Yet upon that very day information against me was laid by these same men, and accepted. 

 

“Why so? Did my character deserve this treatment? Or did my prearranged condemnation give credit and justification to my accusers? Did Fortune feel no shame for this? If not for innocence defamed, at any rate for the baseness of the defamers?” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

Boethius is suddenly quite talkative, and I can hardly blame him. He is a man with a powerful conscience, and it rips him apart to see the unjust have their way. He is also a man who has been deeply hurt, and this is an expression of his pain. He is most certainly following Lady Philosophy’s advice to lay bare his wound. 

 

As difficult as it is for me, I try not to assume that Boethius is necessarily thinking in the same way that I think, but I feel like I have been in much the same place he describes. My own experiences have never been as grand in their scale, but they have certainly been as deep in their sorrow. I often find it very hard to distinguish between an anger that is righteous, and an anger that is nothing more than spite and resentment. My great-grandfather once told me that there was a great difference between being right and being full of piss and vinegar. 

 

Boethius is rightly concerned about two rather terrifying things in this world: that bad people succeed in their efforts, and that good people suffer so greatly as a consequence. 

 

If I look back through the years, I see much the same thing, not simply as an occasional aberration, but as a fairly consistent pattern. Far too many of the most decent, loving, and principled people I have known seemingly ended up with no reward for their values. Far too many of the most deceptive, selfish, and manipulative people I have known are now at the top of the heap, looking down at the rest of us with smug satisfaction. 

 

This is all the more frustrating when I know full well what someone is up to, but he is clever enough to also know that he has covered his tracks with impeccable care, and that there is no way I could ever expose his misdeeds, or call him to justice. It isn’t just that evil triumphs over good, but also that manipulation triumphs over truth. 

 

I am sure that every person who has ever loved what is right and good has had his own versions of Conigastus, Trigulla, Cyprian, Basilius, Opilio, or Gaudentius. Many of the same kind of people are still running our businesses, our schools, our courts, or our government. The names change, but the abuses just seem to stay the same. 

 

I taught for a number of years at a small Catholic, Liberal Arts college, where the opportunity to help students think for themselves would keep me going, but the abuses of a grossly corrupt administration would drive me to tears. 

 

It became all the more unbearable when I slowly learned that one of our priests was sexually abusing our female students. I pursued every option I could, more carefully at first, and more firmly as the matter progressed, but I was met only with other priests making excuses for the crimes, a faculty concerned only with their own careers, and a Board of Directors that looked the other way. A scandal would hardly help their prestige and profit.

 

One day, I saw, with my own eyes, that very priest with his hands on the parts of a girl where they should most certainly not have been. I lay awake all night, knowing that I could do the right thing, and lose my job. Or I could keep my job, and live with my guilt as an accessory.

 

If I am given the time and patience to reflect, I know I ended up doing the right thing. At the same time, I ended up losing everything I loved doing in this life. I will most likely never teach again, because nobody likes a snitch, especially not in academia, where personal pride trumps moral principles most every time. 

 

I felt disgusted by the wrong that had been done, but I then also felt the deepest despair with the consequences I had to face. How could this be right? The priest continues in his usual ways, the cock of the walk, no pun intended at all, and the faculty and administrators who enabled him continue to go from strength to strength. 

 

I was called a troublemaker, a liar, and a traitor. Students I loved and respected told me I would go to Hell for criticizing the Church. Colleagues I thought were friends were suddenly nowhere to be found. 

 

Once again, my experience is hardly very grand, but it is still very deep in its sorrow. 

 

There are moments, when like Boethius, I feel that there is no justice in this world. There only seems to be power and its many abuses. I even begin to speculate that if there is indeed a God, He perhaps finds some perverse satisfaction in watching decency get stepped on. In the immortal words of Depeche Mode:

 

I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors

But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor

And when I die

I expect to find Him laughing

 

I once had a rather abrasive friend who told me it could be worse: “Why assume He cares at all? Instead of laughing, he may just ignore you completely, just like everyone else does.”

 

I know very well that this is not the answer, but the temptation to surrender to despair is mightily strong. 

 

So when Boethius has his litany of offenders, and his list of wrongs, I get it completely. 

 

I’ve been there. 

 

 

 

1.15

 

“Would you learn the sum of the charges against me? It was said that ‘I had desired the safety of the Senate.’ You would learn in what way. I was charged with ‘having hindered an informer from producing papers by which the Senate could be accused of treason.’ 

 

“What think you, my mistress? Shall I deny it lest it shame you? No, I did desire the safety of the Senate, nor shall I ever cease to desire it. Shall I confess it? Then there would have been no need to hinder an informer. Shall I call it a crime to have wished for the safety of that order? By its own decrees concerning myself it has established that this is a crime. Though want of foresight often deceives itself, it cannot alter the merits of facts, and, in obedience to the Senate's command, I cannot think it right to hide the truth or to assent to falsehood. 

 

“However, I leave it to your judgment, and that of philosophers, to decide how the justice of this may be; but I have committed to writing for history the true course of events, that posterity may not be ignorant of them. 

 

“I think it unnecessary to speak of the forged letters through which I am accused of ‘hoping for the freedom of Rome.’ Their falsity would have been apparent if I had been free to question the evidence of the informers themselves, for their confessions have much force in all such business.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

Notice how the very wording of the charges reveals the difference between Boethius and his accusers. Boethius will gladly confess to such a claim, because he believes he is defending the safety of the Senate when he stands for integrity and justice. From his perspective, the institution can only thrive when the rule of law is respected, and when its mission of service is protected. 

 

But wicked people think very differently than righteous people. Safety, for the accusers, is not about the common good, but about ensuring personal interest. The only benefit for them is the increase of their own wealth, power, and influence, and they surely assume that others desire the very same things that they do. What they mean is that the kind of safety Boethius seeks would be a threat to themselves. 

 

Two opposing senses of safety follow from two opposing senses of benefit. A true patriot, for example, will gladly fight and die to protect his neighbors, while a false patriot will gladly allow his neighbors to fight and die to protect him.

 

Any institution, of any sort, shows its strength when people work together for a shared goal, and it shows its weakness when it becomes a means for conflict and selfish profit. I can imagine many of Boethius’ readers, from many times and places, understanding quite well what has happened, because while they have sometimes seen their own institutions succeed, they have for more often seen them fail. 

 

I have never really been in any great position of power, but I have, on occasion, had the opportunity, and the horror, of observing how things tend to work on the inside. I do not necessarily assume any malice, but whenever an organization is faced with a problem, the immediate instinct is to circle the wagons. The goal will usually be to preserve appearances, and to secure the position of all those involved. If a weaker member of the pack must be sacrificed to save the stronger ones, that is seen as an unfortunate but necessary part of doing business. 

 

And that is exactly how many of us will see the sort of mess that Boethius has gotten himself into. That’s how the world works, and if you want to make an omelet, you’ll have to break a few eggs. We see how the game is played, and we simply accept the rules, however unfair they might be. 

 

We obviously don’t know exactly what was going on in the minds of the senators, but enough of them clearly thought their idea of safety was in direct conflict with Boethius’ idea of safety, and that the promotion of their interests required damage to the interests of others. 

 

Boethius, however, is the sort of man who stands out from the crowd. For all the ways he may be confused, he still tries to act on principle, and he doesn’t think the ends justify the means, or that some must suffer so others can succeed. Remember that all of this started when he stood up for someone he thought an innocent victim, and now he in turn has to be the victim. 

 

His own power and position have been destroyed, and he finds this unfair, but he is perhaps even more troubled by the gravity of the offense against the truth itself. It can be hard to decide whether it is more painful to suffer an offense myself, or to see something I deeply love and respect suffer an offense. 

 

 

 

1.16

 

“But what avails it? No liberty is left to hope for. Would that there were any! I would answer in the words of Canius, who was accused by Gaius Caesar, Germanicus' son, of being cognizant of a plot against himself: ‘If I had known of it, you would not have.’

 

“And in this matter grief has not so blunted my powers that I should complain of wicked men making impious attacks upon virtue. But at this I do wonder, that they should hope to succeed. Evil desires are, it may be, due to our natural failings, but that the conceptions of any wicked mind should prevail against innocence while God watches over us, seems to me unnatural. 

 

“Wherefore not without cause has one of your own followers asked: ‘If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?’

 

“Again, let impious men, who thirst for the blood of the whole Senate and of all good citizens, be allowed to wish for the ruin of us too whom they recognize as champions of the Senate and all good citizens. But surely such as I have not deserved the same hatred from the members of the Senate too?” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

Boethius is worried that there is really no prospect for making any of these things better. He thinks of the times of Gaius Caesar, son of Germanicus, better known as Caligula, when tyranny, oppression, lies, schemes, and plots were all tangled together. How can an honest man know what to do?

 

His concerns show more than just a feeling of general frustration, but they begin to reveal a clear order of reasoning. They are not just vague complaints about unfairness, but they consider a distinction on exactly why he thinks certain things are unjust. In the simplest of terms, the problem isn’t just that people are vicious, but that people are somehow rewarded for being vicious.

 

My own experience has shown me something quite similar. I can still come to terms with the fact that a man’s thoughts may be selfish, his intentions may be hateful, his words may be dishonest, and his actions may be violent. This is, so to speak, just still within my “comfort zone”, where life provides an obstacle, but the obstacle can still be overcome. It may take some effort, there may be some sacrifices, and it won’t happen overnight, but by the end, the wrong will have been made right. Good wins. 

 

No, the real horror is not only that the wrong never seems to be made right, but also that the wrong just seems to become ever more wrong. All the disordered thoughts, intentions, words, and actions bring the wicked man to even greater success. He not only wants all the wrong things, but he is actually given everything that he wants. His achievement is built on the suffering of the innocent. This is the most unbearable aspect of a world where there is evil. 

 

We can consider the same problem on a higher, and deeper, level, as a question of metaphysics and cosmology, of the order of the Universe itself. This makes it all the more disturbing, and it seems all the more insurmountable. 

 

If we are to posit a God who rules over everything, all-knowing and all-powerful, it doesn’t seem right for him to allow such injustices to occur on his watch. Boethius must confront a question most everyone faces, in one form or another: If God exists, why does he permit the existence of evil? If God does not exist, where is there any hope for a stable good?

 

These two questions must necessarily go together. God might not exist at all, or at the very least He is too unaware, too weak, or too disinterested to care for such matters, which effectively amounts to much the same thing. Many of us will indeed come to this sort of conclusion, because it is the easiest solution to the fact that our lives are not as fair as we would happen to like them to be. 

 

We may, however, have gone from the fat into the fire. Where can we discover any absolute measure of the good, if God is not its ultimate source? In trying to explain evil by explaining away God, have I not also explained away any possibility of the very just world I would so like to see?

 

Boethius’ dilemma seems quite formidable, and you and I also struggle with it in our own ways. We might see why God could allow there to be bad men, so that we can learn to fight the good fight. But this seems pointless if there is no chance of winning the fight against them. They always seem to be one step ahead of us.

 

 

 

1.17

 

“Since you were always present to guide me in my words and my deeds, I think you remember what happened at Verona. When King Theodoric, desiring the common ruin of the Senate, was for extending to the whole order the charge of treason laid against Albinus, you remember how I labored to defend the innocence of the order without any care for my own danger? You know that I declare this truthfully and with no boasting praise of self. For the secret value of a conscience, that approves its own action, is lessened somewhat each time that it receives the reward of fame by displaying its deeds. 

 

“But you see what end has fallen upon my innocence. In the place of the rewards of honest virtue, I am suffering the punishments of an ill deed that was not mine. And did ever any direct confession of a crime find its judges so well agreed upon exercising harshness, that neither the liability of the human heart to err, nor the changeableness of the fortune of all mankind, could yield one dissenting voice? 

 

“If it had been said that I had wished to burn down temples, to murder with sacrilegious sword their priests, that I had planned the massacre of all good citizens, even so I should have been present to plead guilty or to be convicted, before the sentence was executed. But here am I, nearly five hundred miles away, without the opportunity of defending myself, condemned to death and the confiscation of my property because of my too great zeal for the Senate. 

 

“Ah! Well have they deserved that none should ever be liable to be convicted on such a charge! Even those who laid information have seen the honor of this accusation, for, that they might blacken it with some criminal ingredient, they had need to lie, saying that I had violated my conscience by using unholy means to obtain offices corruptly.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

“No good deed goes unpunished,” they would plaintively tell me, and I would wonder if this was intended to encourage me or discourage me in being good. Where is there any good in the deed, if it will not, in turn, yield good things? Am I misunderstanding the whole nature of true rewards and true punishments?

 

The irony of his situation is not lost on Boethius, as it not lost on anyone who has been in the same sort of place. Boethius intended to do right by the Senate, and to save its members from harm. Instead, the very people he was trying to protect have turned on him, and seeing the way the wind was blowing, are now more than happy to accuse him of a crime, however much they have to lie to make their own case, or deny him the right to defend himself. 

 

I recall how my third grade teacher was convinced that a girl in the class has stolen some art supplies from the classroom during the lunch break, and the girl’s friend insisted that couldn’t be true, because they had been together the whole time. Now both girls had their parents called, one for being a thief, the other for being a liar. 

 

A decent and honest fellow I knew very well later told me he had seen the art supplies in another child’s bag, but he said he was too afraid to say anything. Unpleasant experiences like that have a way of sticking with you. I can still vividly picture those two girls sitting outside the principal’s office, both crying. 

 

We may need to face unpleasant consequences for following what we think is right, but is that a reason to stand down? Should we only speak out or act up when the results are going to be convenient?

 

Boethius is angered by the results, yet he still has a sense in this passage that right and wrong are not merely measured by their utility. He knows, for example, that following his conscience, and the private knowledge of his own virtue, are themselves their own reward, regardless of whether he is praised. After all, he says, he did the right thing for its own sake, not to show off, or because of any recognition. 

 

Is it that much of a stretch to also say that following his conscience, and the private knowledge of his own virtue, are themselves their own reward, regardless of whether he is condemned?

 

If virtue is something good, it will surely bring us benefit. The question, however, is what sort of benefit that will be, and what measure of reward the good man should seek. Are fame, riches, and even the life of the body things worth caring about for their own sake, or are there perhaps some greater standards to live up to?

 

Help me to understand the whole nature of true rewards and true punishments in this life, so that I can learn to be happy with my own actions. 

 

 

 

1.18

 

“But you, by being planted within me, dispelled from the chamber of my soul all craving for that which perishes, and where your eyes were looking there could be no place for any such sacrilege. For you instilled into my ears, and thus into my daily thoughts, that saying of Pythagoras, ‘Follow after God.’ 

 

Nor was it seemly that I, whom you had built up to such excellence that you made me as a god, should seek the support of the basest wills of men. 

 

“Yet, further, the innocent life within my home, my gathering of most honorable friends, my father-in-law Symmachus, a man esteemed no less in his public life than for his private conscientiousness, these all put far from me all suspicion of this crime. 

 

“But—O the shame of it!—it is from you that they think they derive the warrant for such a charge, and we seem to them to be allied to ill-doing from this very fact that we are steeped in the principles of your teaching, and trained in your manners of life. 

 

“Thus it is not enough that my deep respect for you has profited me nothing, but you yourself have received wanton insult from the hatred that had rather fallen on me. 

 

“Yet besides this, is another load added to my heap of woes: the judgment of the world looks not to the justice of the case, but to the evolution of chance, and holds that only this has been intended which good fortune may chance to foster. Whence it comes that the good opinion of the world is the first to desert the unfortunate. It is wearisome to recall what were the tales by people told, or how little their many various opinions agreed.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

However much Boethius may be ranting as he lays bare the wound, his rant is hardly without an appeal to reason. 

 

Philosophy had taught him what was right, and had always reminded him to stay the course, to cling to what is absolute and virtuous, never to be swayed by what is changeable and vicious. She told him to follow the ways of God, not the ways of men. Perhaps Boethius can even come to terms with the harm done to him, yet he also considers many different aspects of how this injustice does an even deeper harm. It affects not only the aspects of his life, but the conditions of the whole world around him.

 

First, it is one thing to accept suffering for oneself, and quite another to allow it to be forced upon others. Boethius’ wife will be left a widow, his children fatherless, and their reputations will be forever ruined by the scandal. His friends, who had always looked to him for support, will no longer have that reliable companion to turn to in in their time of need. They may remain convinced of his innocence, but what are they truly to think of him, and how will this affect their opinion of the Philosophy that he so loved?

 

I think of a nineteenth century painting by Jean-Victor Schnetz, The Farewell of Consul Boethius to his Family, and I can only ponder the deep personal loss and disappointment they must face, both by being separated from him, and from having to experience the failure of the values he had so cherished. 

 

I have never heard anything about what became of Boethius’ wife and children, though I cannot imagine they emerged unscathed. His mentor and father-in-law, Symmachus, was eventually also executed for his perceived role in the plot. 

 

One of the greatest burdens of my own life has been worrying what will become of my own loved ones as a consequence of my actions, and whether they will end up thinking of me with respect, or cursing my name. 

 

Second, Philosophy herself, as the champion of what is true and good, also suffers at the hands of wickedness. When selfish and dishonest men act, they will disguise their vices with the appearance of virtue. I may well know of their deception, but what sort of an example does this provide to others? People will see the successes of corrupt men, and they will see that those corrupt men have associated themselves and their actions with wisdom and moral worth. What will anyone think about virtue, when he has only the model of greedy people who claim to practice virtue? 

 

I think of Colonel Slade from Scent of a Woman, when he calls out the hypocrisy of the Baird School: 

 

Mr. Sims doesn't want it. He doesn't need to labeled: "Still worthy of being a 'Baird Man.'" What the hell is that? What is your motto here? "Boys, inform on your classmates, save your hide"—anything short of that we're gonna burn you at the stake?

 

Sadly, that is exactly what too many of us will think we have learned, that character is not about integrity, but about self-preservation. Every victory by a scoundrel will encourage ten more to think it perfectly acceptable to be a scoundrel. 

 

Third, whenever wrong triumphs over right, people become more and more convinced that there is no longer any moral order in the world, but that our situation in this life is only subject to the chaos of good luck or bad luck. If the wicked prosper, and the righteous perish, how could that build a sense of trust in rewards and punishments being fair? Perhaps, we will begin to think, there are no deeper causes, there is no ultimate purpose, and we can never rely on justice. 

 

I think of all the times I see the guilty avoid what they deserve, and the innocent denied what they deserve. Unlike the old movies, the villain in the black hat often ends up running the town, and the hero in the white hat ends up shot in the back. Popular opinion is left with only fortune as a measure, and too soon we admire the fellow who happened to win, not the fellow who tried to do right.

 

The burden of injustice isn’t just about what I must bear, but the horror of being a witness to what so many others must bear, and how the love of truth is itself lost in the whole process. 

 

 

 

1.19

 

“This alone I would be willing to say: it is the last burden laid upon us by unkind fortune, that when any charge is invented to be fastened upon unhappy men, they are believed to have deserved all they have to bear. 

 

“For kindness I have received persecutions. I have been driven from all my possessions, stripped of my honors, and stained forever in my reputation. 

 

“I think I see the intoxication of joy in the sin-steeped dens of criminals. I see the most abandoned of men intent upon new and evil schemes of spying. I see honest men lying crushed with the fear that smites them after the result of my perilous case. Wicked men one and all are encouraged to dare every crime without fear of punishment, no, with hope of rewards for their accomplishment. 

 

“The innocent I see robbed not merely of their peace and safety, but even of all chance of defending themselves. So then I may cry aloud: ” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 4

 

What seems to make life so unbearable is not just our struggle of trying to do right, but also the consequence of being treated as if we were wrong. Human judgments will often have little to do with an honest consideration of merits, and will instead flow thoughtlessly from a conformity to popular opinion. Boethius finds himself condemned by a tyranny of appearances, unable to offer any defense against the force of presumption.

 

How many of us have read a news story, and immediately believed everything we read? How often do we agree with whatever our friends have to say, nodding our heads to feel like a part of the group? How easy is it for us to merely accept something because it is convenient, instead of taking the effort to consider it from a different point of view?

 

I can appreciate how Boethius describes the intoxicating effect of evil; we might also add that it can be infectious. We have surely all seen what happens to a crowd when a clever orator has grabbed our attention. The words sound so delicious, regardless of whether they are true. We are pulled in by our passions, even as sober understanding lags behind. We look around us, we see others increasingly excited, and we are sucked into a sort of critical mass, where individual judgment has surrendered to the feeding frenzy of the herd. 

 

The triumph of an evil deed sends mighty waves outwards into the world around us, inspiring others to join in, to gain their own leverage as quickly as they can, to grab their own piece of the spoils. Meanwhile, those who have resisted the fever will cower in terror, seeing how the power of the mob will keep anyone from protecting them.

 

I once was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and saw a convenience store being robbed. One man pulled a gun, and the clerk obediently opened the cash register for him. What struck me the most, however, was how many people in the store immediately took the opportunity to grab as many items from the shelves as they could, and ran out the door. They allowed the greed in one man to awaken their own greed. 

 

I had the sudden idea of taking a 40 oz. of malt liquor, sitting in the cooler right next to me, and rushing up behind the fellow, smashing him in the head. I didn’t do it, because I was a coward of convenience at that moment, not so much better than the thieves of convenience at that moment. 

 

I was still living in Boston, and still working for the Church, when the priest sex abuse scandal became public knowledge. Many of us had seen it going on for years, but those who spoke out were swiftly cast down. Then the whole scheme unraveled, and there was a sigh of relief. Perhaps there could finally be some justice. 

 

Indeed, it was gratifying to see some of the wrongs righted. Yet at the same time, I saw how the response to one wrong was grotesquely transformed into a whole new set of wrongs. Some of those I knew to have been guilty, by action or inaction, because I had seen it with my own eyes, jumped on the bandwagon, and completely avoided any blame. Others took advantage of the situation by accusing those who were innocent to make a profit for themselves. 

 

Such situations are hardly uncommon, where we use the sins of others as a cover for our own. Something wrong perversely becomes right, and we are even rewarded for our vices, because there are too few people left to hold the line. Unpleasant truths are smothered by the popularity of comforting lies. 

 

Boethius has gone on for some time here, but we must always keep in mind the essence of his agony: why does wickedness grow stronger by being rewarded, and why does righteousness grow weaker by being punished? Why does it seem that people don’t often become intoxicated and infected by compassion?

 

 

 

1.20

 

“Founder of the star-studded Universe, 

resting on Your eternal throne 

from where You turn the swiftly rolling sky, 

and bind the stars to keep Your law.

At Your word the moon now shines brightly with full face, 

ever turned to her brother's light, 

and so she dims the lesser lights. 

Or now she is herself obscured, 

for nearer to the sun her beams show her pale horns alone. 

Cool rises the evening star at night's first drawing near.

The same is the morning star 

who casts off the harness that she bore before, 

and paling meets the rising sun. 

When winter's cold does strip the trees, 

You set a shorter span to day. 

And You, when summer comes to warm, 

do change the short divisions of the night. 

Your power does order the seasons of the year, 

so that the western breeze of spring 

brings back the leaves which winter's north wind tore away. 

So that the dog-star's heat 

makes ripe the cars of corn whose seed Arcturus watched. 

Nothing breaks that ancient law. 

Nothing leaves undone the work appointed to its place. 

Thus all things You rule with limits fixed. 

The lives of men alone You scorn to restrain, 

as a guardian, within bounds.” 

 

—from Book 1, Poem 5

 

In this first part of the verse passage, Boethius reflects on the power of God. In the second part, he will wonder why there if still injustice under the rule of such power, and he will appeal to God to make things right. 

 

An appeal to God can make people rather uncomfortable, especially in our post-modern age, where the very concept is often frowned upon. I always suggest to new readers of the Consolation that they neither dismiss the idea off-hand, nor assume it means something narrow or dogmatic. Though what Boethius has to say can be understood very much in harmony with various forms of faith and theology, remember that he is concerned here with looking at the world in the light of reason and philosophy.

 

At this point in the text, one could even choose to look at the existence of God as a hypothesis, and then question how God’s existence can possibly be compatible with the existence of evil and suffering in the world. This is hardly a new question, and it has been asked time and time again, both by venerated philosophers and by everyday people. It is a problem that must be addressed, not only in theory, but also in practice. I can hardly make sense of what happens to me, and why it may happen, if I do not have an absolute measure of what is good, and how the world is ultimately ordered. 

 

Here Boethius suggests that God is the source and Creator of all things, and thereby also the ruler of all things. Whatever may happen, up in the heavens or here on earth, is subject to Divine power. This can surely elicit awe, wonder, and reverence from us. 

 

The idea is grand, but it is hardly beyond the scope of reason to consider. Perhaps lay aside, for the moment, any questions of different religious doctrines, and consider only the aspect of the Divine, by whatever name we may wish to call it, as being omnipotent, or all-powerful. 

 

We are all familiar in our experience with someone or something having greater or lesser strength, but the idea of God proposes a power that is absolute, and from which all other degrees of action must proceed. It is the difference between what finite and what is infinite, between what is limited and what has no limit.

 

A child will try to avoid the power of his parents by waiting until they aren’t looking, or a thief can try to take what isn’t his by breaking a lock. If God has no bounds to his power, however, there is no hiding from it, and there is no overpowering it. Boethius uses a range of wonderful poetic images to express this unfettered might. 

 

I was always raised with such an idea, and thankfully in such a way that I was not merely asked to accept it, but always encouraged to understand it. When I started asking how it all worked, I didn’t think I was being disrespectful, and when, Like Boethius, I wanted to figure out why God did or did not allow certain things, I felt that question came from a real need. 

 

 

 

1.21

 

“For why does Fortune with her fickle hand 

deal out such changing lots? 

The hurtful penalty is due to crime, 

but falls upon the sinless head. 

Depraved men rest at ease on thrones aloft, 

and by their unjust lot can spurn beneath their hurtful heel 

the necks of virtuous men. 

Beneath obscuring shadows lies bright virtue hid; 

the just man bears the unjust's infamy. 

They suffer not for forsworn oaths,

they suffer not for crimes glazed over with their lies. 

But when their will is to put forth their strength, 

with triumph they subdue the mightiest kings 

whom peoples in their thousands fear. 

O You, who weaves the bonds of Nature's self, 

look down upon this pitiable Earth!

Mankind is no base part of this great work, 

and we are tossed on Fortune's wave. 

Restrain, our Guardian, the engulfing surge, 

and as You who unbounded heaven rule, 

with a like bond make true and firm these lands.”

 

—from Book 1, Poem 5

 

We may think that God rules the entire Universe through His absolute power, but we also find that blind Fortune seems to determine so much of our lives. How are we to discover any agreement between the existence of a mighty Creator, who gives order to all things, and the fact that so many of those things appear to be quite disordered?

 

I have sometimes pondered this problem in terms of trying to harmonize the big picture with the small picture. “Up there”, in the great cosmic plan of things, everything has it place, but “down here”, in the daily grind of trying to make it through, I may not understand how that Divine blueprint could possibly be playing itself out. It’s as if all the order conceived within God’s mind doesn’t seem to seep or trickle down to my level. 

 

Evil people commit the crimes, and the good people suffer the punishment. Tyrants hold their sway over helpless victims. Virtue is somehow overwhelmed by vice, and justice is trampled by injustice. Promises are broken, and lies are the order of the day. Who bears the burden? Precisely those who try to be loyal and honest. 

 

How often do we indeed see the most brutal and hateful of monsters with the power to roll over everything in their path? It can be the dictator, the demagogue, the player, or the man without a conscience, but you will find him in too many places, big or small, from the bully who owns you where you work, to the ruler of a nation who will crush you without a second thought. Where is God’s power in all of this? 

 

As much as I may try to find the good in everything, I see so much more bad than good. What am I missing?

 

Perhaps God is not powerful enough to stop it, or He isn’t good enough to care, or He doesn’t know enough to notice. Yet as soon as I assume any of those things, I’m not talking about God at all. Perfection, that which has no limit, surely cannot admit of weakness, or evil, or ignorance. 

 

Boethius asks God to give us some respite. Please stop throwing us into a stormy ocean, and offer us a safe harbor. The crushing waves are too much to bear. Be the protector of righteousness we need You to be. 

 

This is the sort of thinking that always gets me into trouble, but in my darkest and most stubborn moments I will wonder why I should even need to ask for God to provide comfort from suffering. If He made me, he knows what I need. Why is He withholding it, and why must I beg? Don’t we all deserve to live the way He made us to live?

 

Most of the pieces to Boethius’ dilemma are now in place. It is the same stubborn problem that all honest, sincere, and conscientious people must face. 

 

There’s that desperate feeling that one can’t stay afloat much longer. 

 

At one of the lowest times in my life, when thoughts like these were so common, I remember hearing a song on the radio called “Flood”, by the band Jars of Clay. I immediately recognized the urgency behind it, and it reminded me of the Consolation right away:

 

Lift me up—when I'm falling.

Lift me up—I'm weak and I'm dying.

Lift me up—I need you to hold me.

Lift me up—and keep me from drowning again.

 

 

 

1.22

 

While I grieved so in long-drawn pratings, Philosophy looked on with a calm countenance, not one whit moved by my complaints. 

 

Then she said, “When I saw you in grief and in tears I knew thereby that you were unhappy and in exile, but I knew not how distant was your exile until your speech declared it. But you have not been driven so far from your home. You have wandered there yourself, or if you would rather hold that you have been driven, you have been driven by yourself, rather than by any other. 

 

“No other could have done so to you. For if you recall your true native country, you know that it is not under the rule of the many-headed people, as was Athens of old, but there is one Lord, one King, who rejoices in the greater number of His subjects, not in their banishment. 

 

“To be guided by His reins, to bow to His justice, is the highest liberty. Know you not that sacred and ancient law of your own state, by which it is enacted that no man, who would establish a dwelling-place for himself there, may lawfully be put forth? For there is no fear that any man should merit exile, if he is kept safe therein by its protecting walls.

 

“But any man that may no longer wish to dwell there, does equally no longer deserve to be there.” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 5

 

Lady Philosophy may have underestimated the degree of Boethius’ grief, but she is certain she is not mistaken about its root cause. He is convinced that because wrong has been done to him, he has been exiled from happiness. No, she insists, only you can exile yourself from your own happiness. 

 

As soon as Boethius casts blame, Philosophy asks him to reconsider the very measure of blame. As soon as Boethius has finished expressing all of his worries, Philosophy tells him that they are not his true worries at all. 

 

I have often looked at happiness as something precarious, something that others could snatch away at any moment. I have also had those times where I was certain it had already been taken from me, and wondered how I could somehow win it back. The assumption, of course, is that what has been given, can just as readily be taken away. But who is it that does the giving and the taking? 

 

Given how much time and effort we put into thinking about ourselves, it’s quite odd that it never occurs to us that we are the masters of our own happiness. It seems so apparent that we expect to receive the blessings of life from outside of us, without thinking that we can provide it for ourselves. 

 

Lady Philosophy here introduces a central argument to the entire text. We can’t be exiled from something that is ours to give and take. If we have lost it, it is because we have neglected it, or have wandered away. 

 

Together with this we are introduced to another central argument, that we can always be guaranteed to possess what is rightfully our own. Yes, both our circumstances and other people can, and will, take away many things we think belong to us, but that is because they are outside of us, and our attachment to them is tenuous. But how is man to be separated from himself? He possesses himself by his very existence. Only he can surrender himself. 

 

The very order of the Universe itself, which gives to everything its own distinct nature, assures us of this. The source of that order can have many names, but it is absolute, and not relative. It is one, and not many. It is perfect, and not flawed. Call it what you will, but Lady Philosophy will call it God. 

 

Always remember that the Universe is a monarchy, and not a democracy, given meaning and form through complete goodness. 

 

Lady Philosophy is not simply going to assume these basic principles, but will proceed to offer a variety of arguments for them for the remainder of the text. They will be the rational foundation for Boethius’ recovery. 

 

When Napoleon was finally exiled to St. Helena, they say he could think of nothing but the home he had lost, and he was filled with rage and despair. A classic painting by Sandmann has the fallen Emperor staring out over the wide ocean. Did he ever consider that his comfort was right there within him, that he was the one who had chosen to exile himself from happiness? 

 

 

 

1.23

 

“Wherefore it is your looks, rather than the aspect of this place that disturb me. It is not the walls of your library, decked with ivory and glass, that I need, but rather the resting place in your heart, wherein I have not stored books, but I have of old put that which gives value to books, a store of thoughts from books of mine. 

 

“As to your services to the common good, you have spoken truly, though but scantily, if you consider your manifold exertions. Of all that you have been charged with, either truthfully or falsely, you have but recorded what is well known. 

 

“As for the crimes and wicked lies of the informers, you have rightly thought fit to touch but shortly on them, for they are better and more fruitfully made common in the mouth of the crowd that discusses all matters. 

 

“You have loudly and strongly upbraided the unjust ingratitude of the Senate. 

 

“You have grieved over the charges made against myself, and shed tears over the insult to my fair fame. 

 

“Your last outburst of wrath was against Fortune, when you complained that she paid no fair rewards according to deserts. 

 

“Finally, you have prayed with the passionate Muse that the same peace and order, that are seen in the heavens, might also rule the earth. 

 

“But you are overwhelmed by this variety of mutinous passions: grief, rage, and gloom tear your mind asunder, and so in this present mood stronger measures cannot yet come nigh to heal you.

 

 “Let us, therefore, use gentler means, and since, just as matter in the body hardens into a swelling, so have these disquieting influences. Let these means soften by kindly handling the unhealthy spot, until it will bear a sharper remedy.”

 

—from Book 1, Prose 5

 

Boethius is terribly concerned about where he is, and not who he is. He thinks he has been exiled from something by forces beyond his control, but he has only exiled himself from the blessings of thinking and living for himself. He is still sitting in his own library, though under house arrest. It seems to be quite a fancy library, at that. All those books, the ones he has so cherished, still surround him, even as they are offering him no real comfort. 

 

I remember how often I faced the sort of loss and despair I thought I could never overcome, and I thrashed about, cried, or just wanted to crawl into a hole. The books they always told me would make my life better were right within my reach. I didn’t reach for those books, since it is never about the printed page itself. Writing and speech are the medium, but love and truth are the message; no amount of writings could help me if I was not willing to open up my heart and mind. 

 

Lady Philosophy asks me, as she asks Boethius, to look over all the complaints that have been made. Notice how everything of concern to us is about what happens to us, about all the things outside of us. We point to the accusers, to the informers, to those in the Senate, or in any body that has power, those people we feel have been so bold as to have their way with us. We blame bad luck, and then we go so far as to ask God to change it all, to make it all right, which implies that He was getting it all wrong before.

 

The books of wisdom, all the great texts of philosophy, won’t help, because the attitude we even began with is all wrong. There is that moment when I recognize that what I assumed was my worthlessness was nothing more than the most brazen arrogance. Why am I assuming the world owes me justice, when justice for me can only come from what I give of myself? 

 

This is why Lady Philosophy must begin very gently, and very slowly, in offering her remedies. I have allowed my passions to overcome my reason. I am hurt, and I am angry, and so I am no longer thinking about what is true and good. I am letting my feelings toss me around, between fear and hope, or surrender and resistance.

 

A member of a Twelve Step program I help run came to me recently, completely despondent. He had been working his recovery for almost two years, but had still not found any employment to help him make ends meet. Another member decided to take it out on him, and told him that his inability to find a job was due to his inner weakness. The fellow was deeply worried that he would slip, or even relapse, because of those words.

 

I understood completely. The other member, pardon my French, was being an ass. He was venting his own frustrations at someone who didn’t deserve it. Yet at the same time, I suggested that allowing the behavior of others to rule us was the very reason we were helpless in the face of this or that circumstance of our lives. 

 

Let the other man be an ass, I suggested, and help him with your own kindness if you can, or pray for him if that is right for you. But don’t allow you own efforts to make yourself better be in any way hampered by the attempts of others to make you worse. This is a chance to improve, not to be trodden down.

 

As I said those words, I realized that this advice was just as much for me as it was for him. I should worry about my own unhealthy spots, not those of the people around me. The world isn’t my problem. I am my problem. 

 

 

 

1.24

 

“When the sign of the crab scorches the field, 

fraught with the sun's most grievous rays, 

the husbandman, 

who has freely entrusted his seed to the fruitless furrow, 

is cheated by the faithless harvest goddess, 

and he must turn to the oak tree's fruit.

When the field is scarred by the bleak north winds, 

would you seek the wood's dark carpet to gather violets? 

If you enjoy the grapes, 

would you seek with clutching hand 

to prune the vines in spring? 

It is in autumn Bacchus brings his gifts. 

Thus God marks out the times,

and fits to them peculiar works. 

He has set out a course of change,

and lets no confusion come. 

If anything turns itself to headlong ways,

and leaves its sure design, 

there will be an ill outcome.”

 

—from Book 1, Poem 6

 

I have wasted so much of my time, thinking that is just about me, me, and more of me. Someone once said to me that the secret to life was simply taking every opportunity to get what I wanted. I needed to be strong, I was told, and to grab onto what I thought was rightly mine. No hesitation, no doubts. To the victor go the spoils. 

 

Let’s call this what it really is. It’s called playing God. 

 

Whenever I expect the world to go my way, I am doing nothing less than that. Whenever I force myself upon others, or assume that the ends justify the means, or cheat and lie to have my way, I am making myself the center. 

 

The crucial difference is that the ideal of God, the Absolute, however we may understand Him, is Himself a measure of perfection. I, on the other hand, am hardly perfect. I am a creature, not the Creator. Whenever I demand that it go my way, I am forgetting that my own way is only a part of the way of all things joined together, ruled by one order. I am not the fullness of that order. 

 

“I take every opportunity to get what I want.” Well, I may wish to take every opportunity, but does this extend to acting selfishly or thoughtlessly? And what is it even that I should rightly want? 

 

Nature will follow her own course, however much I may fight or protest. Images of farming, and of living off of the land, are lost to most of us, because most of us in the developed world live in a completely artificial bubble. What we make or produce no longer reflects the way of the land, or the changes of the seasons, or the harmony of the natural world. 

 

We pursue our vanities, and then use the spoils of those vanities to buy artificial products from others, tailored for our consumption. We become lawyers, or bankers, or fancy scholars, and then expect to be magically clothed, housed, and fed. We care little about where any of it came from, or how it was provided, as long as it’s all perfectly convenient.

 

A mentor of mine once put me in my place by telling me that I needed to try and grow my own fruits and vegetables, and to raise my own chickens to get some decent eggs. This could be as much about building character as it was about putting food on the table. He also suggested hunting for small game, but immediately added that this might be too much for my spoiled character. Goats, let alone cattle, he said, were way beyond my ability for the moment. 

 

I was deeply offended, though he was completely right. Nature will give me what I may need, but only if I understand how, where, and when to find it and make good use of it. 

 

I should not want to be served by Nature, but to find my way to rightly follow Nature. There will be an ill outcome as soon as I think otherwise. Everything has its own time and place. 

 

What is true of the harvest, is also true of the moral life. Summer won’t be spring, and winter won’t be fall, based upon my whims. How things will happen is how they are meant to be. How I humbly relate myself to what happens is who I am meant to be. 

 

 

 

1.25

 

“First then,” she continued, “will you let me find out and make trial of the state of your mind by a few small questions, so that I may understand what should be the method of your treatment?”

 

“Ask,” I said, “what your judgment would have you ask, and I will answer you.”

 

Then she said, “Do you think that this Universe is guided only at random and by mere chance? Or do you think there is any rule of reason constituted in it?”

 

“No, never would I think it could be so, nor believe that such sure motions could be made at random or by chance. I know that God, the founder of the Universe, does look over His work, nor ever may that day come that shall drive me to abandon this belief as untrue.”

 

“So is it,” she said, “and even as you cried just now, and only mourned that mankind alone has no part in this Divine guardianship, you were fixed in your belief that all other things are ruled by reason. How strange! 

 

“I wonder how it is that you can be so sick, though you are set in such a health-giving state of mind! But let us look deeper into it. I cannot but think there is something lacking. Since you are not in doubt that the Universe is ruled by God, tell me by what method you think that

government is guided?”

 

'I scarcely know the meaning of your question, much less can I answer it.”

 

“Was I wrong,” she said, “to think that something was lacking, that there was some opening in your armor, some way by which this distracting disease has crept into your soul?

 

“But tell me, do you remember what is the aim and end of all things? What is the object to which all Nature tends?”

 

“I have heard indeed, but grief has blunted my memory.”

 

“But do you not somehow know from where all things have their source?”

 

“Yes,” I said; “that source is God.”

 

“Is it possible that you, who know the beginning of all things, should not know their end?” 

 

—from Book 1, Prose 6

 

Even at a time where the pendulum of fashion has swung so far away of from a sense of piety, many people will still appeal to the Divine as a measure. We swear by the name of God, we appeal to Him when we want to be right, we cry out to Him when we think someone else is wrong. 

 

There is, I suppose, something comforting in having a fixed reference point, even when we don’t need to turn to it all that often. When I lived in Boston, for example, I would always pride myself on knowing where all the stops on the subway were, and how to get from any one point in town to any other. That was, of course, until I somehow got a bit lost on the Blue Line one day, and I was quite grateful for one of those big maps of the whole system they have posted in the stations.  It’s good to know it’s there if I need it. 

 

A danger, however, can be in always assuming the map is there for reference, but then not being able to read it when I turn to it. The London Underground map would often do that to me, because I couldn’t quite relate that tangled web of colored lines on a white background to an actual geographical map of the city. I was simply not familiar enough with all the names and landmarks to make proper sense of it at first. 

 

Boethius finds himself in a similar situation, not in getting from one end of town to the other, but in getting from one end of his life to the other. He has forgotten who he is, not just where he is. It’s time to get some reference points on the map of life. 

 

Now Lady Philosophy asks him if he thinks the world follows some sort of order, or if it is just chaotic, and Boethius is very quick to answer how he is absolutely certain that God rules everything with purpose and design. I almost sense that he is bit offended to have that belief questioned. 

 

But Boethius needs to have that belief questioned, as we all do, so that we may understand why it is that we happen to believe something. It is certainly odd that a man, who had just cried out how fortune and chance had ruined his life, would now suddenly insist that the Universe is all quite reasonable. 

 

I have done much the same myself, whenever I accept something to be true in broad theory, but have absolutely no sense of how it works in immediate practice. I say I know the principles by which a combustion engine works, but I’m likely to be scratching my head when I break down on the drive to work. 

 

It is fair enough to say that God rules everything, but it would be of great help to have some sense of how He goes about ruling it. How do the pieces fit together, and act upon one another, within the function of the whole? Lady Philosophy sees that Boethius thinks there are rules, and she now asks him what those rules might be. He is confounded, and seems not to know what she means by the question. 

 

A way to express this is that Boethius knows that God made him and everything else, where it all came from, but he is uncertain about what God made him and everything else for, where it is all going to. This could be something like recognizing the station on the subway you started at, but being clueless about the actual destination. 

 

Trusting in a Divine order will be of little use to me if I don’t understand my place in that order. If God made me, whydid he make me? For what sort of end? 

 

Some of us may give a word-for-word textbook answer we memorized in a religion class years ago, and some of us will have no answer at all, but most of us are unable to think our way through this with any clarity. It’s like a big confusing spot on the map, right on the bit we know we need to pass through. “Here dwell dragons” isn’t the answer we need. 

 

Lady Philosophy is certainly beginning to diagnose the problem. 

 

 

 

1.26

 

“But such are the ways of these distractions, such is their power, that though they can move a man's position, they cannot pluck him from himself or wrench him from his roots. But this question I would have you answer: do you remember that you are a man?”

 

“How can I but remember that?”

 

“Can you then say what is a man?”

 

“Need you ask? I know that he is an animal, reasoning and mortal; that I know, and that I confess myself to be.”

 

“Know you nothing else that you are?” asked Philosophy.

 

“Nothing,” I said.

 

“Now,” she said, “I know the cause, or the chief cause, of your sickness. You have forgotten what you are. Now therefore I have found out to the full the manner of your sickness, and how to attempt the restoring of your health. You are overwhelmed by this forgetfulness of yourself, hence you have been thus sorrowing that you are exiled and robbed of all your possessions. 

 

“You do not know the aim and end of all things, hence you think that if men are worthless and wicked, they are powerful and fortunate. 

 

“You have forgotten by what methods the Universe is guided, hence you think that the chances of good and bad fortune are tossed about with no ruling hand. 

 

“These things may lead not to disease only, but even to death as well. But let us thank the Giver of all health that your nature has not altogether left you. We have yet the chief spark for your health's fire, for you have a true knowledge of the hand that guides the Universe. You do believe that its government is not subject to random chance, but to Divine reason. 

 

“Therefore have no fear. From this tiny spark the fire of life shall forthwith shine upon you. But it is not time to use more severe remedies, and since we know that it is the way of all minds to clothe themselves ever in false opinions as they throw off the true, and these false ones breed a dark distraction that confuses the true insight, therefore will I try to lessen this darkness for a while with gentle applications of easy remedies, that so the shadows of deceiving passions may be dissipated, and you may have power to perceive the brightness of true light.”

 

—from Book 1, Prose 6

 

I may forget the purpose of my humanity, but as long as I do not allow myself to be diverted, I should surely be able to recover such an awareness. 

 

Formal definitions may be entirely accurate, though they will be of no help if I simply mouth the words, or if I fail to fully understand and apply their meaning. To know what something is requires more than sticking on a label, or even providing a list of characteristics, but it digs down to the root, to the very essence. Whenever I ask, “what is it?” I must consider what brought it about, what it is made out of, what identity it takes, and toward what purpose it is ordered. 

 

Lady Philosophy now asks Boethius if he knows what it means to be a man. Earlier in this part of the text, he said he knew that God had made him. He now adds that he knows he has been made as an animal, one that can reason, and one that will die. 

 

However true both these statements may be, is that a complete answer, one that will leave me confident and content with my place in the world? Does it explain how I can find peace through such knowledge?

 

I remember the many times I gave oral exams in philosophy, not because they were any easier to administer, but because I always believed they were the most helpful for students. If someone told me that Aristotle argued how man was a rational animal, for example, I could immediately press the point. If a man is indeed rational, what does this mean about how he will live his life? How might this awareness change what matters to him? In what way is the function of a creature that shares in reason any different from a creature that doesn’t share in reason?

 

Now some students would stare at me, realizing it hadn’t been enough to just memorize the phrases in their notes. Others, though frustrated, would recognize what I was up to. 

 

“So wait, you want me to tell you where that definition is going to take me?” 

 

Exactly. You are seeing how the identity of anything is necessarily tied up with its purpose. Don’t just tell me that a car is a self-powered machine that moves on four wheels. Where can it take you? Why bother going there to begin with? How can that make your life better?

 

When I started teaching in the early 90’s, most any progressive college student was listening to the band Phish. They would always nod knowingly when I quoted these lyrics:

 

The tires are the things on your car

That make contact with the road.

The car is the thing on the road

That takes you back to your abode.

 

Boethius has the textbook answer down on who made him, and what he was made as. He has nothing further to add when Lady Philosophy presses him for more, because he has no sense of what he was made for. What is the end, the direction, the goal of my existence? Where am I supposed to be going, and how should I go about getting there?

 

The sort of Universe Boethius currently envisions has all sorts cars tossed on the roads, but without any rules of traffic, and without drivers who have a route or destination in mind. 

 

I have often known that feeling where I let myself me distracted by all the shiny signs on the side of the highway, and I remember being told that the distracted driver is the deadly driver. Time to keep my eyes on what is up ahead. 

 

 

 

1.27

 

“When the stars are hidden by black clouds, 

no light can they afford. 

When the boisterous south wind rolls along the sea 

and stirs the surge, the water, 

but now as clear as glass, 

bright as the fair sun's light,

is dark, impenetrable to sight, 

with stirred and scattered sand. 

The stream, that wanders down the mountain's side, 

must often find a stumbling block,

a stone within its path torn from the hill's own rock. 

So too shall you: 

If you would see the truth in undimmed light, 

choose the straight road, the beaten path. 

Away with passing joys! Away with fear! 

Put vain hopes to flight! And grant no place to grief! 

Where these distractions reign, the mind is clouded over,

the soul is bound in chains.”

 

—from Book 1, Poem 7

 

When I face hardship, I will almost immediately begin to doubt. I will question if there can ever be a solution, and wonder if there are even any certain and reliable answers to begin with. I will be tempted to walk away from endeavors, because I worry the effort will inevitably end in failure. 

 

This is a weakness I have had to cope with over many years, and it was only recognizing how it was a weakness that allowed me to begin pulling myself out of destructive thoughts. I am facing a difficulty, so I assume it is an impossibility. I struggle with grasping the truth of the matter, so I assume there is no truth. This is a sort of skepticism that comes from a rejection out of despair, not from a healthy questioning. 

 

The tunnel may be long and dark, but that does not mean there is no light at the other end. My vision may be obscured, but that does not mean I should stop looking. Remove the obstruction, I remind myself, and then there will be something to see. Don’t throw away the book because the words appear blurred, but focus more carefully. 

 

In most every case, I have learned that the obstruction comes from something within myself, from the haziness of my own thinking, from the weakness of my own commitment. Even when it seems that something outside of me is blocking my way, it is usually my own position and attitude that is keeping it in the way. If a wall hinders my view, I shouldn’t curse the wall. I should walk around it, or climb over it.

 

The things that block my way are distractions, and I go astray when I follow something lesser at the expense of what is greater. I may be lured away by the promise of pleasure. I may be frightened by the prospect of pain. I may be tempted by shabby rewards from empty achievements. I may be crippled by my own vanity. 

 

Things become bigger to me, more desirable or more terrifying, depending on how much value I give them in my estimation. When I am paying the most attention to wanting to be loved, I will neglect the act of loving. When I obsess about the wrong others may have done, I am forgetting about doing right. The obstacle is largely self-imposed, and moving beyond it only becomes possible by the self-rule of staying the course. 

 

I was driving to work very early one morning, and as the sun rose, I noticed how foggy it seemed outside. I squinted, slowed down, and wondered at the crazy weather. It took a moment to realize the fogginess I saw came from a huge smudge on my glasses, and had absolutely nothing to do with the weather. I laughed aloud at my foolishness, just as I should do whenever I am the very one distracting myself from the right goal. 

 

 

 

Book 2

 

2.1

 

Then for a while she held her peace. But when her silence, so discreet, made my thoughts to cease from straying, she thus began to speak: 

 

“If I have thoroughly learned the causes and the manner of your sickness, your former good fortune has so affected you that you are being consumed by longing for it. The change in her alone, this has overturned your peace of mind through your own imagination. 

 

“I understand the varied disguises of that unnatural state. I know how Fortune is ever most friendly and alluring to those whom she strives to deceive, until she overwhelms them with grief beyond bearing, by deserting them when least expected. If you recall her nature, her ways, or her deserts, you will see that you never had in her, nor have lost with her, anything that was lovely. 

 

“Yet, I think, I shall not need great labor to recall this to your memory. For then too, when she was at your side with all her flattery, you were wont to reproach her in strong and manly terms; and to revile her with the opinions that you had gathered in worship of me with my favored ones.

 

“But no sudden change of outward affairs can ever come without some upheaval in the mind. Thus has it followed that you, like others, have fallen somewhat away from your calm peace of mind. 

 

“But it is time now for you to make trial of some gentle and pleasant draught, which by reaching your inmost parts shall prepare the way for yet stronger healing draughts. 

 

“Try therefore the assuring influence of gentle argument that keeps its straight path only when it holds fast to my instructions. And with this art of orators let my handmaid, the art of song, lend her aid in chanting light or weighty harmonies as we desire.” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 1

 

Lady Philosophy here begins to highlight in more detail how we become the causes of our own misery whenever we measure our lives by good or bad fortune. 

 

Things may happen to us that appear to bring benefit, and before too long we begin judging our own value through the value of our circumstances. We may even start thinking we deserve good luck, or that it is a reward for our own merits. But as soon as we happen to lose our pleasant situation, we are quite forlorn, and we long for it to return. 

 

Whenever I have brought myself into such a mess, I find that I will get caught up in all sorts of fruitless speculation. I may alternate between being angry at the world, since it hasn’t given me what I want from it, and being angry with myself, since I must have deeply offended the world to deserve such pain. What should rather occur to me is that my only mistake was thinking that fortune was reliable at all.  From Alexander Pope’s “The Temple of Fame”:

 

For good and bad alike are fond of Fame.

Some she disgraced and some with honours crown’d;

Unlike successes equal merits found.

Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns,

And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.

 

Fortune is indeed fickle. She will smile at me seductively one moment, and then ignore me completely the next. Here she will shower me with gifts, and there she will take every one of them back. Her moods are no more predictable than the weather in New England. 

 

I once made the terrible mistake of committing most everything in my life to someone who was both dishonest and disloyal. I was given every indication of this from the very beginning, but I was clinging only to the parts that were so comforting, and hoping the rest of it would just go away. Now who was I to complain when I finally found myself alone? 

 

The punishment doesn’t come from the outside, but it comes from the inside. If I choose to trust in something untrustworthy, I have only chosen to make myself the victim. There was never anything inherently worthwhile in Fortune to begin with, precisely because there is nothing constant or committed about her; the only good or bad that I found was relative to my own dependence. 

 

I also notice how easy it is to insincerely dismiss Fortune when things seem to be going right, and effortlessly insist that I obviously don’t need all of these advantages to be happy. The need only becomes apparent when the advantages disappear, and then there is weeping and the gnashing of teeth. 

 

There is a certain double standard here, much like people who scoff at caring for the sick or poor, until, of course, they themselves become sick or poor.

 

I should rightly be concerned about my own integrity when my values change with the direction of the wind. 

 

 

 

2.2

 

“What is it, mortal man, that has cast you down into grief and mourning? You have seen something unwonted, it would seem, something strange to you. 

 

“But if you think that Fortune has changed towards you, you are wrong. These are ever her ways, and this is her very nature. She has with you preserved her own constancy by her very change. 

 

“She was ever changeable at the time when she smiled upon you, when she was mocking you with the allurements of false good fortune. You have discovered both the different faces of the blind goddess. To the eyes of others she is veiled in part; to you she has made herself wholly known. 

 

“If you find her welcome, make use of her ways, and so make no complaining. If she fills you with horror by her treachery, treat her with despite and thrust her away from you, for she tempts you to your ruin. 

 

“For though she is the cause of this great trouble for you, she ought to have been the subject of calmness and peace. For no man can ever make himself sure that she will never desert him, and thus has she deserted you.” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 1

 

As soon as I recognize Fortune as being fickle, I might assume that everything in life is unreliable. No, it only means that I should never rely on anything that has change as its only constant. Some things in this life will, by their very fluid nature, always slip away from me. Other things in this life will, by their very permanence, never let me down. The trick lies in being able to distinguish between the two. 

 

There is always a rhyme or reason to why things will play out as they do, even as they may not play out in a way that is pleasing or convenient to me. My mistake has long been that I hope each and every other cause will produce effects for my profit, and that the nature of those other causes is intended to gratify me. 

 

This is precisely the vanity that a dependence upon Fortune may breed in me. It has nothing to do with me, and does not depend upon me, yet I foolishly choose to depend upon it. 

 

I can’t rely on Fortune when she is pleasant, and curse her when she is unpleasant. There’s that darn double standard again. 

 

I am prone to finding excuses and loopholes, so I will look to all the people I know who seem to have always benefited from Fortune. This describes many of the folks I went to school with. They were born rich, were raised with entitlements, and as a result were given every opportunity to make something of themselves. If there is a need for anything, a useful connection will fulfill the need. If mistakes are made, they are easily covered up. If failure rears its ugly head, favors are called in. 

 

I was once sitting in the back seat of a Jaguar XJ12, racing down a quiet residential street at eighty miles per hour. Those blue lights came on, and I was sure I would be walking home. I chastised myself, because I sadly knew the driver was even drunker than I was. An officer came to the window, was passed a business card, and within a minute we were on our way. No ticket, no warning, just “Drive safely, sir.”

 

Now how could that sort of life not be reliable? At times it has seemed quite a consistent way to manage life. 

 

The fact that Fortune is always changeable does not mean it comes to us all in the same way. Some never seem to be without her blessings, and others seem to be constantly without them. We tend to call the first group winners, and the second group losers. But some of us get a bit of each. That’s the luck of the draw. 

 

The real problem with relying on Fortune is not how often she is there, or how often she isn’t there, to fix my problems. The real problem with relying on Fortune is the very fact that I assume she even can fix my problems to begin with.  Whether Fortune smiles or frowns, counting on her, on what has very little to do with me, is the biggest of my problems.

 

I am not managing my life at all when I presume to think that what happens to me takes any precedence over what I do for myself. 

 

The bad face can sometimes remind me not to trust in the good face. Boethius has seen the bad face, and this will help him to not rely upon Fortune. 

 

Seeming curses often end up being blessings. 

 

 

 

2.3

 

“Do you reckon such happiness to be prized, which is sure to pass away? Is good fortune dear to you, which is with you for a time and is not sure to stay, and which is sure to bring you unhappiness when it is gone?

 

“But seeing that it cannot be stayed at will, and that when it flees away it leaves misery behind, what is such a fleeting thing but a sign of coming misery? 

 

“Nor should it ever satisfy any man to look only at what is placed before his eyes. Prudence takes measure of the results to come from all things. The very changeableness of good and bad makes Fortune's threats no more fearful, nor her smiles to be desired. 

 

“And lastly, when you have once put your neck beneath the yoke of Fortune, you must with steadfast heart bear whatever comes to pass within her realm. But if you would dictate the law by which she whom you have freely chosen to be your mistress must stay or go, surely you will be acting without justification; and your very impatience will make more bitter the lot that you cannot change. 

 

“If you set your sails before the wind, will you not move forward where the wind drives you, not where your will may choose to go? If you entrust your seed to the furrow, will you not weigh the rich years and the barren against each other? You have given yourself over to Fortune's rule, and you must bow yourself to your mistress's ways. 

 

“Are you trying to stay the force of her turning wheel? Ah! Dull-witted mortal, if Fortune begins to stay still, she is no longer Fortune.”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 1

 

If I wish my happiness to be consistent, and I wish my happiness not to be built upon dependence, then Fortune cannot be my path to happiness. 

 

That which refuses to last will always leave me wanting more, and that which relies on what is outside of my power will leave me helpless in the face of it. Fortune is exactly like that. She gives, and then she takes away. She offers, but only when I submit to her terms. I am trusting in something that is inherently unreliable, and I am surrendering my own power. 

 

I leave it to the statisticians to tell me what my odds might be, and how the rules of the house might affect those odds. But why would I ever want to base my life on odds, and submit to another’s rules?

 

When I have worked with addicts, and when I struggled with addiction myself, I have been amazed at how what Boethius says can speak profoundly to those who rely upon what is beyond their control. 

 

I would reflect on how we sadly think that those who suffer from addiction are at the fringes of society. Yet change the object of desire, from alcohol, drugs, and sex, to money, power, and fame, and we are now describing the status quo. If becoming rich, influential, and popular is what I think will fulfill me, then I am making exactly the same mistake as the fellow begging to get his next score.

 

Do I wish to always be looking over my shoulder, afraid to lose what I think I need? Do I wish to always be moved by my desires, instead of ruling my desires? That is what a reliance on Fortune, upon only what happens to me, will ultimately bring me. 

 

When reflecting on the give and take of life, I have noticed how often people want the circumstances of life to be unconditional, while also leaving room for their own commitments to be conditional. We are angry when other people lie, cheat, and steal, but we wish to retain our own option to lie, cheat and steal.

 

Shouldn’t the exact opposite really be the case? Others may act without loyalty or justice, but that is never something I can decide. I, however, can decide to always act with loyalty or justice. The former is unpredictable, and beyond my choice, while the latter will be as predictable as I choose to make it. I get the order and priority all mixed up, from confusing what I should do with what others should do. 

 

How odd that I expect to receive from others on consistent terms, while refusing to give to others on consistent terms. 

 

 

 

2.4

 

“As thus she turns her wheel of chance with haughty hand, 

and presses on like the surge of Euripus's tides, 

Fortune now tramples fiercely on a fearsome king, 

and now deceives no less a conquered man 

by raising from the ground his humbled face. 

She hears no wretch's cry, 

she heeds no tears, 

but wantonly she mocks the sorrow

which her cruelty has made. 

This is her sport. 

Thus she proves her power. 

If in the selfsame hour one man is raised to happiness, 

and cast down in despair, 

it is thus she shows her might.”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 1

 

There are two frantic feelings in my life that I have found to be almost overwhelming in their power. These are the desire to possess, and the despair from loss. Each of these has come very close to destroying me entirely, and what makes it all the more frightening is how easy it is to allow myself to be swept away by them.

 

In either case, it is the hand of Fortune that has both tempted me with what I crave, and left me empty-handed from its loss. I try to blame Fortune, of course, but she is simply playing her part. I might as well ask a fish not to swim. No, I chose to follow her, and to depend on what she offered, and I can hardly complain or be angry when it is taken away. 

 

The Wheel of Fortune is one of the many profound images in the Consolation. As it turns, some of us are at the top, some at the bottom, some rising, some falling. We might be dismissive of another’s position, or we might be envious of it, but it will soon be different, because Fortune is, by her very definition, always changing. The wheel is constantly in motion, and riches become rags, fame becomes infamy, health becomes sickness, and power becomes weakness. Then it turns again. 

 

I find it quite telling that in the Middle Ages, the Wheel of Fortune was always a stark reminder to never rely upon circumstances. Now, we only think of it as an amusing game show that can make us rich.

 

When I was younger, I remember there were two kinds of pop songs that were most common. The theme was either the joy of falling in love, forever and ever, or the pain of a broken heart, never to love again. I would hum along carelessly to all of them, and then each of these things happened to me, and I viewed the songs very differently. 

 

I realized how much of it revolved precisely around what happened to me, whether it was getting or losing what I wanted. Notice how we speak of falling in love, or having our hearts broken by someone. Making the value of love circumstantial is just another aspect of letting Fortune pull our strings. 

 

Fortune will indeed lift me up, and she will cast me down. She will take pleasure in seeing me laugh or cry, depending on her mood. And there’s the rub. I have made my happiness contingent on her whims, and I have surrendered my choice to her. 

 

I need to find my way out of that dependence, and turn to something stable. 

 

 

 

2.5

 

“Now would I argue with you by these few words which Fortune herself might use, and consider whether her demands are fair:

 

 “‘Why, O man,’ she might say, ‘do you daily accuse me with your complainings? What injustice have I wrought upon you? Of what good things have I robbed you? Choose your judge whom you will, and before him strive with me for the right to hold your wealth and honors. If you can prove that any one of these does truly belong to any mortal man, readily will I grant that these you seek to regain were yours.

 

“‘When Nature brought you forth from your mother's womb, I received you in my arms naked and bare of all things. I cherished you with my gifts, and I brought you up all too kindly with my favoring care, wherefore now you cannot bear with me, and I surrounded you with glory and all the abundance that was mine to give. 

 

“‘Now it pleases me to withdraw my hand. Be thankful, as though you had lived upon my loans. You have no just cause of complaint, as though you had really lost what was once your own. Why do you rail against me? I have wrought no violence towards you. Wealth, honors, and all such are within my rights. They are my handmaids. They know their mistress. They come with me and go when I depart. 

 

“‘Boldly will I say that if these, of whose loss you complain, were ever yours, you would never have lost them at all. Am I alone to be stayed from using my rightful power? The heavens may grant bright sunlit days, and hide the same beneath the shade of night. The year may deck the earth's countenance with flowers and fruits, and again wrap it with chilling clouds. The sea may charm with its smoothed surface, but no less justly it may soon bristle in storms with rough waves.’” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 2

 

When I look at the things that I consider to me mine, I will remind myself not to be too hasty in casting too wide a circle. I may not have much, I tell myself, but what little I do have for myself are the things that I earned, that I have a right to, and that were the rewards for my own efforts. 

 

Now if I think this through carefully, and not hastily take such a statement for granted, I will find that the circle is far smaller than it would at first seem. As Boethius will also soon learn, it really extends no further than my own mind and my own will. So many of the things I think I own are hardly mine at all. 

 

My property may include the things that I use, that I lay some claim to, or that seem to be under my possession. But in all cases these things came to me, and they can just as easily be taken away. They are mine only as long as circumstances permit them to be mine.

 

My reputation may be something I think I deserve, dependent on my own achievements and merits. But it depends entirely upon what others think and do, not upon what I think and do. It is mine only as long as circumstances permit it to be mine. 

 

My enjoyment and pleasure are surely mine, because I have provided the means for them myself. But those means themselves come from wealth or position, and they proceed from having certain objects of contentment be present. They are mine only as long as circumstances permit them to be mine. 

 

My own body, its health, and my very life itself are still within my power. My body, however, can be hurt and restrained, disease may befall it, and its existence can be snuffed out in an instant, all from conditions beyond my control. It is mine only as long as circumstances permit it to be mine. 

 

I need to take’s Fortune’s challenge very seriously. Can I prove that anything she has offered was ever really something that belonged to me? If it was really mine to begin with, then it could hardly be taken away, and if it wasn’t mine to begin with, I have no grounds for being dissatisfied when it is taken away. 

 

I may desire and appreciate many things that Nature provides, but these are her gifts, not my entitlements. I have no right to a sunny day, or to fruit from a tree. So too, I may want to be rich, and honored, and have a long and healthy life, but these are Fortune’s gifts, not my entitlements. 

 

I may think I earned my education, my job, my home, or my vacation. No, whether I did any work in their pursuit or not, they came to me through the ease of convenience and utility. Some men have made great efforts to achieve, and yet they receive absolutely nothing. Other men have made no effort at all, and yet they receive absolutely everything. I can certainly decide what I will do, but I cannot decide what Fortune will offer me. 

 

I need to be very careful about what I take credit for, and what I accordingly call my own. 

 

 

 

2.6

 

“‘Is the insatiate discontent of man to bind me to a constancy which belongs not to my ways? Herein lies my very strength; this is my unchanging sport. I turn my wheel that spins its circle fairly; I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom. 

 

“‘Come you to the top if you will, but on this condition, that you think it no unfairness to sink when the rule of my game demands it. Do you not know my ways? Have you not heard how Croesus, king of Lydia, who filled even Cyrus with fear but a little earlier, was miserably put upon a pyre of burning wood, but was saved by rain sent down from heaven? Have you forgotten how Paulus shed tears of respect for the miseries of his captive, King Perses? 

 

“‘For what else is the crying and the weeping in tragedies but for the happiness of kings overturned by the random blow of fortune? Have you never learnt in your youth the ancient allegory that in the threshold of Jove's hall there stand two vessels, one full of evil, and one of good? What if you have received more richly of the good? What if I have not ever withheld myself from you? What if my changing nature is itself a reason that you should hope for better things? 

 

“‘In any way, let not your spirit eat itself away: you are set in the sphere that is common to all, let your desire therefore be to live with your own lot of life, a subject of the kingdom of the world.’”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 2

 

Things rise and fall. My situation may increase at one moment, quite unexpectedly, and it may decrease just as quickly. Sometimes we call this chance, or luck, or we personify it as Fortune, that force within our lives that seems always to be out of our control. The only thing predictable about it is that it will unpredictable, the only thing I know about it is that I can never know what it will do. 

 

It is how I am going to make sense of all the rising and falling that will make all the difference for me. Fortune insists she has her own way of doing things, and that her terms are not negotiable. Sometimes I will be handed a portion from the vessel filled with plenty, and at other times I will be handed a portion from the vessel filled with want. That isn’t for me to decide. 

 

In facing such uncertainty, my own attitude can perhaps put the situation in perspective. One of my grandmothers would always tell me not to “make opera” of things. The other would tell me that life “doesn’t have to be a Greek tragedy”. Youth is often drawn to melodrama, so I did not always take well to the reminder, but both sayings stuck with me. I began to see that what I chose to make of my circumstances was really what determined how they affected me. 

 

I am hardly learned in the dramatic arts, but I do recall being taught that tragedy wasn’t just about bad things happening, or unhappy consequences. It was also more importantly about how the thoughts and actions of the characters set the terms for their downfall, and how their thoughts and actions might change because of that downfall. A tragic story is a mirroring and magnification of our own lives, and we will feel sympathy with such great suffering in another. Aristotle said this was cleansing, because it helped us to understand ourselves, and to perceive our own fatal flaws. 

 

Let us say, for the moment, that good or bad circumstances will inevitable come my way, and I can have no say in this. But do I not have a say in how I respond to Fortune? Is that within my power? Did not so many of the tragic heroes only make their situation even worse through their pride, stubbornness, or ignorance? Is it not possible to also make the situation better for me, even if it will all happen as it must?

 

I imagine both my grandmothers were suggesting precisely that, though, as grandmothers are prone to do, far more clearly and directly. It will mean what you make of it. Let it rule you, and it will consume you, just as it has Boethius. Face it with some dignity, and you may somehow survive it. 

 

So how can I start to live with my own lot in life? Is it just begrudging acceptance, or something more positive?

 

 

 

2.7

 

“ ‘If Plenty with overflowing horn 

scatters her wealth abroad, abundantly, 

as in the storm-tossed sea the sand is cast around, 

or so beyond all measure as the stars shine forth 

upon the studded sky in cloudless nights; 

though she never stays her hand, 

yet will the race of men still weep and wail. 

Though God accepts their prayers freely 

and gives gold with ungrudging hand, 

and decks with honors those who deserve them, 

yet when they are gotten, these gifts seem naught. 

Wild greed swallows what it has sought, 

and still gapes wide for more. 

What bit or bridle will hold within its course this headlong lust, 

when, whetted by abundance of rich gifts, 

the thirst for possession burns? 

Never call we that man rich who is ever trembling in haste 

and groaning for that he thinks he lacks.’ “

 

—from Book 2, Poem 2

 

Pleasure, wealth, and fame, all the things we look to Fortune to provide for us, have an odd way of never being enough. We wish to acquire them, but we are then still in a state of longing when they are acquired. We are willing to sacrifice everything we have for some of it, and then take out a loan to get some more. 

 

Fortune has cleverly reminded Boethius of something deeply contradictory in our thinking and living. We complain when her benefits are lacking, but we will complain just as much when her benefits are present. 

 

If it’s all so wonderful to begin with, why is it never satisfying? Why does the bar for satisfaction only get higher and higher?

 

It makes me shudder to think of it, but there is a certain similarity between the addict who can never have enough of his poison of choice, and the grasping man who can never have enough of his worldly gain. Whatever he may want will never fulfill him, because what he wants has nothing to do with his happiness to begin with. 

 

Anything that completes my being should, by definition, leave nothing else to be desired. A seeking for what is good will rightly terminate in possessing what is good. If my goal is in itself unreachable, I have set myself the wrong goal.

 

Even as I probably spend my time thinking about things too much, or perhaps too carelessly, I always keep a few pithy phrases at hand to reach for when I find myself dazed and confused. One of these is that I have known some happy people who happen to be rich, but I have never known anyone to be happy because he is rich. 

 

Experience has confirmed that for me year after year, time and time again. 

 

Now that, quite understandably, rubs people the wrong way. “Imagine what I could do with a few thousand extra dollars,” says a poor man. “My life would be so much better!” Given him his few thousand, and he will next want a hundred thousand, or a million, or many millions. 

 

Now he is a rich man, wanting to be richer. There is no limit to greed, because greed is always about wanting what I don’t already have. Bliss is always just over the horizon. 

 

I have had two distinct moments in my own life, for example, when I was in a state of desperate financial want. There was no money in the accounts, and bills were not going to get paid. I cried and moaned, but my want was actually not a need. I was never hungry, I was never without a roof over my head or clothes on my back, and, most importantly, I was never denied the chance to be a decent person. 

 

On both occasions, I promised myself, and swore to the highest heavens, that if it all worked out, I would never complain about my situation, ever again. 

 

And I lied to myself, because as soon as the circumstances improved, I set my eyes on some other vain achievement. The promise was completely ignored. In the immortal words of Tom Lehrer:

 

More, more, I’m still not satisfied!

 

The problem is not that I’m failing to get what I want. The problem is that I’m failing to want the right things. 

 

 

 

2.8

 

“If Fortune should thus defend herself to you,” said Philosophy, “you would have nothing, I think, to utter on the other part. But if you have any just defense for your complaining, you must put it forward. We will grant you the opportunity of speaking.”

 

Then I answered, “Those arguments have a fair form and are clothed with all the sweetness of speech and of song. When a man listens to them, they delight him, but only so long. The wretched have a deeper feeling of their misfortunes. Wherefore, when these pleasing sounds fall no longer upon the ear, this deep-rooted misery again weighs down the spirit.”

 

“It is so,” she said. “For these are not the remedies for your sickness, but in some sort are the applications for your grief which chafes against its cure. When the time comes, I will apply those that are to penetrate deeply. 

 

“But that you may not be content to think yourself wretched, remember how many and how great have been the occasions of your good fortune. I will not describe how, when you lost your father, men of the highest rank received you into their care. How you were chosen by the chief men in the state to be allied to them by marriage, and you were dear to them before you were ever closely related, which is the most valuable of all relationships. Who hesitated to pronounce you most fortunate for the greatness of your wives’ families, for their virtues, and for your blessings in your sons too?” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 3

 

The image of the glass being half full or half empty has become so common that we hardly pay any attention to it, even as we may create new applications and variations of it to keep ourselves amused. This is unfortunate, because it reveals something very important about our attitudes to our circumstances. How are we distinguishing between what is present and what is absent, and the good or bad found in such presence or absence?

 

Boethius mourns the absence of what was once present, even as he neglects to consider the very blessing of that presence to begin with. While he bore the death of his father at a young age, the world still fell into place for him. Those in power took him under their wings, and they groomed him for greatness. He received an education of the highest sort, and was even welcomed directly into their powerful families. He had been born into the world of the elite, and he maintained his place within it. 

 

Boethius first married Elpis, the daughter of Consul Festus, though she died while still very young. Boethius next married Rusticiana, the daughter of Symmachus, the very man who had adopted him and raised him. She bore him two sons, who themselves rose to prominence. There are many stories about how his wife was his rock, and his sons were his joy. 

 

Even in the face of loss, he found the support of a new family, who treated him not only as one of their own, but provided him with every success he could possibly dream of. He certainly remembers this now, but only because it is gone. Does the fact that it has passed, as all things must eventually do, remove any of the good that came from it? 

 

My own opportunities have never been on as grand a scale as those of Boethius, and I sincerely doubt I would ever actually want them to be. I was never made to be esteemed, and I was never made to be important. Nature, I suspect, had something different in mind. Yet I always had the love of family, I had the wide world shown to me when I was still very young, and I was constantly given every possible chance to follow my heart. I was encouraged when I was down, tolerated when I was stubborn. 

 

In the midst of this, deeply painful things did indeed occur. I confronted loneliness, rejection, and betrayal, not in the big things, but in the small, everyday things. I felt dismayed, and I allowed it to degrade into a lifetime in the company of the Black Dog. The sickness in my soul became a sickness in my body. I cried, I thrashed about, and I did desperate things. 

 

Throughout it all, however, life had already given me so much, even as I too often looked the other way. It wasn’t just the memory of past blessings that could give me comfort, but the fact that all those past blessings were the very means for me order and rule myself now. 

 

Symmachus had given Boethius access to the greatest wisdom of the world. My own family had done no less. It wasn’t gone now, just because other things had gone wrong. It was needed all the more now, precisely because other things had gone wrong. A legacy will only be as good as we continue to make use of it. 

 

It may not be the same now as it was then, but everything from then can make the now more possible to bear. 

 

Shadowlands, a semi-fictionalized account of the later life of C.S Lewis, has long been one of my favorite films. I always remember these lines:

 

Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore, only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice, as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.

 

 

 

2.9

 

“I need not speak of those things that are familiar, so I pass over the honors which are denied to most old men, but were granted to you when yet young. I choose to come to the unrivaled crown of your good fortune. If the enjoyment of anything mortal can weigh at all in the balance of good fortune, can your memory of one great day ever be extinguished by any mass of accumulated ills? 

 

“I mean that day when you saw your two sons proceed forth from your house as consuls together, amid the crowding senators, the eager and applauding populace. When they sat down in the seats of honor and you delivered the speech of congratulation to the king, gaining thereby glory for your talent and your eloquence. When in the circus you sat in the place of honor between the consuls, and by a display of lavishness worthy of a triumphing general, you pleased to the full the multitude who were crowded around in expectation.

 

“While Fortune then favored you, it seems you flaunted her, though she cherished you as her own darling. You carried off a bounty that she had never granted to any citizen before. Will you then balance accounts with Fortune? This is the first time that she has looked upon you with a grudging eye. If you think of your happy and unhappy circumstances both in number and in kind, you will not be able to say that you have not been fortunate until now. And if you think that you were not fortunate because these things have passed away which then seemed to bring happiness, these things too are passing away, which you now hold to be miserable, wherefore you cannot think that you are wretched now. 

 

“Is this your first entrance upon the stage of life? Are you come here unprepared and a stranger to the scene? Do you think that there is any certainty in the affairs of mankind, when you know that often one swift hour can utterly destroy a man? For though the chances of life may seldom be depended upon, yet the last day of a lifetime seems to be the end of Fortune's power, even if it stays that long. What, do you think, should we therefore say, that you desert her by dying, or that she deserts you by leaving you?”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 3

 

Lady Philosophy is still trying to explain to Boethius that the balance of good and bad fortune is hardly as unfair and oppressive as he might wish to think. The value of what has been taken away need not outweigh the value of what was given. 

 

She especially wishes to remind Boethius of a moment in his life where absolutely everything came together to his advantage, where every aspect seemed perfect, and he could have asked for nothing more. Will he not be willing to accept a change in circumstances now, for the first time, and at the end of his life, to have had that complete moment then? 

 

I can’t help but think of the quite melodramatic, but still deeply moving, lines from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart: 

 

Aye. Fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live . . . at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom?

 

We will often speak of the “best days of our lives”, whether they are births, graduations, weddings, times of great joy, moments of achievement or success, or, for some, perhaps even a nobility in death. How many other times would I gladly surrender to have any of those times, how many tiresome, frustrating, or even agonizing days for a single best day?

 

For Boethius, that “best day” was when his sons received the office of consul, when everyone cheered their successes, and when people had nothing but praise for his own abilities, fine words, and generosity. Yes, the deeply satisfying moment did pass, but then so will every moment, including the deeply painful ones. 

 

If I am so stubborn as to insist that a good day past cannot make me satisfied, because it has gone, then a bad day now can hardly make me miserable either, because it too will soon be gone. 

 

If I had to pick my own “best day”, there would be two candidates. I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken about the details of either time to the people I know now, because they would surely find my choices odd, and the people who were involved back then will most likely not even remember. Still, they were both days when nothing could go wrong. 

 

Now if I honestly wonder whether I would still be willing to pay for those days with all the pain that came later, I surprise myself a bit by accepting that I would certainly do so. I would even take just one moment from each of those days, and be willing to sacrifice all of the rest. That doesn’t make the suffering any less, but it makes the contentment all the more. 

 

 

 

2.10

 

“When over the heaven Phoebus Apollo, from his rose-red car,

 begins to shed his light abroad, 

his flames oppress the paling stars 

and blunt their whitened rays. 

When the grove grows bright in spring, 

with roses beneath the west wind's warming breath, 

let but the cloudy gale once wildly blow, 

and their beauty is gone, the thorns alone remain.

Often the sea is calmly glistening bright, 

with all untroubled waves, 

but as often does the north wind stir them up, 

making the troubling tempest boil. 

If then the earth's own covering so seldom constant stays, 

if its changes are so great, 

shall you then trust the brittle fortunes of mankind, 

have faith in fleeting good? 

For this is sure, and this is fixed by everlasting law, 

that nothing which is brought to birth 

shall constant here abide.”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 3

 

The natural world around me will always throw me for a loop. Whether it is the scalding heat replaced by the numbing cold, or my precious garden parched on one day and flooded away the next. This is a life lesson on at least two levels. Always expect what is unexpected, and never rely on what is unreliable.

 

The human world is absolutely no different. The man you think you can trust implicitly may well betray you in a moment. The woman who said she loves you without condition may suddenly discover some new conditions. You may no longer, after all, be profitable or pleasant to them. 

 

Now this can be a source of despair about what is valuable in life, or it can be a source for reconsideration about what is valuable in life. I might hate the changes of the seasons because they do me wrong, even as I could also learn to come to terms with the change of the seasons. I might also hate the thoughts and deeds of others because they do me wrong, even as I could also learn to come to terms with the thoughts and deeds of others. 

 

What is my measure, and what is my standard?

 

It often helps me greatly to go through all of those things that I usually consider dependable, and then remind myself about how they are never dependable at all. This arises from a sense of hope, not from a sense of surrender. Hope for the certain things, and surrender the uncertain things. 

 

My work. The most precarious of jobs can end up being quite secure, and the safest of jobs can end up being the most passing. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

My possessions. I have spent time building up my collections of things, only to lose some I thought I needed, while keeping others I thought I didn’t need. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

My standing. Reputation will come and it will go, regardless of what I might say or do. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

My friends. How can I discern the difference between someone who loves me for my own sake, or loves me for his own sake? This is never as easy as it seems. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

My amusements. I have passed from the most delightful of pleasures to the most agonizing of pains. My own efforts, however committed, are never guaranteed to go one way or the other. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

My health. They tell me to live right, eat well, get my exercise, and see my doctor regularly. Yet my heart is still failing, even as the man who follows none of this advice is going strong. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

My very life itself. I am living at this very moment, and I somehow foolishly think that this will not change. Yet it will, whether I see it coming or not. Some men die in their beds, at a ripe old age, knowing the end is here. Others die in but a moment, in the prime of life, not expecting it at all. I have little choice in the matter. Can I truly know the difference?

 

As long it comes and goes in a way that has nothing to do with me, it can hardly be the way I can truly be myself. 

 

 

 

2.11

 

Then I answered her, “Cherisher of all the virtues, you tell me but the truth. I cannot deny my rapid successes and my prosperity. But it is such remembrances that torment me more than others. For of all suffering from Fortune, the unhappiest misfortune is to have known a happy fortune.”

 

“But,” said Philosophy, “you are paying the penalty for your mistaken expectations, and with this you cannot justly charge your life's circumstances. If you are affected by this empty name of Fortune's gift of happiness, you must listen while I recall how many and how great are your sources of happiness. And thus, if you have possessed that which is the most precious among all Fortune's gifts, and if that is still safe and unharmed in your possession, you will never, while you keep these better gifts, be able to justly charge Fortune with unkindness. 

 

“Firstly, your wife's father, Symmachus, is still living and hale, and what more precious glory has the human race than him? And he, because your worth is undiminished and your life still so valuable, is mourning for the injustice you suffer, this man who is wholly made up of wisdom and virtue. 

 

“Again, your wife lives, a woman whose character is full of virtue, whose modesty excels its kind, a woman who (to put in a word the gifts she brought you) is like her father. She lives, and, hating this life, for your sake alone she clings to it. Herein only will I yield to allow you unhappiness. She pines with tears and grief through her longing for you. 

 

“Need I speak of your sons who have both been consuls, and whose lives, as when they were boys, are yet bright with the character of their grandfather and their father? 

 

“Wherefore, since mortals desire exceedingly to keep a hold on life, how happy you should be, if you knew but your blessings, since you have still what none doubts to be dearer than life itself? Wherefore now dry your tears. Fortune's hatred has not yet been so great as to destroy all your holds upon happiness. The tempest that is fallen upon you is not too great for you. Your anchors hold yet firm, and they should keep ever nigh to you confidence in the present and hope for future time.”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 4

 

In reply to Lady Philosophy’s claim that life has already given him far more of value than he thinks, Boethius raises a point I have very often considered myself. The greatest pain, he suggests, is not merely in lacking something good, but in having once had something good, and then losing it. The haunting memory of a blessing now gone can seem too much to bear. 

 

I know this feeling all too well. I will sometimes tell myself that I can still manage to bear all other sorts of suffering, however painful, but that I cannot seem to manage the agony of having lost something deeply precious to me. This is especially the case when it was so joyful and fulfilling at the time, yet I now know that nothing could ever be done to get it back. I will struggle intensely to come to terms with the permanent absence of what once was present. It cannot be recovered. 

 

When my son was about four years old, he had a toy fighter plane he took everywhere with him. He once left it sitting on a bench in the playground, and though he realized he had forgotten it within only a few minutes, it was gone by the time I ran back to retrieve it. Some other child had surely taken it home. The look of intense sadness on his face broke my heart, because I wished to spare him such a sense of loss in life. It seemed such a little thing, but I could tell how much it weighed on his young mind. No other toy, however fancy, could take its place. He would never fly it all around the room again, and I would miss that glowing face he had as he zipped through the house or the yard. 

 

My father is an incredibly strong man, but one need only mention his old Rover 2000 to bring a tear to his eye. He loved that car so dearly, having picked it up straight from the factory at Solihull, and driven it all over Europe before bringing it home to America. The bungling of an incompetent local mechanic meant he had to give it up, and again, even as it was only a thing, it hurts him just as much now as it did fifty years ago. 

 

I was once shattered by the loss of someone I thought of as my dearest friend. It was not because of any epic circumstances, but simply from being unceremoniously dropped one day, never to be acknowledged or considered again. I knew I would have to go on, and I learned deeply from my own life-defining mistake, but not a day passes where I am not weighed down by a profound sense of irredeemable loss. The remembrance of things past is the torment. 

 

Lady Philosophy responds to Boethius, and to all of us who have ever felt this way, that the problem is never from what happens, but from our expectations about what happens. Slowly but surely, she is shifting the basic question about happiness and misery from the power of events to the power of our attitudes about events. If we ourselves are the ones who decided that Fortune made all the difference, do we have any right to then double back and question her ways?

 

She has already said that if Fortune is measured by a balance sheet of debits and credits, Boethius would still seem to come out ahead, and now she adds that while he might have lost things that were valuable to him, the most precious gifts are still within his reach. After all, doesn’t he still have the shining example of his father-in-law, the dedication of his wife, and his pride in his sons? 

 

I have often been frustrated when people advise me that I still have so much, even when I myself feel like I have nothing left to hold on to. I imagine Boethius must be feeling something similar. Though Lady Philosophy is still applying only the mildest temporary relief, and has yet to propose a more powerful cure, she is asking Boethius to begin considering that it isn’t really Fortune who is to blame. After all, we seem to be getting exactly what we asked for when we follow Fortune. Perhaps we should look for something different, something that depends less on different sorts and degrees of receiving and possessing?

 

 

 

2.12

 

“And may they continue to hold fast,” I said, “that is my prayer. While they are firm, we will reach the end of our voyage, however things may be. But you see how much my glory has departed.”

 

And she answered, “We have made some progress, if you are not now weary entirely of your present lot. But I cannot bear this dallying so softly, so long as you complain that your happiness lacks anything, so long as you are full of sorrow and care. 

 

“Whose happiness is so firmly established that he has no quarrel from any side with his estate of life? For the condition of our welfare is a matter fraught with care. Either its completeness never appears, or it never remains. One man's wealth is abundant, but his birth and breeding put him to shame. Another is famous for his noble birth, but would rather be unknown because he is hampered by his narrow means. A third is blessed with wealth and breeding, but bewails his life because he has no wife. Another is happy in his marriage, but has no children, and saves his wealth only for an heir that is no son of his. Another is blessed with children, but weeps tears of sorrow for the misdeeds of a son or a daughter. 

 

“So none is readily at peace with the lot his fortune sends him. For in each case there is that which is unknown to him who has not experienced it, and which brings horror to him who has experienced it. 

 

“Consider further, that the feelings of the most fortunate men are the most easily affected, wherefore, unless all their desires are supplied, such men, being unused to all adversity, are cast down by every little care. So small are the troubles which can rob them of complete happiness.” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 4

 

Yes, admits Boethius, he still has great blessings, and yes, he can still find hope. But he has also lost so much. Again, the absence seems to outweigh the presence. His attention to what he does not possess is distracting him from what he actually does possess. This frustration is quite familiar to me, and is something of a variation of the old saying, “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

 

When my wife is developing a new recipe, she will stand there with a puzzled look on her face as she tastes the dish, and then after some tinkering, tastes it again. “Something is missing,” she will say, with a mix of annoyance and curiosity. “I just don’t know what!”

 

My daughter, who had developed quite a talent for art, was once trying to paint a landscape. She would add a dab of paint here or there, but then she cast aside her attempt in anger, committed to starting all over again. I believed what she had painted to be quite beautiful, incredibly subtle and delicate from someone at her age. 

 

“No!” she insisted. “It’s terrible! The colors are all wrong!” For whatever she had achieved, she found something lacking, something she couldn’t quite describe or put down on canvas. 

 

I have often longed for certain things or situations, thinking that life will all be better once I have them. Then they might happen to come my way, yet I still feel dissatisfied, and I will quickly turn to a longing for something else I hope to possess. I may know absolutely nothing about the object of my desire, or why it might be good for me, but I want it nonetheless. I suspect it is precisely because I don’t have it, and because I don’t understand it, that I am convinced I so desperately need it. 

 

However much a man may have, there will often still seem to be an yearning for something else, even when he has no idea what that something may be. It is something like trying to fill a bucket with a hole at the bottom, or the restlessness of an itch that can’t be scratched, or the completely filling meal that is still somehow not quite satisfying. More is added, another attempt is made, something different is consumed, but it isn’t enough. 

 

So a poor man wishes he was rich, and a rich man wishes he was poor. An unrecognized man wants to be famous, and the famous man wants to be unrecognized. A solitary man seeks company, and the man in company seeks solitude. 

 

Give a man a fine education, and he worries that he doesn’t have a good enough job. Give him a good job, and he wants a better one. Give him a better job, and he complains that he isn’t getting enough respect. Give him the respect, and he bemoans that everyone admires what he has, not who is truly is. Take away everything he has, and he starts again from square one. 

 

Furthermore, give a man very little, and he may, however begrudgingly, manage with very little. But give him more, and then even the slightest inconvenience or disruption becomes unbearable for him. 

 

I think of the words of Michel de Montaigne: Marriage is like a cage. The birds outside desperate to get in, and the birds inside desperate to get out.

 

So if we are unhappy with what we have because we think it is insufficient, and want what we don’t have because we don’t yet think that it is also insufficient, are we trapped in an unending cycle of want? 

 

Even the first time I read the Consolation, I already had the sense that Lady Philosophy was setting us up for something fundamental. Once more, I cannot help but think here that happiness isn’t the problem at all, but assuming that happiness rests in things and circumstances might well be the biggest problem. 

 

 

 

2.13

 

“How many are they, do you think, who would think themselves raised to heaven if the smallest part of the remnants of your good fortune fell to them? This very place, which you call a place of exile, is home to those who live here. 

 

“Thus there is nothing wretched unless you think it to be so. 

 

“And in like manner, he who bears all with a calm mind finds his lot wholly blessed. Who is so happy but would wish to change his estate, if he yields to an impatience of his lot? With how much bitterness is the sweetness of man's life mingled! For even though its enjoyment seems pleasant, yet it may not be surely kept from departing when it will. 

 

“It is plain then how wretched is the happiness of mortal life that neither endures forever with men of calm mind, nor ever wholly delights the care-ridden. 

 

“Why, then, mortal men, do you seek that happiness without, which lies within yourselves? You are confounded by error and ignorance. 

 

“I will show you as shortly as I may, the pole on which turns the highest happiness. Is there anything that you value more highly than your own self? You will answer that there is nothing. If then you are master of yourself, you will be in possession of that which you will never wish to lose, and which Fortune will never be able to take from you.”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 4

 

I have read the Consolation more times than I can count, and I find myself naturally reading it in the original Latin, instead of an English translation. I have taught it in many college classes, and I was once even foolishly told to vainly sell myself on the academic market as a “Boethius scholar”, but I have still hardly exhausted everything I can from this text. 

 

What I have always learned from it, and will still continue to learn from it, is not about scholarly analysis. I leave that to people who are gifted as scholars. I am not interested merely in the themes, or the history of the concepts, or a clever publication to draw attention to myself. What I have learned from it is immediately practical, and fundamentally life changing. 

 

I’ve seen various structural maps of the text, about how all the parts are apparently intended to fit together. All I know is that it is this very passage that is the major “turn” for me. Up until now, Boethius has worried about his state of affairs, and Lady Philosophy has offered various comforts about his suffering. Here she begins to do something very different. The time for pain management is now over. Here comes the real cure.

 

Many years ago, I wrote down my sense of this cure, in three parts, as Lady Philosophy first presents it here. It remains, for my purposes, as good a summation as ever:

 

1) Life is neither blessed nor miserable in itself. Whether it is good or bad depends entirely upon how I choose to think of it. 

 

2) What will define my happiness never depends on what is outside of me, but depends on what is inside of me. 

 

3) The most valuable thing I possess is myself, and I will lose nothing of true value as long as I maintain a rule over myself. 

 

Now none of this is yet a complete argument, or a thorough account, but it is the beginning of a radical shift of attitude. It moves the center of attention from what passively happens, to what is actively done. It asks me to define myself by who I am, and not by my circumstances. It throws our very conception of happiness for a loop. 

 

It shifts the very poles. 

 

I think of how often I have fretted, agonized, and cried about the way of the world, and then I suddenly get it, that the way of the world wasn’t the problem, but my fretting, agonizing, and crying were the problem. Many have more than me, and they still want even more. Many have less than me, and they would be so happy to have what I have. 

 

Yet as soon as I make it about having, I choose to surrender my life. Maybe the having doesn’t matter at all, as fickle, changeable, and deceptive as it is. Maybe the doing is the solution. 

 

I am often criticized for drawing attention to the fact that this, the central moral argument of the Consolation, is fundamentally Stoic in its character. Yet if you know Stoicism, you will hopefully see that the three principles above could just as well have come from Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius. They are philosophical brothers.

 

Now it begins, the cure instead of the comfort, the actual remedy instead of the first aid, the solution instead of just considering the problem. There is no turning back from here. 

 

 

 

2.14

 

“Yet consider this further, that you may be assured that happiness cannot be fixed in matters of chance. If happiness is the highest good of a man who lives his life by reason, and if that which can by any means be snatched away, is not the highest good (since that which is best cannot be snatched away), it is plain that Fortune by its own uncertainty can never come near to reaching happiness. 

 

“Further, the man who is borne along by a happiness that may stumble, either knows that it may change, or knows it not. If he knows it not, what happiness can there be in the blindness of ignorance? If he knows it, he must live in fear of losing that which he cannot doubt that he may lose. Wherefore an ever-present fear allows not such a one to be happy. Or at any rate, if he loses it without unhappiness, does he not think it worthless? For that, whose loss can be calmly borne, is indeed a small good. 

 

“You, I know well, are firmly persuaded that men's understandings can never die. This truth is planted deep in you by many proofs. Since then it is plain that the happiness of fortune is bounded by the death of the body, you cannot doubt that, if death can carry away happiness, the whole race of mortals is sinking into wretchedness to be found upon the border of death. 

 

“But we know that many have sought the enjoyment of happiness not only by death, even by sorrow and sufferings. How then can the presence of this life make us happy, when its end cannot make us unhappy?”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 4

 

We will surely all admit that happiness is the best thing we could ever have, and if it is indeed the best of things, it will surely also be the most reliable of things. If understood rightly, it will, by definition, not be subject to failure through anything beyond itself. 

 

Things will certainly admit of different degrees of goodness, some of them less complete, some of them more complete. Yet that which is most complete, or that which is perfect, admits of no degrees. It will be the maximum, that from which nothing is lacking. 

 

Allowing my life to be dependent upon chance and circumstance can, of course, never provide such a certainty. I can never say that I am happy, and be content to have enough, when I always want to acquire more. I can never say that I am happy, and be content with who I am, when who I am depends entirely upon what is done to me, and not upon what I do. 

 

I think of all the foolishness and vanity I have somehow managed to put myself through. This career, or that honor will make it right. This success, or that friendship will resolve everything. This possession, or that achievement will finally be enough. But it will never be enough, because it doesn’t fulfill who I am as a human being, and it will never make it right, because it has so little to do with my own act of living rightly.

 

Of all the striving, grasping men and women I have known, the ones who promote and sell themselves in the marketplace that passes for a decent human life, I have never, not once, known any of them to be happy. 

 

Now that may seem to be quite an extraordinary claim, because it seems to say that I know the depths of their hearts and minds. I don’t, and I would never claim to do so. All I know, from the evidence of my own senses, is that they always ask for more of what they have, and that they are always afraid of ending up with less of what they have. That tells me everything I need to know.

 

Some people have absolutely no clue about good and bad, about right and wrong. Such ignorance can hardly be the source of a happy life. Other people may, in some sense, understand the fragility of their lives, and so they must live in constant anxiety about gain and loss. There can also be no happiness in such restlessness either. 

 

Now we might conclude that this means there can never be any happiness at all. I would only think this, however, if I define the measure of my life by the state of my body, which is always passing, controlled by things beyond myself. The state of my soul, of that which remains without condition my own, is quite another matter. 

 

One of the strangest, and perhaps most wonderful things, I have seen is those people who find their happiness even in the face of bad luck, hardship, or suffering. I am even more amazed by those people who find their happiness in the face of death itself. This suggests to me that Fortune had nothing to do with their contentment. There was something else, something unassailable. 

 

As a child in Austria, I was taken to visit the Riegersburg, a mighty medieval fortress, built upon a steep hill, surrounded by massive walls, and protected by many imposing gates. I was told that for many centuries, through all the wars, through all the invasions of Magyars, Turks, and so many other enemies, the fortress never fell. It provided safety for all of those in the region who came for protection. The danger came, and the walls held. Those inside remained safe. 

 

A truly happy life, one that demands upon no more than what is within it, one that need fear no threat from what is outside of it, would be much like the great Riegersburg. We need not assume that this is beyond our power to achieve. 

 

 

 

2.15

 

“He that would build on a lasting resting place; 

who would be firm to resist the blasts of the storming wind; 

who seeks, too, safety where he may have contempt for the surge

and the threatening of the sea; 

must leave the lofty mountain's top, 

and leave the thirsting sands. 

The hill is swept by all the might of the headstrong gale.

The sands dissolve, 

and will not bear the load upon them. 

Let him fly the danger in a lot that is pleasant rest unto the eye. 

Let him be mindful to set his house surely upon the lowly rock. 

Then let the wind bellow, 

confounding wreckage in the sea, 

and you will still be founded upon unmoving peace, 

will be blessed in the strength of your defense. 

Your life will be spent in calmness, 

and you may mock the raging passions of the air.”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 4

 

Some people, those who would wish to be rulers of men, captains of industry, masters of their trades, admired and revered by all, would encourage us to seek happiness in conquering all of our circumstances. 

 

Take risks in order to win power, engage in conflict in order to be the best, cast aside our enemies in order to have no equal, they say, and we will find happiness in strength. We will be daring and brave, and, if only we are tough enough, and smart enough, we will have everything we want. 

 

Yet there is a real difference between the man who is brave, and the man who is foolhardy. There is a real difference between the man who seeks only to love, and the man who seeks only to be loved. What is really worth risking, and what is it worth risking for? Is there not a grave danger in sacrificing who I am within for what I seek to possess without?

 

How is it courageous to surrender happiness to fortune? How is it clever to abandon the dignity of character for the trappings of fame? There is a certain contradiction in saying that a man is stronger within himself the more he is dependent on things outside of himself, or that he becomes better the more he relies on the merit of externals. 

 

As soon as I measure my life by the presence of a certain situation, whether or not I have what I want is hardly within my power anymore. My contentment will come and go with the wind, or come and go with the tide. It will depend completely upon what happens, not at all upon what I have done. 

 

An apparent mastery becomes a terrible slavery. 

 

If I build my house on the highest mountaintop, the storms will blow it away. If I build my house on the sands by the sea, the waters will wash it away. I would be well advised to build my house upon a firm foundation, between the mountains and the sea, protected from either threat. I will then still appreciate the beauty of both, but I will not be subject to their unpredictable force. 

 

My home may then be quite humble. It will probably not impress anyone at all. Yet when the seasons have their way, and when the powers of the elements have their way, I will find myself safe and secure. By building upon a firm rock, instead of upon wavering or dangerous ground, I will have found my peace. 

 

I have taught not at one, but at two different schools that prided themselves in sparing no expense to build a new and fancy campus. Their new structures, they said, would reflect their commitments to their great missions. What neither school seriously considered was that they were building on bad land, on land that no one else wanted, precisely because both were on a flood plain. In both cases, it would rain, and we would find ourselves trying to do our jobs in the middle of a river. 

 

Our lives are much the same. Once I allow myself to be tossed and turned by the whirl of circumstances, I have forgotten who I am, and the very nature of my mission. My foolishness in choosing a poor place for my endeavors has denied me any possible success from those endeavors. 

 

What might I rely upon? Fortune herself is never the answer. 

 

 

 

2.16

 

“But now,” she continued, “the first remedies of reasoning are reaching you more deeply, and I think I should now use those that are somewhat stronger. 

 

“If the gifts of Fortune fade not nor pass quickly away, even so, what is there in them that could ever be truly yours, or that would not lose its value when examined or thought upon?  Are riches valuable for their own nature, or on account of your and other men's natures? Which is the more valuable, the gold itself, or the power of the stored up money? 

 

“Surely wealth shines more brightly when spent than when put away in masses. Avarice ever brings hatred, while generous spending brings honor. But that cannot remain with one person that is handed over to another. Therefore money becomes valuable to its possessor when, by being scattered, it is transferred to others, and ceases to be possessed. 

 

“And if all that is heaped together among mankind comes to one man, it makes the others all poor. A voice indeed fills equally the ears of all that hear. But your riches cannot pass to others without being lessened, and when they pass, they make poor those whom they leave. How limited then and poor are those riches, that most men may not have, and that can only come to one by making others poor!”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 5

 

I had a very brief moment, thankfully quite brief, where I actually worked in the world of finance. I earned more in that one year than I had earned for the five years before, or for the five years following. If money and status had been my thing, I would have played the game, sucked up to the boss, and perhaps even made myself someone of importance.

 

Needless to say, I didn’t do that. An old friend got me the job, and I am still grateful for his efforts. I just couldn’t sit around, day by day, realizing that what I was doing involved making rich people even richer, and making poor people even poorer.

 

I had always assumed that the stock market was a sort of science. It isn’t. It’s a psychological game. It’s the art of manipulation, and it’s a manipulation driven by greed. And it sadly runs the country we live in. 

 

Those who actually work for a living are slaves to those who do no work at all. Give a man a million dollars, and he may be bright enough to turn it into ten million dollars overnight. Have a man earn ten dollars, what you pay him for an hour of his paltry life, and he ends up in debt. How bright he is makes no difference. 

 

What is money, after all? Simply having it alone means nothing. It all depends upon the power we use it for. Some men may spend it for good, and some may spend it for evil, but the value only comes from the actual spending. 

 

And when I spend, I lose what I have. So I seek to acquire again, only to spend again. The more I spend, the more I want, and I become caught in a destructive and never-ending cycle of wanting and consuming. 

 

Lady Philosophy isn’t giving us sound financial advice. She is giving us moral advice, fully aware that a man is measured by his character, not by his portfolio.  People skilled in the art of wealth laugh at this, but that is only because they consider wealth as an end. She is reminding us that even wealth itself is a passing thing, never static, always in motion. It comes, and it goes, like all things provided by Fortune, and the very coming and going are the very source of its seductive appeal.

 

Now ask yourself, with all honesty, whether something so transitory, something so based upon taking from others to gain for oneself, so desirable yet so fleeting, can ever be a measure of life. Once you have it, it has to go away to make it worthwhile. Once it is gone, you will need more to make it go away again. All at the expense of someone else, who loses what you have gained.

 

For over twenty years, I have spent a good part of my life trying to help drug addicts. We call them criminals, scum, and the worst of the worst. Replace their drug of choice with the love of money. It’s much the same thing. I will sell my soul to get it, I will use it until it is all gone, and then I will struggle to find another way to get more. 

 

Instead of grasping for what is an illusion, it might help me to pursue what is real.  I scramble to take money from others, when I should be trying to make more of myself. 

 

 

 

2.17

 

“Think again of precious stones. Does their gleam attract your eyes? But any excellence they have is their own brilliance, and belongs not to men. Wherefore I am amazed that men so strongly admire them. What manner of thing can that be which has no mind to influence, which has no structure of parts, and yet can justly seem to a living, reasoning mind to be beautiful? Though they are works of their Creator, and by their own beauty and adornment have a certain low beauty, yet they are in rank lower than your own excellence, and have in no way deserved your admiration.

 

“Does the beauty of landscape delight you? Surely, for it is a beautiful part of a beautiful creation. And in like manner we rejoice at times in the appearance of a calm sea, and we admire the sky, the stars, the sun, and the moon.

 

“Does any one of these,” she said, “concern you? Dare you boast yourself of the splendid beauty of any one of such things? Are you yourself adorned by the flowers of spring? Is it your richness that swells the fruits of autumn? Why are you carried away by empty rejoicing? Why do you embrace as your own the good things that are outside yourself? Fortune will never make yours what Nature has made to belong to other things. 

 

“The fruits of the earth should doubtless serve as nourishment for living beings, but if you would satisfy your need as fully as Nature needs, you need not the abundance of Fortune. Nature is content with very little, and if you seek to thrust upon her more than is enough, then what you cast in will become either unpleasing or even harmful.

 

“Again, you think that you appear beautiful in many kinds of clothing. But if their form is pleasant to the eyes, I would admire the nature of the material or the skill of the maker. 

 

“Or are you made happy by a long line of attendants? Surely if they are vicious, they are but a burden to the house, and full of injury to their master himself. While if they are honest, how can the honesty of others be counted among your possessions?” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 5

 

Money, we have seen, is in and of itself nothing at all. The acquisition is all for the sake of the spending, while the spending draws us away from ourselves, and into a dependence upon other things. It becomes about having this or that, and thinking that this or that is somehow to our credit. Yet things have their own beauty and value, according to what they are, and this is in no way a reflection on our beauty and value. Possessing them will not improve us. 

 

We are drawn to holding and admiring rare gems and minerals, to owning vast amounts of land, to having an abundance of food and resources at our disposal, to wearing the finest clothes, to being catered to by followers, employees, and servants. How odd this truly is, because we are defining our humanity by everything except our own humanity. 

 

If the objects we strive to possess lack reason, the dignity of what is superior has become subservient to what is inferior. A stone may be a fine stone, but it hardly better than a man, and it will never make the man himself any better. If the objects we strive to possess share in reason, as we do when we foolishly think we own other men, their merit reflects upon them, and not upon us. 

 

The home I live in, or the second home I rarely live in but enjoy bragging about, the fine job I have, complete with the window corner office, the classy car I drive, the designer fare I drape myself in, or all the other people who run about at my bidding could indeed be quite fine. But they wouldn’t make me fine. They would make me a man obsessed with accessories and accoutrements. 

 

I have long been deeply fond of symbolism and traditions, the way the shared use of one thing can represent another, how an outer sign can reflect an inner reality. A certain flag may stand for a community, the gift of a flower may stand for love, dancing may stand for celebration, wearing black may stand for mourning. But we find ourselves in trouble when we confuse the sign and the signified, flip the external with the internal, and place the value in things instead of in persons. 

 

I have also long been saddened by how we have come to consider the symbol of the engagement ring. I have heard all sorts of explanations for how this arose, from the fashions of aristocrats to clever marketing by the jewelry industry, but we now all take it for granted that a proposal of marriage requires the giving of a diamond ring. And a part of this assumption is that the bigger, better, and more expensive the diamond and the setting are, the more valuable the love of the giver, and the worthiness of the recipient. 

 

Cut color, clarity, and carat , the “Four C’s” will too easily replace what I started calling the “Real Four C’s”, character, charity, commitment, and compassion. I knew something was quite wrong when I was told I needed to spend at least three months salary on the ring, though that, of course, was simply the bare minimum. Here I immediately felt discouraged by the fact that the degree of my love for another person apparently depended on money. If I did it right, other women would look on with envy, and other men would be impressed by my status. If I did it wrong, my bride and I would be viewed with dismissal and pity. 

 

I ended up proposing with an old family heirloom, and I recall only two or three other people who saw the beauty and significance in this. The rest were simply confused. We eventually began wearing simple and humble Claddagh rings. We understood quite well what they stood for, even if no one else did. The heart was love. The hands were friendship. The crown was loyalty. 

 

Buying or wearing a big diamond is itself not the problem at all. The problem is when buying or wearing the diamond begins, consciously or not, to replace the presence of virtue, and when the cost or rarity of an object begins to eclipse the dignity and excellence of a human being. The problem arises in our estimation of what is truly worthy and good. 

 

 

 

2.18

 

“Out of all these possessions, then, which you reckon as your wealth, not one can really be shown to be your own. 

 

“For if they have no beauty for you to acquire, what have they for which you should grieve if you lose them, or in keeping which you should rejoice? And if they are beautiful by their own nature, how are you the richer thereby? For these would have been pleasing of themselves, though cut out from your possessions. 

 

“They do not become valuable by reason that they have come into your wealth, but you have desired to count them among your wealth, because they seemed valuable. 

 

“Why then do you long for them with such railing against Fortune? You seek, I believe, to put want to flight by means of plenty. But you find that the opposite results. The more various is the beauty of furniture, the more helps are needed to keep it beautiful. 

 

“And it is ever true that those who have much, need much. And on the other hand, those need least who measure their wealth by the needs of nature, not by excess of display.” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 5

 

Those who have much, need much. Those who want to receive, always ask to receive more. Those who expect, will never stop expecting. 

 

Yet having isn’t what matters. Receiving isn’t what matters. Expecting isn’t what matters. 

 

My first proper reading of the Consolation made me rethink everything I had taken for granted. Though my family had always taught me that my character was what defined me, the world around me always taught me that what came to me was what defined me. 

 

My own efforts, and my own ability and achievements, proper society said, existed so that I could get some sort of an external reward. My merits were never my merits, not simply for their own sake, but rather a means for becoming important in the eyes of the world.

 

Most young people tend to be foolish, so I listened to the trends, not to the people who actually loved me. I would get caught up in the game of life, and I neglected the living of life. 

 

I never lived up to the expectations of my snooty prep school, but when I got to college, I worked my tail off. I intended to make something of myself. And the whole time, I lost sight of what would make me a better person, in favor of what would make me a more successful person. I ended up right at the top of my class, and I ended up miserable. 

 

I cared for all the recognition, but none of it was my own. I cared for acquiring things, but they made me no better. I wanted the rewards, without thinking about what I had to do in order to get the rewards. I looked to what was outside of me, and I ignored what was inside of me. 

 

I started to become everything that, in my heart and mind, I knew to be wrong. Yet I fell for the lies, and I succumbed to all of the temptations. When I graduated, I had a long list of honors. I also had a broken conscience. 

 

I had assumed that Fortune would make it all right. I wanted to own things, to receive things, and I assumed that would put everything in order. Quite the contrary, it was the most disordered thing I ever did. 

 

To “have” something, or to “own” something is an illusion. I own nothing but myself. If there is anything outside of me that I desire, how does having or owning it make me any better? The value it has is already within itself. I only become a pathetic parasite. It is hardly good simply because I hold it in my hand. It was wonderful to begin with. Attaching myself to it makes it no better, and it makes me no better. 

 

Give me money, and someone else had to give it to me. It depends upon another, not upon me. Give me fame, and someone else had to give it to me. It depends upon another, not upon me. Give me power, and someone else has to give it to me. It depends upon another, not upon me.

 

As smug and satisfied as I will be when I receive it, I will also cry and complain when I am denied it.

 

There’s the rub. Don’t tell me that who you are is what you have, even as what you have has nothing to do with who you are. 

 

 

 

2.19

 

“Is there then no good that belongs to you and is implanted within you, so that you seek your good things elsewhere, in things without you and separate from you? Have things taken such a turn that the animal, whose reason gives it a claim to divinity, cannot seem beautiful to itself except by the possession of lifeless trappings? 

 

“Other classes of things are satisfied by their intrinsic possessions, but men, though made like God in understanding, seek to find among the lowest things adornment for their higher nature. And you do not understand that you do a great wrong thereby to your Creator. He intended that the human race should be above all other earthly beings, yet you thrust down your honorable place below the lowest. For if every good thing is allowed to be more valuable than that to which it belongs, surely you are putting yourselves lower than them in your estimation, since you think precious the most worthless of things, and this is indeed a just result. 

 

“Since, then, this is the condition of human nature, that it surpasses other classes only when it realizes what is in itself. As soon as it ceases to know itself, it must be reduced to a lower rank than the beasts. To other animals ignorance of themselves is natural; in men it is a fault. How plainly and how widely do you err by thinking that anything can be adorned by ornaments that belong to others! Surely that cannot be. For if anything becomes brilliant by additions to it, the praise for the brilliance belongs to the additions. But the subject remains in its own vileness, though hidden and covered by these externals.

 

“Again, I say that nothing can be a good thing which does harm to its possessor. Am I wrong? ‘No,’ you will say. Yet many a time do riches harm their possessors, since all base men, who are therefore the most covetous, think that they themselves alone are worthy to possess all gold and precious stones. You therefore, who now go in fear of the cudgel and sword of the robber, could laugh in his face if you had entered upon this path with empty pockets. 

 

“How wonderful is the surpassing blessing of mortal wealth! As soon as you have acquired it, your cares begin!”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 5

 

This is one of my favorite passages in the whole of the Consolation. In my own thinking, I will often break it down into smaller bits, but I realize that it works best as a complete whole. The parts all fit together. I offer it simply as it is. 

 

I will sometimes present the message to myself in the form of four basic questions, and this helps me to see how ridiculous my misguided thinking and living can become. While I know that not all people appreciate sarcasm, the final sentence of the passage puts it all in its proper place. Isn’t it grand how I wish to add something to myself, and I end up only diminishing myself!

 

Why am I looking for something on the outside, when I should be looking on the inside?

 

Why am I estimating myself as less by thinking of my possessions more?

 

Why do I insist that having anything beyond myself is to my merit, when the merit of what I desire is already within itself?

 

Why do I stubbornly continue to believe that the things I crave are always good for me, when they are, in fact, quite often harmful for me?

 

I will think of all the times I have been so busy with my situation, that I am paying absolutely no attention to myself. It is as if my obsession with some problem or other, which really has nothing to do with me, has taken control. I am so fixated on what is happening, that I forget what I should be doing, and about the inherent value in my thoughts and actions. 

 

I will think of all the times I placed my position, or my reputation, or my possessions up on some sort of pedestal, and in the process made myself subservient to them. I am seeking them on the assumption that they will improve me, and therefore making them better than me. I think that I am somehow freeing myself, but I am actually making myself a sort of slave. 

 

I will think of all the times I have behaved more like an animal than like a man, until I realize that I have, in fact, become worse than an animal. An animal is supposed to act only on instinct, and is not made to understand in the way that I am made. The animal is living its nature, and I have failed to live up to mine.  I can add all the accessories and decorations that I like, but much like cosmetics only hide blemishes and do not remove them, the trappings of life are only a cover for my inner ugliness. 

 

I will think of all the times I have pursued vanities, only to find myself miserable. If it really is so good, why does it hurt so badly? How is it that the desire to possess and control brings with it even more trouble that I started with? Once I value all the money, and the power, and the recognition, people just as greedy as myself will want to take it all away, yet as soon as I leave these things behind me, I will be free of that harm. The more I have, the more I need to have to keep what I have. It never ends, and always brings with it worry.

 

So it does help me to tell myself sarcastically, “My, look what a big man you are! Look at all those wonderful troubles you’ve heaped up for yourself!” My problem has arisen from how I think about what is valuable, and how I relate myself on the inside to the things in my world on the outside. My problem is, as that classic song says, that I was looking for love in all the wrong places. 

 

 

 

2.20

 

“O happy was that early age of men, 

contented with their trusted and unfailing fields, 

nor ruined by the wealth that weakens. 

Easily was the acorn got that used to satisfy their longwhile fast. 

They knew not Bacchus' gifts, nor honey mixed therewith.

They knew not how to tinge with Tyre's purple dyes the sheen of China's silks. 

Their sleep kept health on rush and grass. 

The stream gave them to drink as it flowed by. 

The lofty pine to them gave shade. 

Not one of them yet clave the ocean's depths, 

nor, carrying stores of merchandise, had visited new shores. 

Then was not heard the battle's trump, 

nor had blood made red with bitter hate the bristling swords of war. 

For why should any madness urge to take up first their arms 

upon an enemy such ones as knew no sight of cruel wounds 

nor knew rewards that could be reaped in blood?

Would that our times could but return to those old ways!

But love of gain and greed of holding

burn more fiercely far than Ætna's fires. 

Ah! who was the wretch who first unearthed the mass of hidden gold, 

the gems that only longed to lie unfound? 

For full of danger was the prize he found.”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 5

 

The skeptic and cynic in me is always wary of thinking that the past must surely have been better than the present, that we were at some point in time closer to the gods, or that men once possessed far greater virtue than they do now. I am never quite sure what to think of this literally, though I suspect that, whatever we were like in prehistory, there is a great figurative truth here. 

 

Whatever may have happened in a certain time or at a certain place, we are all indeed better and greater the closer we are to virtue and to its ultimate source, and we are all indeed worse and lesser the further we distance ourselves from virtue and its ultimate source. That distance may not necessarily be one of time or place, but it may be one of conviction. 

 

I can easily imagine a state where man is content with what Nature has given him, where his is not tempted by wealth, where he is happy to embrace simplicity. He has not been dragged into gluttony, lust, and drunkenness, he is not obsessed with the profit of trade, and he does not seek to destroy his brothers in war. 

 

What could make such a state of affairs possible, way back when, far in the future, or even right at this moment? Some would say that such a life is impossible, because people are just made to be bad. Yet I wonder if, in fact, they are made to be good, but only certain choices, the abuses of their freedoms, lead them to what is bad? Isn’t it what someone decides to love that will determine how well, or how poorly, he ends up living?

 

Lady Philosophy has already been making it clear that what we seek, and why we seek it, will end up making all of the difference. If we look to our own character as the measure of life, we will demand nothing more than what Nature has already given us. If we look to pleasure, power, or wealth as the measure of life, we will demand only to receive, and we will fight one another over the spoils. 

 

I was always fascinated, and terrified, by that scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, “The Dawn of Man,” where the primates learn the use of violence to gain possession of the watering hole. I hope I was not alone in asking if this was a good or a bad thing, progress in the right direction or a step away in the wrong direction? I leave it to the anthropologists to look at the huge sweep of human development, but on merely a personal level, I could only wonder what I would choose to do, if I felt I needed to pay the price of murder in order to get first pick of what I could eat and drink? 

 

Perhaps the very fact that I might understand something about the choice is the actual progress, that I can even make the choice to begin with, or that I can decide what I desire and what I despise. 

 

Life is never as simple as a film, or even a history book, but the question rings in my ears, just as it does when I read the Consolation: when am I getting it right, and when am I getting it wrong? I can only answer that, once again, when I understand what is truly worth having in this life. Were all the riches we ended up finding a blessing, or a curse? The danger may well be making myself subject to their nature, and not to the nature within myself. 

 

 

 

2.21

 

“What am I to say of power and of the honors of office, which you raise to heaven because you know not true honored power? What fires belched forth from Ætna's flames, what overwhelming flood could deal such ruin as these when they fall into the hands of evil men? 

 

“I am sure you remember how your forefathers wished to do away with the consular power, which had been the very foundation of liberty, because of the overbearing pride of the consuls, just as your ancestors had too in earlier times expunged from the state the name of king on account of the same pride. 

 

“But if, as rarely happens, places of honor are granted to honest men, what else is delightful in them but the honesty they practice thereby? Wherefore honor comes not to virtue from holding office, but comes to office from virtues there practiced.

 

“But what is the power that you seek and esteem so highly? O creatures of the earth, can you not think over whom you are set? If you saw in a community of mice, one mouse asserting his rights and his power over the others, with what mirth you would greet the sight! Yet if you consider the body, what can you find weaker than humanity? 

 

“Cannot a tiny gnat by its bite, or by creeping into the inmost parts, kill that body?” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 6

 

Here is the root of so much of our self-imposed misery. We confuse position and merit, assuming that the latter is made better by the former, when, in fact, the former is made better by the latter. 

 

Power in the world can so easily go either way. It is all about how we employ the means to an end. Give a man influence over others, through money, reputation, or office, and you do indeed give him a chance to do great things. You also give him an equal chance to do terrible things. Who may have power has nothing to do with what is right and wrong, but how it is employed is the deciding factor. 

 

Shall we abolish kingship, because kings may be tyrants? Shall we remove the senate, or the consuls, because these men may become oligarchs? Shall we abolish democracy, because the people may become an unruly mob, who abuse their right to rule?

 

I recall that good people will do what is good, and that bad people will do what is bad, regardless of the positions they hold. I am no longer impressed only by their titles, or their bank accounts, or their many trophies. You have so many pieces of paper to your name, but none of it convinces me that you are worthy of respect. Only the worthiness of your actions can prove that. 

 

Show me a King of the Mice, and I may laugh at the silliness of the very idea. Now show me a King of Men, and I should do exactly the same. True power and true honor proceed for the virtue of what is done, not from the recognition of what is admired. 

 

Some people tell me that my view is all about sour grapes, since I couldn’t make something of myself. Define making something of myself. I shamefully admit that I am grateful to have snarky answers for that, whenever overachievers try to tell me how great they are. 

 

“Wait, you were only magna cum laude? I was summa cum laude.” “Really, you weren’t inducted into Phi Beta Kappa? What a shame!” “I’m sorry, you mean you didn’t write a dissertation on the subject?” All of that is irony, of course, but the irony is lost on the real losers. 

 

The fact is that I have learned to see all those things as completely useless in themselves, even as others would so like to define their lives by them. Few things will frustrate the grasping man as much as another man who has outdone him, and most especially another man who no longer values those false standards at all. King of the Mice, indeed!

 

None of what I did when I was younger was ever really to my credit, but proceeded from playing a certain game. When I no longer agreed with the game, I discovered my own rules. Our measures of success make all the difference. Who is truly the better man?

 

How weak and feeble the whole setup is, and how deeply destructive an illusion it turns out to be. A few tiny bugs can easily destroy my body, just as a few termites can bring down my house, or a few well-placed words can destroy my fortune. 

 

The trick is to not care for my body, or my house, or my fortune. I should stick to what is reliable, and to what is actually my own. 

 

 

 

2.22

 

“How can anyone exercise power upon any other except upon the body alone, or that which is below the body, whereby I mean the fortunes? Can you ever impose any law upon a free spirit? Can you ever disturb the peculiar restfulness that is the property of a mind that hangs together upon the firm basis of its reason? 

 

“When a certain tyrant thought that by tortures he would compel a free man to betray the conspirators in a plot against his life, the philosopher bit through his tongue and spat it out in the tyrant's face. Thus were the tortures, which the tyrant intended to have cruel results, turned by the philosopher into subjects of high courage. 

 

“Is there anything that one man can do to another, which he may not suffer from another in his turn? We have heard how Busiris, who used to kill strangers, was killed by Hercules when he came to Egypt. 

 

“Regulus, who had cast into chains many a Carthaginian captive, soon yielded himself a prisoner to their chains. 

 

“Do you think that power to be any power, whose possessor cannot ensure his own escape from suffering at another's hands what he inflicts upon some other?” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 6

 

We make so much of worldly power, when in fact it is so very little. We are only too easily impressed and intimated when we have our sense of values disordered. We sadly care more for what is less, and less for what is more, and so the worldly power appears grossly distorted and out of proportion. 

 

This illusion can be quite imposing, but I only need to think of what it is that force from others can actually affect, and then also what can remain impervious to it. 

 

Another may take my possessions, may limit the freedom of my body, may speak ill of me, and may cause me physical pain and suffering. He may even kill me. 

 

What he cannot do is to control the liberty of my thinking and choosing, as long as I do not decide to permit it. 

 

Something deeply beautiful here is that however hard he pushes against me with things external to me, the more opportunity he gives me to improve and transform the things internal to me. Diminish my fortune, and I may improve my character. 

 

Now I have always been rather terrified of the story about the philosopher who bites off his own tongue to protect a confidence. I have read that the tale speaks of Zeno of Elea, and other sources say it refers to Anaxagoras, but wherever the story came from, it makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Then I remember that I am really only finding it troubling because I am attaching more worth to my tongue than to my virtue. That is how powerful the illusion of value can be!

 

Something else deeply beautiful here is that as grand and mighty as he may seem, the powerful man ends up being just as subject to force as the weak man. He is no better simply because he is stronger in body or in influence, and in the end he must still make the same fundamental choices about good and bad. 

 

Legend speaks of how Busiris is said to have found pleasure in sacrificing foreign visitors to his kingdom, until one of those visitors, Hercules, broke free of his chains and in turn killed Busiris. What comes around, goes around. The tyrants and the bullies can so easily end up tasting their own medicine. 

 

I see the tale of Regulus as combining both of these truths, that even though everyone, including the most important people, must face the power of others in their lives, how they choose to face it, and what they choose to make of it, is what will define who they truly are. 

 

Marcus Atilius Regulus was a Roman consul and general, who fought against the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars. He won many victories, but then he found himself captured by his enemies. He was released to take an offer of peace back to Rome, but only on the condition that he would then return to his imprisonment.

 

Now here might be a moment where I would count my lucky stars, content that I had escaped, saved my life, and recovered my freedom. But Regulus had a different order of priorities. He delivered the message to the Senate, advised his countrymen that these were horrible terms, and then promptly returned to Carthage, against the advice of all his friends. A version of the story has it that he was then tortured to death by his captors. 

 

I don’t recall where I first read about Regulus, but I was still fairly young, and I thought it all seemed a bit extreme. What I was missing was an awareness that no one is ever immune to losing fortune, and that a good man will gladly choose to give up his life before he gives up his virtue. What makes it so frustrating is that, deep down inside, I know this to be completely true. 

 

 

 

2.23

 

“Further, if there were any intrinsic good in the nature of honors and powers themselves, they could never crowd upon the basest men. For opposites will not be bound together. Nature refuses to allow contraries to be linked to each other. 

 

“Wherefore, while it is undoubted that for the most part offices of honor are enjoyed by bad men, it is also manifest that those things are not by nature good, which allow themselves to cling to evil men. And this indeed may worthily be held of all the gifts of fortune that come with the greatest success to the most unscrupulous. 

 

“And in this matter we must also think on this fact, that no one doubts a man to be brave in whom he has found by examination that bravery is implanted, and whoever has the quality of swiftness is plainly swift. So also music makes men musical, medicine makes men physicians, oratory makes men orators. The nature of each quality acts as is peculiar to itself; it is not confused with the results of contrary qualities, but goes so far as to drive out those qualities which are opposed to it. 

 

“Wealth cannot quench the insatiable thirst of avarice, nor can power ever make master of himself the man whom vicious passions hold fast in unbreakable chains. Honors, when joined to dishonest men, so far from making them honorable, betray them rather, and show them to be dishonorable.

 

“Why is this so? It is because you rejoice to call things by false names that belong not to them; their names are refuted by the reality of their qualities. Wherefore neither riches, nor that kind of power, nor these honors, can justly so be called.

 

“Lastly, we may come to the same conclusion concerning all the aspects of Fortune: nothing is to be sought in her, and it is plain she has no innate good, for she is not always joined with good men, nor does she make good those with whom she is joined.”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 6

 

Some things are good in and of themselves, without any condition, and these are the goods that we should seek for their own sake. Other things may become good by or through other things, and these are beneficial to us only when they are conjoined to what is greater and more complete. 

 

So fine words are only good when they are used to speak truth, and become evil when they are used to spread lies. A pretty face is only as desirable as the content of the character behind it. Smoking a pipe won’t necessarily make you wise, even as some wise people may smoke pipes. We must rightly distinguish between qualities that are always choiceworthy, and qualities that are sometimes choiceworthy, depending on their association. 

 

Innately good things cannot admit of any evil, because their value is absolute. Conditionally good things can readily be abused for evil, because their value is relative. 

 

So what sorts of qualities are inherently beneficial for us, and can in themselves never suffer from being harmful as long as they are present? Any of the virtues in the human soul, which will reflect excellence of action itself, are of this sort, including wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. They are all expressions of what it essentially means to be human, a creature of reason and will, made to know the truth and to love the good. In short, anything that proceeds according to man’s nature. 

 

So what sorts of qualities are accidentally beneficial for us, and can just as easily be turned to being harmful when they are not properly guided? Any of the conditions and circumstances the world may present to us, which can be used either for good or for evil, including power, wealth, honor, or pleasure. They are all opportunities we can use to live well, or to live poorly, through the presence or absence of virtue. In short, anything that proceeds according to the ways of fortune. 

 

Can a man be wise and powerful at the same time? Yes, but no man is wise because he is powerful, though being wise he will understand the right use of power. 

 

Can a man be just and rich at the same time? Yes, but no man is just because he is rich, though being just he will practice fairness with riches. 

 

Can a man be brave and honored at the same time? Yes, but no man is brave because he is honored, though if he is brave he may find himself actually worthy of respect. 

 

Can a man be temperate and satisfied in all his desires? Yes, but no man is temperate because he is satisfied, though by practicing self-control he will be able to truly value pleasure. 

 

We confuse ourselves when we swap the priority of Nature and Fortune. A man will be good because he has innately good qualities within him, and no amount of external circumstances will make him good. Where virtue is truly present, it will not permit vice to stand in her way, but when only fortune is present, vice may all too easily be at her side. 

 

 

 

2.24

 

“We have heard what ruin Nero wrought

 when Rome was burnt and senators were slain. 

We know how savagely he did to death his brother, 

how he was stained by the spilling of his own mother's blood, 

and how he looked upon her cold body 

and yet no tear fell upon his cheek; 

yet this man was judge of the morals of those who were dead. 

Nay, he was ruler of the peoples whom the sun looks upon 

from the time he rises in the east 

until he hides his rays beneath the waves, 

and those whom the chilling northern stars overrule, 

and those whom the southern gale burns with its dry blast, 

as it heats the burning sands. 

Say, could great power chasten Nero's maddened rage? 

Ah! heavy fate, how often is the sword of high injustice 

given where is already most poisonous cruelty!”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 6

 

We are so easily impressed by wealth, fame, and power, even as they are never what will make us good. Like any nation, Rome had its great leaders, and its terrible leaders. All the emperors had power, but the great ones were defined by their virtue, and the terrible ones by their vice. You may give a man dominion over everything outside of him, but it is the qualities of the heart and mind within him that will determine how he exercises that dominion. 

 

Perhaps Nature permits brutal tyrants to come our way to remind us where true value lies, and that power is never an assurance of excellence. Every generation will have its fair share of despots and oppressors, sometimes so many of them that we have a hard time finding anyone who will rule with benevolence. 

 

Though it can sometimes be difficult to unravel the facts from the legends, the name of Nero stands out as one of those warnings of what happens when you mix great power with a crooked soul. Few things can be more horrifying than overwhelming strength combined with depraved cruelty. We can see it in ancient Rome, just as we can see it around us today, constant proof that authority and influence do not make a good man. 

 

The autocrats and bullies come in many shapes and sizes, and the small ones can sometimes be just as frightening as the big ones. I once had the misfortune of working with an administrator who took a sinister delight in inflicting suffering on those he disliked. He seemed to take special pleasure in making women cry. He had the ear of a superior, and was a master of manipulation, so his position was virtually unassailable. I did my best to avoid him at all costs, because he made my skin crawl. The most frightening thing about him was the way he would flash a sinister little grin and rub his hands together whenever he got his way. We have surely all known the sorts of people who make us want to run for the hills. 

 

I’m not sure that power makes men evil, because I have known those who will rule with justice and kindness, but I do suspect that power makes bad men even worse. It gives them the tools they crave to impose their wills, and becomes an opportunity for them to acquire the sense of importance they think they deserve. For some, the craving for greater and greater influence becomes like a sort of addiction to feed their vanity.

 

And yet we still so often admire power, we still think it somehow worthy, and we still wish to possess it for ourselves, forgetting that it is in itself of no real merit at all. It is the character of the man who wields it that will make it good or evil, and so I am well advised to pay far greater attention to building virtue than acquiring power. 

 

 

 

2.25

 

Then I said, “You know that the vainglory of this world has had but little influence over me; but I have desired the means of so managing affairs that virtue might not grow aged in silence.”

 

“Yes,” she said, “but there is one thing that can attract minds, which, though by nature excelling, yet are not led by perfection to the furthest bounds of virtue; and that thing is the love of fame and reputation for deserving well of one's country. 

 

“Think then thus upon it, and see that it is but a slight thing of no weight. As you have learned from astronomers' showing, the whole circumference of the earth is but as a point compared with the size of the heavens. That is, if you compare the earth with the circle of the Universe, it must be reckoned as of no size at all. 

 

“And of this tiny portion of the Universe there is only a fourth part, as you have learnt from the demonstration of Ptolemy, which is inhabited by living beings known to us. If from this fourth part you imagine subtracted all that is covered by sea and marsh, and all the vast regions of thirsty desert, you will find but the narrowest space left for human habitation. 

 

“And do you think of setting forth your fame and publishing your name in this space, which is but as a point within another point so closely circumscribed? And what size or magnificence can fame have which is shut in by such close and narrow bounds? 

 

“Further, this narrow enclosure of habitation is peopled by many races of men which differ in language, in customs, and in their whole scheme of living; and owing to difficulty of travelling, differences of speech, and rareness of any intercourse, the fame of cities cannot reach them, much less the fame of men. 

 

“Has not Cicero written somewhere that in his time the fame of Rome had not reached the mountains of the Caucasus, though the Republic was already well grown and striking awe among the Parthians and other nations in those parts? Do you see then how narrow and closely bounded must be that fame which you wish to extend more widely? Can the fame of a Roman ever reach parts to which the name of Rome cannot come?” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 7

 

Where is that line between doing right, and wanting to be seen as doing right?

 

If I had the chance to practice justice, but with no recognition whatsoever, would I do so? Would my choice be different if it also leads to praise, and honor, and glory? What would that say about my character?

 

Now I only need to ask myself what all of those external rewards might mean. The Universe is incredibly vast, and I am incredibly small. Narrow the scope to the Earth itself, and I am still small. Narrow the scope to my nation, or to my time, or to my place, and I am still small. Narrow all the scope, yet I become no bigger, or any more important. 

 

I may look at a worm, and think how insignificant it is; I am no more significant. Squash a worm, or squash me. Who will notice, or who might pay attention?

 

The concern for noticing or receiving attention is the root of the problem here. The worm fulfills its nature, in its own way, and it asks for nothing more. Yet men neglect their own nature, and they ask for far more. Instead of just working to be good while they are around, they worry about being considered good when they’re not around. 

 

Even as they are men, they wish to be gods. They observe their own reason, and seek to make their reason supreme. They are mortal, but believe they can make themselves immortal by their plotting and scheming.

 

By all means, I could make myself the biggest lawyer, doctor, businessman, academic, or politician there ever was. I could work my best to be loved by others, or to be feared by others, or to make my mark.

 

My mark may be noticed by a few around me, but it will remain unnoticed by most everyone else. Each of us is just one very tiny fish in a very big sea. I’m not thinking of a few goldfish in a bowl, or a few trout in a lake, but rather an image of a vast school of millions and millions of herring, itself just another one of countless other schools across a vast ocean.

 

My mark will also fade, and it will pass. If I think that I will be remembered and revered, a time will come, for most of us just around the corner, where each of us is completely forgotten. If I think my fame defines me, I will cease to exist quite soon. Very soon. There is no immortality there. 

 

One of my students once nobly argued that great people are known to all, and will never die. I put that to the test by asking a bunch of blokes at a bar in Vienna if they knew who George Washington was. “Yes, of course!” they said. “He’s that one who defeated Napoleon!” 

 

At another time, I asked some students at a very classy college, up on the list of the supposed best, who Marcus Aurelius was. “Wait, I know, he was that doctor on a TV show my Mom used to watch!” Jesus wept. 

 

Now imagine how even if we are remembered, for a moment or two, by a few people here or there, who they might think we are will have nothing to do with who we actually are.

 

And the fact that any of this may sound disturbing or discouraging tells me how disordered my sense of priorities has become. 

 

Here is another, quite radical, alternative. I could define myself by what I do, just for its own sake, not by how I am seen. 

 

 

 

2.26

 

“Further, the manners and customs of different races are so little in agreement, that what little it is to make his name known, because he takes pleasure in a glorious fame. So each man can only be content if his fame travels throughout his own countrymen, and the immortality of his name shall be bounded by the limits of one nation. 

 

“But how many men, the most famous of their times, are wiped out by oblivion because no man has written of them! And yet what advantage is there in much that is written? For with their authors these writings are overwhelmed in the length and dimness of age. Yet when you think upon your fame in future ages, you seem to think that you are prolonging it to immortality. But if you think upon the unending length of eternity, what enjoyment do you find in the long endurance of your name? 

 

“For though one moment bears but the least proportion to ten thousand years, yet there is a definite ratio, because both are limited spaces of time. But even ten thousand years, or the greatest number you will, cannot even be compared with eternity. For there will always be ratio between finite things, but between the finite and the infinite there can never be any comparison.

 

 “Wherefore, however long drawn out may be the life of your fame, it is not even small, but it is absolutely nothing when compared with eternity. You know not how to act rightly except for the breezes of popular opinion and for the sake of empty rumors; thus the excellence of conscience and of virtue is left behind, and you seek rewards from the tattle of other men.” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 7

 

We become easily confused about right scale and proportion, so our judgments about value can become distorted. Smaller things are mistaken for bigger things, and lesser things for greater things. The shadow of a mouse can appear like a giant beast, or a bag of snacks can be filled mainly with air. If it is closer, it may seem more desirable, or more frightening, than if it is further away. Dress it up nicely on the outside, but it can still be rotten on the inside, even as bland packages sometimes reveal the greatest treasures. 

 

Now I may think that the social values and fashions of my time and place are all there is, and if I can only live up to them, then I have done all that there is ever to do. Yet there are countless other times and places, all with different standards of glory. I may have arrived, as they say, right here and now, but I am a nothing and a nobody everywhere else. 

 

Few things can help us to rouse ourselves from the slumber than considering the scale and proportion of time itself. In relationship to one another, there is a real difference between one and ten, and so accordingly I might think it better to be famous for a decade instead of just for a year. 

 

Yet this is only because we are comparing finite quantities. Though one and ten are different from one another, each is still infinitely removed from eternity, and what once seemed so important becomes hardly important at all. Tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions become insignificant if we see them in the face of infinite time, or of infinite space. Contrasted to what is absolute, my limited worries are as nothing. 

 

When I was back in Boston, I would see hundred and hundreds of young professionals on the subway every morning, and then thousands and thousands more streaming into their office buildings once I got out of that little metal tube. 

 

Now each was a human being, no better or worse than any other, but just consider the way they were all being played. If they worked enough hours, made the right connections, and impressed the best people, they were told they would be on top, the recipients of true wealth and glory. 

 

Their lives were indeed special, but not for the reasons they were given. What is one suburban yuppie success story among all the other millions? There was very little individual difference between them, as they marched back and forth in their vast armies, and certainly a boundless difference between them and the power that charges all of Creation. 

 

What a difference seeing the big picture can make!

 

 

 

2.27

 

“Listen to the witty manner in which one played once upon the shallowness of this pride. A certain man once bitterly attacked another who had taken to himself falsely the name of philosopher, not for the purpose of true virtue, but for pride of fame. He added to his attack that he would know soon whether he was a philosopher, when he saw whether the other bore with meekness and patience the insults he heaped upon him. 

 

“The other showed patience for a while and took the insults as though he scoffed at them, until he said, ‘Do you now see that I am a philosopher?’ 

 

“‘I should have, had you kept silence,’ said the other stingingly. 

 

“But we are speaking of great men, and I ask, what do they gain from fame, though they seek glory by virtue? What have they after the body is dissolved at death? For if men die utterly, as our reason forbids us to believe, there is no glory left to them at all, since they whose it is said to be, do not exist. If, on the other hand, the mind is still conscious and working when it is freed from its earthly prison, it seeks heaven in its freedom and surely spurns all earthly traffic. It enjoys heaven and rejoices in its release from the of this world.”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 7

 

There we have it all, the difference between the man of character, and the man of appearances. One lives well, while the other wants to be considered well. 

 

Philosophers are an odd bunch, but there are actually two very different sorts to be found. This is true, in my experience, of all scholars, academics, or professionals in the world of education. You will find some who love truth, and you will find others who love glory. I suppose it is actually true of all people, period. 

 

There are, in other words, those who serve, and those who wish to be served. 

 

When I was an undergraduate, I was immediately drawn to teachers who wanted to help me to understand, and I tried to avoid teachers who wanted to help themselves to be revered. 

 

I made a big mistake once, however, by falling for a clever and charming fellow, who told me that there were certain games I needed to play if I ever wanted success. He wrote fancy books, complete with artfully posed pictures of himself on the cover, and quickly rose to being the Chairman of the Department. When I was a graduate student, he told me that he would “groom” me. I just needed to be humble and obedient. 

 

One day, I was ecstatic to have one of my papers accepted for a snazzy conference. I asked him if he could attend my presentation, hoping he would be proud of what I had done. He didn’t show up. As it turns out, he spent the afternoon at the hotel bar across the street, socializing and drinking with friends from his own special circle. I was crushed. Even some of my own students made the lengthy trip, but he was nowhere to be found. 

 

A month later, he told me has was leaving for a better job, but that I was welcome to finish my dissertation by the end of the academic year, and he’d see if he could fit me into his busy schedule. Otherwise, I’d have to start all over again. I did have to start all over again.

 

He went from one achievement to another, and I was there sitting in the mud. I felt angry, I felt hopeless, and I felt betrayed. 

 

It took me many years to understand that he was going to be who he was, but it was up to me who I was going to be. Using the George Costanza “opposite” rule, I committed myself to teaching over research, to students over publishing, to service over promotion. Did it get me anywhere? Define your terms. It cost me a career, but it saved my soul.

 

I finally grew out of my resentment, but it wasn’t easy. I began to see how some treat wisdom as a means, while others treat it as an end. It should not bother me that I failed by that man’s standards, and I should only be concerned with whether I succeeded by Nature’s standards.

 

Decades in the world of education, working in the trenches and not in the boardroom, have taught me that character will always be better than posturing. Every time. I don’t pose well for the camera, but I will do anything to help my neighbor out of the gutter. 

 

Boethius offers a very telling story. The man who wishes to be thought of as a philosopher is hardly a philosopher at all. He betrays himself when he is questioned or berated. You will see a good man keep his silence, because he doesn’t care about his reputation, even as you will see a wicked man fight for his fake honor.

 

Have I failed simply because no one even knows who I am? 

 

What does all of this honor mean? This has long been one of my favorite passages in the Consolation. If there is no life after death, it matters nothing. If there is life after death, it still matters nothing. Either death is the end of everything, or it is the beginning of something completely different. 

 

Vanity of vanities. . . 

 

 

 

2.28

 

“The mind that rushes headlong in its search for fame, 

thinking that is its highest good, 

should look upon the spreading regions of the air, 

and then upon the bounded tracts that are this world. 

Then will shame enter it, 

that, though fame grows, yet can it never fill so small a circle. 

Proud men! Why will you try in vain 

to free your necks from the yoke mortality has set on them? 

Though fame may be wide scattered

and find its way through distant lands, 

and set the tongues there talking; 

though a splendid house may draw brilliance from famous names and tales; 

yet death regards not any glory, howsoever great. 

Alike he overwhelms the lowly and the lofty head, 

and levels high with low. 

Where are Fabricius' bones, that honorable man? 

What now is Brutus? Or unbending Cato? 

Their fame survives in this:

 it has no more than a few slight letters showing forth an empty name. 

We see their noble names engraved, 

and only know thereby that they are brought to nothing. 

You lie then all unknown, and fame can give no knowledge of you. 

But if you think that life can be prolonged by the breath of mortal fame, 

yet when the slow time robs you of this too, 

then there awaits you but a second death.”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 7

 

In my own experience, the pull of fame and fortune can have a powerful effect on the imagination, precisely because it is so often filled with vivid impressions of feeling important. I may, in theory, understand the innate weakness of such posturing, but I am tempted nevertheless by the sights and sounds of being praised and esteemed. 

 

I have long appreciated the word vainglory, because its very parts tell me everything I need to know about the danger of a false pride in honor. Even so, the glory can seem to hide the poison of the vanity.

 

So it can help me to confront such appealing images with the contrast of correspondingly weak and disturbing images, reminders that things are not always as they at first appear. If I see someone being revered, I can think how quickly he will be forgotten. If I see a monument raised in his memory, I can find myself another monument overgrown with weeds. If I see him being glorified in the media, I can look at a pile of old newspapers used to line a pet cage. If I see him being driven about in a fancy car, I can imagine only how he might feel when being driven for the last time in a hearse. When I see him eating at a sumptuous banquet, I can ponder being food for the worms. 

 

Though I at first found them frightening, I have actually grown fond of the medieval tradition of memento mori(“remember that you will die”), or of depictions of the Dance of Death, or of Flemish vanitas paintings. The point is never to simply dwell on what is morbid, but to remember what is right and good. Boethius is here doing much the same. 

 

Not only will the glory of the world never last, and we will not even be around for what little of it might linger, but consider also what we make of ourselves when we pursue this path. All attention is drawn to what is on the outside, at the expense of what is on the inside. Life is no longer simply about what we choose to think and do, but about what others think and do. Instead of asking what I can give, I ask only what I can receive. Contentment succumbs to consumption, and character falls to charisma. 

 

I sometimes wonder how much the people around me, who are building up their position and reputation, actually share in any sort of happiness. They often seem so busy, so frenzied, and so tired that I suspect they have little time to reflect on who they are at all, being constantly occupied with who other people think they are. 

 

Yet I shouldn’t second-guess others, and I only need to look within myself. I know that whenever I’ve been enticed by fortune, I may think it will make me more free, even as I am only selling myself into slavery. 

 

 

 

2.29

 

“But,” she said, “do not think that I would urge implacable war upon Fortune. There are times when her deception of men has certain merits. I mean when she discovers herself, unveils her face, and proclaims her ways. 

 

Perhaps you do not yet understand what I would say. It is a strange thing that I am trying to say, and for that reason I can scarcely explain myself in words. I think that ill fortune is of greater advantage to men than good fortune. Good fortune is ever lying when she seems to favor by an appearance of happiness. Ill fortune is ever true when by her changes she shows herself inconstant. 

 

The one deceives, the other edifies. The one by a deceitful appearance of good things enchains the minds of those who enjoy them. The other frees them by a knowledge that happiness is so fragile. 

 

You see, then, that the one is blown about by winds, is ever moving and ever ignorant of its own self. The other is sober, ever prepared and ever made provident by the undergoing of its very adversities.

 

Lastly, good fortune draws men from the straight path of true good by her fawning. Ill fortune draws most men to the true good, and holds them back by her curved staff.” 

 

—from Book 2, Prose 8

 

The argument here is something I had long failed to really consider, for far too many years. We all assume, of course, that good fortune is beneficial, and that bad fortune is harmful. Why else would we call them “good” and “bad”? If I win a million dollars, the world is looking great, and if my house has burned down, things have taken a turn for the worse. 

 

Now Lady Philosophy has been explaining to Boethius that any kind of fortune, whether we call it good or bad, is hardly a reliable source of happiness. As soon as we start depending upon it, we are placing our trust in something over which we really have little control. Would it not be wiser to build our lives on what we do, rather than what happens to us?

 

But surely, even if our lives can only be what we make of them, fortune can still be of assistance, or make that path easier, or offer the mean for us to become better. If fortune can help me to build my own character, I would be a fool to turn her away. If I have wealth, I could use that wealth for good, or if I have fame, I could employ my fame for the sake of what is right. 

 

Yet human nature can be fickle, and being given more will not necessarily mean that we will make more of it. In fact, Lady Philosophy now suggests that the more good fortune comes our way, the more likely we will be to make ourselves worse. The choice, of course, is up to us, but the weight of influence will be such that good fortune will actually discourage us from virtue, and bad fortune will encourage us to virtue. 

 

This flies in the face of everything we take for granted, but our assumptions are still built on the idea that life is measured by our circumstances. Once we begin to see that what is on the outside is entirely relative to what is on the inside, we can be open to a transformation of values. 

 

Give us all the supposed blessings of fortune, and we will be easily tempted to rest in them, or use them as our support, and we think that they are trustworthy and constant. We begin to find our contentment in them alone, and we can then neglect our moral worth. 

 

Take away all the supposed blessings of fortune, and we realize that we can never rest in them, or use them as our support, and we no longer think they are trustworthy and constant. We begin to find our contentment in ourselves alone, and we can then improve our moral worth. 

 

The odd irony ends up being that what we thought was helping was actually hurting, and what we thought was hurting was actually helping. Good fortune can deceive us into a false sense of security and dependence, and makes us ignorant of our true nature. Bad fortune can wake us from our slumber, reminding us of what truly matters in life, and makes us stronger in the face of adversity. 

 

My own experience, considered with brutal honesty, has taught me how much this has been true in my life. I have done some things right, and many things wrong, in all sort of circumstances, but the general pattern, far more often than not, has been that when you given me more, I make less of myself, and when you give me less, I make more of myself. 

 

Fortune can “reward” me with more, or she can “punish” me with less. At first it is clear which I should prefer, but what if I see that a reward can spoil me, making me weak, entitled, and arrogant, while a punishment can correct me, making be committed, responsible, and humble? I might want to rethink my preference. 

 

More and less are not always what we think they are. 

 

 

 

2.30

 

“And do you think that this should be reckoned among the least benefits of this rough, unkind, and terrible ill fortune, that she has discovered to you the minds of your faithful friends?

 

 “Fortune has distinguished for you your sure and your doubtful friends; her departure has taken away her friends and left you yours. At what price could you have bought this benefit if you had been untouched and, as you thought, fortunate?

 

 “Cease then to seek the wealth you have lost. You have found your friends, and they are the most precious of all riches.”

 

—from Book 2, Prose 8

 

Offering an example of how misfortune can actually help us to become better, Lady Philosophy asks Boethius to consider how desperate circumstances can encourage understanding of the true nature of friendship. Few things seem dearer to us, and also more painful to us, than our relationships with the people we would like to consider our friends. 

 

This passage resonates with me quite deeply. I was never really a fellow who wanted to be in the spotlight, loved by the many, but I always felt a need to find just a few people I could love and trust. I made many mistakes in this regard. 

 

In school, people would often say they were your friends when it was socially convenient. At work, people would often say they were your friends when it was professionally convenient. On the most personal level, people would often say they were your friends when it was emotionally convenient. 

 

And I would fall for it, time and time again. I followed all the wrong sorts of people, and so I made myself the wrong sort of person. I was impressed by charm, or influence, or simply if someone made me feel good. And then I wondered why it all ended up hurting so much. 

 

I would reach out to others, and then I suddenly found myself burned. I once quite foolishly even committed all of myself to someone, not quite knowing what I was getting into, but thinking that if I made that great leap, only good would follow. It didn’t. I ended up alone.  

 

I would then impulsively blame others, and I would lash out about how unfair it all was. Yet the blame for my agony was never with others, whatever wrong they may or may not have done for themselves. The blame for my agony came from me. 

 

It took quite a bit of time, and quite a bit more struggling with myself, but I eventually saw that I misunderstood the nature of love, at all levels, and to all degrees. I expected to be given comfort, confidence, and support. It is quite wonderful to receive this, but that, I realized, is not what it means to be a friend. To be a friend is to provide comfort, confidence, and support. I had it backwards. 

 

Now it is entirely possible that I might have learned this in any number of ways, but I found it telling that I happened to learn it not by experiencing healthy forms of friendship, but by experiencing sick forms of friendship. It was actually the absence of what was good that pointed me to the presence of what was good. Being disposed of by others helped me to respect others, and being deceived by others helped me to be honest with others. 

 

As painful as it may be, worldly disappointments in life can sometimes teach us far more than our worldly successes in life. I imagine what could have become of me if I had not eventually seen how I was so easily cast aside. I might well have continued under the illusion that crooked people thought I mattered. If I had continued being useful, and therefore being comfortably numb, I might never have learned. 

 

Misfortune will tell you exactly who your real friends are, and, more importantly, it will also tell you exactly who you are.

 

 

 

2.31

 

“Through Love

the Universe with constancy makes changes all without discord. 

Earth's elements, though contrary, abide in treaty bound.

Phoebus in his golden car leads up the glowing day;

his sister rules the night that Hesperus brought.

The greedy sea confines its waves in bounds, 

lest the earth's borders be changed by its beating on them.

All these are firmly bound by Love, 

which rules both earth and sea,

and has its empire in the heavens too. 

If Love should slacken this its hold,

 all mutual love would change to war,

and these would strive to undo the scheme 

that now their glorious movements

carry out with trust and with accord. 

By Love are peoples too kept bound together, 

by a treaty that they may not break. 

Love binds with pure affection the sacred tie of wedlock,

 and speaks its bidding to all trusty friends.

 O happy race of mortals,

 if your hearts are ruled as is the universe, by Love!”

 

—from Book 2, Poem 8

 

They say that love is the law, that love makes the world go around, and that all you need is love. What a powerful word, and also a word so often misunderstood, manipulated, and abused. 

 

Lady Philosophy, I would suggest, is here not merely speaking about affection, or the passion of longing, or the satisfaction that comes from any sort of possession. Love here is not just a feeling, but a force that runs far deeper. 

 

It ties and binds all things together, because love is the movement of all things toward what is good, and the peace within all things when they rest in their completion and fulfillment. It is the total expression of all aspects of Nature, ordered to their proper purpose and end. It is the balance and harmony of action. 

 

I thought I knew what love was when I desired to make something my own, to have control over it, to tame it for my gratification. It may have been a thing, or a state of affairs, or a person, but it was always about how something else pointed back to me. 

 

But love, like wisdom, points beyond itself. It gives of itself, and asks nothing beyond the gift of giving. It adds no terms or conditions. It seeks after what is good for its own sake, and for the sake of nothing else. 

 

When a plant grows, or an animal rears its young, or the heavens turn, they don’t demand any payment for simply following their nature. How odd that a man, made to know and love by his own conscious choice, will so often require more than that. What will I get from it? Where is my profit margin? What have you done for me lately? He forgets that it rests in the doing, not in what is done. 

 

The cynical side of me might complain that I have heard the words “I love you” so very often, and they have so often meant nothing at all. The love will seem to pass away as the utility seems to pass away. 

 

My complaint, however, isn’t about love at all; it is about the twisting and distorting of love. Don’t blame the message for the failure of the messenger, and don’t blame the truth when others turn it into lies. When others fail in love, I should be all the more committed to loving. 

 

Do I feel lost? Everything in Nature tells me how to love. The world is completely charged with it. Scientists will speak of the way things move one another, each according to its own place within the order of the whole, and that, dare I say, is the work of love under a different name. 

 

All things come to be themselves, only when they strive for what they are meant to be. How I was born came from love. How I live is measured by my love. That I must die will only make sense from the fullness of love. 

 

All action, of any sort, is what Aristotle called the “natural appetite” of all being to perfect its being, and thereby to be part of the perfection of all things. Yes, love makes the world go around. 

 

 

 

Book 3

 

3.1

 

When she finished her song, its soothing tones left me spellbound with my ears alert in my eagerness to listen. So a while afterwards I said, “Greatest comforter of weary minds, how have you cheered me with your deep thoughts, and sweet singing too! No more shall I doubt my power to meet the blows of Fortune. So far am I from terror at the remedies which you did lately tell me were sharper, that I am longing to hear them, and eagerly I beg you for them.”

 

Then she said, “I knew it when you laid hold upon my words in silent attention, and I was waiting for that frame of mind in you, or more truly, I brought it about in you. They that remain are indeed bitter to the tongue, but sweet to the inner man. But as you say you are eager to hear, how ardently you would be burning, if you knew where I am attempting to lead you!”

 

“Where is that?” I asked.

 

“To the true happiness, of which your soul too dreams; but your sight is taken up in imaginary views of it, so that you cannot look upon itself.”

 

Then said I, “I pray you show me what that truly is, and quickly.”

 

“I will do so,” she said, “for your sake willingly. But first I will try to picture in words and give you the form of the cause, which is already better known to you, that so, when that picture is perfect and you turn your eyes to the other side, you may recognize the form of true happiness.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 1

 

I find another transition of sorts here, a shift from considering how I should view myself in the face of Fortune to a deeper examination of the true origin of happiness. Boethius has learned that he should not rely on the circumstances around him, but should rather seek the wisdom and virtue within him. Now what actually constitutes such a strength of inner character? Where is one to look to find its source? Even as so much in our world seems fickle and unreliable, what can be constant and trusted?

 

Having seen how the ebb and flow of Fortune is not the measure of happiness, it is now time to find comfort in the order of Nature. 

 

We will all agree that happiness is surely a good thing, yet I can’t help but think that we are often only running after little bits of it here and there, much like a mouse scampering about, picking up crumbs under the table, completely oblivious to the banquet above. 

 

When we are asked what happiness is, most of us will answer with a list of desirable things, but what is it that these things really share in common, and what is it that makes them good? If we consider them worthy of our attention, from where do they receive that worth?

 

So I may wander about, with my head hung down, looking at this or that beneath me, when I might be better served by looking up. 

 

The prisoners in Plato’s Cave were captivated by the images right in front of their eyes, but they did not consider where these images came from, or what sort of reality stood behind them. Someone who has looked beyond the immediacy of what is appealing to the senses and desires may describe a whole different world out there, of which the images are just pale shadows, but the prisoners would hardly know what he is talking about. Because they choose not to reflect upon what things means, they will have no frame of reference. 

 

Even Boethius, as educated as he was in the study of philosophy, will apparently need to be introduced to the true form of happiness in stages. Lady Philosophy will begin with what is more familiar to him, and then gradually proceed to an awareness of the complete and perfect source. 

 

When I have been in the dark for too long, my eyes will need time to adjust to the light. It isn’t that the light is too bright, but that my eyes have been deprived of it, and must again become accustomed to receiving its rays. This is why any effective teacher I have ever had always moved me along by steady degrees.

 

There is little point in going straight to the conclusion, since it will make no sense without the preceding argument. We can only get to what is further away by starting with what is closer, moving from the proximate to the ultimate.

 

Boethius, like every one of us, is still learning to fly.

 

 

 

3.2

 

“When a man would sow in virgin soil,

 first he clears away the bushes, 

cuts the brambles and the ferns, 

that the corn-goddess may go forth laden with her new fruit. 

The honey, that the bee has toiled to give us, 

is sweeter when the mouth has tasted bitter things. 

The stars shine with more pleasing grace 

when a storm has ceased to roar and pour down rain. 

After the morning star has dispersed the shades of night, 

the day in all its beauty drives its rosy chariot forth. 

So you have looked upon false happiness first. 

Now draw your neck from under her yoke: 

so shall true happiness now come into your soul.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 1

 

When I was younger, many of my elders told me that good things never came easy, and that they may well take some time. I would sometimes resent this, because I was already a part of a generation that sought instant gratification. If anything was ever worth working for, the trend was that money and influence were the only helpful tools for the gratification we craved. 

 

We not only want what we think is good right now, but we are confused about what is good to begin with. Perhaps thinking this way is a very part of the process, where we have to struggle with getting it wrong before we can come to the peace of what is right. The problem, of course, is actually moving beyond the confusion to the clarity. 

 

I can certainly think of many ways that a genuine reward was all the more fulfilling because of, and in contrast to, the grief and toil that preceded it. It took the disappointment of false friendship to appreciate true friendship, the illusion of learning for vanity to discover learning for character, or all the trappings and diversions of false success to recognize that true success in life is something very different than I had thought it to be. 

 

There will be no reaping if I don’t do any sowing. I will not become better if I do not learn from my mistakes. I will never become blessed without first having an experience of what is wretched. 

 

Just as we often want our senses immediately satisfied, we will also want our minds to be immediately filled with all of the answers. When we don’t get it right away, we lose interest, and assume it isn’t worth our time. It doesn’t occur to us that finding something worthwhile often demands patience, and we might have to travel a ways to get to our destination. There are many steps along the way. 

 

When people hear that I have a background in philosophy, they will often ask me profound questions, sometimes just to have a bit of fun, but sometimes out of genuine curiosity. I will pull my best Socrates, and ask them to clarify their definitions, work from what they already know to some insight on what thy don’t know, and break down a vague sense of the whole to a precise understanding of the parts. 

 

They usually dislike this and turn to something else fairly quickly, because what they wanted was just an answer, not the actual working toward an answer. It doesn’t necessarily occur to them that the answer only is an answer through an explanation of the reasons why it is true. This will not come to us right away, but involves a long-term commitment. There can be no conclusion without the effort of reasoning. 

 

Finding a life of happiness is one part of that continuing effort, perhaps the single most important part, because happiness seems to be what we all want, what we were all made for. But what is it exactly? Should I not ask very carefully what is good and bad in life, and why that must be so? What do different kinds of people say about this, and how can looking at that help us toward the truth? 

 

Here is the clearing of the field, and the planting of the seed, before we can enjoy the harvest. 

 

 

 

3.3

 

She lowered her eyes for a little while as though searching the innermost recesses of her mind, and then she continued: “The trouble of the many and various aims of mortal men bring them much care, and herein they go forward by different paths but strive to reach one end, which is happiness. 

 

“And that good is that, to which if any man attain, he can desire nothing further. It is that highest of all good things, and it embraces in itself all good things. If any good is lacking, it cannot be the highest good, since then there is left outside it something which can be desired. 

 

“Wherefore happiness is a state that is made perfect by the union of all good things. This end all men seek to reach, as I said, though by different paths. For there is implanted by Nature in the minds of men a desire for the true good, but error leads them astray towards false goods by wrong paths. 

 

“Some men believe that the highest good is to lack nothing, and so they are at pains to possess abundant riches. 

 

“Others consider the true good to be that which is most worthy of admiration, and so they strive to attain to places of honor, and to be held by their fellow-citizens in honor thereby. 

 

“Some determine that the highest good lies in the highest power, and so they either desire to reign themselves, or try to cleave to those who do reign. 

 

“Others think that renown is the greatest good, and they therefore hasten to make a famous name by the arts of peace or of war. 

 

“But more than all measure the fruit of good by pleasure and enjoyment, and these think that the happiest man is abandoned to pleasure.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 2

 

It might seem strange if people needed something, while being completely unaware that they needed it, but it might seem even stranger if people knew there was something they needed, and even had a name for it, but still couldn’t recognize it. 

 

It would be much like not knowing I require a cure, because I am ignorant of the fact that I am sick, as distinct from knowing I should take a remedy for what ails me, and knowing what the necessary medicine is called, but being ignorant of which color pill is the right one. 

 

It isn’t so strange after all, however, because I suggest we do precisely this, day in and day out, when it comes to being happy. Surely none of us are ignorant that we want to be happy, that we needs to be happy, that it is in fact the most important thing in life to work for. Yet at the same time, many of us have absolutely no idea what happiness actually is, and what we need in order to get it. 

 

Over years of trying to teach philosophy, I would always suggest to people that the pursuit was hardly pointless or impractical, but rather the most critical and necessary discipline that each and every person needed to master. I was, of course, looked at as if I was insane, because it was assumed I meant reading stuffy books. Rather, I meant that it was only by sound reasoning that we can ever understand how we should live, what will make our actions worthwhile, and which paths can lead us to happiness. 

 

Whatever variations of the term we may use, we are all looking for the same thing. We want to be content, complete, fulfilled, and deprived of nothing that we need. We want a life that is good and not bad, full of right things instead of wrong things, and we would like this in the best possible way. We understand that happiness is not living with mediocrity, but with excellence. If it isn’t the best, there would still be something more to desire. 

 

We even have that ubiquitous yellow smiley face to represent all of it, a symbol that I sometimes find more disturbing than comforting. What makes me a bit uncomfortable is that we aren’t even sure exactly what it means. “Well, you know, being happy! Everyone knows what that is!” That look I get when people think I am insane turns to a look of resentment when I ask for specifics. 

 

Engineers calculate tolerances to the slightest degree, doctors map all the details of the human body, and businessmen consider every nuanced factor in the market, but when it comes to happiness, the most important aspect of all, we are at a loss for words. We think platitudes or vague sentiments will suffice. 

 

Now the depth of human living is far more profound than the laws of physics, biology, or economics, but that should be a reason to be more careful instead of less careful. 

 

Sometimes we embrace what we think is the easiest answer, or the one we are simply most familiar with from those around us. So we might say that money is happiness, or respect, or power, or great achievements. Many of us will say that pleasure is happiness, because we assume that feeling good must be the highest good. 

 

And in each of these cases, Lady Philosophy will explain, our ignorance has led us down the wrong path. We see a bit of the good here, a piece of it over there, and we forget to look for the whole good, the one that includes them all, and rises above them all. We confuse what is imperfect and incomplete with what is perfect and complete. 

 

 

 

3.4

 

“Further, there are those who confuse the aims and the causes of these good things: as those who desire riches for the sake of power or of pleasure, or those who seek power for the sake of money or celebrity. 

 

“In these, then, and other things like to them, lies the aim of men's actions and prayers, such as renown and popularity, which seem to afford some fame, or wife and children, which are sought for the pleasure they give. 

 

“On the other hand, the good of friends, which is the most honorable and holy of all, lies not in Fortune's but in Virtue's realm. All others are adopted for the sake of power or enjoyment.

 

“Again, it is plain that the good things of the body must be accounted to those false causes which we have mentioned, for bodily strength and stature seem to make men more able and strong; beauty and swiftness seem to give renown; health seems to give pleasure. 

 

“By all these happiness alone is plainly desired. For each man holds that to be the highest good, which he seeks before all others. But we have defined the highest good to be happiness. Wherefore what each man desires above all others, he holds to be a state of happiness.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 2

 

Many of us will assume that because people offer different answers to questions, this means that there are no answers to those questions. This is the relativism of our time, and as with all trends, it has come and gone in the past, and will continue to come and go in our future. 

 

It hardly needs to follow from any sinister motives; I suspect it proceeds largely from confusion and despair. It is also easier to ignore a problem than to take the effort to solve it. I take a deep breath, and remind myself that difficulty is not the same thing as impossibility. I take a moment to reflect, and remind myself that true and false, right and wrong are not matters of utility or convenience. 

 

We may pursue all sorts of priorities, and hold many views on the best means and ends. There is the struggle. I see that I should never work backwards from a given conclusion, but that I should use my understanding to work toward a conclusion. I see that worrying about achieving the means is entirely pointless without being truly aware of the ends. 

 

So some people want money to gain pleasure, and some people use pleasure to gain power, and some people employ power to earn recognition. Each of us will seem to have our own version of the best path. 

 

Mine were once twofold: get recognized in public to feel relevant and worthwhile, and find love in private to feel relevant and worthwhile. Money, of course, might help with getting that done, but its absence could be just as helpful for my sense of being relevant and worthwhile. All that mattered was that I somehow felt that I mattered.

 

And as Lady Philosophy would remind me, all of it was about what happened to me as an end. It was a passive view of life, not an active view of life. I would confuse what I made of myself with what others made of me. 

 

I often wondered why people still married and had children, for example, in an age that was mostly about receiving, and so little about giving. Then I directly saw so many of my own peers marry and have children as a means for a sense of importance and self-gratification. The spouse became a tool, and the children became a tool; they were not loved for their own sake, but for our sake. 

 

What sadness must follow when we twist friendship and love in that sort of way?

 

At the same time, we look at the benefits of physical ability, strength, or attractiveness, and we glorify the lesser part of us at the expense of the greater part of us. I am a skilled athlete, or a beauty queen, or talented at some worldly skill. That could be good for me, but it isn’t the good for me. Means are again confused with ends. 

 

But surely, I think it is happiness, so it must be happiness? Thinking alone doesn’t make it true. Thinking in conformity with being, and with Nature, makes it true. 

 

 

 

3.5

 

“Wherefore you have each of these placed before you as the form of human happiness: wealth, honors, power, glory, and pleasure. Epicurus considered these forms alone, and accordingly determined upon pleasure as the highest good, because all the others seemed but to join with it in bringing enjoyment to the mind.

 

“But to return to the aims of men: their minds seem to seek to regain the highest good, and their memories seem to dull their powers. It is as though a drunken man was seeking his home, but could not remember the way there. 

 

“Can those people be altogether wrong whose aim it is to lack nothing? No, there is nothing that can make happiness so perfect as an abundant possession of good things, needing nothing that belongs to others, but in all ways sufficing for itself. 

 

“Surely those others too are not mistaken who think that what is best is also most worthy of reverence and respect. It cannot be any cheap or base thing, to attain which almost all men aim and strive. 

 

“And is power not to be accounted a good thing? Surely it is. Can that be a weak thing or forceless, which is allowed in all cases to excel? 

 

“Is renown of no value? We cannot surrender this, that whatever is most excellent, has also great renown.

 

“It is hardly worth saying that happiness has no torturing cares or gloom, and is not subject to grief and trouble; for even in small things, the aim is to find that which it is a delight to have and to enjoy. 

 

“These, then, are the desires of men: they long for riches, places of honor, kingdoms, glory, and pleasure; and they long for them because they think that thereby they will find satisfaction, veneration, power, renown, and happiness. It is the good then which men seek by their different desires, and it is easy to show how great a force Nature has put therein, since in spite of such varying and discordant opinions, they are all agreed in the goal they seek, that of the highest good.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 2

 

Despite the differences of opinion on what actually constitutes happiness, all the options are really just variations on the same theme. We broadly recognize that happiness must be the highest good, that with which we can be content, and that which leaves nothing more to be desired, but we are uncertain as to what this specifically entails. So we concentrate on aspects of life that can somehow share in what is good, but that are not complete goods. 

 

The mistake is always the same. We come across something that can be of benefit, and we confuse it with the greatestbenefit. What is relative and conditional is mistaken for what is absolute and unconditional. What is, in a sense, an incomplete part is assumed to be the whole. 

 

So I may see that money can provide for some of the things I think I need, and I jump to the conclusion that it can fulfill everything that I need. Happiness would indeed have to leave me without any want, and I start to think that money can relieve me of all want. 

 

I may see that receiving the respect of others can provide for some of the things I think I need, and I jump to the conclusion that it can fulfill everything that I need. Happiness would indeed have to be something worthy of total admiration, and I start to think that honor can put me in the highest place. 

 

I may see that power can provide for some of the things I think I need, and I jump to the conclusion that it can fulfill everything that I need. Happiness would indeed have to have the most perfect strength, and I start to think that my own strength can make me invincible. 

 

I may see that great achievement can provide for some of the things I think I need, and I jump to the conclusion that it can fulfill everything that I need. Happiness would indeed have to be of the greatest excellence, and I start to think that my own efforts can offer me glory. 

 

I may see that pleasure can provide for some of the things I think I need, and I jump to the conclusion that it can fulfill everything that I need. Happiness would indeed have to provide the most perfect joy, and I start to think that pursuing my own pleasures can provide absolute contentment. 

 

The Epicureans thought pleasure was the best of these, though I have seen plenty of folks who have picked money, or fame, or power, or grandeur. Each one focuses only on one imperfect reflection. 

 

Happiness will certainly have to possess everything, to be honored above all else, to be what is most powerful, to stand as the greatest of all things, and to provide the fullest satisfaction. Yet none of these qualities in themselves are the fullness of happiness, its source, measure, or complete breadth. A lesser degree is not the same as the maximum, and one instance is not the same as a complete presence. All good things are desirable, but not everything we desire is necessarily good. 

 

I appreciate the image of the drunkard stumbling about, knowing he needs to get home, but not sure how to get there. In a darker time in my life, a concerned friend offered to drive me home after a night of excess. I thought I saw a familiar landmark here, or that I recognized the best route over there, but I ended up leading him in the totally wrong direction. 

 

Only seeing one little bit of the whole path will not get me where I need to be going. So it is with happiness. 

 

 

 

3.6

 

“I would to pliant strings set forth a song 

of how almighty Nature turns her guiding reins, 

telling with what laws her Providence keeps safe this boundless Universe, 

binding and tying each and all with cords that never shall be loosed. 

The lions of Carthage, 

though they bear the gorgeous bonds and trappings of captivity, 

and eat the food that is given them by hand, 

and though they fear their harsh master with his lash they know so well; 

yet if once blood has touched their bristling jaws, 

their old, their latent wills return; 

with deep roaring they remember their old selves; 

they loose their bands and free their necks, 

and their tamer is the first torn by their cruel teeth, 

and his blood is poured out by their rage and wrath. 

If the bird who sings so lustily upon the high tree-top, 

be caught and caged, men may minister to him with dainty care, 

may give him cups of liquid honey

and feed him with all gentleness on plenteous food; 

yet if he fly to the roof of his cage and see the shady trees he loves, 

he spurns with his foot the food they have put before him; 

the woods are all his sorrow calls for, 

for the woods he sings with his sweet tones. 

The bough that has been downward thrust 

by force of strength to bend its top to earth, 

so soon as the pressing hand is gone, 

looks up again straight to the sky above. 

Phoebus sinks into the western waves, 

but by his unknown track he turns his car once more to his rising in the east. 

All things must find their own peculiar course again, 

and each rejoices in his own return. 

Not one can keep the order handed down to it, 

unless in some way it unites its rising to its end, 

and so makes firm, immutable, its own encircling course.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 2

 

We often think of Nature as pleasant, as gentle, as pliable. She can indeed be those things, but She is not within the power of our whims or our wills. She runs her own show.

 

This is as true of all the massive forces around us, as it is of all the noble forces within us. There is no standing against the force of a hurricane or an earthquake, just as there is no standing against a man’s inherent need to live well. Nature will bend, but She will never break. I can build a dam against the water, but I cannot defeat the water. I can deny who I am, but I will always need to come back to who I am. 

 

I may believe that a lion can be tamed, but he will always remains wild. I may believe that a bird can be caged, but he will always remain free. I may believe that a tree can be pruned, but it will always rise to where it needs to be. I may believe that the state of the heavens has changed, but it always returns right to where it started. 

 

And I may believe that I can stop being a man, just by thinking differently of myself. I may believe I can redefine happiness by wanting it in some other way. Still, it always snaps back. 

 

Nature is indeed subtle, but She is also unconquerable. It has nothing to do with a power from without, but with the power from within, from the very identity of things, the very forms they possess. I can move a thing about from the outside, but I cannot change what it is intrinsically on the inside. 

 

And so it is for me. I am a being of body and of instinct. I am also a being of intellect and of will. I will choose how I will live, even as some of those choices distance me from who I am, while others bring me closer to who I am. 

 

I must choose to go with the flow of Nature, and not fight against Nature. This is not an acceptance of defeat, but the embrace of victory. I am at my best when I work in harmony with things, and never in opposition to things. 

 

I always loved all things Godzilla as a child, and I still do as an adult, however high the cheese factor, and whether or not the King of Monsters is destroying men, or is assisting men. I learned fairly early on that he is always a benefit, because he reflects the order of Nature. 

 

In the immortal words of Blue Oyster Cult:

 

History shows again and again

How nature points out the folly of man

Godzilla!

 

Even as a little fellow, watching the films on Saturday afternoons, I somehow understood that. Who would dare say that these films, complete with rubber suits, are not educational? They help us to understand our rightful place. 

 

 

 

3.7

 

“And you too, creatures of the earth, do dream of your first state, though with a dim idea. With whatsoever thinking it may be, you look to that goal of happiness, though never so obscure your thoughts: there, to true happiness, your natural course does guide you, and from the same your various errors lead you. 

 

“For I would have you consider whether men can reach the end they have resolved upon, namely happiness, by these ways by which they think to attain to it. If money and places of honor and such-like do bring anything of that sort to a man who seems to lack no good thing, then let us acknowledge with them that men do become happy by the possession of these things.

 

“But if they cannot perform their promises, and there is still lack of further good things, surely it is plain that a false appearance of happiness is there discovered.”

 

“You, therefore, who had lately abundant riches, shall first answer me. With all that great wealth, was your mind never perturbed by torturing care arising from some sense of injustice?”

 

“Yes,” I said. “I cannot remember that my mind was ever free from some such care.”

 

“Was it not because something was lacking, which you missed, or because something was present to you which you did not like to have?”

 

“Yes,” I answered.

 

“You desired, then, the presence of the one, and the absence of the other?”

 

“I acknowledge it.”

 

“Then,” said she, “such a man lacks what he desires.”

 

“He does.”

 

“But while a man lacks anything, can he possibly satisfy himself?”

 

“No,” said I.

 

“Then, while you were bountifully supplied with wealth, you felt that you did not satisfy yourself?”

 

“I did indeed.”

 

“Then,” said she, “wealth cannot prevent a man from lacking or make him satisfied. And this is what it apparently professed to do.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 3

 

I hardly need to turn outwards at others, when I can just as easily, and more responsibly, look inwards within myself. By what sort of twisted thinking am I assuming that having more means being better?

 

And here is where I may start to make excuses. Having what? If I have more money, more power, more influence, more means, surely this will allow me to be more? 

 

This is how the delusion begins, and it is quite the pickle. I proudly say that being the big man won’t make me the good man, and I may insist on it quite vehemently, yelling loudly and stomping my feet, but I still fall for that same old trick. 

 

Look at me. I give my money to all the right causes, the ones that are so trendy, and I associate with all the right people, the ones who are so popular, but only, of course, in the best circles. I march about with pithy signs, condemning my opponents. I use my situation as a soapbox for what I’m told is right, but only as long as it is convenient for me. 

 

Through it all, I realize something desperately weak, and horribly pathetic, about how I have been living. If I put on a good face, and smile for the camera, I’m just fine, but if life asks any more of me, I skulk off into a corner. It ends up being too much to ask to actually put my money where my mouth is.

 

Lady Philosophy is not suggesting some deeply profound ideal here; she is simply reminding us of a fact we knew all along, but sometimes wanted desperately not to be true. She is not appealing to any deep metaphysics, but just to the reality of everyday experience. 

 

Have you ever had more, and not felt complete? Conversely, have you ever had less, and still felt complete? I don’t mean what we say about ourselves to others, because we often love to brag, but how we know, deep within ourselves, who we really are.

 

These two, quite different, aspects of our lives really have nothing to do with one another. What happens to occur on the outside is not the cause of who I am on the inside. What I do is not the same as what happens to me, a truly Stoic insight, and even the “best” things that happen to me can have me choose to be the “worst” of all men.

 

The circumstance never makes the man, even as the man makes something of the circumstance. 

 

When I first met my future wife, I spoiled her beyond belief, and spent most of every paltry paycheck to please her, because I falsely assumed that being a decent fellow meant being a man who gave her things. I had sadly fallen for someone else before, who never had a worldly need or want in her entire life, and I figured I had to give her more “stuff”.

 

Then one day, my new friend told me that I didn’t need to give her things. She would be happy, she said, if I gave her all of myself, whatever else might come. That was quite new to me. Every other girl that ever paid attention to me was from big money; I ended up with the one girl without any money.

 

And Providence did me the greatest favor. 

 

Some rich people are happy, and some poor people are happy. It takes only common sense to see that money and happiness are not the same. 

 

 

 

3.8

 

“And this point too I feel is most important: money has in itself, by its own nature, nothing which can prevent its being carried off from those who possess it, against their will.”

 

“It has not,” I said.

 

“No, you cannot deny that any stronger man may any day snatch it from them. For how come about the quarrels of the law courts? Is it not because people try to regain money that has been by force or by fraud taken from them?” 

 

“Yes,” I answered.

 

“Then,” said she, “a man will need to seek from the outside help to guard his own money.”

 

“That cannot be denied,” I said.

 

“And a man will not need that unless he possesses money which he can lose.”

 

“Undoubtedly he will not.”

 

“Then the argument turns round the other way,” she said. “The riches which were thought to make a man all-sufficient for himself, do really put him in need of other people's help. Then how can need be separated from wealth? Do the rich never feel hunger nor thirst? Do the limbs of moneyed men never feel the cold of winter? 

 

“You will say, ‘Yes, but the rich have the wherewithal to satisfy hunger and thirst, and drive away cold.’ But though riches may thus console wants, they cannot entirely take them away. For, though these ever crying wants, these continual requests, are satisfied, yet there must exist that which is to be satisfied. I need not say that Nature is satisfied with little, greed is never satisfied. 

 

“Wherefore, I ask you, if wealth cannot remove want, and even creates its own wants, what reason is there that you should think it affords satisfaction to a man?”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 3

 

It isn’t just that possessing wealth will not get me what I really want, it’s also that possessing wealth will make me want all the more. He who has much, wants much. 

 

We are so familiar with the idea that money will provide security and freedom, that we completely forget how vulnerable and dependent it can really make us. Once I have something of value, another may decide that he wishes to have it for himself instead, and once he wishes to have it, I will have to depend on the protection of yet others to help me keep it. 

 

The shady robbers with masks and guns can take what they want, of course, but so can the far more refined brokers, bankers, politicians, or lawyers. Before I know it, I am paying one fellow to guard me from another fellow, and though I’m certain it’s a great deal, I can easily find myself spending more and more to hold on to less and less. 

 

If I reflect on the situation honestly, I will see that it is actually quite a pathetic game, and one where it becomes increasingly difficult to tell friend from foe. Wherever I see a greater benefit, there is also lurking an even greater risk, and I ask myself if it is natural for something as complete and satisfying as happiness to have to be so incomplete and unsatisfying. 

 

It comes to the point where I have to admit that anything outside of my own thoughts and actions, all my money, property, reputation, and luxuries, and even the freedom of my very body, are only things I “have” because other people allow them to be “mine”. I haven’t made the world be at my beck and call at all, and I will find that I am at the beck and call of the world. 

 

When I used to attend many Irish music seisiúns around Boston, I remember regularly seeing a shy and unassuming fellow, a bit older than myself, sitting quietly in the corner with a single pint, and occasionally playing along on a worn tin whistle. Most people ignored him, and he always left alone. 

 

The word got out one day, however, that he had done quite well for himself in the lottery. He suddenly had new supportive friends surrounding him, and he moved up to the bar when he bought a round for the whole house. Within a few weeks, he had a pretty girl on his arm. A month or so later, I saw him proudly showing off a new Mustang. 

 

And a year or so later, he was right back where he started, sitting alone, nursing that one pint, and leaving without anyone talking his ear off, or asking for anything. I often wondered if having so quickly spent all the money he had won was maybe the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

 

A social work graduate student I once spoke to confidently told me that poverty was the root cause of people being miserable, and she insisted that “only an idiot would think otherwise.” Now I understood that I could use money to buy things, but I also understood that buying things wouldn’t necessarily make me any better or happier. I didn’t have any statistics to cite, but I could only think that the wealthiest people I happened to know seemed to fight, lie, cheat, steal, and cry just as much, if not more, than the poorest people I happened to know. 

 

The power and self-sufficiency we imagine will often become a weakness and a reliance. How funny, yet also how ironically suitable, it is that I should have to beg and pander to others just to brag about my importance and superiority. Possessions are often such that I don’t have them, but they have me. 

 

 

 

3.9

 

“Though the rich man with greed 

heaps up from ever-flowing streams 

the wealth that cannot satisfy, 

though he deck himself with pearls from the Red Sea's shore, 

and plough his fertile field with oxen by the score, 

yet gnawing care will never in his lifetime leave him, 

and at his death his wealth will not go with him, 

but leave him faithlessly.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 3

 

Now most people I know will tell me that they have always understood such a claim, which is why I scratch my head when most people also live in exactly the contrary way. Where is the obstacle to putting the theory into practice, or is it perhaps simply a matter of mouthing certain words that we don’t really believe in? Where is the disconnect between our thinking and our living?

 

We will all proceed in our own distinct ways, so there can be no blanket statements here. Yet I see my fellows, and while a certain bunch are just liars, plain and simple, others are sincerely confused. 

 

It becomes no better when a conscience is constantly in struggle with the pressures of the world. The conflict is, in my own experience, the deepest and most critical within everything I see around me. Shall I define myself by who I truly am within myself, or by what I think I possess outside of myself?

 

I was raised as a Roman Catholic, thankfully in a manner that stressed love over conformity, willing commitment over blind rules, but in the many years I have heard people preach to me about the riches of spirit over the riches of money, I see them doing the complete opposite. 

 

My wife and I have worked for the Church, in one way or another, directly or indirectly, for most of our adult lives. We worry that we are being too cynical, but we always seem to return to the recognition that far too many people who say they are “Christian” are concerned with something quite different. God and neighbor, religion and morality, are for them a means to the end of worldly convenience and profit. 

 

I could write a whole book, quite a long one at that, about all our experiences, and how these experiences made us question ourselves. It would be quite a dreary book, however, and while those who already choose to know would have no need to read it, those who choose not to know would never even bother with it. 

 

The only way I can explain the obstacle, and only from my own thinking, is based on two aspects. 

 

First, we tend to love what is more immediate over what is more ultimate. I think it will make me feel better now instead of later, and I think it is better because it tugs at the brutal power of my gut, instead of the subtle power of my understanding. 

 

Second, we tend to learn that we can get away with lying, both to others and to ourselves. I see others do it all the time, and they seem to succeed. So why shouldn’t I do the same? Lies end up being quite cheap. 

 

I will often put on one face for the world, even as I am despondent inside. My disconnect comes from somehow believing that the former can smother the latter. Yet what I proudly say is mine, is hardly mine at all. 

 

 

 

3.10

 

“But,” I urged, “places of honor make the man, to whom they fall, honored and venerated.”

 

“Ah!” she answered, “have those offices their force in truth that they may instill virtues into the minds of those that hold them, and drive out vices from there? And yet we are too well accustomed to see them making wickedness conspicuous rather than avoiding it. Wherefore we are displeased to see such places often falling to the most wicked of men, so that Catullus called Nonius ‘a diseased growth,’ though he sat in the highest chair of office. 

 

“Do you see how great a disgrace high honors can add to evil men? Their unworthiness is less conspicuous if they are not made famous by honors. Could you yourself have been induced by any dangers to think of being a colleague with Decoratus, when you saw that he had the mind of an unscrupulous buffoon, and a base informer? We cannot consider men worthy of veneration on account of their high places, when we hold them to be unworthy of those high places.

 

“But if you see a man endowed with wisdom, you cannot but consider him worthy of veneration, or at least of the wisdom with which he is endowed. For such a man has the worth peculiar to virtue, which it transmits directly to those in whom it is found.

 

“But since honors from the vulgar crowd cannot create merit, it is plain that they have not the peculiar beauty of this worth. And here is a particular point to be noticed: if men are the more worthless as they are despised by more people, high position makes them all the worse because it cannot make venerable those whom it shows to so many people to be contemptible. And this brings its penalty with it: wicked people bring a like quality into their positions, and stain them with their infection.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 4

 

The various incomplete and false goods we tend to seek can be related in a number of ways, sometimes in conjunction with one another, at other times with one in service to another, but my own experience suggests that no two idols are more closely allied than the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of position. 

 

Note how often we see riches and honor mingled together, perhaps because we admire those who have much, or we give much to those we admire. Show me a man of status, and you have most likely also shown me a man of money. This characterized the careerism I saw around me as I was growing up, the promise that the more I acquire the more important I will be, and the more important I am the more I will acquire. 

 

But surely honor is nobler than merely having many possessions? After all, a man can inherit his wealth, or stumble across it without it being due to his merit, but it would seem that respect is something that we truly have to earn. 

 

This assumes, however, far too confidently, that we are receiving respect for the right sorts of reasons, or from the right sorts of people. As unpleasant as it may seem, the school of life teaches us that vice is praised more often than virtue, and vicious people usually speak their minds more forcefully than virtuous people. 

 

Indeed, honor will hardly make a man any better, and it is likely to make him worse if he has received it out of ignorance or wickedness. We should rightly honor people because they are good, but people don’t become good because they are honored. As with the priority and order in so many things, we get the more important and less important all jumbled up. 

 

Let’s say I could be hated for being a man of poor character, or I could conversely be loved for being a man of poor character. Which of these would actually be worse? I imagine some people would say they would prefer at least to be admired instead of being despised, but this overlooks the very measure of good and evil in our thoughts, words, and deeds. The latter is actually far more harmful than former. 

 

As soon as honor is joined with vice, it makes the recipient worse, because it encourages his misdeeds. It makes the admirers worse, because they have allowed themselves to be influenced by all that is wrong. It makes the office of honor itself worse, because it has sullied the dignity of the position.

 

I’ll never find virtue separated from wisdom, since one cannot choose what is good without first knowing what is good. But I will often find virtue separated from honor, since being good is not the same as just being thought of as good. 

 

 

 

3.11

 

“Now I would have you consider the matter thus, that you may recognize how true veneration cannot be won through these shadowy honors. If a man who had filled the office of consul many times in Rome, came by chance into a country of barbarians, would his high position make him venerated by the barbarians? Yet if this were a natural quality in such dignities, they would never lose their effective function in any land, just as fire is never anything but hot in all countries. 

 

“But since they do not receive this quality of veneration from any force peculiar to themselves, but only from a connection in the untrustworthy opinions of men, they become as nothing as soon as they are among those who do not consider these dignities as such.

 

“But is that only in the case of foreign peoples? Among the very peoples where they had their beginnings, do these dignities last forever? Consider how great was the power in Rome of old of the office of Præfect; now it is an empty name and a heavy burden upon the income of any man of Senator's rank. The præfect then, who was commissioner of the corn-market, was held to be a great man. Now there is no office more despised. For, as I said before, that which has no intrinsic beauty, sometimes receives a certain glory, sometimes loses it, according to the opinion of those who are concerned with it. 

 

“If then high offices cannot make men venerated, if furthermore they grow vile by the infection of bad men, if changes of time can end their glory, and, lastly, if they are held cheaply in the estimation of whole peoples, I ask you, so far from affording true beauty to men, what beauty have they in themselves that men can desire?”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 4

 

Both life and art are full of examples of the fish out of water, the man unexpectedly pulled from his environment. Sometimes hilarity ensues, and sometimes it is followed by tragedy, but each and every time it teaches us quite an important lesson, that who we are is far more than the sum of our circumstances. 

 

Yet we still tell ourselves that we are defined by our accidents, and we continue to neglect the substance. The man who is so greatly esteemed may think this reflects very well on him, until all his admirers are gone, and the whole house of cards collapses. He was once someone, and now he sees that he is no one. He thought honor could provide a permanent happiness, and then he learns, perhaps too late, that it is fleeting and changeable. 

 

Take a fancy corporate lawyer from Boston, and put him in a farm town in Kansas. He has now gone from being the cock of the walk to being the local laughing stock. Take that tough Texas country sheriff, the pillar of his community who sits in the front pew of his church, and drop him in New York City. Once everyone deferred to him, but now no one gives him a second glance. 

 

The grasping man will be lost when he is outside of his comfort zone, while the good man will continue being what he already was within himself, regardless of who may or may not notice. Fame takes on many faces, even as virtue stays the same. 

 

What is admired in one place is ignored in another, what is venerated at one time is cursed at another. Even as I might be convinced that my position and status do me credit, they only mirror the opinions of others, opinions that can and will change with the breeze. Once I have lost my admiration society, what is there that is left of me? What I thought was the strength of my own merit is actually being held up by the support of others. The throne is more like a crutch. 

 

I knew a well-respected Catholic priest back in Boston, who was considered quite an authority on many of the trendy philosophical issues of the day. When I was teaching at a school out in America’s heartland, he asked if he could stop by and give a lecture as part of a book tour he was doing. We told him he would be most welcome, but he hesitated when he saw what we could offer as payment from our budget. 

 

“Don’t people know who I am? I think I deserve better than that!”

 

I was given the uncomfortable task of explaining to him that no, most people here didn’t know who he was, and I jokingly added that perhaps he could think of it as chance to convince his listeners by the truth of what he said, instead of just overwhelming them with his credentials. 

 

Needless to say, he flew over us on his way to California, where he had more of a following. 

 

What I say and do expresses something about me, and what others say and do expresses something about them. Let me not confuse the one with the other. Even when rank is earned, it still does not take the place of one’s own character. 

 

I try not to be cynical about the whims of politics, or the latest fashion, or intellectual trends, for example, but notice how often the flavor of the month is on the discount shelf before you know it. Being popular never makes something true, or good, or beautiful. 

 

 

 

3.12

 

“Though Nero decked himself proudly 

with purple of Tyre and snow-white gems,

nonetheless that man of rage and luxury lived ever hated of all. 

Yet would that evil man at times 

give his dishonored offices to men who were revered. 

Who then could count men blessed,

who to such a villain owed their high estate?”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 4

 

It is all too easy to see how the love of money burdens our lives, both for those who receive less than they deserve and for those who receive more than they deserve. This was one of the first things I noticed when I started trying to figure out why the world worked, or didn’t work, as it did. 

 

But right there alongside a greed for possessions, just as prevalent if not even more so, is the desire for status, the groveling for honors and positions, and the privilege to brag about how highly we are held in esteem. After all, our money is of little use if we can’t show it off to impress others with our importance. 

 

Money and honor seem joined at the hip. They are both symptoms of the greater problem Lady Philosophy is trying to teach us about, making the value of our lives dependent on what is outside of us instead of what is inside of us, on what fortune does for us instead of what virtue does for itself. 

 

And just as we can shamefully be quite satisfied to receive riches without questioning where and how we acquired them, we will also accept praises and titles without considering the worth of those who grant them. 

 

A few years back, a few of my colleagues were up for tenure, that Holy Grail of the shallow academic. It seemed that for an entire year they would do anything to impress the committee, even as they would regularly put down those same members when they were out of earshot. 

 

“If you think so very poorly of these terrible people,” I once asked, ‘why do you care so much about the prizes they can bestow on you?”

 

There was one of those awkward moments of silence. “Well, that’s just how the game is played.”

 

Exactly. It often does seem much like playing a game, of the sort where we will do anything to win points, without actually wondering who hands them out, or if we deserve to receive them, or if they are even worth winning at all. 

 

Where is the value in being praised by a rake, promoted by a scoundrel, or rewarded by a tyrant? What is given will only be as noble or as base as the giver; an honor from a Nero actually ends up being more of an insult. 

 

It is odd that so many of what we say are the best of people are actually the worst of people, and yet we will still go about trying to impress them. I remind myself that I am better served by finding contentment in the merit of what I do than in the image of what others think of what I do. 

 

 

 

3.13

 

“Can kingdoms and intimacies with kings make people powerful? 

 

“‘Certainly,’ some may answer, ‘in so far as their happiness is lasting.’ 

 

But antiquity and our times too are full of examples of the contrary, examples of men whose happiness as kings has been exchanged for disaster. 

 

“What wonderful power, which is found to be powerless even for its own preservation! But if this kingly power is really a source of happiness, surely then, if it fails in any way, it lessens the happiness it brings, and equally causes unhappiness. However widely human empires may extend, there must be still more nations left, over whom each king does not reign. 

 

“And so, in whatever direction this power ceases to make happy, thereby comes in powerlessness, which makes men unhappy. Thus therefore there must be a greater part of unhappiness in every king's estate. 

 

“That tyrant had learned well the dangers of his lot, who likened the fear that goes with kingship to the terror inspired by a sword ever hanging overhead. What then is such a power, which cannot drive away the bite of cares, nor escape the stings of fear?

 

“Yet these all would willingly live without fear, but they cannot, and yet they boast of their power. Do you think a man is powerful when you see that he longs for that which he cannot bring to pass? Do you reckon a man powerful who walks abroad with dignity and attended by servants? A man who strikes fear into his subjects, yet fears them more himself? A man who must be at the mercy of those that serve him, in order that he may seem to have power?” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 5

 

If the pursuit of wealth and honor cannot guarantee happiness, then surely the acquisition of power can do so? After all, if I have the strength to keep a hold on what I want, then I have made certain that no one else can take it away from me. It will then be truly mine, and I won’t need to go begging, or depend on anyone else, or worry about what others might do to me. Power would appear to have that self-sufficiency that I crave. 

 

Yet power will never end up working that way, because there will still always be something outside of my power. 

 

I may think I have this, but I don’t have that, and what I don’t have can always so easily run away with what I think I have. There can be no rest in the control of externals, because I can never make all of the externals my own. Playing God is just that, a form of playing. 

 

In other words, my influence is always uncertain, as there is always something beyond itself to make it uncertain. What must Julius Caesar have thought to himself, after all those years of acquiring power, when he found himself skewered at the hands of his fellow Senators? He thought he had everything, but it came to nothing at all. 

 

Lady Philosophy refers here to a wonderful story, worthy of our attention not only because it tells a good tale, but also because it tells us about a deeper moral truth. 

 

The legend has it that Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, had great power, but was always deeply worried about being ousted or betrayed by others. One of his courtiers, Damocles, would flatter the king, and express how wonderful it must be to live in the midst of such magnificence. How great the fortune of the ruler!

 

It would seem however, that Dionysius wanted Damocles to learn an important lesson, and offered him the chance to live a day in his shoes. Damocles, of course, jumped at the chance, and found himself surrounded by every luxury in the royal court. Yet Dionysius had it arranged that a sword be hung right over the head of Damocles, suspended only by a single horsehair. 

 

Sure enough, Damocles could not handle the pressure. The panderer now saw what it really meant to be in a position of influence. Having much also meant fearing much. How can a man ever be happy, if he must worry about losing everything he values?

 

Boethius, like Cicero before him, passes on this tale to remind us that we can never be content with what is not completely our own. Power is fleeting and ephemeral, always clothed in frustration and anxiety, for once I have even a bit of it, I must struggle to protect it. 

 

As Cicero says in the Tusculan Disputations:

 

Has not Dionysius make it quite clear that there is no happiness for someone, when fear always hangs over his head?

 

But can someone ever rob me of my own thoughts, my own choices, my own actions guided by virtue alone? No tyrant, no sword, no circumstance of any sort can ever take away the content of my character. 

 

Power passes to what is beyond me, while virtue requires only what is within me. 

 

 

 

3.14

 

“Need I speak of intimacies with kings, when kingship itself is shown to be full of weakness? Not only when kings' powers fall are their friends laid low, but often even when their powers are intact. 

 

“Nero compelled his friend and tutor, Seneca, to choose how he would die. Papinianus, for a long while a powerful courtier, was handed over to the soldiers' swords by the Emperor Antoninus. Yet each of these was willing to surrender all his power. Seneca even tried to give up all his wealth to Nero, and to seek retirement. But the very weight of their wealth and power dragged them down to ruin, and neither could do what he wished. 

 

“What then is that power, whose possessors fear it? In desiring to possess it, you are not safe, and from which you cannot escape, even though you try to lay it down? 

 

“What help are friends, made not by virtue but by fortune? The friend gained by good fortune becomes an enemy in ill fortune. And what plague can more effectually injure than an intimate enemy?”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 5

 

Just as possessing power for myself is always deficient, so too depending on others who possess power is always deficient. While I may have thought I could ride on their coattails, receiving all the benefits of power without any of the risks, neither the benefactor nor the recipient can ever truly rely on anything. 

 

Not only will I fall as soon as he falls, but I can just as easily fall while he is still strong. It will depend only on his whim, his preference, or his mood of the hour. It isn’t even my power, after all, but the favor of another’s power. 

 

There are, in the end, the fools who think they can make themselves content by being influential, and then there are the other fools who seek security by becoming their attendants. 

 

Aemilius Papinianus is often considered not only one of the greatest jurists of Ancient Rome, but even of all time. He was a close friend of the Emperor Severus, and so received high office and influence, eventually even being given charge over Severus’ two sons. 

 

This, however, would be his undoing. The elder brother, Caracalla, formally becoming the Emperor Antoninus, resented sharing any power with his younger brother, Geta, or with Papinianus, who still tried to encourage cooperation between his wards. Both Geta and Papinianus were murdered, along with many others whom Antoninus considered a threat. 

 

Papinianus may well have been a truly wise man, a great student of the law, and possessed of character and moderation, but look at what playing with power brought him. 

 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, or Seneca the Younger, was already born into a family of great ability, wealth, and connections. Those who follow Stoicism know him as one its greatest and prolific writers, though beyond this he was an impressive statesman, orator, and dramatist.

 

He became the tutor and advisor of the Emperor Nero, and was said to have done his best to teach the young man right from wrong, encourage him to live the the good life, and inspire him to become a just ruler. 

 

Yet political intrigue found him exiled, robbed of both his influence and wealth. This misfortune was not the end, however, and Nero himself, convinced that Seneca had plotted against him, ordered his teacher to commit suicide. Seneca, always the loyal Roman, heeded the request, though apparently his death did not come easy. 

 

Seneca may have been a profound philosopher, a master of words, and a follower of virtue, but look what playing with power brought him. 

 

Some might say Papinianus was just a corrupt lawyer, or that Seneca was just a clever hypocrite. I imagine that Boethius refers to both of them, however, not to condemn what was really good in them, but to warn us away from all the temptations of using our gifts to get involved in all the wrong endeavors. 

 

Should a man who truly loves the law rub shoulders with schemers? Should a man who truly loves the truth make his bed with a tyrant? 

 

Remember Boethius’ own story. Why do those so great in skill and insight repeatedly seem to be seduced by position and status? Why is it never enough to just be good, instead of also wanting to be rewarded for being good in all of the wrong ways?

 

 

 

3.15

 

“The man who would true power gain, 

must subdue his own wild thoughts;

never must he let his passions triumph 

and yoke his neck by their foul bonds.

For though the earth, as far as India's shore, 

tremble before the laws you give,

though Thule bow to your service on earth's farthest bounds,

yet if you cannot drive away black cares, 

if you cannot put to flight complaints, 

then is no true power yours.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 5

 

If something is good in and of itself, pursue it without hesitation. But if something is only good by and through another thing, how is it worthy of pursuit for its own sake? Let what is inferior be subject to what is superior. 

 

“But I wish to be rich and powerful!”

 

Certainly, you may prefer that way of life, but is being rich and powerful always good?

 

“Well no, but I’d like to be rich and powerful in the right way.”

 

Then be right first, and only then think about being rich and powerful. Attend to the absolute, and then consider the relative. 

 

Being rich and powerful in the right way? Will that make you happy?

 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”

 

But riches can harm you as quickly as they can help you, and worldly power over others can harm you as quickly as it can help you. Can living rightly ever harm you? 

 

I see how many people have sought possessions above all else, and I see how many people have sought influence above all else. I have also seen how miserable it can make them, not because of the wealth and status itself, but because of the love of the wealth and status for itself. 

 

Owning something or ruling something beyond ourselves seems so tempting, perhaps because we see it as a means to an end. But owning nothing or ruling nothing beyond ourselves can just as easily help us to live well. 

 

The means should not be confused with the ends. Everything gives me a chance to do right, and having more out theredoes not necessarily make me better in here.

 

An insightful student of mine once pointed out that if we look at photographs of different Presidents of the United States, from the beginning of their terms to the end, we often see men who aged far too quickly, who seemed burdened with more and more, who were overcome with worry. He added that if we look at their writings and speeches, we seen men who often began to see the inadequacy of their position as their years in power passed. 

 

Compare Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address to his second. You will see a very different man.

 

Being in charge of a powerful nation and ruling over the greatest wealth makes many folks quite miserable. Living well, however, informed by a sense of right and wrong that measures all things, has never made folks miserable. It gives them meaning and purpose, and so it reveals happiness. 

 

Has power driven away your cares and complaints? I didn’t think so. Keep looking further, keep going deeper. True power will be found elsewhere. 

 

 

 

3.16

 

“How deceitful is fame often, and how base a thing it is! Justly did the tragic poet cry out, ‘O Fame, Fame, how many lives of men of nothing have you puffed up!’ 

 

“For many men have gotten a great name from the false opinions of the crowd. And what could be baser than such a thing? For those who are falsely praised, must blush to hear their praises. And if they are justly won by merits, what can they add to the pleasure of a wise man's conscience? For he measures his happiness not by popular talk, but by the truth of his conscience. 

 

“If it attracts a man to make his name widely known, he must equally think it a shame if it not be made known. But I have already said that there must be yet more lands into which the renown of a single man can never come; wherefore it follows that the man, whom you think famous, will seem to have no such fame in the next quarter of the earth. 

 

“Popular favor seems to me to be unworthy even of mention under this head, for it comes not by any judgment, and is never constant. 

 

“Again, who can but see how empty a name, and how futile, is noble birth? For if its glory is due to renown, it belongs not to the man. For the glory of noble birth seems to be praise for the merits of a man's forefathers. But if praise creates the renown, it is the renowned who are praised. 

 

“Wherefore, if you have no renown of your own, that of others cannot glorify you. But if there is any good in noble birth, I conceive it to be this, and this alone, that the highborn seem to be bound in honor not to show any degeneracy from their fathers' virtue.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 6

 

One particular variation of the life measured by honor, a dependence upon respect, is the glory of fame. It asks not only for the respect of some, but rather of the many, seeking out reverence from far and wide. It’s one thing to be praised by another, but something so much more if one is adored and cheered by a whole crowd. 

 

I have experienced the sense of excitement that comes from being part of a throng, but I can only imagine the feeling of power that must come from being its object of esteem. If everyone else thinks I’m that big, then surely I must be that big?

 

Yet notice how fame proceeds from the worship of the admirers, and may have little to do with the merit of the person who is being admired. I observe the sort of shallow qualities we are easily impressed with, or the vices that masquerade as virtues, and I wonder if there is actually all that much thinking going on when we pick and choose our heroes. It is a mentality of the herd. 

 

If I were a good man, would it make any difference whether or not anyone praises me? I would be content with the content of my character. If I were not a good man, would I not be ashamed when anyone praises me? I can hardly be content living a lie. 

 

I suspect the desire for more and more fame could be something like an addiction, because one would never be quite satisfied with what one has, always wanting more and more. I was at a concert once where the band, quite enamored of themselves, were met by a mob of howling fans, but cut their set short and stormed off the stage because of a small group of hecklers. 

 

I once knew a girl who would be the attention of almost every man in the room, but would promptly be out of sorts about that single fellow who ignored her. She would then spend the rest of the night trying only to get him to adore her. 

 

Sometimes we are convinced we don’t need to do anything at all to deserve fame, except be born into it. Now we claim that we no longer admire noble birth, but I suggest we have only created a new sort of nobility. Observe the scores of celebrities who are only famous because they are children of others who have been famous. They are now not only once, but twice removed from any true merit. 

 

In the years when I dabbled in the world of music, I would notice those few who honed their skills simply for their own sake, for the joy of creating something beautiful. They would play with all their might, whether or not anyone was there to hear them. Then there were those who were enthralled by the thrill of being seen, heard, and followed. Finally, there were those for whom even being listened to was not enough; they would only be content if they could become the biggest stars, and second-best just wouldn’t do. 

 

I only knew one fellow who ever really “made it”. He had his very brief moment in the sun, with a record in the charts and his face worshiped by teenage girls. The fashions quickly changed, he got hooked on heroin, and now stumbles around dreaming of his glory days, yearning for that comeback. 

 

The whole problem with fame, however, is that you can’t get it back at all, because it was never really yours to begin with. 

 

 

 

3.17

 

“From like beginning rise all men on earth, 

for there is one Father of all things;

one is the guide of everything. 

'Tis He who gave the sun his rays, and horns unto the moon. 

'Tis He who set mankind on earth, and in the heavens the stars. 

He put within our bodies spirits that were born in heaven. 

And thus a highborn race has He set forth in man. 

Why do you men rail on your forefathers? 

If ye look to your beginning and your author, which is God, 

is any man degenerate or base 

but he who by his own vices cherishes base things 

and leaves that beginning which was his?”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 6

 

Throughout my years in college and graduate school, it was common for us to sit around and bemoan the state of the world. They say a little learning is a dangerous thing, and that is perhaps no more true than among those who have only recently been exposed to the wide world of art, literature, and philosophy. 

 

Having gathered together bits and pieces of clever phrases and impressive ideas, we would go on and on about how and why everything was wrong. Gathered at some trendy café or bar, constantly smoking and drinking, we would cast our blame, and highlight exactly who and what had to be fixed.

 

I could blame my parents for my bad attitude, the politicians for the corruption, the corporations for the greed, religions for the ignorance, and all my ancestors for making a mess of the lot. Yes, I could even blame God, if he existed, for creating the world so wrong, and I could even blame God, if he didn’t exist, simply for not existing. 

 

Then there were those moments of crystal clarity when I saw that I needed to be accountable to myself. There was little point, as Chesterton said, in worrying about what was wrong without knowing what was right. 

 

Let me consider what I am, a creature made to know what is true and to love what is good. God was not mistaken to make us this way, and my parents were not wrong to bring me into the world. Politicians, businessmen, or priests don’t determine how I will live, and what anyone has thought or done in generations before me is not the measure of what I can think or do right now. 

 

I should hardly think myself better or worse because of the circumstances that are passed on to me. I am not rich because I inherited my father’s earnings, or poor because he may have squandered them away. I am rich or poor, not in possessions or in standing but in character, when I choose to live well for myself. 

 

That first gift of human nature is not to blame, and the way others may abuse their human nature has not made me miserable. God gave me reason and choice, so I am the one who decides what I will make of it, to nurture it into virtue or twist it into vice.

 

Are others not as I would like them to be? That is entirely up to them. Am I not as I would like myself to be? That is entirely up to me. Let me attend to what is my own, and begin the work from the inside out. God made me to be good, and now I should complete the task, whether or not others may resolve to do the same. 

 

 

 

3.18

 

“And now what am I to say of the pleasures of the body? The desires of the flesh are full of cares, their fulfillment is full of remorse. What terrible diseases, what unbearable griefs, truly the fruits of sin, do they bring upon the bodies of those who enjoy them!

 

“I know not what pleasure their impulse affords, but any who cares to recall his indulgences of his passions, will know that the results of such pleasures are indeed gloomy. If any can show that those results are blessed with happiness, then may the beasts of the field be justly called blessed, for all their aims are urged toward the satisfying of their bodies' wants. 

 

“The pleasures of wife and children may be most honorable; but Nature makes it all too plain that some have found torment in their children. How bitter is any such kind of suffering, I need not tell you now, for you have never known it, nor have any such anxiety now. Yet in this matter I would hold with my philosopher Euripides, that he who has no children is happy in his misfortune.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 7

 

Boethius has considered how we follow all sorts of incomplete, imperfect, and conditional goods, and he has seen how pursuing various aspects of wealth, honor, influence, or popularity can never bring us to happiness. He now turns to the longing for pleasure, so base yet so powerful in its pull.

 

In one sense, we might say that pleasure can often stand behind so many of the other ends we seek; after all, we may want to have money, or power, or fame because their possession makes us feel good. For some of us, the appreciation of our worldly position is only valuable for the gratification it provides, that rush that comes from being important and influential.

 

However we stack the order of means and ends in our lives, surely nothing is worthwhile if it doesn’t lead to enjoyment? Boethius can sound like a killjoy here, because he appears to be suggesting that it is somehow shameful to have fun. Yet just as it was with all the other incomplete goods, so it is also with pleasure. 

 

Wealth, influence, or honor can certainly be used well, but they can also be used poorly, and this is the necessary distinction we too often overlook. Whether they benefit us or harm us will depend completely upon how they help us to live well, and this follows from our understanding of why their presence or absence can be of advantage.  

 

Pleasure is no different. Some pleasures lift us up, and others bring us down; it is the merit of the actions from which they proceed that determine their worth. Since the value is relative, it can never be something good in and of itself, and it cannot be an end. It isn’t that pleasure is bad, but that seeking it for its own sake is bad. 

 

The argument is perfectly reasonable, but if my passions are excited, I may foolishly choose to push aside the voice of reason. In that case, I can appeal to the immediate facts of cold, hard experience. 

 

Let me ask myself, with all honesty, if wanting to be gratified, to the greatest degree possible, has actually made me happy or miserable? Has running after the satisfaction of the senses left me in a better or a worse state? I know the answer right away, as reluctant as I may be to admit it. I have my own nightmares about the suffering that comes from sloth, gluttony, and lust, and you will also have your own. I know that crippling sensation, often right before the dawn, where my intemperance makes me curse my very existence. There’s no pain like an unbridled pleasure. 

 

It is perfectly natural for an animal to be driven only by its appetites, but for a man it is an abomination. Decisions moved by feeling without sound thinking won’t leave us feeling all that sound.

 

I may object that some pleasures are inherently good, like the pleasures of hearth and home. “You must be so happy,” I hear people say to one another, “you have a family!” Even there, however, a man can be in pain, because joy will come from virtue, and misery will come from vice.  Once again, the pleasure in something is only as good as the character behind it. It isn’t a family that is satisfying, but a caring family. 

 

I need to look beyond pleasure alone, because it must always be tempered by an awareness of truth and a commitment to love. 

 

 

 

3.19

 

“All pleasures have this way: 

those who enjoy them they drive on with stings.

Pleasure, like the winged bee, 

scatters its honey sweet, then flies away, 

and with a clinging sting it strikes the hearts it touches.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 7

 

I can appreciate the image here, first the sweetness and then the sting. The sweetness is the promise of being gratified, and the sting is then being consumed by the longing. 

 

People will often roll their eyes and snicker when they hear about self-control and moderation regarding pleasures, but they do so thinking that others wish to deny them any enjoyment. What they fail to see is that there is no enjoyment at all when we throw away a mastery over our own choices, and when we allow ourselves to be enslaved by the objects of our desires. Again, pleasures aren’t the problem, but being ruled by them most certainly is. 

 

I have slowly come to understand this in principle, and I have seen it all to vividly in practice. Years of working with addicts, with the dispossessed, and with the abandoned has shown me that people will face all sorts of hardships, obstacles, and inner demons, but the ones that will do the most harm, time and time again, are those that follow from surrendering to gratification. 

 

If everything else is going wrong, we might think, at least this will make us feel right, if only for a moment. It may appear like a blessed relief. By the time we see how thoroughly we have sold our dignity, it may well seem like it is too late to turn back.

 

The cold and heartless may claim that this is only a problem for the weak, the lazy, or the outcasts. Yet I have found that this curse crosses all lines of class, color, and creed, and it spares no one who allows it to take control of his life. People may have different poisons, but they are poisons nonetheless, whether in a boardroom or a back alley, uptown or downtown. 

 

What all cases will share in common is trying to fill an emptiness on the inside by seeking to consume things on the outside. In the process, we become willing to sell ourselves out, and then to sell others out, just for the sake of some sort of fix. It could be alcohol, or drugs, or sex, or food, or shopping, or any sort of amusement or diversion, and in every case what we think we possess has ultimately come to possess us. 

 

Yes, I have recognized it as a disease, perhaps of the most dangerous sort, because we infect ourselves with our own thinking, and we find it all too easy to insist that we aren’t sick at all. It hardly helps that when others give up on us, we also give up on ourselves. 

 

A big part of a solution is in rethinking priorities, learning that not everything pleasing is good, but that all things that are good should be pleasing. The difference is between lust, bound to receiving, and love, ordered to giving; it is in rediscovering that our lives are measured not by the gratification of what is done to us, but by the merit of what we do.

 

 

 

3.20

 

“There is then no doubt that these roads to happiness are no roads, and they cannot lead any man to any end where they profess to take him. I would show you shortly with what great evils they are bound up.

 

“Would you heap up money? You will need to tear it from its owner. 

 

“Would you seem brilliant by the glory of great honors? You must kneel before their dispenser, and in your desire to surpass other men in honor, you must debase yourself by setting aside all pride. 

 

“Do you long for power? You will be subject to the wiles of all over whom you have power, you will be at the mercy of many dangers. 

 

“You seek fame? You will be drawn to and fro among rough paths, and lose all freedom from care. 

 

“Would you spend a life of pleasure? Who would not despise and cast off such servitude to so vile and brittle a thing as your body? How petty are all the aims of those who put before themselves the pleasures of the body, how uncertain is the possession of such? In bodily size will you ever surpass the elephant? In strength will you ever lead the bull, or in speed the tiger?”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 8

 

We live in a society deeply driven by the desire for profit, so the image of balancing investment and gain can perhaps help us to understand the sort of life that offers us the greatest benefit. At stake, however, is not merely how rich we may become in money, but how rich we may become in happiness. For what we need to put in, what are we really going to get out? 

 

Only the careless shareholder thinks he will earn anything at all from a company that shows no opportunities for growth, just as only the foolish man thinks he will find peace and contentment in anything incomplete and unreliable. 

 

Sometimes the prize seems so worth the effort, but we discover later that the returns were far outweighed by the costs. We found ourselves tricked by the enticing appearance, only to be disappointed by the bland reality. What is so surprising is how often we see the failures of our choices, but we continue making the same mistakes over and over, somehow thinking it will be different the next time. 

 

What will we really get if we pursue all these false goods that present themselves to us? They make all sorts of promises, while leaving us unfulfilled. It’s much like that one toy a child wants for Christmas, and then realizes it isn’t the fun to play with at all, that the appeal was only in the advertising and the packaging.

 

The most honest and simple reflection should show us how anything that leaves more to be desired, that still has us in a state of worry and concern, can never be an end in itself. It asks for more and more, while giving us less and less. Hard experience will prove it to be true. 

 

Money? We will always have to fight to gain it, and then we have to fight even more to keep a hold of it. 

 

Honor? We will have to sell our own integrity to impress others, and we become caught up in seeming good instead of being good. 

 

Power? We assume we will have a control over others, when in fact those we try to dominate end up having a control over us. 

 

Fame? We believe we will never be alone if we are loved by the many, only to find that having so many followers is just another form of solitude.  

 

Pleasure? We pretend that the body is so strong, while all the effort of gratifying it manages to leave us so weak. 

 

In all of these cases, what looked so liberating ends up being another prison, and it is all because we are confusing what is imperfect with what is perfect, the relative with absolute. To “gain” any of them will be worthless, a wasted investment, without looking for something more constant and stable in our lives. 

 

 

 

3.21

 

“Look upon the expanse of heaven, the strength with which it stands, the rapidity with which it moves, and cease for a while to wonder at base things. This heaven is not more wonderful for those things than for the design that guides it. How sweeping is the brightness of outward form, how swift its movement, yet more fleeting than the passing of the flowers of spring. 

 

“But if, as Aristotle says, many could use the eyes of lynxes to see through that which meets the eye, then if they saw into the organs within, would not that body, though it had the most fair outside of Alcibiades, seem most vile within? Wherefore it is not your own nature, but the weakness of the eyes of them that see you, that makes you seem beautiful. 

 

“But consider how in excess you desire the pleasures of the body, when you know that howsoever you admire it, it can be reduced to nothing by a three-days' fever. 

 

“To put all these points then in a word: these things cannot grant the good that they promise; they are not made perfect by the union of all good things in them; they do not lead to happiness as a path there; they do not make men blessed.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 8

 

I need to remind myself quite regularly that the secret to a good life is hardly a secret at all. Yes, all of us are called to be philosophical, but this isn’t in the sense that we might be used to. 

 

To engage in philosophy is not to sound profound, or to meddle in obscure complexities, or to acquire hidden knowledge available only to the select few. It is not merely an academic exercise to puff up our sense of self-importance. 

 

To be philosophical is to come to understand oneself and one’s world more richly, more deeply, more fundamentally. It is an attitude of looking for what is ultimate over what is immediate, for what is on the inside and not just the outside, for the whole instead of just the part. In this we discover our meaning and purpose. 

 

This isn’t just one of things we can, or even should, do in life; it is the only thing that really matters, because everything else hinges upon our awareness of what is true, good, and beautiful. 

 

Yet what do I so often find myself looking at? A shallow appearance, not the inner reality. A pretty face, not a virtuous character. A passing fancy, not a lasting bond. I am still drawn to such things not because they have any real goodness to them, but because of a weakness in my vision. If I commit to focusing more closely, the proverbial scales will fall from my eyes. 

 

I have long adored the ancient and medieval legend about how the lynx has such powerful vision that it can even see right inside solid objects. This is figuratively what we are also called to do when we examine something beneath the surface. 

 

One doesn’t need to be clever or educated to discern how things that are actually quite weak come to appear so strong. In fact, being clever or educated can sometimes only make the illusion worse. We are distracted by only one charming aspect, magnify it out of proportion, and neglect all the rest. We glorify the outer form of human body, when it is really a bag of blood and bones, subject to disease and death, able to be snuffed out in a moment. We worship wealth, fame, and power, though by doing so we enslave ourselves to lifeless trinkets that go as quickly as they come. If I look with a sharper eye, I know it to be true. 

 

Things sometimes seem to offer rewards they can’t provide, just as people sometimes make promises they have no intention of keeping. We are quite able to see right through this, because something incomplete and imperfect cannot offer anything complete and perfect, just as a dishonest character cannot speak words that are true. They are already showing us what they really are, if we only look behind the mask. 

 

As they say, if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. 

 

So when I find myself tempted by a pleasure of the senses, or longing to acquire more possessions, or scheming to improve my reputation, I am always best served by remembering all the other times when those imposters told me their sweet little lies, and then left me high and dry. A moment of calm reflection will assure me that they are now just as shifty and fleeting as they were every time before. The glittering prizes are nothing but tricks of the light. 

 

 

 

3.22

 

“Ah! how wretched are they 

whom ignorance leads astray by her crooked path! 

You seek not gold upon green trees, 

nor gather precious stones from vines, 

nor set your nets on mountain tops 

to catch the fishes for your feast, 

nor hunt the Umbrian sea in search of goats. 

Man knows the depths of the sea themselves, 

hidden though they be beneath its waves; 

he knows which water best yields him pearls, 

and which the scarlet dye. 

But in their blindness men are content, 

and know not where lies hid the good that they desire. 

They sink in earthly things, and there they seek 

that which has soared above the star-lit heavens. 

What can I call down upon them 

worthy of their stubborn folly? 

They go about in search of wealth and honors; 

and only when they have by labors vast 

stored up deception for themselves, 

do they at last know what is their true good.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 8

 

Though I imagine such pranks would no longer be considered acceptable in our time of heightened sensitivity, I do recall my family telling me all about the legendary 1957 April Fools’ “Spaghetti Harvest” television segment by the BBC. It showed a Swiss farming family busy gathering the bumper crop from their spaghetti trees, so grateful for the disappearance of the terrible spaghetti weevil.  The story has it that hundreds of viewers wrote in, asking if they too could grow the spaghetti tree in Britain.

 

I might laugh that people believed the story, but then again, I once also managed to let my own trickster of a father convince me that whether a fire engine was red or yellow depended on the first letter of the city or town it came from. 

 

Yes, we are prone to believing all sorts of ridiculous claims. And what could be more foolish than insisting that the goal of human happiness could ever be satisfied by acquiring and hoarding things far inferior to human nature? Instead of looking higher, we stoop lower. We seek the perfect in what is inherently imperfect. 

 

No one in his right mind thinks that gold and jewels grow on trees, or that fish are caught on mountaintops, or that goats should be bred in the sea. We all become quite expert at our particular businesses and trades, and we will know most everything about how to build a widget, or sell a doohickey, or make ourselves rich and famous by playing a certain game. We have engineering, and marketing, and politics as the refined skills of getting all of that done.

 

Now what is the skill of actually being human, simply for its own sake? Well, we call it philosophy, but we’ve made it into a shambles. It is neutered by doubts and excuses. 

 

I was often worried how people spend so much time and effort on perfecting the means, while almost completely neglecting the end. I was quite wary of too much pride here, because it is hardly my place to tell other people they are confused just because we might happen to disagree. 

 

But the problem was far deeper than that. It wasn’t just that people might have thought differently than me, but that they couldn’t seem to explain the reasons why they thought that way. There were all these theories and foundations for being successful, but there didn’t seem to be any about being good, or about actually being happy. Why, I would ask, should I pursue this one aspect of my life, and leave the other behind? I was usually met with a vacant stare. 

 

“Well, that’s just how it’s done.”

 

“Without a good job, you’ll obviously be nobody!”

 

“What, do you want to get old without a decent retirement plan?”

 

“Stop asking stupid questions, and just do what you need to do.”

 

So if it’s popular it’s good, if it makes money it’s good, if it’s convenient it’s good, and one should act for something without understanding why one acts?

 

Again, we are brilliant with the means, clueless with the ends. And only when it is perhaps too late do we realize how we’ve been paying attention to all the wrong things. Remember, that’s exactly where Boethius came to be as his life was soon to end. 

 

So I ask myself, if I won’t believe in the spaghetti tree, why am I still tempted to believe in the blessings of fortune and fame? When it comes down to it, the former is far more reasonable than the latter. 

 

 

 

3.23

 

“So far,” she continued, “we have been content to set forth the form of false happiness. If you clearly understand that, my next duty is to show what is true happiness.”

 

“I do see,” said I, “that wealth cannot satisfy, that power comes not to kingdoms, nor veneration to high offices; that true renown cannot accompany ambition, nor true enjoyment wait upon the pleasures of the body.”

 

“Have you grasped the reasons why it is so?” she asked.

 

“I seem to look at them as through a narrow chink, but I would learn more clearly from you.”

 

“The reason is to hand,” said she; “human error takes that which is simple and by nature impossible to divide, tries to divide it, and turns its truth and perfection into falsity and imperfection. Tell me, do you think that anything which lacks nothing, can be without power?”

 

“Of course not.”

 

“You are right; for if anything has any weakness in any part, it must lack the help of something else.”

 

“That is so,” I said.

 

“Then perfect satisfaction and power have the same nature?”

 

“Yes, it seems so.”

 

“And do you think such a thing contemptible, or the opposite, worthy of all veneration?”

 

'There can be no doubt that it is worthy.”

 

“Then let us add veneration to that satisfaction and power, and so consider these three as one.”

 

“Yes, we must add it if we wish to proclaim the truth.”

 

“Do you then think that this whole is dull and of no reputation, or renowned with all glory? For consider it thus: we have granted that it lacks nothing, that it has all power and is worthy of all veneration; it must not therefore lack the glory which it cannot supply for itself, and thereby seem to be in any direction contemptible.”

 

“No,” I said, “I must allow that it has glory too.”

 

“Therefore we must rank this glory equally with the other three.”

 

“Yes, we must.”

 

“Then that which lacks nothing from outside itself, which is all-powerful by its own might, which has renown and veneration, must surely be allowed to be most happy too?”

 

“I cannot imagine from what quarter unhappiness would creep into such a thing, wherefore we must grant that it is full of happiness if the other qualities remain existent.”

 

“Then it follows further, that though perfect satisfaction, power, glory, veneration, and happiness differ in name, they cannot differ at all in essence?”

 

“They cannot.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 9

 

I find my mind returning, time and time again, to how readily we will all run around in this life without any precise understanding of what that very life is made for. Being clueless, we are therefore aimless. We acquire all sorts of knowledge and skill about this or that profession, while overlooking insight into that highest vocation, that of simply being human. 

 

I do it as much as the next man, and I can hardly say that this is simply because I have been given a bad example. No, I can only blame my own laziness in taking what appears to be the easiest route, looking for clever shortcuts to happiness, and pursuing what most tugs at my desire for immediate gratification.

 

The irony is that I think I am making it simpler for myself, when in fact I am making it far more complex than it has to be. Instead of seeking that one end, that which is most worthy and contains all others goods within it, I fracture the good into many tiny little bits. 

 

I should be seeking that priceless jewel, but I am filling my pockets with assorted trinkets. I should be hunting the biggest game, but I’m scrambling up trees after squirrels. 

 

If I go about asking all the people I meet what they think they might need to be happy, I will be thought of as an annoying gadfly, a no-good troublemaker much like that Socrates, a loose cannon. Yet that really is the most important question, isn’t it? Perhaps we become angry when we are asked to answer it because it reveals to us that we really don’t know. 

 

I suppose I have made a feeble attempt at doing precisely this, not just in my years of teaching but also in all aspects of my life, and I can honestly say that I am quite surprised when I have a serious conversation with someone, and they then offer a clear and concise account of why life is worth living. It has happened so rarely that I can remember each and every instance. 

 

The point is not whether they say something that I happen to find agreeable, but that they are willing to reflect upon the question at all. Some dismissive people tell me that other folks are just “stupid”, but I know that isn’t the case; so many are far brighter than I can ever be. I suspect we just aren’t used to pushing ourselves in such a direction, like never using a certain muscle, because we didn’t even know we had it.  

 

If I push the point, what will I hear about the good life? I affectionately call it the “laundry list”, a series of individual things that often seem to have no connection with one another. 

 

“Well. I’d need enough money to be happy. And be sure that I’ll always have enough money for the future. I want to have lots of fun. I want to have lots of friends. I’d have to be in good health, of course, and stay fit, but not so much that it makes me cranky. It would be great if I had a wonderful job, where I was respected and treated well, knowing I could get a good promotion if I worked hard enough, and that would help with the money thing, and for having more fun. That sounds like a pretty good life!”

 

Bit after a pause, the list will often continue to grow. “Wait, I need some vacation time, obviously, and it won’t be any good without a smoking-hot wife. It would be nice if she could cook a good meal, too. I would feel better if I was someone important, someone other people looked up to. Kids sound great too, but I would want them to go to the best schools, and I guess it would mean having some extra money for that. . .”

 

You aren’t alone if you recognize this as an expression of everything Lady Philosophy has warned Boethius about: the scattered pieces, the imperfect reflections of what is perfect, and the replacement of one complete source with many incomplete substitutes. 

 

During a rather dark time in my life, spending yet another holiday alone, a drinking buddy jokingly asked me what I wanted for Christmas. “World peace,” I said sarcastically. 

 

“Would inner peace do the trick?” he asked. Despite how confused we were, there was a fellow that got it, however cynically he was trying to come across. 

 

Why should I look to so many small things, all of which put together amount to so very little, when I should be looking for the one thing that can give all of it meaning and purpose?

 

If it is truly good, happiness will lack in nothing, without exception, and so it will be the fullness of power. 

 

If it is truly good, happiness will be worthy of respect, without exception, and so it will be the fullness of what is desirable.

 

If it is truly good, happiness will be most glorious, without exception, and will admit of nothing flawed whatsoever.

 

And here we are not describing a number of different things, but only aspects of one and the same thing; we are not listing many needs, but pointing to a single need, joined together in essence. Happiness, by its very definition as that which can never be added to, will therefore itself be simple and indivisible. 

 

 

 

3.24

 

“This then,” said she, “is a simple, single thing by Nature, only divided by the mistakes of base humanity; and while men try to gain a part of that which has no parts, they fail both to obtain a fraction, which cannot exist, and the whole too after which they do not strive.”

 

“Tell me how they fail thus,” I said.

 

“One seeks riches by fleeing from poverty, and takes no thought of power,” she answered, “and so he prefers to be base and unknown, and even deprives himself of natural pleasures lest he should part with the riches which he has gathered. Thus not even that satisfaction reaches the man who loses all power, who is stabbed by sorrow, lowered by his meanness, hidden by his lack of fame. 

 

“Another seeks power only; he scatters his wealth, he despises pleasures and honors that have no power, and sets no value upon glory. You see how many things such a one lacks. Sometimes he goes without necessaries even, sometimes he feels the bite and torture of care; and as he cannot rid himself of these, he loses the power too which he sought above all things. 

 

“The same argument may be applied to offices, glory, and pleasure. For since each one of these is the same as each other, any man who seeks one without the others, gains not even that one which he desires.” 

 

“What then?” I asked. 

 

“If any man desires to obtain all together, he will be seeking the sum of happiness. But will he ever find that in these things which we have shown cannot supply what they promise?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then happiness is not to be sought for among these things that are separately believed to supply each thing so sought.”

 

“Nothing could be more plainly true,” I said. 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 9

 

The more something is one, the more it is perfect. The more something is joined together, the more complete it becomes. The more something is good, the more it includes all lesser goods within it. If I am seeking that which leaves nothing to be desired, and to which nothing more can be added, then I must also of necessity be seeking unity, simplicity, and purity.

 

Instead of pursuing only what is relative, I should turn to what is absolute. Instead of focusing merely on the part, I should look at the whole. Instead of limiting myself to the effect, I should proceed to the cause. 

 

This may sound like terribly abstract metaphysics, but it has always helped me to examine such matters as concretely as possible. If I am looking at many things in front of me, what makes them many is precisely that in some way or other they are all different from one another. If they are different, that means that each has something that the other doesn’t, and while each is good in its own way, it is hardly good in the way of another. 

 

Consider a table filled with all sorts of different tools. Every tool is designed for its own distinct task, sometimes one that is quite specific or specialized. A screwdriver, a hammer, a wrench, or a saw will be helpful for one job, but useless for another. 

 

And now think about how people will sometimes use only one tool at the expense of the others, and then they wonder why they aren’t getting the job done. It will be fruitless trying to mow the lawn with a kitchen knife, or frame a picture with a blowtorch. We then get quite frustrated, and even blame the tools, and say that the job is impossible to complete.

 

This is something like what happens when a man narrows in on one aspect of life at the expense of the others, and then he wonders why he is not yet happy. He confuses the “one” thing he needs with only one separate part of the whole, and does not see that the “one” thing he needs is what binds all the parts together in the whole. He has divided things instead of joining them. 

 

I was talking about tools with my daughter one day when we I was tinkering in the garage, and she thought deeply for a moment. “Wait,” she said, “if each tool is really only good for a few things, what’s the one thing that can get all the things done? Is there like some kind of super-tool?”

 

These are the sorts of moments as a father, or as a teacher, or generally just as a human being, that I enjoy the most. She started imaging what sorts of qualities a tool would need to have in order to get everything done, but quickly realized no one physical object could ever do all those things. A jack-of-all-trades is the master of none. 

 

“So what’s that one thing you would need,” I asked her, “that’s better than all the tools, and that can help you fix anything?”

 

She frowned for a bit, and then suddenly smiled, pointing with her finger at her head. “You need a person who knows how to use all the tools, and when to use them!” 

 

No one tool on the workbench is enough; the unity of purpose within the mind of the craftsman is what provides the whole context. Look to the source. 

 

So one man believes he will be happy by becoming rich, and he dedicates himself completely to this task, but he doesn’t pay any attention to power or pleasure. Another man believes he will be happy by becoming powerful, but he doesn’t pay any attention to pleasure, or honor, or wealth, or glory, or anything else that shares in the whole of goodness. 

 

Whatever particular form this error may take, it involves confusing the individual pieces with the way those pieces should all fit together. 

 

 

 

3.25

 

“Then you have before you the form of false happiness, and its causes; now turn your attention in the opposite direction, and you will quickly see the true happiness which I have promised to show you.”

 

“But surely this is clear even to the blindest, and you showed it before when you were trying to make clear the causes of false happiness. For if I mistake not, true and perfect happiness is that which makes a man truly satisfied, powerful, venerated, renowned, and happy. And, for I would have you see that I have looked deeply into the matter, I realize without doubt that that which can truly yield any one of these, since they are all one, is perfect happiness.”

 

“Ah! My son,” said she, “I do see that you are blessed in this opinion, but I would have you add one thing.”

 

“What is that?” I asked.

 

“Do you think that there is anything among mortals, and in our perishable lives, which could yield such a state?”

 

“I do not think that there is, and I think that you have shown this beyond the need of further proof.”

 

“These then seem to yield to mortals certain appearances of the true good, or some such imperfections; but they cannot give true and perfect good.”

 

“No.”

 

“Since, then, you have seen what is true happiness, and what are the false imitations thereof, it now remains that you should learn from where this true happiness may be sought.”

 

“For that,” said I, “I have been impatiently waiting.”

 

“But Divine help must be sought in small things as well as great, as my pupil Plato says in his Timaeus; so what, think you, must we do to deserve to find the place of that highest good?”

 

“Call,” I said, “upon the Father of all, for if we do not do so, no undertaking would be rightly or duly begun.”

 

“You are right,” said she; and thus she cried aloud:  

 

—from Book 3, Prose 9

 

Being happy would mean that I have everything that I want, that I will desire nothing above and beyond what is already mine, and that I can rest assured that what I require is mine with certainty, that no one has the power to take it away from me.

 

Now this may seem like quite a tall order, and many people will tell me that it is impossible to find such a state of life. Yet it only seems impossible because of the things we think we need, and because we pursue all of the wrong ends. Lady Philosophy has already explained this. If I run after what is incomplete, I will fail. If I want what is beyond my power to possess, I will fail. 

 

What is most disturbing is when folks admit that we are made to be happy, but then turn around and say that happiness can never really be found. So why do I live? Is it, perhaps, only for someone else’s gratification, which is itself yet another form of failed contentment, and does it all spiral into a never-ending cycle of mutual disappointment?

 

Do not give happiness many names, but give it one, because only what is one will it be complete. There may be many aspects, but there is only one source. Do not make happiness dependent upon what may happen, but upon what you can make happen. It is up to you how you will live, not up to others. Do not look for the broken parts, but look for the perfect whole. Never settle for what is second to the best. 

 

“You cannot have the best. Be satisfied with whatever you get,” they may tell us. Don’t believe it. You can have the best, not in wealth, or power, or honor, but in your own character. Some people just want you to work for them, when you should really just be working for yourself. 

 

But what could I possibly call my own, even as all the things I crave after are hardly my own? I can easily lose my job, or my reputation, or everything I consider my property. 

 

I once listened to a Texas sheriff, annoyed that I could not immediately find my proof of car insurance in my glovebox, tell me that he could get me “raped in jail” if I didn’t hurry up. 

 

He was quite right, of course. If he said that I had been drinking, or fighting, or mouthing off to him, he could have done precisely that. And there would have been nothing I could do to stop him.

 

So how can there be happiness with all of that? Rather easily. Don’t focus on all of that. 

 

Nothing, absolutely nothing, that I see around me can fulfill that most urgent need. All of those things may be a part of the whole, but they are not the whole. What is the whole?

 

Plato had it right, as all humble men of wisdom have it right. If you want what is the biggest, the best, and the most perfect, raise you eyes, your thoughts and intentions to what is the biggest, the best, and the most perfect. 

 

An angry Texas sheriff can’t be trusted; God can be trusted. 

 

 

 

3.26

 

“You who does rule the Universe with everlasting law, 

founder of earth and heaven alike, 

who has bidden time stand forth from out of Eternity, 

for ever firm Yourself, yet giving movement unto all. 

No causes were without You 

that could then impel You to create this mass of changing matter, 

but within Yourself exists the very idea of perfect good, 

which grudges nothing, for of what can it have envy? 

You make all things follow that high pattern. 

In perfect beauty You move in Your mind a world of beauty, 

making all in a like image, 

and bidding the perfect whole to complete its perfect functions. 

All the first principles of Nature You do bind together 

by perfect orders as of numbers, 

so that they may be balanced each with its opposite: 

cold with heat, and dry with moist together; 

thus fire may not fly upward too swiftly because too purely, 

nor may the weight of the solid earth drag it down and overwhelm it. 

You make the soul as a third between mind and material bodies: 

to these the soul gives life and movement, 

for You spread it abroad among the members of the Universe, 

now working in accord. 

Thus is the soul divided as it takes its course, 

making two circles, as though a binding thread around the world. 

Thereafter it returns unto itself

and passes around the lower earthly mind; 

and in like manner it gives motion to the heavens to turn their course. 

You it is who does carry forward

 with like inspiration these souls and lower lives. 

You fill these weak vessels with lofty souls, 

and send them abroad throughout the heavens and earth, 

and by Your kindly law do turn them again to Yourself 

and bring them to seek, 

as fire does, to rise to You again.” 

 

—from Book 3, Poem 9

 

Of course I know that the trendy philosophical fashion of the age is to deny God, anything greater than ourselves, or anything that might give us a meaning and purpose beyond our own preferences. 

 

I no longer choose to fight with people over such a point, because I know what a task it was to fight with myself over such a point. Being in conflict with myself never made it any better, though sincere and humble reflection made all of the difference. 

 

I can hardly blame people for their doubts. How often have you heard people tell you that what they want from you is, of course, God’s will, or that you must give all that you have to an invisible man in the sky? Somehow, all that you have ends up in their pockets. How convenient for them! They claim to know what you don’t know. 

 

Yet I suggest the problem is not from believing in something greater than us, but rather from not believing in what is the greatest. Your boss, and your banker, and your lawyer, and your priest are in a sense, more than you, since they have more power than you; the conventional image of the stern fellow with a big white beard, sitting on a glowing throne, is hardly any different. Those people may be something, but they are not everything. Look to what is itself everything. 

 

No, the great difficulty with conceiving of the Divine, in whatever form we may understand it, is not that we are thinking too big, but that we aren’t thinking big enough. Think bigger, to the point where you have reached the biggest, that beyond which you can conceive of nothing more. 

 

I don’t just think of a mighty warrior, or an influential bureaucrat, or a powerful politician. I think of that which has no limits and borders, which allows no weakness or imperfection, the very measure and standard of all existence. I think of the infinite, and I think of what is boundless, with no beginning or end. It isn’t a part of creation, one piece of the whole, but rather the source of creation. It isn’t even a being, but being itself. All other passing things are effects, shadows, or aspects of its immovable permanence. 

 

Does this seem like a pie on the sky? I have sometimes thought so, until I actually put on my thinking cap. If I see what is changing, it is only possible through what is unchangeable. If I see what comes to be, it is only possible through what already is. If I see what is incomplete, it is only possible through what is complete. 

 

If I tell myself I can’t see it with my eyes, I am fooling myself. I see it in, and through, and with everything I see around me. The cause is apparent in the effect. I feel the light directly, which requires the source of the light. I have come to be, and I will end, and that means there is somewhere I have come from, and somewhere I am going to. I know all creatures are somehow lacking, in constant search for what fulfills them, the end for which they were made. 

 

An awareness of the Divine is not a matter of blind faith; I have come to consider it a necessity of reason. 

 

There are days I don’t want this to be true at all, but there are also days I want to not get out of bed either. I found that what bothered me about God was not God Himself, but what small-minded people chose to make of God, serving not the Image of all things, but only their own image. I was quite busy hacking away at the members, and I ignored the root. I saw the malice in the messengers, and I neglected the message. 

 

Everything in Nature has its function, an all function demands purpose, and all purpose reveals Mind—not just any mind, but Perfect Mind. 

 

If I am seeking something constant, stable, and absolutely reliable, should I not look to what is in itself constant, stable, and absolutely reliable? I don’t mean this or that school, or ritual, or cult. I mean that which is permanent through all impermanence. 

 

Does the name bother me? Let me then change the name, at least for the moment, if it brings with it too much uncomfortable baggage. Let me never, however, close myself to the Divine reality of which I am only a part. 

 

I am piece of a world. The world is itself something in a state of flux. What stands behind it and makes it what it is?

 

 

 

3.27

 

“Grant then, O Father, 

that this mind of ours may rise to Your throne of majesty; 

grant us to reach that fount of good. 

Grant that we may so find light

 that we may set on You unblinded eyes; 

cast You there from the heavy clouds of this material world. 

Shine forth upon us in Your own true glory. 

You are the bright and peaceful rest of all, 

Your children who worship You. 

To see You clearly is the limit of our aim. 

You are our beginning,

 our progress, 

our guide, 

our way, 

our end.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 9

 

It is not only the fact that the Divine exists that came to matter to me, but that the existence of the Divine is itself the measure of all other existence. It is further not only that everything moves as it does because of Divine Mind, but that the fullest union with Divine Mind is itself the purpose of my own mind. 

 

I must stop thinking of God as something “out there”, somehow distant and removed, but as something “right here”, more real than anything I have ever thought to be real. If it is, it only is through the fullness of all that Is. 

 

By this point in first reading the text of the Consolation, I originally had much the same cynical and skeptical response many other modern readers may also have. I would roll my eyes at the pseudo-holiness of all the poseurs and the manipulators, strutting about while insisting that God was on their side. Was Boethius going to try to play that game with me? 

 

It took me quite a bit of honesty and humility to recognize that it was ironically only my own pride that was getting in the way. Because others abused what reason told me must be true, would I then reject the truth behind what they abused? How foolish to say that God is on anyone’s side at all; only a man who makes himself a God could ever think such a thing. Men pick sides, out of greed and malice, while God remains what He always was, and always will be. 

 

Once again, I needed to think bigger. I needed to look beyond imperfect human standards, and rest my mind and heart in more perfect standards. I began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, I had been looking at it all wrong. I understood that happiness could only be found in that which was lacking in nothing. Well, what was it that, in and of itself, lacked in nothing?

 

I made a connection for myself, that God not only made me, in whatever way we may wish to describe it, but that I had also been made for God, that my beginning was also my ending, that my very life had been made to return to where I began. I was a bit like a salmon, coming home to spawn. I have a mind, ordered to know the truth. I have a will, ordered to love the good. What is the deepest truth, and what is the greatest love? Recognizing this changed my life to the core, and it wasn’t always that comfortable. It meant rebuilding everything about myself. 

 

Lady Philosophy has asked Boethius to seek God’s aid. Wait, I thought, why would God, in any form, try to help me? He is everything, and I am a meaningless afterthought! No, once again my own stubbornness and arrogance was getting in the way. If He made me, did He not make me to do well, to use my own freedom to fulfill my very purpose? Even as God is, by definition, that which is the greatest, it is precisely because He is the greatest that nothing is ever too small for Him.

 

It sounds quite silly, but my anger and frustration with such questions would keep me awake at night. Surely, God didn’t care. Look at how much He let me suffer, after all, and let other people suffer even more. Yet now we are cutting to the bone, however painful it may be. Was I made to rich, or pleasured, or famous? No, I am a being with a nature ordered to living well, to understanding and to charity, not to luxuries and entitlements. 

 

So I hated God, or denied that He existed, because he didn’t give me stuff; stuff isn’t what I need. Virtue is what I need, and is that which can never be taken away from me. All that had ever happened to me always gave me an opportunity for that, if only I would accept it. 

 

I try not to tell others how to think, but I did learn how I needed to think, not by any blind conformity, but by the demands of my own common sense. At every turn, I made excuses, and deep down inside I knew they were just excuses. I ripped myself apart because I didn’t want to admit that happiness was not what certain important people, as frail and weak as I was, told me what it had to be.

 

Here’s the simplest version I came up with, after many years of inner turmoil: Do you want what is perfect? Then make your way, slowly but surely, to what is actually perfect. There are no substitutions. 

 

Time to swim back upstream. 

 

 

 

3.28

 

“Since then you have seen the form both of the imperfect and the perfect good, I think I should now show you where lies this perfection of happiness. In this I think our first inquiry must be whether any good of this kind can exist in the very nature of a subject; for we must not let any vain form of thought make us miss the truth of this matter. But there can be no denial of its existence, that it is as the very source of all that is good. 

 

“For if anything is said to be imperfect, it is held to be so by some loss of its perfection. Wherefore if in any kind of thing a particular seems imperfect, there must also be a perfect specimen in the same kind. For if you take away the perfection, it is impossible even to imagine from where could come the so-called imperfect specimen. 

 

“For Nature does not start from degenerate or imperfect specimens, but starting from the perfect and ideal, it degenerates to these lower and weaker forms. 

 

“If then, as we have shown above, there is an uncertain and imperfect happiness to be found in the good, then there must doubtless be also a sure and perfect happiness therein.”

 

“Yes,” said I, “that is quite surely proved to be true.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 10

 

If I can only be satisfied by the best, I will need to surround myself with the best. 

 

I can think of so many imperfect analogies, where I wasn’t dealing with the source of all happiness, but rather simply pursuing lesser degrees of good. I may have thought that I could still get the same quality while paying less, or have the same results by cutting some corners, or consume more of something inferior in place of less of something superior. In each and every case, I found myself sorely disappointed. 

 

I have tried this with some of my guilty pleasures over the years, like pipe tobacco, or beer, or fedora hats, and when I realized how I had sold myself short, I could only wonder what I had been thinking. I have tried it with more important things, like the sort of books I read, the kind of home I live in, or the quality of the company I keep, and the consequences were even more disturbing. I was, as they say, settling for second-best. 

 

If I can see the problem in these less significant ways, should I not also be paying attention to it in the most significant ways? A cheap pair of shoes will not last me long, just as a weak moral anchor will not keep my life steady. 

 

But does something truly perfect, that which contains within itself the goodness of all other things, actually exist? Is it even possible for there to be such a being? After all, the things that I can directly perceive with my senses may contain their own particular goodness, but each is distinct by lacking the goodness within other things. It would be quite foolish of me to begin with a conclusion, however convenient, if I can’t know it be true. 

 

The relativist fashion of the age, which insists that there really is no truth, didn’t help me in these matters. I was told that nothing could ever be perfect, and that it was best for me to be quite imperfect. When I thought that through for a moment, I was puzzled. Worse is better, less is more, and it’s an absolute that nothing can be absolute? It sounded positively Orwellian! 

 

My own doubts about striving for what is perfect also had much to do with other sorts of people, who had repeatedly told me that God existed because they said so, and that following Him was simply a duty I had to perform. Asking questions, they insisted, would only get me into trouble. 

 

Now I had come across all sorts of different arguments, from various times and traditions, for the existence of that which is Absolute, the very source and standard of all that is. Perhaps it was just the way Boethius explained it, or where I happened to be in my own musings, but for the first time these insights started to come together, not just as a theoretical model, but also as a practical solution. 

 

That imperfect creatures existed showed in itself the necessity of a perfect Creator, and that I longed for a deeper happiness pointed me directly to the object of my desire. 

 

Wherever there are degrees of more or less, this is only possible through the maximum of what is the most, in that there can be no measuring without first having a measure. This is as true in the nature of things as it is in the order of thought. For it to be incomplete, or for it to be conceived of as incomplete, demands the context of that which is complete. Put another way, absence can only be judged through presence. 

 

The principle of causality reminds us that something can never come from nothing, and by extension that more can never come from less. Rather, what is lesser is always an effect of the greater that preceded it. The very fact that I am constantly aware of different degrees and changing combinations of good around me is itself proof of the Perfect Good standing behind all of them. 

 

And if this Perfect Good is real, the most real thing there could ever be, then the goal of happiness is also real, the highest purpose there could ever be. 

 

 

 

3.29

 

“Now consider,” she continued, “where it lies. The universally accepted notion of men proves that God, the fountainhead of all things, is good. For nothing can be thought of better than God, and surely He, than whom there is nothing better, must without doubt be good. 

 

“Now reason shows us that God is so good, that we are convinced that in Him lies also the perfect good. For if it is not so, He cannot be the fountainhead; for there must then be something more excellent, possessing that perfect good, which appears to be of older origin than God: for it has been proved that all perfections are of earlier origin than the imperfect specimens of the same.

 

“Wherefore, unless we are to prolong the series to infinity, we must allow that the highest Deity must be full of the highest, the perfect good. But as we have laid down that true happiness is perfect good, it must be that true happiness is situated in His Divinity.

 

''Yes, I accept that; it cannot be in any way contradicted.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 10

 

We are sometimes quite busy thinking about the conflicts between “our” God and the God of “another”. In the last century, the trend has even been to simply reject God completely, and thereby to make those who may trust in God yet another set of enemies. Notice what we have done. We have taken the false divisions between men to assume a division within the very order of Nature.

 

And I remind myself yet again, think bigger. Think about what is the biggest. Look to what is everything, not to this or that something. Look to the fountainhead. 

 

If I think my version of God is better than yours, I do not understand the very idea, because there can be nothing better than God. There is only One, not many. 

 

If I think there is no God at all, but I still see a meaning and order to the world, I do not understand the very idea, because there can be no effect without a cause. There is only the unity of things, not a separation.

 

If I think there is no meaning and order to begin with, you should just wish me the best, and turn your head with compassion. There is no reason in such a statement. Where there is action, it comes from somewhere, and it goes to somewhere. What we call chance is only in our own partial ignorance of grasping the nature of the source. 

 

Strutting science, or narrow theology, or arrogant preferences do not change a simple fact of reason: if it has come to be, there must be a reason for why it has come to be.

 

As is so common, we confuse our own worries with deeper questions of being. I am fighting my neighbor, so his God must be false. I am not happy, so clearly my God has failed me. I am so miserable, so surely there is no God at all. 

 

No, all that is clear is that I am absorbed in my own vanity. God hasn’t failed me. I have failed Him. 

 

There can be no infinite regress of causes, since then we would have infinite effects, but still no cause. We are passing the buck on forever and ever. 

 

But what caused God? Nothing at all, because only changing things require causes. What is infinite, eternal, complete, and unchanging demands no cause at all. It Is.

 

As they say, let me do the math. God is Himself perfection. Happiness can only be found in perfection. Pray tell, what does that say about what I am looking for?

 

 

 

3.30

 

“But,” she said, “I beg you, be sure that you accept with a sure conscience and determination this fact, that we have said that the highest Deity is filled with the highest good.”

 

”How should I think of it?” I asked.

 

“You must not think of God, the Father of all, whom we hold to be filled with the highest good, as having received this good into Himself from without, nor that He has it by Nature in such a manner that you might consider Him, its possessor, and the happiness possessed, as having different essential existences. 

 

“For if you think that good has been received from without, that which gave it must be more excellent than that which received it; but we have most rightly stated that He is the most excellent of all things. 

 

“And if you think that it is in Him by His Nature, but different in kind, then, while we speak of God as the fountainhead of all things, who could imagine by whom these different kinds can have been united?

 

“Lastly, that that is different from anything cannot be the thing from which it differs. So anything that is by its nature different from the highest good, cannot be the highest good. 

 

“And this we must not think of God, than whom there is nothing more excellent, as we have agreed. Nothing in this world can have a nature which is better than its origin, wherefore I would conclude that that which is the origin of all things, according to the truest reasoning, is by its essence the highest good.”

 

“Most truly,” I said. 

 

“You agree that the highest good is happiness?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then you must allow that God is absolute happiness?”

 

“I cannot deny what you put forward before, and I see that this follows necessarily from those propositions.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 10

 

So I begin to consider why the very idea of God, or of the Divine, or of the Transcendent, or of Providence, or of any other profound expression, seems to trouble me so much. Part of it is only a matter of the names we use; but names are just labels, signs we employ to point to something else. 

 

Names may have certain associations for me, good or bad, and so I will often assume a meaning in things, when it is really only in me. Let me look beyond the signs, to the deeper reality behind them. 

 

To avoid any subjective entrapments, let me simply speak, as Lady Philosophy often does, of the highest good, or of the perfect good. Perhaps I can find that neutral enough?

 

More fundamentally, however, I am still thinking in terms of finite creatures, that undergo change, that are divided and separated from one another, and that receive their goodness from something else, or whose goodness can somehow be considered separately from what they are.  

 

What Lady Philosophy suggests here is not “easy” philosophy, and this is especially frustrating for us in a time when the true and the false, the right and the wrong, are expected to be easy, presented to us in quick sound bites. 

 

Still, I have managed my way through thousands of pages on such matters from Plato, Aristotle, or St. Thomas Aquinas, and Lady Philosophy’s rather brief version here gets straight to the point. 

 

In this regard, the Consolation can be much like a handbook, or a quick reference guide, for so much of human wisdom. That is precisely what it was, for so many, throughout the Middle Ages. 

 

Perhaps I err on the side of too much simplicity here, but I can at least begin with this. I will never wrap my mind around the highest good if I assume it acquires its good, or that it even possesses the good as other things may posses it. The highest good is good, with no parts, no attributes, and no supplements. 

 

First, only incomplete and imperfect things are able to receive anything at all. A vessel cannot be filled any further if it is already full. 

 

Second, there are many things I can perceive where their existence and their goodness are not the same thing at all, but with the highest good they must be one and the same.

 

I can’t add anything better to the best; I can’t remove the good from what is itself, by its very definition, the best. 

 

Again, this is quite difficult if I only refer myself to what is relative. But Lady Philosophy’s argument is that there can never be anything relative without what is absolute. There can be no effects without causes. There can be nothing measured without a measure. 

 

Indeed, this requires a major shift of thinking. I can’t demand it of anyone, but I one day saw it for myself, as completely clear as the hand in front of my face. 

 

Further, if the perfect good is, it cannot be many, but it can only be one. If it were many, it would be broken apart, and not perfect at all. 

 

I notice that when I call it the “highest good”, I am not quite as hesitant. Of course, because I have heard so many people, in so many ways, at so many times, tell me that life is all about division, opposition, and conflict, I become quite cynical. My happiness is not your happiness, they insist. Have you ever considered that they are actually the same?

 

But maybe most of us, even of those seeking a deeper purpose, are getting it all wrong? If the good we desire to be happy is the highest good, it is surely meant for all of us, and not just for some of us. 

 

To be happy is to somehow share in the highest good. If God is, by definition, the highest good, however much my preferences or politics get in the way, am I not seeking to share in God?

 

 

 

3.31

 

“Look then,” she said, “whether it is proved more strongly by this too: there cannot be two highest goods which are different. For where two good things are different, the one cannot be the other. Wherefore neither can be the perfect good, while each is lacking to the other. And that which is not perfect cannot be the highest, plainly. 

 

“Therefore if two things are the highest good, they cannot be different. Further, we have proved to ourselves that both happiness and God are each the highest good. Therefore the highest Deity must be identical with the highest happiness.”

 

“No conclusion,” I said, “could be truer in fact, or more surely proved by reason, or more worthy of our God.”

 

'”Besides this let me give you corollary, as geometricians do, when they wish to add a point drawn from the propositions they have proved. Since men become happy by acquiring happiness, and happiness is identical with divinity, it is plain that they become happy by acquiring divinity. 

 

“But just as men become just by acquiring the quality of justice, and wise by wisdom, so by the same reasoning, by acquiring divinity they become divine. Every happy man then is divine. But while nothing prevents as many men as possible from being divine, God is so by His Nature, men become so by participation.”

 

”This corollary,” I said, “or whatever you call it, is indeed beautiful and very precious.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 10

 

An old joke has it that a bright-eyed young country fellow once met a fine young lady from the next town over. They fell in love, and the young fellow wanted to ask for her hand in marriage. He had still been raised with manners, so he called on the girl’s father. 

 

As the girl and her mother sipped tea on the porch, the boy went inside the house to make his case. The women were waiting expectantly, when the young man suddenly stormed out the door, tears streaming down his face, and then ran off down the road, waving his fists in the air. 

 

“Daddy! What did you say to him? He’s a good man!”

 

“That he is, my dear, that he is,” said the father. “But there was no way you two could ever be together. There was too much there to keep you apart, and I can’t have any daughter of mine being so miserable.”

 

Why, oh why?” cried the daughter. “He’s from a decent family! He loves me! He goes to church every Sunday!”

 

“Yes,” replied the father, “but he’s not our people.”

 

“Daddy, we’re both Baptists!”

 

“Yes, but we’re from the Baptist Congregation of America, and he’s from the American Conference of Baptists. Can you imagine how terrible it’ll be, when you both make it to Heaven, and you’ll be separated by a barbed wire fence for all of Eternity?”

 

Yes, it’s quite a corny joke, quite the eye-roller, but it also says quite a bit about how we like to divide, to fragment, and to break apart our happiness into little bits. The joke, of course, is about small-minded traditional prejudices, but the reality in an age that supposedly preaches such equality, solidarity, and universal acceptance is still not all that different. 

 

Lady Philosophy gets straight to the point. The Divine, however we may squint at it, is that which is perfect, that to which nothing can be added. Happiness, however we may squint at it, is that which is perfect, that which leaves nothing to be desired. There are not many different absolutes, but only one. There are not many objects of bliss, but only one. Describe the same thing over and over, and you still have the same thing. 

 

That which is complete, by its very definition, admits of no absence, for otherwise it would not be complete. There are no fences dividing the Universe, and there is no barbed wire keeping all of us apart. 

 

For all of the striking differences human beings have from one another, they share the very same nature as human. For all of the perspectives there may be on what rules the world, there is only one world, and only one rule. Happiness, as the very end of human nature, is only complete when it is in harmony with the order of all things. They are one and the same, totally inseparable. 

 

I have struggled with it, and I can’t seem to find my way around this profound and inspiring fact: we all proceed from the same origin, and we are all made to return to the same goal, and we are describing an identical thing. I am happy when I become most fully myself, and I become most fully myself when I become Divine. 

 

I am not God Himself, but I am His creature. I become Divine not by being the Creator, but by participating as fully as I can in all that such a Creator is. I am like the part that only has meaning and purpose within the context of the whole, the effect that only makes sense through the design of the cause. Without this beginning and this end, there is quite literally no “me” at all.

 

I would sometimes snigger at people who spoke of being “Godlike” in their lives, perhaps because I saw so many for whom it was just part of playing a prideful game. To be like God, I began to recognize, was not about being everything for myself, but about being myself for everything. It was not about being served, but about being of service. 

 

Any and every man will become like God when he shows love, complete and unconditional, for all that is. In this way, all of us are made to be Godlike. There is no need for any barbed wire fences. 

 

 

 

3.32

 

“Yes, but nothing can be more beautiful than this too which reason would have us add to what we have agreed upon.”

 

“What is that?” I asked.

 

“Happiness seems to include many things: do all these join it together as into a whole which is happiness, as though each thing were a different part thereof, or is any one of them a good which fulfills the essence of happiness, and do the others merely bear relations to this one?''

 

“I would have you make this plain by the enunciation of these particulars.”

 

“Do we not,” she asked, “hold that happiness is a good thing?”

 

“Yes,” I answered, “the highest good.”

 

“But you may apply this quality of happiness to them all. For the perfect satisfaction is the same, and the highest power, and veneration, and renown, and pleasure; these are all held to be happiness.”

 

“What then?” I asked. 

 

“Are all these things, satisfaction, power, and the others, as it were, members of the body, happiness, or do they all bear their relation to the good, as members to a head?”

 

“I understand what you propose to examine, but I am waiting eagerly to hear what you will lay down.”

 

“I would have you take the following explanation,” she said. “If these were all members of the one body, happiness, they would differ individually. For this is the nature of particulars, to make up one body of different parts. 

 

“But all these have been shown to be one and the same. Therefore they are not as members; and further, this happiness will then appear to be joined together into a whole body out of one member, which is impossible. “

 

“That is quite certain,” said I, “but I would hear what is to come.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 10

 

No good thing ever comes easily, they always told, me, and if philosophy is indeed a good thing, philosophy will hardly come easily either. Perhaps it will even come the hardest of all, because it concerns itself with not just any good, but with the greatest good.

 

This is not an easy section of the text. In theory, it is about the relationship of universals and particulars, between what is common to the whole on the one hand, and specific to the parts on the other. 

 

In practice, it asks us to really consider whether being happy comes from adding up certain individual things, or whether all the individual things are only expressions of one and the same happiness. 

 

That didn’t necessarily help, did it? I am sympathetic, because the only time I had it explained to me in a classroom, the esteemed professor used all sorts of fancy terms I couldn’t wrap my head around. He then asked the room full of graduate students if it made sense, and they all nodded profoundly. I didn’t have the courage to say I was still as lost as before. 

 

Perhaps my own reading, proceeding only from own reflections, is still too confused or simplistic; I am aware that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. All I know is that when an idea seems too abstract for me, I try to use a very concrete analogy to nudge me along the way. 

 

From my love of music, I often employ the image of an orchestra or a choir to help me think about the relationship of a whole, all of something, and a part, a piece of something. 

 

So we understand that the performance of the music is like a whole, and that all the musicians contribute to it. Yet what actually produces that harmony? We think that the players are all somehow making the whole of the music, one by one, each through their own different parts in the score. 

 

But each part, only taken in itself, is really not much at all. It is certainly not complete. When I played the double bass, I would sometimes spend whole minutes doing nothing at all, then suddenly produce a few quick notes, and then go back to counting the measures until I had to do something else. When I played my part alone at home to practice, it was certainly not a harmony; it was just individual sounds, here and there, quite boring and tedious. It had no sense, no rhyme or reason to it.

 

How about those first violinists, or those soloists? The got to noodle their way through the whole thing, and they were thought to be more important than the rest of us. But they weren’t. Their fancy finger-work was still nothing in itself, however impressive the musicianship. 

 

No one distinct part in the piece contains the fullness of the music, and no one musician defines the entire work. Well then, surely they are doing it all together? Yes, but their individual playing or singing itself isn’t doing that. Otherwise, any playing or singing, all jumbled together, would make it a harmony. 

 

Where is that harmony really coming from? Not from the bottom up, but from the top down. A composer wrote that score, and we freely follow it. A conductor assists us in doing this, but we are still formed by that score. The musicians are not the highest cause itself, but the means by which that cause expresses itself. They are the matter, not the agent. 

 

The whole is not determined by the parts, but rather the parts are determined by the whole. Or put another way, the many do not shape the one, and instead the one shapes the many. 

 

So too it is with happiness, and so too it is with God. No one element is the totality, and no mere combination of certain elements is the totality. 

 

Remember all the individual things Lady Philosophy said we thought were happiness, and how we separated them, failing to see that they were really just mirrors of the one and the same? 

 

Money? Honor? Power? Fame? Pleasure? Each of these fully reveals that perfect goal, but absolutely none of them, isolated and only of their own accord, amount to anything at all. Much like how the tuba player, and the timpani player, and that sassy bassist in the back row can’t really have any meaning as separated from the unity of the whole piece of music. 

 

It isn’t the sum of the parts, or the dominance of one of the parts. It is something greater than the parts, in which all of the parts participate. Look to the head, not to the bits of the body here and there. 

 

 

 

3.33

 

“It is plain that the others have some relation to the good. It is for that reason, namely because it is held to be good, that this satisfaction is sought, and power likewise, and the others too; we may suppose the same of veneration, renown, and pleasure.

 

“The good then is the cause of the desire for all of these, and their consummation also. Such a thing as has in itself no real or even pretended good, cannot ever be sought.

 

“On the other hand, such things as are not by nature good, but seem to be so, are sought as though they were truly good. Wherefore we may justly believe that their good quality is the cause of the desire for them, the very hinge on which they turn, and their consummation. 

 

“The really important object of a desire, is that for the sake of which anything is sought, as a means. For instance, if a man wishes to ride for the sake of his health, he does not so much desire the motion of riding, as the effect, namely health. As, therefore, each of these things is desired for the sake of the good, the absolute good is the aim, rather than themselves.

 

“But we have agreed that the other things are desired for the sake of happiness, wherefore in this case too, it is happiness alone which is the object of the desire. Wherefore it is plain that the essence of the good and of happiness is one and the same.”

 

“I cannot see how anyone can think otherwise.”

 

''But we have shown that God and true happiness are one and the same?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Therefore,” said she, “we may safely conclude that the essence of God also lies in the absolute good and nowhere else.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 10

 

So when it comes to happiness, I need to stop thinking of it as collecting a whole bunch of different pieces from here and there. I should rather recognize that there is only one complete and perfect whole, leaving nothing more to be desired.

 

Once again, I think back to the shopping list of happiness, and I can admit more and more how truly ridiculous that all sounds. Give me as much money as I may need, and then also a secure position, and then add a healthy pinch of influence, and then mix in a fine reputation with others. Oh, and I almost forgot, sprinkle it with plenty of pleasure, because nothing tastes any good if there isn’t lots of fun to go along with it!

 

I may believe all of these things to be desirable, yet the whole time I am only looking at them individually. Note also how I may worry that I have left out some important ingredient, which actually reveals that I don’t really understand what makes the recipe. I am failing to ask myself what the common quality really is, the single good that I mysteriously attribute to all of the components, even as I am clueless as to what really defines it. 

 

A shared term refers to something held in common, not many things that have nothing in common. A dog, a cat, a cow, and a horse are all mammals, types of animals that possess certain properties. When we similarly say that wealth, and power, and honor, and pleasure are good things, what is really the same about all of them?

 

That we consider them all to be good is, after all, precisely why we say we want them. In this sense, the fact that they are good is the very cause of their desirability, and if we no longer perceived anything good in them, they would cease to entice us. But don’t we sometimes pursue bad things? Yes, but only because we mistakenly see some benefit in them. 

 

All actions are directed to this good, that happiness for the sake of which we do anything we do. The different means all point to the common end. I want a job so I can make money, and I want money so I can buy things, and I want to buy things so. . . I can be happy? Notice how I may not be thinking through the progression from the means to the end as carefully as I should. 

 

Why ride a horse? Some people may do so, as Boethius suggests, for their health, though others may do so because they are herding cattle, or because they are trying to win a race, or simply because they love animals. Whatever the particular reason, they have a higher goal in mind, that it will somehow make them happy. 

 

I may still only be taking baby steps here, but if I recognize that the highest good is happiness, I can also identify these two terms with another term. God is the highest good, and God is happiness. Here again is that one common thing, which nothing greater can be conceived, and even as we may give it all sorts of names, it still ends up being the same thing. 

 

I may not always be aware that I am really seeking God as my final end, and I may even vehemently deny it; I may insist I’m quite content with all these far more practical things, like a career, or getting the kids into a fancy college, or a relaxing fishing trip. Yet I still want them for their goodness, which is simply a finite expression of an infinite cause. 

 

I once had a very romantic and poetic friend, who was sipping a glass of fine whiskey, and smoking a fat cigar. As he wallowed in the glow of it all, he went off on a rambling monologue. It was quite amusing to listen to him, but also quite profound:

 

“. . . So I am only now realizing that I always wanted love in my life, but I didn’t know I wanted it, so I tried all other sorts of things to take its place, but they weren’t really love, now were they? After all, love is all we need, and they say God is love!”

 

He paused for a moment, his mouth hung open, and he almost dropped his cigar.

 

“Wait, have I been wanting God this whole time? Oh crap!”

 

 

 

3.34

 

“Come hither all who are the prey of passions,

 bound by their ruthless chains; 

those deceiving passions which blunt the minds of men.

 Here shall you find rest from your labors; 

here a haven lying in tranquil peace; 

this shall be a resting-place 

open to receive within itself all the miserable on earth. 

Not all the wealth of Tagus's golden sands, 

nor Hermus' gleaming strand, 

nor Indus, nigh earth's hottest zone, 

mingling its emeralds and pearls,

can bring light to the eyes of any soul, 

but rather plunge the soul more blindly in their shade. 

In her deepest caverns does earth rear

 all that pleases the eye and excites the mind.

The glory by which the heavens move and have their being, 

has nothing to do with the darknesses that bring ruin to the soul. 

Whosoever can look on this true light 

will scarce allow the sun's rays to be clear.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 10

 

To think of the Divine as an abstraction, as some wonderful concept somewhere up there in the sky, has sadly never been helpful for me. Perhaps the weakness is within myself, but I have failed to find comfort in anything “up there”, while I must still try to make sense of what is going on “down here”. 

 

Maybe I should stop breaking things apart, dividing the theory and the practice, and finally discover a sense of unity. 

 

In desiring happiness, I am seeking something complete, absolutely reliable, and lacking in nothing. I long for contentment, peace, and certainty. Now what could possibly fulfill this desperate need? I try vainly, as Pascal so wisely said, to fill an infinite hole with finite things. 

 

And then I wonder why I am still so miserable, even as I must pretend to be quite satisfied. It would be embarrassing to admit I was wrong, and unseemly to lose face with my neighbors. Most of us are playing a clever game. 

 

Yet I can begin right here and now with what I can see before me, the evidence of all creatures, and then I can also see with equal clarity what makes all these creatures what they are. Perfect Being is immediately present in all beings, not removed from them at all. It may well be transcendent, but it is also immanent. 

 

“But I can’t see God!” Of course you can, just as you can see me through the medium of your eyes, or you can hear me through the medium of your ears. Most importantly, you can know it through the medium of your mind, the sharpest and mightiest of your powers. 

 

Where there are changing effects, there is an unchanging cause. Where there are degrees, there is an absolute. Where there is the deepest desire, there is the perfect object of that desire. All the things that once appeared to be so great will suddenly no longer appear so great. 

 

“I wish to be gratified!” How well, may I ask with all due respect, has that worked out for you? You honestly know that you are still missing something after you have eaten all you want, made as much money as you can imagine, and played all of your games of power and sex. When those things are done, you still want more, and more, and more. 

 

So I choose to look to follow the best. Nothing lesser should distract me, and any attention should be directed to the light itself, not to the shadow. 

 

“But how can I possibly find that?” Look through things, back to what underlies those things. The Absolute is not obscure, but quite apparent. Everything else will pale in comparison. The bits and pieces of the world begin to appear rather dull when compared to their brilliant source. 

 

 

3.35

 

“I cannot but agree with that,” I said, “for it all stands woven together by the strongest proofs.”

 

Then she said, “At what would you value this, namely if you could find out what is the absolute good?”

 

“I would reckon it,” I said, “at an infinite value, if I could find out God too, who is the good.”

 

“And that too I will make plain by most true reasoning, if you will allow to stand the conclusions we have just now arrived at.”

 

“They shall stand good.”

 

“Have I not shown,” she asked, “that those upon the things which most men seek are for this reason not perfect goods, because they differ between the highest themselves; they are lacking to one another, and so cannot afford full, absolute good? 

 

“But when they are gathered together, as it were, into one form and one operation, so that complete satisfaction, power, veneration, renown, and pleasure are all the same, then they become the true good. Unless they are all one and the same, they have no claim to be reckoned among the true objects of men's desires.”

 

“That has been proved beyond all doubt.”

 

“Then such things as differ among themselves are not goods, but they become so when they begin to be a single unity. Is it not then the case these become goods by the attainment of unity?”

 

“Yes,” I said, “it seems so.”

 

“But I think you allow that every good is good by participation in good?”

 

“Yes, I do.”

 

“Then by reason of this likeness both unity and good must be allowed to be the same thing; for such things as have by nature the same operation, have the same essence.”

 

“Undeniably.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 11

 

I have been wandering about this world for quite a few decades now, and each year I still hear people telling me that we are now more “One” than we ever have been. I see it in politics, I see it in religion, and most of all I see it in advertising. All of those thousands of years of human existence were about division, or so I’m told, but now we’re just about to get it all together. People were stupid back then, but we’re much smarter now. 

 

But there is always a catch: “We can only do this if we get rid of all the radicals and extremists who are part of group xor y. They are the last ones standing in the way!”

 

So when I quietly sigh, or even just lower my head in silence, I obviously come across as the stubborn and hopeless cynic, that fellow who just can’t go with the flow of the newest thing. I know, my head is screwed on wrong.

 

Yet in my own defense, I do wonder how a unity can ever exist for the sake of some, but at the expense of others. Back in early 1990’s, I would get blue in the face claiming that people of one group were no less human than any other, and now, twenty years on, I get blue in the face arguing that a completely different group are no less human than any other. The fashion of what is “One” seems to change, while some are still always excluded. 

 

I suggest that unity, a genuine sense of “One”, is far deeper than this. Who I am, and who you are, and what all things are can surely only make sense by something bigger than the norm of mob rule. 

 

Absolute love does not admit of hatred, to any degree. Complete acceptance does not allow for rejection, in any way. Enlightened tolerance does not encourage intolerance, at any level. This is true for a fairly simple reason: nothing can be fully one as long as it remains separated. 

 

Lady Philosophy has argued that the highest and most perfect good must include all other lower and imperfect goods within itself. It isn’t just a matter of adding things together, some matter of consensus built from the bottom up, but of seeing that they all emanate from and participate in a single source, and that what makes one thing different from any other thing is precisely that it isn’t any other thing, that it isn’t absolute. 

 

Now what is it that joins all things together, and admits of no exclusion, leaves nothing behind? This is Being in and of itself, not this or that aspect, but the whole ball of wax. 

 

All things are good by their very being, but they are better by being bound together, and they are most perfect by being completely “One”. By definition, it suffers no division, and it permits of no exclusion. 

 

Am I still looking for that Unity we all say we are working toward? Am I still searching for God? Aren’t they really the same thing, that whole ball of wax?

 

 

 

3.36

 

“Do you realize that everything remains existent so long as it keeps its unity, but perishes in dissolution as soon as it loses its unity?”

 

“How so?” I asked.

 

“In the case of animals,” she said, “so long as mind and body remain united, you have what you call an animal. But as soon as this unity is dissolved by the separation of the two, the animal perishes and can plainly be no longer called an animal. 

 

“In the case of the body, too, so long as it remains in a single form by the union of its members, the human figure is presented. But if the division or separation of the body's parts drags that union asunder, it at once ceases to be what it was. 

 

“In this way one may go through every subject, and it will be quite evident that each thing exists individually, so long as it is one, but perishes so soon as it ceases to be one.”

 

“Yes, I see the same when I think of other cases.”

 

“Is there anything,” she then asked, “which, in so far as it acts by Nature, ever loses its desire for self-preservation, and would voluntarily seek to come to death and corruption?”

 

“No,” I said, “while I think of animals which have volition in their nature, I can find in them no desire to throw away their determination to remain as they are, or to hasten to perish of their own accord, so long as there are no external forces compelling them thereto. Every animal labors for its preservation, shunning death and extinction.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 11

 

Even the most abstract sort of philosophical reflection can be of great help with making sense of daily living. I think of all the ways we seek unity, express unity, and try to preserve unity in our actions. We might not always be fully aware of why we are doing it, but we will nevertheless cling to what joins things together, and resist what breaks them apart.

 

Unity becomes a necessary aspect of all being, if we remember that things are more complete in their being the more they are one, and less complete in their being the more they are divided. For anything to exist at all is not merely a presence of certain parts, thrown about in any sort of way, but the way those parts are crafted together as a whole, and ordered toward a common purpose. 

 

I once had a teacher who suggested that we should not be so dismissive of the concept of the soul, because it points to the very real difference between something that is alive and something that is dead. If I see a bird flying through the air, or building a nest, or pecking at a worm, what distinguishes it from the bird that is lying motionless on the sidewalk? They both look much the same, and are made of the same sorts of bodies, but yet one is informed with the principle of life, and for the other this has been removed.

 

And notice how the longer that binding force is absent, the matter that composed them becomes more and more dispersed. When I was about seven or eight years old, there was a rather aggressive cat living in the neighborhood, and it killed many birds in our backyard. I ended up with a sort of bird cemetery by our garage, where I had buried one after another, and covered their graves with little piles of pebbles. 

 

Many years later, that whole plot of ground was dug up to plant some new trees, and I was somehow horrified that I would find dozens of little bird skeletons. But the pebbles had long washed away, and there was not a single trace of my feathered friends to be found in the dirt. All the components, all the elements, had now blended in with other things, and while they were still part of something else, there was nothing “existing” about the birds themselves. 

 

If I see a jigsaw puzzle assembled into a single picture, it is a rather different than having all the separate pieces in a box. If I see the fine functioning of a handmade clock, it is very different than seeing a pile of gears and springs. If I see people joined in friendship, it is very different than seeing them locked in conflict. 

 

A man may be lonely, he may be sick, or he may be hungry, but as long as he lives, he struggles to maintain his own existence, to maintain that unity of himself. While the parts are bound together, he still remains. He may understand that other forces will disperse him, or that he might have to offer his own being for that of another, but he is a distinct creature as long as he is one creature. 

 

 

 

3.37

 

“But about trees and plants, I have great doubts as to what I should agree to in their case, and in all inanimate objects.”

 

“But in this case too,” she said, “you have no reason to be in doubt, when you see how trees and plants grow in places which suit them, and where, so far as Nature is able to prevent it, they cannot quickly wither and perish. For some grow in plains, others on mountains; some are nourished by marshes, others cling to rocks; some are fertilized by otherwise barren sands, and would wither away if one tried to transplant them to better soil. 

 

“Nature grants to each what suits it, and works against their perishing while they can possibly remain alive. I need hardly remind you that all plants seem to have their mouths buried in the earth, and so they suck up nourishment by their roots and diffuse their strength through their pith and bark: the pith being the softest part is always hidden away at the heart and covered, protected, as it were, by the strength of the wood; while outside, the bark, as being the defender who endures the best, is opposed to the unkindness of the weather. 

 

“Again, how great is Nature's care, that they should all propagate themselves by the reproduction of their seed; they all, as is so well known, are like regular machines not merely for lasting a time, but for reproducing themselves for ever, and that by their own kinds. 

 

“Things too which are supposed to be inanimate, surely do all seek after their own by a like process. For why is flame carried upward by its lightness, while solid things are carried down by their weight, unless it is that these positions and movements are suitable to each?

 

“Further, each thing preserves what is suitable to itself, and what is harmful it destroys. Hard things, such as stones, cohere with the utmost tenacity of their parts, and resist easy dissolution; while liquids, water, and air, yield easily to division, but quickly slip back to mingle their parts that have been cut asunder. And fire cannot be cut at all.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 11

 

I recall a lovably eccentric fellow from Russia who was trying to defend a doctoral dissertation, where he argued that everything, men and women, animals and plants, rocks and rivers, all spoke with a certain language. I at first found this ridiculous, because while some living things have the power of voice, only living things with reason have the power of speech. And how, pray tell, can a pebble or a puddle, lacking both life and reason, say anything at all?

 

I should have been a bit more open-minded, not by agreeing that a boulder can form words, or that a monkey can write a poem, but by accepting that, in the broadest sense, everything expresses its nature by what it does. In this manner, figuratively if not literally, it “speaks” to us, by telling us about its identity. Actions and reactions, even when they lack awareness, are signs of something. 

 

Likewise, all things, whether aware or unaware, living or dead, reveal a purpose, simply by being what they are. In doing so, by behaving according to their natures, they stand for themselves, they preserve themselves, and they continue as themselves until they are met by a force that overwhelms them. They may not know what they do, but they still do what they do, and they remain firm in what they do. 

 

I was taught a healthy respect for Nature from the earliest age, and so I can see quite clearly how a tree, for example, is made most wonderfully. It will fit itself into a certain environment, and it will reach outs is roots, and it will spread out its branches. 

 

Starve it of water and light, or inflict upon it some disease, or hack away at its limbs, and it will fight back to survive. It will do so in the most remarkable of ways, and whatever may come to it, it will still be certain to make some more versions of itself. 

 

It will not go quietly, because it is seeking its own unity. Does it “know” what it does? I have spoken to trees on a number of odd occasions, though I can’t say they spoke back to me, so I have no direct account from them. But perhaps I wasn’t listening in the right way. 

 

The tree is living, but yet the same is true of earth, or water, or air, or fire. Each “element” moves in its own way, responds to its contrary in its own way, and strives to maintain its unity in its own way. 

 

Throw a rock in the air, and it falls back. Put a dam on a river, and it pushes back. Build a tent to block the wind, and the wind blows away the tent. Try to extinguish a burning building, and the flames will sneak right by you to the next building.

 

Each and every thing in this wide world defines itself, and thereby seeks to be what it is made to be. It seeks to be one and complete, not many and divided. The whole Universe craves unity. 

 

 

 

3.38

 

“We are not now discussing the voluntary movements of a reasoning mind, but the natural instinct. For instance, we unwittingly digest the food we have eaten, and unconsciously breathe in sleep. Not even in animals does this love of self-preservation come from mental wishes, but from elementary nature. 

 

“For often the will, under stress of external causes, embraces the idea of death, from which Nature revolts in horror. And, on the other hand, the will sometimes restrains what Nature always desires, namely the operation of begetting, by which alone the continuance of mortal things becomes enduring. Thus far, then, this love of self-preservation arises not from the reasoning animal's intention, but from natural instinct. 

 

“Providence has given to its creatures this the greatest cause of permanent existence, the instinctive desire to remain existent so far as possible. Wherefore you have no reason to doubt that all things, which exist, seek a permanent existence by Nature, and similarly avoid extinction.”

 

“Yes,” I said, “I confess that I see now beyond all doubt what appeared to me just now uncertain.” 

 

“But,” she continued, “that which seeks to continue its existence, aims at unity; for take this away, and none will have any chance of continued existence.”

 

“That is true.”

 

“Then all things desire unity,” she said, and I agreed. “But we have shown unity to be identical with the good?”

 

“Yes,” said I.

 

“Then all things desire the good; and that you may define as being the absolute good which is desired by all.”

 

“Nothing could be more truthfully reasoned. For either everything is brought back to nothing, and all will flow on at random with no guiding head; or if there is any universal aim, it will be the sum of all good.”

 

“Great is my rejoicing, my son,” said she, “for you have set firmly in your mind the mark of the central truth. And hereby is made plain to you that which you a short time ago said that you knew not.”

 

“What was that?”

 

“What was the final aim of all things,” she said, “for that is plainly what is desired by all. Since we have agreed that unity is the good, we must confess that the good is the end of all things.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 11

 

There are two points that always struck me deeply about this passage, one little, and the other big, but both quite important.

 

The first insight turns a usual assumption of mine on its head. I can see how beings endowed with awareness seek to maintain their existence, and therefore their unity, but it is not so readily apparent that this actually applies to all created things, conscious or not. 

 

In fact, those beings lacking in reason and choice do so without question, even as you and I may well question it. 

 

How wonderful that an animal eats its food, and rears its young, and by doing so it preserves itself. It doesn’t need to “know” what it does to do what it does. How tragic that a man makes his conscious choices, and he still can somehow freely destroy himself. 

 

In one sense, the man is a more perfect creature, because he determines his own actions; but when he chooses poorly, he becomes the worse creature, because he is actually able to deny his own nature. The rock, the tree, the frog, or the rabbit never do that. Yet I will somehow do that. 

 

The second insight, quite honestly, makes me quake in my boots. Each thing may have its own particular purpose and end, even while there can only be one universal purpose and end. 

 

This took me a while to embrace. Surely the rock, the tree, the frog, and the rabbit, and the man, for that matter, all have very different things they are meant to do? What could they possibly have in common?

 

They all do it in varied ways, and each acts according to its nature. Each preserves itself, as best as it can, and as long as it can. Each may pass, while each resists its passing. Each remains good as long as it is one. 

 

In doing so, by defending what they are, they express their own specific unity. And there can be no imperfect or incomplete aspects of unity without a perfect or complete form of unity. The parts can only make any sense within the whole.

 

There aren’t many “ones”, only one “one”, if that makes any sense in my befuddled way of expressing it; it would hardly be one if it were many. Each piece cannot exist in isolation, and it must exist together with all the other pieces. In other words, all the lower goods exist within a higher good. 

 

The rock, the tree, the frog, and the rabbit, and the man, for that matter, are present in a single world, and for all that they are individually, they are nothing on their own. All of them aim for their own unity and good, in their own manner, and thereby prove that there is a highest unity and good that encompasses them all.

 

Sorry, I like frogs and rabbits. Use whatever examples may suit you best.

 

I quake in my boots because it means I can never think of my own good as independent of the good of other things, or of my unity as independent of the unity of all things. 

 

In a lesser sense, it puts a terrible crimp in my sense of entitlement; in a greater sense, it liberates me by teaching me that I am not alone. The “good” and the “one” are ultimately the same, for each and every thing.

 

 

 

3.39

 

“If any man makes search for truth with all his penetration, 

and would be led astray by no deceiving paths, 

let him turn upon himself the light of an inward gaze,

let him bend by force the long-drawn wanderings 

of his thoughts into one circle; 

let him tell surely to his soul, 

that he has, thrust away within the treasures of his mind, 

all that he labors to acquire without. 

Then shall that truth, 

which now was hid in error's darkening cloud, 

shine forth more clear than Phoebus' self. 

For the body, though it brings material mass which breeds forgetfulness, 

has never driven forth all light from the mind.

The seed of truth does surely cling within, 

and can be roused as a spark by the fanning of philosophy. 

For if it is not so, how do you men make answers 

true of your own instinct when teachers question you? 

Is it not that the quick spark of truth 

lies buried in the heart's low depths? 

And if the Muse of Plato sends through those depths the voice of truth, 

each man has not forgotten 

and is but reminding himself of what he learns.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 11

 

I was always a bit confused, from the earliest age, when people told me that the value of my life was about “finding myself”, yet at the very same time they told me that my identity was measured by a long list of external conditions that had to be met. I couldn’t quite make the two work together. Which was it, or, at the very least, which came first?

 

I was usually met with an empty gaze when I asked these sorts of questions. I suspect many kind people, intending only the best, wanted me to find myself through making something better of my circumstances. But which one was the end, and which one was the means? Is this a chicken-or-the-egg sort of problem?

 

I had the benefit of attending a fancy liberal arts high school, one that taught me to love learning for its own sake, to think for myself, to become a fellow who didn’t just play the game. Then junior year rolled around, and the only question that now seemed important hung over my head: what will be my college of choice?

 

That had already been decided for me, by the simple fact that my father had put his sweat and blood into a teaching job that covered my tuition. My parents hadn’t sent me to this high school to win entry to an Ivy League, but to build my character. We simply didn’t have the $100,000 or so required for me to attend one of the “best” colleges; to be quite honest, I was never sure they were the “best” to begin with. Image can be so powerful. 

 

Still, our college advisor became quite furious with me. “Don’t be so stupid, you need to aim for something better!” he yelled at me one day, in front of a group of other students, making me a local laughing stock for a time. So I became “the dumb Irish bastard that doesn’t care about his education.”

 

I bear that man no ill will, but it was all an epiphany for me. What mattered to him was the social status associated with this or that school, and what mattered to me and my family was helping me to distinguish the true from the false, the right from the wrong. 

 

Is it possible to have both? It could well be, but I will hardly become wiser and better on the inside by accumulating any trappings on the outside. If I need to pick one over the other, I know exactly what is necessary. I would still make the same decision, without any hesitation.

 

I have made many mistakes in my life, and followed many false paths, yet I did learn that any merit I might have would never come from all of those sparkling accessories. The diploma doesn’t make me better. The job doesn’t make me better. The bank account doesn’t make me better. The social circle doesn’t make me better.

 

My own wisdom and virtue, arising from within me, are all that can make me better. Now I might not have as much of that as I should, though what little I do have of worth came from my own thinking and doing, not from anyone else’s. 

 

There’s the rub. What is decent about me is all about what is decent in my own soul. I can manage to do that, if only I so choose, whether I am “attending” at a fancy school, and then working at a powerful firm, or reading a good book on the subway, and then picking up other people’s trash. 

 

I don’t need credentials to be a good man. I need only consider myself, who and what I am, to be a good man. Look within, and be willing to leave the rest. I have all I require right here, and must only remember what all those diversions have tried to make me forget. 

 

 

 

3.40

 

When she made an end, I said, “I agree very strongly with Plato; for this is the second time that you have reminded me of these thoughts. The first time I had lost them through the material influence of the body; the second, when overwhelmed by this weight of trouble.”

 

“If,” said she, “you look back upon what we that have agreed upon earlier, you will also soon recall what you just now said you knew not.”

 

“What is that?” I asked. 

 

“The guidance by which the Universe is directed.”

 

“Yes, I remember confessing my ignorance, and though I think I foresee the answer you will offer, I am eager to hear you explain it more fully.”

 

“This world,” she said, “you thought a little while ago must without doubt be guided by God.”

 

”And I think so now,” I said, “and will never think there is any doubt thereof; and I will shortly explain by what reasoning I arrive at that point. This Universe would never have been suitably put together into one form from such various and opposite parts, unless there were some One who joined such different parts together; and when joined, the very variety of their natures, so discordant among themselves, would break their harmony and tear them asunder unless the One held together what it wove into one whole. 

 

“Such a fixed order of Nature could not continue its course, could not develop motions taking such various directions in place, time, operation, space, and attributes, unless there were One who, being immutable, had the disposal of these various changes. And this cause of their remaining fixed and their moving, I call God, according to the name familiar to all.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 12

 

I have always been fascinated by the Platonic doctrine of recollection, that learning is not acquiring anything new within our minds at all, but rather remembering what was always within us, what we had somehow forgotten. Surely, we all know the feeling: 

 

“Yes! I always knew that! What was I thinking? How could I have overlooked it?”

 

Some take this idea quite literally, that all knowledge is innate, and others consider it more figuratively, that we are making actual what was already possible within our minds. Either way, becoming more aware by dusting off the cobwebs is something so deeply human, a sort of intellectual déjà vu. 

 

And surely the order in the Universe is one of those things deeply imprinted on our very nature, yet something we somehow manage to forget. We were all made as part of this balance, and then we fail to see how we fit within it all. 

 

Go back to the beginning of the Consolation, and remember how Boethius was certain there was no certainty, convinced in his reason there was no reason, assuming out of despair that the only meaning was that there was no meaning. Now something has changed in his attitude. A time of honest and humble thinking, so different from frenzied and panicked feeling, has woken something up in his soul. 

 

He has started to look at himself within the context of how all things are. He is no longer thinking only about his pain, but considering the purpose to the pain. He is thinking big, not small, while never forgetting who he is as a small part of everything big. 

 

It will make sense, if I only permit myself to understand that it makes sense. I have always closed myself, and now it is time to open up. It is time to air out the musty house. 

 

How often must I remember this? I must tell myself again and again, because it didn’t seem to stick the last time. I will try to think clearly, without frustration, or anger, or despair. I will use my reason, and I will then grasp it immediately. 

 

Is there causality in Nature? Of course there is. Then there is order.

 

Is there order in Nature? Of course there is. Then there is unity.

 

Is there unity in Nature? Of course there is. Then there is design.

 

Is there design in Nature? Of course there is. Then there is Intelligence.

 

There is meaning, there is harmony, and there is a plan. Nothing is in vain.

 

How often must I remember this? Is the name alone troubling me? Is it about all the people I have known who abused the name? This causality, this order, this unity, this design, this Intelligence we may call God.

 

“Stop! I don’t like God, I dismiss the very idea of Him, or Her, or That!”

 

Why? Because yet again, I am thinking too small. No amount of preaching, or nagging, or bullying will make me see this. I need to discover it for myself. 

 

When I strip away all the false analogies, all the ad hominems, all the red herrings, all the appeals to force or popularity, all the non sequiturs, I am left with a frightening realization. 

 

There is Being itself, one and absolute, encompassing all other beings, many and relative. To see this is a necessary step to remembering who I really am. It isn’t just about blindly believing. It is about the deepest knowing, the one my selfishness wants me to forget. 

 

 

 

3.41

 

Then said she, “Since these are your feelings, I think there is but little trouble left me before you may revisit your home with happiness in your grasp. But let us look into the matter we have set before ourselves. Have we not shown that complete satisfaction exists in true happiness, and we have agreed that God is happiness itself, have we not?”

 

“We have.”

 

“Wherefore He needs no external aid in governing the Universe, or, if He had any such need, He would not have this complete sufficiency.”

 

“That of necessity follows,” I said.

 

“Then He arranges all things by Himself.”

 

“Without doubt He does.”

 

“And God has been shown to be the absolute good.”

 

“Yes, I remember.”

 

“Then He arranges all things by good, if He arranges them by Himself, whom we have agreed to be the absolute good. And so this is the tiller and rudder by which the ship of the Universe is kept sure and unbreakable.”

 

“I feel that most strongly,” I said; “and I foresaw that you would say so before, though I had a slight uncertainty.”

 

“I believe you,” she said, “for now you bring your eyes more watchfully to scan the truth. But what I am going to say is no less plain to the sight.”

 

“What is that?”

 

Since we may reasonably be sure that God steers all things by the helm of goodness, and, as I have shown you, all things have a natural instinct to hasten towards the good, can there be any doubt that they are guided according to their own will, and that of their own accord they turn to the will of the supreme disposer, as though agreeing with, and obedient to, the helmsman?”

 

“That is so,” I said, “and the government would not seem happy if it was a yoke upon discontented necks, and not the salvation of the submissive.” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 12

 

I sometimes imagine the central argument of the first half of the Consolation like a tripod, where the intersection of three fundamental terms provides a stable structure for living life. Happiness. God. The Good. The simplest of images can often help ground an idea. 

 

From the inside of me, I see that I need happiness above anything else. All other proximate things I may prefer or desire will be of no use to me at all if they are not in service to that ultimate end. Happiness is not when I simply gain this or that in the world, but when I gain that which satisfies all that I am within my own nature, that which leaves nothing to be desired. 

 

From the outside of me, I see that the world, as mysterious as it may first appear, reveals itself to be subject to causality, purpose, and order. All changing, imperfect, and finite beings are only possible through unchanging, perfect, and infinite Being. The many only exist by the One. The Greek may call it Logos. The Hindu may call it Brahman. Boethius and I may call it God. 

 

In between these two, I see the binding principle of what is good. I reach outward from within me to find rest in that to which nothing greater can be added. This is happiness, the object of my longing. All of reality itself also reaches outward toward me, expressing the total greatness, the all-inclusive harmony, the profound beauty of existence. This is God, the source of who and what I am.

 

The good is the middle term. Happiness is the desire for the most complete and self-sufficient good. The most complete and self-sufficient good is embodied in God. Therefore happiness is the desire for God. 

 

Sometimes I pull away one of the legs of the tripod, and then I wonder why my life collapses. I despair whether I can ever be happy. Or I remove the Divine from the picture. Or I forget completely what it even means for something to be good. I thereby separate myself from my purpose, quite confused about my self-imposed misery. 

 

Being a crewman on the ship will hardly get me anywhere at all, without the rudder of the good, and Divine Wisdom at the helm. 

 

Whatever it may be, and to whatever degree it exists, it is within the nature of anything created to make itself complete, and thereby to aim at what is supreme. One might say that it strives to be rejoined to its source, to return to where it came from. I again come back to the insight that on its own it is nothing, but united to the whole it is everything. It acts of itself within the motion of all things. 

 

I am especially in awe, even quite honored, that it is within my own human nature to act according to reason and will, and that therefore my actions follow from my own understanding and choice. To continue Boethius’ analogy, I am not treated as a slave on the ship, but as a volunteer. It will be up to me if decide to cooperate in the voyage, or sulk stubbornly in my berth. 

 

 

 

3.42

 

“Then nothing need oppose God's way for its own Nature's preservation.”

 

“No.”

 

“But if it try to oppose Him, will it ever have any success at all against One whom we have justly allowed to be supremely powerful in matters of happiness?”

 

“Certainly not.”

 

“Then there is nothing which could have the will or the power to resist the highest good?”

 

“I think not.”

 

“Then it is the highest good which is guiding with strength and disposing with gentleness?”

 

Then I said, “How great pleasure these things give me! Not only those that have been proved by the strongest arguments, but still more the words in which you prove them, which make me ashamed that my folly has bragged so loudly.”

 

“You have heard in mythology how the giants attacked heaven. It was this kindly strength that overthrew them too, as was their desert. But would you care to put these arguments at variance? For perhaps from such a friction, some fair spark of truth may leap forth.”

 

“As you hold best,” I said.

 

“Nobody would care to doubt that God is all-powerful?”

 

“At any rate, no sane man would doubt it.”

 

Being, then, all-powerful, nothing is beyond His power?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Can, then, God do evil?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then evil is nothing, since it is beyond His power, and nothing is beyond His power?” 

 

—from Book 3, Prose 12

 

The argument here, or any that points to the ultimate and the transcendent, will make no sense at all if I am only considering God as some thing, instead of as the thing. 

 

It isn’t just that God is somehow bigger, or better, or stronger than anything else, it is that anything else only is through God. The relative is only possible through the absolute, the effect through the cause, the part through the whole.

 

To know this gives ultimate meaning to the mind, and lasting rest to the heart, precisely because it leaves nothing out. And thinking along these terms, at the very bounds of what is and what can be, will also lead to two profound but startling conclusions:

 

First, if God, or the Divine, or the Absolute, is perfect in goodness and power, then totally nothing is beyond that power.

 

Second, if God, the Divine, or the Absolute, is perfect in goodness and power, then evil is totally nothing. 

 

Yes, the first one is already hard enough to fathom, but the second one seems downright absurd; yet it is only a consequence of the arguments we have already seen. I am simply not used to it, thinking only in the limited terms of a creature, and convinced that evil itself is some sort of substantial entity.

 

Like Boethius at the beginning of the text, I can be quite vain, assuming that my particular wants are all that is needed, and that it is only evil things happening to me that are getting in the way of my wants. First, I have to grasp that my happiness fits into a bigger picture of the good, and then second, I must also realize that the many events of fortune are hardly evil at all. 

 

See, I may be locked into a picture of the world where God is “up there”, doing good things, and the Devil is “down there”, doing bad things, and I am stuck in the middle, getting bits and pieces of each. I am, however, still giving finite restrictions to Divine infinity, admitting only some good instead of all good, and adding a list of conditions to omnipotence. 

 

Anything that has a limit must necessarily admit of other things, because it is the very division between them that defines what they are. That won’t be true of something limitless, however, where supreme existence, goodness, power, knowledge, beauty, justice, compassion, or any other property at all, can admit of nothing else. 

 

It won’t just be a matter of whether God can or cannot “do” evil, but whether such a thing is able to exist at all within his perfection. 

 

Or, if I say something is “this big”, I can still think of something bigger, of what is beyond it. But when something is the biggest, there is nothing else beyond it. Where there is complete goodness and power, there evil is nothing at all, because it has no power. 

 

Don’t think that Boethius is just going to blindly agree with Lady Philosophy here, to let her off the hook so easily. There is far too much at stake, the very balance of good and evil itself, and Lady Philosophy is going to challenge Boethius to the core about how to explain all the things that seem right and wrong in this life. 

 

 

 

3.43

 

“Are you playing with me,” I asked, “weaving arguments as a labyrinth out of which I shall find no way? You may enter a labyrinth by the way by which you may come forth; come now forth by the way you have gone in. Or are you folding your reason in some wondrous circle of divine simplicity? 

 

“A little while ago you started from happiness, and said that happiness was the highest good; and you showed how that rested in the highest Deity. 

 

“And you reasoned that God too was the highest good, and the fullest happiness; and you allowed, as though granting a slight gift, that none could be happy except such as were similarly divine. 

 

“Again, you said that the essence of God and of happiness was identical with the very form of good; and that this alone was good which was sought by all Nature. 

 

“And you argued, too, that God guided this Universe by the helm of goodness; and that all creatures with free will obeyed this guidance, and that there was no such thing as natural evil; and all these things you developed by no help from without, but by homely and internal proofs, each gaining its credence from that which went before it.”

 

Then she answered, “I was not mocking you. We have worked out the greatest of all matters by the grace of God, to whom we prayed. For the form of the Divine essence is such that it is not diffused without, nor receives anything into itself from without. 

 

“But as Parmenides says of it, ‘It is a mass well rounded upon all sides.’ But if you examine it with reasoning, sought for not externally but by lying within the sphere of the very thing we are handling, you will not wonder at what you have learnt on Plato's authority, that our language must be akin to the subjects of which we speak.”

 

—from Book 3, Prose 12

 

It has surely happened to all of us, that sense that we though we knew exactly where we were going, but somehow ended up in quite a different place. I have often found myself pointed in an unexpected direction, whether I am trying to make my way through a new town, or whether I am trying to find the meaning in something that baffles me. 

 

Boethius offers quite a handy summation of Lady Philosophy’s argument, and how it has proceeded, step by step, appealing not to any fantastical imaginings but to sound reason. It all started with a deep concern that life was quite unfair, a desperate question about why good people seem to suffer, and bad people seem to triumph. 

 

We will only be able to make some sense of misery if we first understand the true nature of happiness, and we will only approach happiness if we understand the greatest good, that which leaves nothing else to be desired. 

 

We turn to all sorts of incomplete goods, and we then find ourselves quite dissatisfied, because we have not looked to the Divine source of all things, that which is itself perfect Being, as that which is the ultimate measure of happiness. 

 

We then begin to see that all things move and change by participation with this Absolute, and that nothing can be beyond its power. If God is complete being, and therefore complete goodness, then evil is as nothing to it. 

 

And here is where Boethius must feel that he has been spun around, that he has found himself somewhere he never expected to be. I feel it myself, because my first reaction to hearing that nothing in Nature is really evil is to do a double take. You must be joking! What am I now to make of all that pain, all the suffering, and all that injustice I have faced throughout my life? Are you now telling me it isn’t even real?

 

If I am to fall back only into an emotional response, then I might well just wave my hand, shake my head, and walk away. After all those careful rational stages, this now seems absurd. 

 

But no, it is not a joke, it is not a trick, it is not a dismissal of how our lives so often feel. Just as before, we must understand precisely how we are using certain terms, and how we can build connections between seemingly separate things. The language of philosophy here may confuse us at first, but it begins to come together when we learn how all things work together, as part of a seamless and balanced whole, the purpose of one thing becoming clear through its relationship to the purpose of all things. 

 

After all, it is much easier to navigate the way though a labyrinth, if one can look at it from above. 

 

Lady Philosophy has asked us precisely what we mean by happiness, and precisely what we mean by good, and precisely what we mean by God. Now she is also asking us precisely what we mean by evil. 

 

Earlier, we did not understand why created things were only relative goods, because we were not looking to the absolute good from which they flow. Earlier, we did not understand that the Divine was not subject to the limitations and divisions, because we were only looking at the effects instead of the cause. Now we need to work on uncovering the relationship between our own feelings of loss and the problem of evil.

 

Is evil ever a “thing” at all, and are we giving to it some sort of positive existence that it can never possess? What could it possible mean to say that evil is a “no thing”?

 

 

 

3.44

 

“Happy the man who could reach the crystal fount of good:

 happy he who could shake off the chains of matter and of earth. 

The singer of Thrace in olden time lamented his dead wife: 

by his tearful strains he made the trees to follow him, 

and bound the flowing streams to stay. 

For him the hind would fearlessly go side by side with fiercest lions, 

and the hare would look upon the hound, nor be afraid, 

for he was gentle under the song's sway. 

But when the hotter flame burnt up his inmost soul,

even the strains, which had subdued all other things,

could not soothe their own lord's mind. 

Complaining of the hard hearts of the gods above, 

he dared approach the realms below. 

There he tuned his songs to soothing tones, 

and sang the lays he had drawn from his mother’s fount of excellence. 

His unrestrained grief did give him power,

his love redoubled his grief's power: 

his mourning moved the depths of hell. 

With gentlest prayers he prayed to the lords of the shades for grace. 

The three-headed porter was taken captive with amazement at his fresh songs. 

The avenging goddesses, who haunt with fear the guilty, poured out sad tears.

Ixion's wheel no longer swiftly turned. 

Tantalus, so long abandoned unto thirst, 

could then despise the flowing stream. 

The vulture, satisfied by his strains, tore not awhile at Tityos's heart. 

At last the lord of the shades in pity cried: 

‘We are conquered, take your bride with you, bought by your song; 

but one condition binds our gift:

till she has left these dark abodes, turn not your eyes upon her.’

Who shall set a law to lovers? Love is a greater law unto itself. 

Alas! At the very bounds of darkness 

Orpheus looked upon his Eurydice;

looked, and lost her, and was lost himself.

 

“To you too this tale refers; 

you, who seek to lead your thoughts to the light above. 

For whosoever is overcome of desire,

and turns his gaze upon the darkness beneath the earth, 

he, while he looks on hell, loses the prize he carried off.”

 

—from Book 3, Poem 12

 

When I was a child, it was already quite rare for young people to be familiar with myths, legends, lives of the saints, or even most fairy tales. I and a few others had still been raised with them, but there were not many of us, and by the time I became a teacher, I could take it for granted that my students did not know stories from Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Aesop, Grimm, or Lang, and most certainly not from the Bible or Butler’s Lives of the Saints. 

 

Now trends will come and go, and it would hardly surprise me if one day we return to the classics. What make such stories classic is not that they are old, but that they are universal, that they can speak to the human condition in any time or place. Man can choose to be great, or he can choose to be terrible, and it is only the wisdom of the ages that can help him to learn the difference. 

 

The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is a case in point. Gifted with a power of music that could charm gods and men alike, Orpheus nevertheless lost his beloved to a tragic death. He descended into the Underworld to see Eurydice once again, made his way past Cerberus, and with his beautiful song he deeply moved the heart of Hades. The god permitted him to return to the land of the living with his bride, but only on the condition that he not look back until they had left the realm of the dead. 

 

It would only take some commitment, a bit of patience, and a strong will to do that, Orpheus must have thought, and then he could be happy with her again. Surely that wouldn’t be too difficult? It would, after all, only be for a moment. 

 

Yet as they ascended, he no did not hear her footsteps behind him, forgetting that Eurydice was still a shade, and he worriedly turned around to find her. She slipped back into the darkness, and not only had he lost her a second time, but he had lost her because he could not keep his eyes firmly directed forward. There would be no further chances; the loss was now forever. 

 

Lady Philosophy reminds Boethius of this so that he can keep focused on the greater things in life, and not to be distracted by the lesser things. He has learned so much about the true nature of happiness, and he has begun to lift his eyes to new heights. Now is not the time to be diverted by the temptation of the shades below. 

 

The story can speak to all of us, because we have all fallen into the trap, at one time or another. I know this is right, but my old longings get the better of me. I know what I must do, but my past habits are still pulling my strings. I know I shouldn’t look away, but I just can’t seem to help myself. 

 

Well yes, I can help myself. It is my own judgment, and only my own, that will determine my path. If it is good enough in my understanding, it can also be good enough in my actions. Courage is the virtue I need here, to support my wisdom and strengthen my temperance.

 

I already knew better when I still decided to follow intellectual charlatans, and I destroyed my own peace of mind. I already knew better when I was still seduced by a pretty face, and I abandoned my own sense of right and wrong. I already knew better when I drowned my sorrows in a bottle, and I lost all respect for myself.

 

I knew better, yet I didn’t do better. And it was all because I kept looking back at the things that were bad for me. 

 

There are only so many chances. Orpheus had one, and he botched it. Boethius has one now, and he is on the razor’s edge. I blew too many of mine, but perhaps I have one more left.

 

Learn from the old stories. 

 

 

 

Book 4

 

4.1

 

Thus gently sang the Lady Philosophy with dignified mien and grave countenance; and when she ceased, I, who had not thoroughly forgotten the grief within me, interrupted her, as she was about to speak further. 

 

“Herald of true light,” I said, “right clear have been the outpourings of your speech until now, seeming inspired as one contemplates them, and invincible through your reasonings. And though through grief for the injustices I suffer, I had forgotten them, yet you have not spoken of what I knew not at all before. 

 

“But this one thing is the chief cause of my grief, namely that, when there exists a good governor of the world, evils should exist at all, or, existing, should go unpunished. I would have you think how strange is this fact alone. 

 

“But there is something even stranger attached thereto: ill-doing reigns and flourishes, while virtue not only lacks its reward, but is even trampled underfoot by wicked doers, and pays the penalties instead of crime. 

 

“Who can wonder and complain enough that such things should happen under the rule of One who, while all-knowing and all-powerful, wills good alone?” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 1

 

It all seems to have come full circle. Isn’t this exactly where we started?

 

Not exactly. Boethius has suddenly recalled his despair, though he is now equipped with tools he did not have at his disposal in the beginning. He is back to the same problem, though his perspective has also spiraled upwards. 

 

He has come to understand that happiness is never in shallow, passing, or incomplete things, but rather in fundamental, lasting, and complete things. 

 

He has also come to understand that all of existence is merely an emanation of that which is Absolute and Perfect. 

 

He has also come to understand that the object of his own happiness and this Divinity are really one and the same, that nothing is ever fulfilled without participating in what is One. 

 

He has also come to understand that nothing escapes the power of God, the sum of all that is Good, and that nothing wrong can ever be permitted by the might of what is right. 

 

Yet how does this knowledge make the suffering in life any better? Doesn’t it, in fact, make it all the worse? If God is love, how does the darkest hatred make sense? If God is justice, how does the constant injustice fit into the plan? If God is truth, how can there be so many crippling lies?

 

Wicked people do wrong, yet they never seem to be punished for their wrongs. They get away with it, time and time again, and they laugh at the rest of us for being so foolish and naïve. 

 

It seems even worse than that. Not only do the vicious escape any penalty, but they also seem to be rewarded for it, to receive even greater and greater benefits for their crimes. This makes their ridicule feel all the worse. In the meantime, virtuous people seem to pay the price for their convictions. They wish to do what is good, and all they get in return is greater and greater loss and pain. 

 

Having carefully followed along with the text, I now felt angrier and more depressed than I had before. Maybe God is just mean-spirited, like so may other bosses, or maybe I’ve been tricked, and He doesn’t exist at all?

 

This is, I have found from my own experience, one of the greatest of problems, if not the greatest, that we must all face. So many people I have known have been crippled by this worry, that the purpose and design in things is deeply broken, or that perhaps there is no purpose and design at all. 

 

And then so many of us will just give up. We watch the clever poseurs and players, milking everyone else for their own gain, and we just lower our heads, we lie down, we are sure there is no hope for us. We bear with it for whatever time we still have to, crying when no one else is looking, or we opt out of the game entirely, told at the end that we are cowards for being the losers. 

 

Yikes. Put it that way, and you might wonder why most of the world even bothers to get out of bed in the morning. 

 

But I should look again. Yes, my emotions may run away from me. Yes, it often feels like there is no way out of the daily grind. Why should I fear Hell, when I already seem to live in one? 

 

Still, I am missing something. Everything Lady Philosophy has to this point explained, and carefully argued through sound reason, already contains my answer. I just have not yet put the pieces together in the right way. 

 

As I first come to this this passage, I did indeed feel despair. I also saw something I may not have seen before, thanks to the previous three books of the Consolation. Notice how my very definition of what is good and bad in life, the one by which I assume the world is unfair, might not actually be the correct sense of what is good and bad in life? What are the vicious actually gaining, and what are the virtuous actually losing? 

 

 

 

4.2

 

Then she answered: “Yes, it would be most terrible, monstrous, and infinitely amazing if it were as you think. It would be as though in a well-ordered house of a good master, the vilest vessels were cared for while the precious were left defiled. 

 

“But it is not so. If our former conclusions are unshaken, God Himself, of whose government we speak, will teach you that the good are always powerful, the evil are always the lowest and weakest; vice never goes unpunished; virtue never goes without its own reward; happiness comes to the good, misfortune to the wicked: and when your complaints are set at rest, many such things would most firmly strengthen you in this opinion. 

 

“You have seen now from my teaching the form of true happiness; you know now its place. Let us go quickly through all that must be lightly passed over, and let me show you the road which shall lead you to your home. I will give wings to your mind, by which it shall raise itself aloft: so shall disquiet be driven away, and you may return safe to your home by my guidance, by the path I shall show you, even by myself carrying you there.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 1

 

I have come across too many places in this world that are horribly mismanaged. They may well look quite prim and proper on the outside, even as they are rotting away on the inside. They may give off a fine appearance, and yet there is no rhyme or reason in how things are run. 

 

So many schools, hospitals, churches, offices, shops, or worksites are like this. Could it be that the whole world is the same? Everything just falls apart, while the boss is looking the other way?

 

Maybe the Universe operates according to the twisted logic of a DMV branch?

 

It has sometimes felt this way. The scales of justice may seem to be imbalanced, where virtue leads only to loss, and vice leads only to gain. The right people suffer, while the wrong people flourish. Pleasure, and wealth, and honor go to wicked, just as pain, poverty, and derision go to the decent. 

 

Has God fallen asleep on the watch, or does He just not care enough to do anything about it?

 

Lady Philosophy makes quite a claim here. The world may seem quite unfair, but it is actually quite fair. Rewards and punishments have been rightly meted out. I still do not understand the justice of Providence, since I am still trapped in a mistaken view of what is truly right and good in life. I am complaining that I am not getting what I deserve, but that is because I don’t really know it is that I need to be happy. 

 

I need to modify the measure and standard by which I distinguish benefit from harm, if I am ever to see that life gives all of us exactly what we deserve. Why am I assuming that pleasure or pain, wealth or poverty, and honor or derision are somehow in and of themselves good or bad? Will one always help me, while the other always hurts me? I begin to see that my distinctions have been rather shallow and incomplete.

 

Way back in high school, I had one friend who was quite the young entrepreneur, and admired material success in the world of business as the mark of a successful life. Another friend was far more rebellious and free-spirited, and was highly critical of living life within the confines of an accounting ledger. Needless to say, I was there for many lively and intriguing debates. 

 

One day, a story in the newspaper caught our attention. It was a lengthy account of the life and times of one of the current heroes of Wall Street, discussing the man’s remarkable rise to power and prestige.

 

“I don’t care what anyone says,” the first friend insisted. “He deserves everything he gets. It takes smarts, and guts, and a knack for influencing people to become a man like that.”

 

“You’re right,” replied the second friend. ”He deserves everything he gets. It takes a special kind of man to end up in a life like that.”

 

Others were in shock, because it looked like these two very different fellows were actually agreeing. I had to smile a little, however, because I knew that they weren’t agreeing at all. 

 

 

 

4.3

 

“Yea, airy wings are mine to scale the heights of heaven; 

when these the mind has donned, 

swiftly she loathes and spurns this earth. 

She soars above the sphere of this vast atmosphere, 

sees the clouds behind her far; 

she passes high above the topmost fires 

that seethe above the feverish turmoil of the air, 

until she rises to the stars' own home, 

and joins her path unto the sun's; 

or accompanies on her path the cold and ancient Saturn, 

maybe as the shining warrior Mars; 

or she may take her course 

through the circle of every star that decks the night. 

And when she has had her fill of journeying, 

then may she leave the sky 

and tread the outer plane of the swift moving air, 

as mistress of the awful light. 

Here holds the King of kings His sway,

and guides the reins of the Universe,

and Himself unmoved He drives His winged chariot,

the bright disposer of the world.

And if this path brings you again hither, 

the path that now your memory seeks to recall, 

I tell you, you shall say, 

‘This is my home, hence was I derived, 

here shall I stay my course.’

But if you choose to look back upon the earthly night behind you, 

you shall see as exiles from light 

the tyrants whose grimness made wretched peoples so to fear.”

 

—from Book 4, Poem 1

 

Some people like to tell you to “think big”. They say you should leave that small town, and move to the big city. They say you should give up that humble job, and go earn a fancy degree. They say you should walk away from those people who are dragging you down, and go find yourself some better people.

 

And what is so funny about all of it is that those folks still aren’t thinking big at all. They are still thinking small. They are still concerned with all the petty things in life, with the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the houses they live in, or the friends they associate with. 

 

They are still looking at their lives through immediate circumstances, and not with a sense of greater meaning and value. They say that this is more useful, or that is more pleasant, and all the while they have no greater measure of the true and the good. 

 

Thinking big is looking at things ultimately, not proximately. It isn’t Red Bull that gives you wings, but reason that gives you wings, and with them the power to rise above the particular, and to apprehend the universal. This is the greatness of the human condition, that which can make us big, a mind capable of considering endless being, even as it is wrapped in a small and fragile body. 

 

I can consider myself as a part, however small a speck I might be, within the order of the whole, and it is only then that I truly discover myself. It is only by looking at how the pieces for together in the grand design that their purpose becomes apparent. If I’m only standing there, however, staring at my shoes, oblivious to the bigger picture, then I will be clueless about who I really am, and I will be preoccupied only with the most insignificant of vanities. 

 

We may smile at the old Ptolemaic model of the Universe, but is hardly necessary to take it literally here. By rising with my mind above the mundane to the celestial, what seemed so big is actually quite small. I can even move beyond the world of matter as I know it and contemplate what the ancients called the Empyrean, the highest heaven, the realm of the Divine. 

 

I do this whenever I meditate on what is absolute, what is necessary, and what is supreme, and in so doing I recognize that this is my true home, where everything first came from, and to which everything will return. That little clump of earth down there isn’t so impressive after all when seen from up here. There were all these things that frightened me down there, that I felt were overwhelming, but now all the kingdoms and armies and tyrants of the world look more like playthings. 

 

The height is what gives me the greater perspective, but if I descend back down and return to being obsessed with trivialities, I will once again feel the burden of all those worries. I will have made lesser things greater, and greater things lesser. 

 

People will sometimes make fun of those who live according to philosophy, saying they are useless, or that they have their head in the clouds. I suppose it may well look that way to someone who has his head down a hole. What is useful to a man? Counting all the trinkets he has accumulated in his pocket, or considering who he is, why he is here, where he came from, and where he is going? 

 

Why am I so terrified of lawyers, tax collectors, and that bully lurking in the alley? Because I think that is all there is in this world. They won’t impress me nearly as much if I think bigger. 

 

 

 

4.4

 

“Wondrous,” I cried. “What vast things do you promise! And I doubt not that you can fulfill them. I only beg that you will not hold me back with delays, now that you have excited me thus far.”

 

“First, then, you must learn that power is never lacking to the good, while the wicked are devoid of all strength. 

 

“The proofs of these two statements hang upon each other. For good and bad are opposites, and therefore, if it is allowed that good is powerful, the weakness of evil is manifest: if the weakness and uncertainty of evil is made plain, the strength and sureness of good is proved. To gain more full credit for my opinion, I will go on to make my argument sure by first the one, then the other of the two paths, side by side.

 

“It is allowed that there are two things upon which depend the entire operation of human actions: they are will and power. For if the will be wanting, a man does not even attempt that which he has no desire to perform; if the power be wanting, the will is exercised in vain. 

 

“Wherefore, if you see a man wish for that which he will in no way gain, you cannot doubt that he lacks the power to attain that which he wishes.”

 

“That is plain beyond doubt.”

 

And if you see a man gain that which he wishes, can you doubt that he has the power?”

 

“No.”

 

“But wherein a man has power, he is strong; wherein he has not power, he must be counted weak?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 2

 

Once again, I am encouraged precisely because I am discouraged, pointed in the right direction because I find myself just a bit more frustrated and confused. It takes being knocked out of the rut of my assumptions to put myself in a better place. Boethius has a wonderful way of doing that, of finding the truth in what at first glance appears to be so ridiculous. 

 

Wait, good people are actually strong, and evil people are actually weak? That may seem to be quite the opposite of everything I have seen for my entire life. I can grant you that good people love what is actually of benefit, and evil people love what is actually of harm, but still I see the latter usually getting exactly what they want, and the former usually clutching the short straw. 

 

Yes, I might insist, a decent man may win in the purity of his intentions, even as a wicked man still wins in the efficiency of his power. It is, after all, precisely because he is not bound by a conscience that a scoundrel manages to get things done. 

 

The Consolation circles back to an earlier concern, just as that very same concern will pop up, again and again, in daily life. A man may be pure of heart, and that also means he appears most likely to finish last. 

 

I suppose I could accept this begrudgingly, and find some deeper comfort in it, by considering the relative worth if what is gained and what is lost. Nevertheless, it continues to rub me the wrong way; the shifty folks are still getting what they want. 

 

Hard experience has taught me that there are all sorts of vicious people to be found in all walks of life. They work by different forms of fraud, flattery, or force, but what they all share in common is an uncanny knack for manipulating their circumstances. Without a moral framework, anything goes. 

 

I have seen politicians and playground bullies, lawyers and used car salesmen, priests and drug pushers all working from the same model. I think they are somehow winning because they are succeeding in their schemes. 

 

Am I really so sure? What are they truly achieving? Is anything at all that they “win” of any real benefit to them, even one bit of it? If they are not gaining something good through their efforts, they are hardly successful, and then they are not as powerful as they would like us to think. A failure to reach a worthy goal is surely a weakness, not power. 

 

Whatever is good is powerful, for the good is that which fulfills and completes, that which leaves nothing to be desired. Hence evil, the opposite of good, is weak, for evil is that which grasps and fails, that which still leaves everything to be desired. 

 

Yes, define your good rightly. And Lady Philosophy has already done that. There is actually no benefit in vice, and so it is weak. There is, however, great benefit in virtue, and so it is strong. 

 

Two things are necessary to achieve anything of value: first, the desire to want it, and second, the means to achieve it. Remove either condition, and the effort will end in failure. If I don’t even have a useful purpose in mind, I will certainly not get it. If I don’t have the power to attain that purpose, I will not get it either. 

 

So now it remains for me to ask myself:

 

Does the vicious man want something that is good for him? Does he have the power to possess it?

 

Does the virtuous man want something that is good for him? Does he have the power to possess it?

 

 

4.5

 

“Do you remember that we agreed from our earlier reasonings, that the instinct of all human will, though acted upon by different aims, does lead with eagerness towards happiness?”

 

“Yes,” said I, “I remember that that too was proved.”

 

“Do you remember that happiness is the absolute good, and that the good is desired of all, when in that manner happiness is sought?”

 

“I need not recall that,” I said, “since it is present fixedly in my memory.”

 

“Then all men, good and bad alike, seek to arrive at the good by no different instincts?”

 

Yes, that follows necessarily.”

 

“But it is certain that the good become so by the attainment of good?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Then the good attain that which they wish?”

 

“Yes,” said I, “it seems so.”

 

“But if evil men attain the good they seek, they cannot be evil?”

 

“No.” 

 

“Since, then, both classes seek the good, which the good attain, but the evil attain not, it is plain that the good are powerful, while the evil are weak?”

 

“If any doubt that, he cannot judge by the Nature of the world, nor by the sequence of arguments.” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 2

 

As Aristotle observed in the Nicomachean Ethics, we will all agree that we want happiness, even as we may be uncertain of what the actual goal might be, or by what means we should go about attaining it. 

 

There is something surreal, and sometimes quite disturbing, in seeing people rush about here and there, busy with all sorts of different tasks, all seeking this same prize, so necessary yet so mysterious, so close yet so far. 

 

Now people will express their purpose in many different ways, and they will pursue it by many varied paths, but the end remains the same. We may confuse that end with all sorts of imperfect diversions, of course, because we are forgetting that it is the whole of our humanity we are trying to fulfill, and that the good we seek is the highest good, not just any good. 

 

I may well fret about how vicious people seem to become happy, and how virtuous people seem to become miserable. What I am once again forgetting, however, is that very identity between happiness and the highest good. 

 

I can only be happy if I possess that good, and will remain quite unhappy if I lack it. It only follows that a life of virtue, a good life, is also a happy life, and a life of vice, a bad life, is also an unhappy life. 

 

In other words, to find happiness requires the power to seek the good, and the power to achieve the good. The virtuous man understands what he should desire, and he therefore acts toward attaining that goal. 

 

The vicious man, however, may understand that he wants to be happy, but because of how he chooses to act, he does not have the means to get there; he lives poorly, and so he only moves away from happiness, not closer. 

 

Real power is in finishing the job, and it is strength of character that finishes the job of being human. Weakness of character, however, leaves everything undone. 

 

My sense of what is strong and weak will change in direct proportion to my sense of what is good and bad, right and wrong. 

 

I will no longer feel so frustrated when I see the scoundrel acquiring all of his trinkets, because I know they are not the highest good. I will begin to admire the decent fellow, because I know that he is improving his very human nature. 

 

It takes careful observation to notice how those who are deeply selfish, lustful, or dishonest are still quite edgy, worried, and grasping in most everything they do. This is because they are lacking in something they need. At the same time, notice how those who are truly just, loving, and sincere reveal a profound inner serenity and calm. This is because they have exactly what they need.

 

 

 

4.6

 

Again she said, “If there are two persons before whom the same object is put by natural instinct, and one person carries his object through, working by his natural functions, but the other cannot put his natural instinct into practice, but using some function unsuitable to Nature he can imitate the successful person, but not fulfill his original purpose, in this case, which of the two do you decide to be the more capable?”

 

“I think I guess what you mean, but I would hear more explicitly.”

 

“You will not, I think, deny that the motion of walking is a natural one to mankind?”

 

“No, I will not.” 

 

“And is not that the natural function of the feet?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

“If, then, one man walks, being able to advance upon his feet, while another, who lacks the natural function of feet, uses his hands and so tries to walk, which of these two may justly be held the more capable?”

 

“Weave me other riddles!” I exclaimed, “for can anyone doubt that a man who enjoys his natural functions, is more capable than one who is incapable in that respect?”

 

“But in the case of the highest good,” she said, “it is equally the purpose set before good and bad men; good men seek it by the natural functions of virtue, while bad men seek to attain the same through their cupidity, which is not a natural function for the attainment of good. Think you not so?”

 

“I do indeed,” I said. “This is plain, as also is the deduction which follows. For it must be, from what I have already allowed, that the good are powerful, the wicked weak.” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 2

 

People sometimes like to say that philosophy is too difficult, or that it involves all of these confusing and impractical concepts. What value, they wonder, could any of this possibly have for everyday life? So philosophy gets thrown into a box in the corner, along with calculus, and particle physics, and art history, and all the things we are quite sure we don’t really need. 

 

But all the branches of human knowledge are useful to us, because they can help us, each one in its own way, to understand our world and ourselves. Wisdom is never wasted, and all awareness can be in the service of virtue. 

 

And philosophy, far from being an obscure outlier, is what binds everything together, because it considers the ultimate questions of meaning and value, the very universal and necessary measure of true and false, of right and wrong. 

 

Philosophy ends up being the most critical and immediate sort of knowing, for without it nothing else can have purpose. Nothing can be more practical than having an end that directs the means. Academic professionals might want you to believe it is just about thinking for the sake of thinking, while those of us in the trenches know it is about thinking for the sake of living. 

 

In this passage we see a wonderful example of philosophy in its most direct and straightforward form; no degrees or fancy words are required for it to make complete sense. 

 

Which is better, getting the job done, or failing to get the job done?

 

Which is better, using the right tools for the job, or using the wrong tools for the job?

 

Which is better, doing the actual work, or just giving the false appearance of doing the actual work? 

 

The answer is quite clear in any activity, whether it is building widgets, or fixing doohickeys, or training wombats. The answer is just as clear in the highest goal of life itself, in being happy. 

 

Happiness is succeeding in life, and misery is failing in life.

 

Virtue is the right tool to acquire happiness, because it works with our very human nature. Vice is the wrong tool to acquire happiness, because it works against our very human nature. 

 

Virtue is the real deal, and vice is the pretender. It is like the difference between a humble craftsman and a flamboyant poseur. I should know what I am doing, not look like I know what I am doing. 

 

Feet are made for walking, and man is made to be wise, brave, temperate, and just. Hands are not made for walking, and a man is not made to be ignorant, cowardly, gluttonous, and grasping. 

 

Complex equations or rocket science are not needed to see that it is the good man who is strong, and the wicked man who is weak. Philosophy deserves better than to be abandoned and forgotten in the attic. 

 

 

 

4.7

 

“Your anticipation is right; and as doctors are wont to hope, it shows a lively nature now fit to withstand disease. But I see that you are very ready in understanding, and I will multiply my arguments one upon another. See how great is the weakness of these wicked men who cannot even attain that to which their natural instinct leads them, no, almost drives them. 

 

“And further, how if they are deprived of this great, this almost invincible, aid of a natural instinct to follow? Think what a powerlessness possesses these men. They are no light objects that they seek; they seek no objects in sport, objects it is impossible that they should achieve. They fail in the very highest of all things, the crown of all, and in this they find none of the success for which they labor day and night in wretchedness. 

 

“But herein the strength of good men is conspicuous. If a man could advance on foot until he arrived at an utmost point beyond which there was no path for further advance, you would think him most capable of walking: equally so, if a man grasps the very end and aim of his search, you must think him most capable. 

 

“Wherefore also the contrary is true; that evil men are similarly deprived of all strength. For why do they leave virtue and follow after vice? Is it from ignorance of good? Surely not, for what is weaker or less compelling than the blindness of ignorance? Do they know what they ought to follow, and are they thrown from the straight road by passions? Then they must be weak too in self-control if they cannot struggle with their evil passions. 

 

“But they lose thus not only power, but existence all together. For those who abandon the common end of all who exist, must equally cease to exist. And this may seem strange, that we should say that evil men, though the majority of mankind, do not exist at all; but it is so. For while I do not deny that evil men are evil, I do deny that they ‘are,’ in the sense of absolute existence. You may say, for instance, that a corpse is a dead man, but you cannot call it a man. In a like manner, though I grant that wicked men are bad, I cannot allow that they are men at all, as regards absolute being. 

 

“A thing exists which keeps its proper place and preserves its nature; but when anything falls away from its nature, its existence too ceases, for that lies in its nature. 

 

“You will say, ‘Evil men are capable of evil’: and that I would not deny. But this very power of theirs comes not from strength, but from weakness. They are capable of evil; but this evil would have no efficacy if it could have stayed under the operation of good men. And this very power of ill shows the more plainly that their power is nothing. For if, as we have agreed, evil is nothing, then, since they are only capable of evil, they are capable of nothing.”

 

“That is quite plain.” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 2

 

It may seem odd to suggest that evil is really nothing, and that those who do evil are powerless. I have heard many students proclaim, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!” But if something is good simply by being itself, then evil, as its opposite, will be the failure of something to be itself. By extension, if virtue is a power of living well, then vice is a weakness in living well. 

 

Perhaps the difficulty comes from thinking that evil is therefore somehow “imaginary”, or that its effects are not at all “real”. Yes, its effects are quite real, but as the result of an absence, not of a presence. 

 

Just like the hole in a doughnut is real only in relation to what exists around it, so evil is only real in relation to what is good. It is not in itself a presence, but a privation, the negation of what should be present according to a thing’s nature. 

 

I first came across this sort of argument in St. Augustine’s Confessions, where he struggled to make sense of which things in life were good, and which things in life were bad. Was spirit good, and matter evil? Was there some line dividing different types of beings that were beneficial or harmful? Can I even say that a man is evil in himself, or that his thoughts and actions could more rightly be considered evil? 

 

Boethius here presents an argument very similar to Augustine’s, one I am sure he must have been quite familiar with. We speak of darkness as the absence of light, or hunger as the absence of being fed, and we can also speak of evil as the absence of good. Things are never the problem; the problem is in our failure to make the right use of things, to fulfill them, to complete the very purpose within their natures. 

 

I am misled into believing that wicked people are powerful, because I am looking at all the wrong indicators of what is strong or weak. I see that they claim to own so many things, or to have so much influence over others, even as they really possess none of those things at all. 

 

People may employ things in certain ways, though always in a manner that abuses those things contrary to their nature, and most importantly in a manner that abuses their own nature. 

 

In the simplest of terms, I should not think of a man as being strong if he is starving his soul, or somehow bigger if he is hacking away more and more bits of his humanity. He is becoming less, not more. 

 

If I am living with vice, is it perhaps because I am ignorant of the good? That is a weakness, an absence of the wisdom that should be a part of my rational nature. Is it because I am incapable of controlling my desires? That too is a weakness, an absence of the choice that should be a part of my will. 

 

Slowly but surely, I abandon my very identity as a person. Is there still something there? Yes, but it is the shadow of man, not a complete man at all. It is as if I am throwing myself off a cliff, into the void, abandoning all that I was made to be, falling into emptiness. 

 

That is rather frightening, as it should be, and it should remind me of what I still can be. No one else has been the cause of the inner corruption, except myself. Those judgments I thought would increase me were only diminishing me, in the deepest sense of what it means for me to exist, as a creature given the purpose to know and to love. 

 

 

 

4.8

 

“I would have you understand what is this strength of power. We have a little while ago laid down that nothing is more powerful than the highest good?”

 

“Yes,” I said.

 

“But the highest good can do no evil?”

 

“No.”

 

“Is there any one who thinks that men are all-powerful?”

 

“No one,” I said, “unless he be mad.”

 

“And yet those same men can do evil.”

 

 “Would to heaven they could not!” I cried.

 

“Then a powerful man is capable only of all good; but even those who are capable of evil, are not capable of all. So it is plain that those who are capable of evil are capable of less.

 

“Further, we have shown that all power is to be counted among objects of desire, and all objects of desire have their relation to the good, as to the copestone of their nature. But the power of committing crime has no possible relation to the good. Therefore it is not an object of desire. Yet, as we said, all power is to be desired. Therefore the power of doing evil is no power at all. 

 

“For all these reasons the power of good men and the weakness of evil men are apparent. So Plato's opinion is plain that  ‘the wise alone are able to do what they desire, but unscrupulous men can only labor at what they like, they cannot fulfill their real desires.’ They do what they like so long as they think that they will gain through their pleasures the good which they desire; but they do not gain it, since nothing evil ever reaches happiness.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 2

 

My confusion about the nature of strength and weakness comes from my confusion about the nature of good and evil. Yes, I am right to think that power rests in the ability to achieve something, but no, I am wrong to think that evil is a “something” at all; nothing is gained, because nothing is fulfilled within my very nature. The degree to which anything is powerful is in direct proportion to the degree to which it is good, and so the more I turn to vice, the weaker I become. 

 

That which possesses perfect goodness possesses perfect power, and we can surely call it Divine. That which lacks any goodness at all would possess no power at all, for it would lack any existence. 

 

In between we will find the full range of all created things, stronger as they work to achieve their ends, weaker as they fail in them. If I understand this rightly, I can see it so clearly in our own human nature, where by our own judgments and choices we may become more like the gods, or wither away into near nothingness. 

 

I am misled because I see the people we usually consider as being powerful, and I see them apparently having the means to get the things they want. They win pleasure, and riches, and fame, and they do so in all sorts of forceful or manipulative ways. Yet how do these things actually give them what they want? They may change the circumstances around them, while they diminish what is within them. I cannot possibly believe they are making themselves happy, because they are not making themselves any better; they are, in fact, making themselves far worse, by thinking and acting in ways that contradict their purpose to know and to love. 

 

If my happiness is my own good, how could something good come from doing something bad? How can understanding be achieved by choosing ignorance? How can love be practiced by pursuing hatred? It seems rather silly to be walking in the opposite direction of where I need to be going. 

 

At a time when I thought I could possibly learn to be an author, producing profound short stories while sitting at a café in Paris or a pub in Dublin, a writing teacher reminded me that an antagonist in my story will hardly come across properly if I make him content and peaceable. 

 

“He is your villain, and does dastardly things, precisely because he is a grasping man, dissatisfied with himself and his world, and he is desperately trying to find happiness, however twisted a form of it he perceives. He is always in conflict with others, precisely because he doesn’t have the very things he needs.”

 

“Doesn’t he see that he will never become happy by playing his games?”

 

“Ah, and there is the tragedy of the villain! Either he struggles to turn his own life around, or he perishes by his own hand!”

 

I never became that bohemian writer, of course, but I remember that advice, and I have unashamedly passed it on to my own students over the years. It wasn’t just a lesson about writing, but a lesson about living. 

 

If I take the time to observe carefully, my daily experience only confirms this, and I should rightly wonder why I am still so impressed by the false achievements of wicked people. I have known many dishonest, selfish, and violent types in my life, but never once have I known one to give any indication of being at peace with himself or with his world. It isn’t that his vice may lead him to misery; it is that his vice already is his misery. 

 

 

 

4.9

 

“Kings you may see sitting aloft upon their thrones, 

gleaming with purple, 

hedged about with grim guarding weapons, 

threatening with fierce glances, 

and their hearts heaving with passion. 

If any man take from these proud ones 

their outward covering of empty honor, 

he will see within, 

will see that these great ones bear secret chains. 

For the heart of one is thus filled by lust 

with the poisons of greed,

or seething rage lifts up its waves 

and lashes his mind therewith;

or gloomy grief holds them weary captives, 

or by slippery hopes they are tortured. 

So when you see one head thus laboring 

beneath so many tyrants, 

you know he cannot do as he would, 

for by hard task-masters is the master himself oppressed.”

 

—from Book 4, Poem 2

 

I never cease to be amazed at how much effort we can expend in trying to appear good without actually being good, in looking happy yet being quite miserable, in pretending to be at peace while constantly being at war. 

 

Whenever I have been drawn into this trap, I am working from a false premise, that what shows on the outside matters more than what it is on the inside. The attempt will ultimately meet in failure, of course, because an illusion is just that, a trick of manipulating impressions to divert us from the reality. I can lie to others, and I can lie to myself, but crooked effects will reveal the crooked causes behind them. It only requires honestly looking at it for myself, instead of seeing what I am told to see. 

 

I have never met any actual kings or queens, though I have known many people who would like us to think that they are like kings or queens. They often acquire an incredible skill at building up layer after layer of appearances, quite difficult to unravel. 

 

There were a number of priests who gave noble talks about chastity, and then did something quite different behind closed doors. 

 

There was a colleague who had everyone convinced he was the JAG lawyer who had prosecuted the case that inspired A Few Good Men, and then put up a website for a fake research institute to raise money for himself. 

 

There was the girl who impressed us by saying she was a “Miss Teen” beauty queen champion, though you had to look at the fine print to see the title was bought from a vanity pageant. 

 

There was the Chairman of the Board whose “aw shucks” charm had us all convinced he cared deeply for us, like his family, and then he fired us by mail. 

 

The best fake image I could ever pull off was about coming across as profound and mysterious, and pretending that I understood things I had absolutely no clue about. People only needed to get to know me a bit to see through all of that nonsense, so I could never manage to get in on my résumé. 

 

What a horrific form of self-abuse it all is, polishing the outside while rotting on the inside. The very desire to impress is itself already a symptom of the rot, because it fails to see that whatever dignity and worth we have is from the content of our character, not from the worship of fame and fortune. I think I am making myself the master, and the whole time I am submitting myself to slavery. I am a puppet on a string. 

 

Who are now the new masters I am giving dominion over me? My own lust, greed, and anger, my unbridled desires to be gratified, to hold possession, to inflict pain when I feel pain. There is no happiness there at all, only the appearance of power. 

 

The next time I feel threatened or intimidated by all these trappings, the next time I become jealous of those who flaunt their trophies, let me look again, because they are not what they appear to be. Most important of all, let it help me to rid myself of those very same delusions. If I am ever to have any merit, it will not come from putting on a show. 

 

 

 

4.10

 

“Do you see then in what a slough crimes are involved, and with what glory honesty shines forth? It is plain from this that reward is never lacking to good deeds, nor punishment to crime. 

 

“We may justly say that the reward of every act that is performed is the object for which it is performed. For instance, on the racecourse the crown for which the runner strives is his reward. But we have shown that happiness is the identical good for the sake of which all actions are performed. 

 

“Therefore the absolute good is the reward put before all human actions. But good men cannot be deprived of this. And further, a man who lacks good cannot justly be described as a good man; wherefore we may say that good habits never miss their rewards. Let the wicked rage never so wildly, the wise man's crown shall never fail nor wither.

 

“And the wickedness of bad men can never take away from good men the glory that belongs to them. Whereas if a good man rejoiced in a glory that he received from outside, then could another, or even he, maybe, who granted it, carry it away. But since honesty grants to every good man its own rewards, he will only lack his reward when he ceases to be good. 

 

“And lastly, since every reward is sought for the reason that it is held to be good, who shall say that the man, who possesses goodness, does not receive his reward? And what reward is this? Surely the fairest and greatest of all.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 3

 

One of my most deeply ingrained bad habits, one that is so worked into my responses that I barely notice it, is what I can only call the expectation of further reward. I will consciously consider what the right thing to do is, the action that will respect both my own dignity and the dignity of others, and I will tell myself that I know good should be done simply because it is good. I feel certain, as Lady Philosophy says to me, that virtue is its own reward, and that vice is its own punishment.

 

I have, over the years, even managed to start enjoying a just or a kind deed, only from an awareness of its moral worth. It is a deeply fulfilling satisfaction when felt sincerely, free of pride or ostentation, and I should be able to find rest and peace in it. 

 

And then, as if by some unspoken assumption, I find myself looking for more. Where is that recognition I deserve? How long until I get some praise to make me feel special? When will a wonderful new set of gratifying circumstances fall into my lap as a well-earned prize? I begin to make further demands of Providence, and by asking for such compensation I have already thrown away whatever decency may have been in my actions to begin with. 

 

What I am so foolishly forgetting is that my merit is in what I do, not in what happens to me, and so my confusion goes to the very heart of how I think about my own human nature. The Consolation has been reminding me, time and time again, that happiness is itself the practice of virtue, precisely because it is the completion of my good, not that of anyone or anything else. 

 

If someone else pats me on the back or throws money my way, does that really say anything about me, or add anything to who I am? Or if such things are withheld from me, am I any less than I was before? I have clearly not transformed my values as deeply as I would like to think, if I am still hoping to receive more than what is already completely mine. 

 

It is certainly not an excuse, but I can only think of how long I have been hearing about fortune being some sort of reward for good character. Well, then I must redouble my efforts, and become all the more conscious of my motives. 

 

If I am not content with my virtue as an end in itself, but make it a means for some end of fortune, then I will be quite ready to compromise my virtue for that higher goal. The good man will give up money for his integrity, but the wicked man will give up his integrity for money. 

 

If I worry about losing my happiness, then I do not rightly understand its source and measure. I cannot lose it, any more than I can cease to be myself, because it is the sum of my own thoughts and deeds. Only I determine if I will keep it or throw it away. 

 

If I become jealous of rich, and powerful, and popular folks, thinking that they have taken away something that I deserve, I need only remember that such things are not worthy of envy at all, since they are not human goods. If I look inside a man’s soul, whether rich or poor, I will see what truly matters. 

 

I wonder, if I were running a race, what would be most important to me? Would it be the sparkling crown at the end, and the thunderous roar of the crowd, and the honor of having my name in all the record books? 

 

Or might the reward of my own excellence be more than enough, of having raced at my absolute best, regardless of what trinkets I receive, or who notices it, or if it is ever a part of history? 

 

I see more and more that the difference between these two attitudes reflects the difference between the miserable man and the happy man. 

 

 

 

4.11

 

“Remember that corollary which I emphasized when speaking to you a little while ago, and reason thus therefrom:

 

“While happiness is the absolute good, it is plain that all good men become good by virtue of the very fact that they are good. But we agreed that happy men are as gods. Therefore this is the reward of the good, which no time can wear out, no power can lessen, no wickedness can darken; they become divine. 

 

“In this case, then, no wise man can doubt of the inevitable punishment of the wicked as well. For good and evil are so set, differing from each other just as reward and punishment are in opposition to each other. Hence the rewards, which we see fall to the good, must correspond precisely to the punishments of the evil on the other side. 

 

“As, therefore, honesty is itself the reward of the honest, so wickedness is itself the punishment of the wicked. Now whosoever suffers punishment, doubts not that he is suffering an evil. If, then, they are ready so to judge of themselves, can they think that they do not receive punishment, considering that they are not only affected but thoroughly permeated by wickedness, the worst of all evils?”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 3

 

Distracted by the expectation of further reward, I will look to everything except myself in order to find happiness for myself. I am caught up in a sort of moral version of the red herring fallacy, drawing attention to the good of something over there when I should rather be concerned with the good of this right here.  

 

“Did my situation bring me greater wealth, or power, or fame, or gratification?” This is a case of apples and oranges, because these things have nothing directly to do with my happiness. However much I may prefer such conditions, they will not make me better or worse. 

 

“Have I done right? Was I thoughtful, sincere, and kind?” Now I am back on topic. I am recognizing the simple fact that how well I live is itself the only standard of how complete, and therefore how contented and fulfilling, my life can be. 

 

Lady Philosophy again tells us that because the good man is also the happy man, the good man is also the divine man. I may express this with all the poetic images, or profound theology, or inspiring mysticism that I like, but it really just boils down to recognizing that the more anything acts according to its own nature, the more perfect it becomes, and the more perfect it becomes, the more it becomes like God, the measure of all perfection. 

 

The apple tree, or the orange tree, or a creature like me, will all be satisfied when they are realizing themselves, consciously or unconsciously, in their own distinct ways. They can be at peace when their proper work is being done. Nothing else is required of them. 

 

Conversely, the apple tree, or the orange tree, or a creature like me, will all be dissatisfied when they fail to realize themselves, consciously or unconsciously, in their own distinct ways. They can only strive to become more while there is work left to do. Something else is still required of them. 

 

And so it is that the virtuous and the vicious stand in contrast to one another. In one there is presence, and in the other there is absence. This tree has borne fruit, and that tree is still barren. Here is achievement, and there is failure. This is the difference between happiness and misery. 

 

Though I may not always understand how or why, I do know when I am in distress. The unease tells me that something isn’t right, that something must be done to make it better, that a need must be fulfilled. If I look honestly within myself, I will see that my emptiness can only come from failing to attend to my own character. All rewards and punishments of life hang in the balance here. 

 

 

 

4.12

 

“Then, from the other point of view of the good, see what a punishment ever goes with the wicked. You have learnt a little while past that all that exists is one, and that the good itself is one; it follows therefrom that all that exists must appear to be good. In this way, therefore, all that falls away from the good, ceases also to exist, wherefore evil men cease to be what they were.

 

“The form of their human bodies still proves that they have been men; wherefore they must have lost their human nature when they turned to evil-doing. But as goodness alone can lead men forward beyond their humanity, so evil of necessity will thrust down below the honorable estate of humanity those whom it casts down from their first position.

 

“The result is that you cannot hold him to be a man who has been, so to say, transformed by his vices. If a violent man and a robber burns with greed of other men's possessions, you say he is like a wolf. Another fierce man is always working his restless tongue at lawsuits, and you will compare him to a hound. Does another delight to spring upon men from ambushes with hidden guile? He is as a fox. Does one man roar and not restrain his rage? He would be reckoned as having the heart of a lion. Does another flee and tremble in terror where there is no cause of fear? He would be held to be as deer. If another is dull and lazy, does he not live the life of an ass? One whose aims are in constant and ever changed at his whims, is in no wise different from the birds. If another is in a slough of foul and filthy lusts, he is kept down by the lusts of an unclean swine. 

 

“Thus then a man who loses his goodness, ceases to be a man, and since he cannot change his condition for that of a god, he turns into a beast.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 3

 

Perhaps it may be too abstract for the taste of some, but the language of Aristotle can be of some assistance here. Understood in its most immediate way, it doesn’t have to be complex and obscure. 

 

The distinction is between something being in potency, meaning what it is able to be, and being in act, meaning that it has now become what it is able to be. The acorn is a potential oak, while the grown tree is an actual oak. A slab of marble is a potential sculpture, while Michelangelo’s Pieta is an actual sculpture. The ingredients are a potential meal, while the skill of the chef crafts them into an actual meal.

 

This can, by extension, apply to anything in creation. Only God, as complete being, is perfect act, while all created things, subject to motion and change, as extensions and effects of that complete being, are constantly shifting between potency and act. It is the very process of growth, of transformation, of fulfillment. It is all moved to return to where it started. 

 

In this sense, a man is only thoroughly a man when he has actualized all that it means to be a man. In the meantime, he remains, so to speak, a man in waiting. What is there has not yet blossomed into what it is meant to be. It is a work still in progress. 

 

And some works progress, while some works regress. Sometimes there is an increase of being, and sometimes there is a decrease of being. Given the power of reason and choice, human beings will have control over whether they increase or decrease. They find union with the One, or they divide themselves from the One.

 

When Lady Philosophy says that a man ceases to exist as a man as soon as he follows vice, this might seem like quite a stretch. Here, one might say, we see philosophers spouting more of their usual nonsense. “How ridiculous, to say that I cease to be!”

 

Let me consider myself, since I should not dare to speak for anyone else. When my thinking is plagued by ignorance, and my will is shackled by greed, and my actions are motivated only by conformity to the pack, what might actually be left of me? 

 

I still have a human body, and I still have a human mind, and I still have a human will. Yet that body is wasting away, for the simple reason that the mind is not working rightly at all, and the will is therefore distorted, and I end up as a shadow of a man. I have the appearance, with none of the content. 

 

I remain only potentially a man, not actually a man. 

 

Let any animal be what it is made to be, but when any man denies his own nature as a creature brought forth to know and to love, he degrades himself to an animal state far lower than what he was intended for. 

 

He is now a shell, a dried out husk. He has withered away his potency, and so he is no longer a man in act. 

 

The wolf will snarl when he is hungry, while the man will snarl when he has abandoned his ability to love. 

 

 

 

4.13

 

“The east wind wafted the sails 

that carried on the wandering ships of Ithaca's king 

to the island where dwelt the fair goddess Circe, 

the sun's own daughter. 

There for her new guests she mingled cups bewitched by charms. 

Her hand, well skilled in use of herbs, 

changed these guests to different forms. 

One bears the face of a boar; 

another grows like to an African lion with fangs and claws; 

this one becomes as a wolf, 

and when he thinks to weep, he howls; 

that one is an Indian tiger, 

though he walks all harmless round about the dwelling-place. 

The leader alone, Ulysses, though beset by so many dangers, 

was saved from the goddess's bane

by the pity of the winged god, Mercury. 

But the sailors had drunk of her cups, 

and now had turned from food of corn 

to husks and acorns, food of swine. 

Nothing is left the same, speech and form are gone; 

only the mind remains unchanged, 

to bewail their unnatural sufferings.

How weak was that hand, how powerless those magic herbs 

that could change the limbs but not the heart! 

Within lies the strength of men, hidden in deep security. 

Stronger are those dread poisons 

that can drag a man out of himself, 

that work their way within: 

they hurt not the body, 

but on the mind their rage inflicts a grievous wound.”

 

—from Book 4, Poem 3

 

In Homer’s Odyssey, the sorceress Circe bewitches Odysseus’ crew, and feeds them a sumptuous meal laced with her potions. They are then transformed into swine, and it is only the usual cleverness of Odysseus, with the divine guidance of Hermes, that can free his men from the curse. 

 

“How silly! Aren’t those old stories just delightful?”

 

Certainly delightful, but hardly silly. People are transformed all the time, sometimes on the outside, and sometimes on the inside. Sometimes the change is shockingly sudden, and sometimes it is so gradual you will barely notice. Have you never seen a man become a pig, or a snake, or a rat? I have, and there is no way you can tell me that it is just a fairy tale. 

 

Yes, Circe changed the crew’s exterior, their physical appearance, and I am speaking of changing the interior, the content of character. But which of these is actually the more remarkable, that something should simply look different, or that it should actually become different? 

 

I was once quite surprised when I ran into an old acquaintance after many years, to find that he had doubled in weight, and now had completely white hair. At first I did not even recognize him. When we sat down for a bit, however, it was clear that he was still the same witty and charming fellow. 

 

I was deeply terrified, on the other hand, when I realized that someone who had for years been honest and generous had somehow become deeply deceptive and selfish. There had once been a conscience there, and now there was an empty hole, an absence that was evident in every expression, every word, every deed. This was, for all intents and purposes, a different person, looking the same but living in a totally different way. 

 

People do change, not just on the surface, but also to the core in radically altering ways. Yes, it’s still Jack or Jill, while no longer the same Jack or Jill. Something has been added to or taken away from their very identity. They have either actualized what is good within them, or they have suppressed what is good and twisted it into something else. 

 

Did Obi Wan Kenobi really lie to Luke Skywalker when he originally told him that Darth Vader had betrayed and murdered his father? 

 

Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.

 

And I suppose when Vader rediscovered a love for his son, that good man was reborn, from a certain point of view. Yes, there can be very practical truths found in the most fantastical of stories.

 

Notice how Lady Philosophy here distinguishes between the transformation of Odysseus’ crew and the far deeper transformation of souls corrupted by vice. In one case, the bodies on the outside are changed, while the human minds on the inside remain, but in the other case the bodies on the outside may stay the same, while the human minds on the inside are cast into something very different. 

 

People might think it terrible to have their bodies transformed into those of pigs, but I suggest it is far worse to have our souls transformed into those of pigs. What Circe does to the crew is nothing compared to what wicked people do to themselves. 

 

 

 

4.14

 

Then I answered: “I confess that I think it is justly said that vicious men keep only the outward bodily form of their humanity, and, in the attributes of their souls, are changed to beasts. But I would never have allowed them willingly the power to rage in the ruin of good men through their fierce and wicked intentions.”

 

“They have not that power,” said she, “as I will show you at a convenient time. But if this very power, which you believe is allowed to them, were taken from them, the punishment of vicious men would be to a great extent lightened. For, though some may scarcely believe it, evil men must be more unhappy when they carry out their ill desires than when they cannot fulfill them. For if it is pitiable to have wished bad things, it is more pitiable to have had the power to perform them, without which power the performance of this pitiable will would never have effect. 

 

“Thus, when you see men with the will and the power to commit a crime, and you see them perform it, they must be the victims of a threefold misfortune, since each of those three things brings its own misery.”

 

“Yes,” I said, “I agree; but I do wish from my heart that they may speedily be rid of one of these misfortunes, being deprived of this power of doing evil.”

 

“They will be rid of it,” she said, “more speedily even than you wish perhaps, and sooner than they think they will be rid thereof. There is in the short course of life nothing that is so long coming that an immortal mind can think it has long to wait for it. Many a time are their high hopes and great plans for evil-doing cut short by a sudden and unlooked-for end. This indeed it is that sets a limit to their misery. For if wickedness makes a man miserable, the longer he is wicked, the more miserable must he be; and I should hold them most miserable of all, if not even death at last put an end to their evil-doing. If we have reached true conclusions concerning the unhappiness of depravity, the misery, which is said to be eternal, can have no limit.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

Yes, men will not only act like beasts, but they will actually become beasts. It doesn’t even require times of war or famine to bring that out in us, because you can see it on any given day, in the most ordinary of circumstances. 

 

I still have a horrifying memory of watching a colleague being fired from her job by our mighty boss. I was asked to sit there and observe the whole thing, since I was nominally in charge of her department. Her only crime was that the Dean’s wife had taken a strong personal dislike to her, and this meant that she would no longer be of any use to the fine institution. 

 

“You see, we’re like a family here, but we can’t be a family when some people don’t do what they’re supposed to do. It’s nothing personal, but we won’t be renewing your contract.”

 

Of course it’s personal; as soon it involves the lives of people, it’s automatically personal. There are no families when love succumbs to preference. 

 

She was disposable to others, to be dismissed at a moment’s notice, thanks to the pettiness of pride. Did no one remember that her husband had also just lost his job due to corporate “downsizing”? Did no one remember that her son was sick, and needed the health insurance she was now going to lose? Did no one remember that she had always done her work with diligence, conviction, and character? No, her need and merit were not in question; merely the satisfaction of vanity was in question. 

 

My horror came not only from having to cringe my way through the whole sordid affair, acting as some sort of twisted witness, but from my own cowardice in not defending her more adamantly at the time. Was the Dean an animal? Yes, because he was consumed by hatred. Was I an animal? Yes, because I was consumed by fear. 

 

And I deserved every little bit of guilt and shame that came to me from it, just as that pompous bigwig deserved to rot in hell right next to me. When a man can no longer follow the dictates of right conscience, he is no longer a man. He has lost his right to that title. 

 

Boethius is beginning to understand that those who live with evil in their hearts are ultimately consumed by that evil. Yet he still worries that such people continue to do harm, as my boss did harm with his action, and as I did harm by my inaction. It concerns me when others get away with their dirty deeds, and it concerns me even more when I get away with my own dirty deeds. 

 

But there we go again, caught up in our old habits. We look at the harm folks do, thinking only of how we are oppressed. We assume others get away with everything, forgetting that there is nothing for them to gain. Wicked men die in their own wickedness; now might we instead live in our own excellence?

 

Why do the vicious still have the ability to do what they do? How could a loving God possibly permit it? Because love includes within it justice, not as vengeance, but as giving to all people what is their due. God will give us exactly what we want. If I can remember that, I will no longer complain about anyone getting away with anything. If virtue is its own reward, and vice is its own punishment, then no further judgment is necessary. 

 

Once again, I remind myself that I have known many nasty types, the liars, the cheaters, or the abusers, and for all the glory they may say they have won, I have never known a single one of them to be happy. 

 

They are always anxious, grasping, and incomplete. The very fact that they always want more is proof that they are in need and in pain. It all goes beyond my personal observations, and goes to the fact that a man without virtue is like fish out of water. 

 

“But aren’t you in need and pain as well?” Well yes, I most certainly am. And so I need to finally fix myself. The only pride I can find right now is in knowing that, and in knowing what I must finally do.

 

Why can’t we remove the evil in this world more quickly? Let me think of it a bit differently than I have before. Seen from a larger perspective, it all will pass quite soon, as all worldly things will pass. 

 

Does the tyrant tell you that he will rule forever? Laugh and smile, because he will die shortly, even if he takes you out first. Does the oppressor think himself invincible? His power will fade, and his flesh will rot, because you will both end up in the exact same grave.

 

What will be the only difference? The dignity of how we live, while we still live, will be the only difference. Rest assured that if you choose to live with decency, with wisdom and with love, that will always be your own, and no one else can take it from you. 

 

Will another hate you? Quite likely, but rest assured that he is already stewing in his own juices. He only wants to take something from you because he is so lacking within himself. 

 

What he suffers for his crimes is already more than enough of a burden for him, just as the joy of your own character is already more than enough of a blessing for you.

 

Now imagine, just imagine, if the fruits of either evil or good were eternal. More of a bad thing would be the worst thing, and more a good thing would be the best thing. 

 

 

 

4.15

 

“That is a strange conclusion and hard to accept. But I see that it is suited too well by what we have agreed upon earlier.”

 

“You are right,” she said, “but when one finds it hard to agree with a conclusion, one ought in fairness to point out some fault in the argument which has preceded, or show that the sequence of statements is not so joined together as to effectively lead to the conclusion; otherwise, if the premises are granted, it is not just to cavil at the inference.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

This brief passage may seem like something of a sidetrack from the main argument, on the relationship of virtue and vice to reward and punishment. I find it suitably placed, however, because Lady Philosophy is asking us to assent to things we may not previously have found believable. It serves as a timely reminder that we should judge by the truth of the matter, not by the comfort of the matter. 

 

Are the premises true? Is the argument valid? Then the conclusion follows. What might still make it strange, or hard to accept? I can think of many things I have considered as obstacles to agreement, though they weren’t really obstacles at all. The difficulty has always been in the stubbornness of my will, never in the openness of my mind. 

 

Perhaps the conclusion is unpopular. Others may frown at it, but that will not make it any less true. 

 

Perhaps the conclusion is unfamiliar. My habits are hard to break, but sometimes they have been poorly formed. 

 

Perhaps the conclusion is inconvenient. I may understand it in theory, but it is rudely asking me to change how I live in practice. 

 

Perhaps the conclusion is uncomfortable. Sure, it might be right and good, but it happens to be getting in the way of my desires. 

 

For example, if happiness is something that can never do us harm, but pleasure can most certainly do us harm, then pleasure cannot be happiness. My lust should not get in the way of that understanding. 

 

Or if our merit comes only from what we do, but honor depends on what other people might do, then our merit cannot come from honor. My vanity should not get in the way of that understanding. 

 

Or if the worst punishments involve losing our own nature, but vices destroy our very nature, then vices will be a worst punishment. My resentment should not get in the way of that understanding. 

 

The conclusion proceeds from the soundness of the argument, and the argument does not proceed from my preference for the conclusion. What frustration and grief I will save myself from if I don’t put the cart before the horse! 

 

 

 

4.16

 

“This too, which I am about to say, may not seem less strange, but it follows equally from what has been taken as fact.”

 

“What is that?” I asked.

 

“That wicked men are happier when they pay the penalty for their wickedness than when they receive no penalty at the hands of justice. I am not going to urge what may occur to any one, namely, that depraved habits are corrected by penalties, and drawn towards the right by fear of punishment, and that an example is hereby given to others to avoid all that deserves blame. But I think that the wicked who are not punished are in another way the more unhappy, without regard to the corrective quality of punishment, nor its value as an example.”

 

“And what way is there other than these?”

 

“We have allowed, have we not,” she said, ”that the good are happy, but the bad are miserable?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then if any good be added to the misery of any evil man, is he not happier than the man whose miserable state is purely and simply miserable without any good at all mingled therewith?”

 

“I suppose so.”

 

“What if some further evil beyond those by which a man, who lacked all good things, were made miserable, were added to his miseries? Should not he be reckoned far more unhappy than the man whose misfortune was lightened by a share in some good?”

 

“Of course it is so.”

 

“Therefore,” she said, “the wicked when punished have something good added to their lot, to wit, their punishment, which is good by reason of its quality of justice; and they also, when unpunished, have something of further evil, their very impunity, which you have allowed to be an evil, by reason of its injustice.”

 

“I cannot deny that,” said I.

 

“Then the wicked are far more unhappy when they are unjustly unpunished, than when they are justly punished. It is plain that it is just that the wicked should be punished, and unfair that they should escape punishment.”

 

“No one will gainsay you.”

 

“But no one will deny this either, that all which is just is good; and on the other part, all that is unjust is evil.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

I am accustomed to thinking of a punishment as something bad, a suffering inflicted upon the wrongdoer, and at the very least a necessary evil for the one who inflicts it. When the intention shifts to a deliberate desire to cause pain for another, to seek vengeance instead of justice, it can itself become a vice, adding one hurt to another hurt. I would prefer to avoid being punished, since I don’t like to feel pain, and I would prefer to avoid doing the punishing, as I also don’t like to inflict pain. 

 

Yet when I take step back, and reconsider the very measure of human nature, as Lady Philosophy is asking me to do, I will once again find that I am confused about my sense of benefit and harm. 

 

I have long been looking at my circumstances, the things that happen to me, as the standard of what is good or bad, and so I pursue pleasure, wealth, or honor. I fail to see that it is my own thoughts, choices, and actions that are good or bad, and that pleasure, wealth, or honor only become good or bad through the content of my character. 

 

So what is it that will benefit me? The increase of my virtues. What is it that will do me harm? The increase of my vices. My happiness or misery will hinge upon the quality of my living, and I will only find contentment by becoming better. 

 

Now if I understand punishment rightly, it is about more than just changing my behavior through the fear of pain, or acting as a deterrent against bad behavior. Punishment is more fundamentally an expression of justice, in that it restores the right balance where there has been the wrong imbalance, that what has been unfairly taken away can now be fairly returned. 

 

In this way, to be punished for the wrong I have committed is actually good for me, because it gives me the opportunity to make up for my errors, to restore my own moral worth, to wipe away my vices and increase my virtues. If I only choose to understand it properly, it has the power of cleansing my soul. In giving something back to the person I have wronged, I will also give something back to the dignity of my conscience. 

 

Conversely, to escape punishment for the wrong I have committed is actually bad for me, because I only remain in error, unwilling to undo the evil I have done, indignant in my unwillingness to fix what I have broken, wallowing in my own selfishness. I don’t want to understand my obligations to others, so my soul remains filthy. In refusing to give something back to the person I have wronged, I am also refusing to answer the call of my conscience. 

 

I run away from a rightful and deserved punishment when I don’t even know what’s good for me; I am only escaping from my own humanity. Will it hurt? Most certainly, but the discomfort I will feel is as nothing to the merit I gain. 

 

I recall the many times I did something absolutely terrible, the sort of deeds I would be afraid to admit even to my best friend, and I was so certain that not getting caught, and not paying a price, was a glorious triumph. 

 

Yet all it did was gnaw at me, and the original greed, or lust, or malice just grew bigger inside of me. And then it produced guilt, an awareness of my own failings, though there was not necessarily shame, from the awareness held by others of my own failings. There can be no happiness in a soul burdened by such a weight. 

 

Few things in this life have done me as much good as taking responsibility for my sins, and doing whatever I can to make them right. Wherever and whenever it is possible, a decent man will show his regret and embrace his need to improve by freely offering to make up for his crimes. And even when he doesn’t do so freely, at least at first, it remains a chance for redemption. 

 

Justice, and the retribution it sometimes demands, has nothing to do with hatred. It is nothing more than the call to love, even when answering the call is well after the fact. Only then are the scales back in the right place, and only then can I find the peace I seek. 

 

 

4.17

 

Then I said: “The arguments which we have accepted bring us to that conclusion. But tell me, do you leave no punishment of the soul to follow after the death of the body?”

 

“Yes,” she answered, “heavy punishments, of which some, I think, are effected by bitter penalties, others by a cleansing mercy. But it is not my intention to discuss these now. 

 

“My object has been to bring you to know that the power of evil men, which seems to you so unworthy, is in truth nothing; and that you may see that those wicked men, of whose impunity you complained, do never miss the reward of their ill-doing; and that you may learn that their passion, which you prayed might soon be cut short, is not long-enduring, and that the longer it lasts, the more unhappiness it brings, and that it would be most unhappy if it endured for ever. 

 

“Further, I have tried to show you that the wicked are more to be pitied if they escape with unjust impunity, than if they are punished by just retribution. And it follows upon this fact that they will be undergoing heavier penalties when they are thought to be unpunished.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

Will there are also be eternal consequences for the way we choose to live in this life, rewards or punishments in an afterlife, or in a next life? Would knowing that it is so give a greater weight to the power of Providence? Might it offer a finality to things, a certainty that nothing can escape an ultimate justice?

 

Speaking only for myself, I have found that this can be a misleading line of inquiry for me. Whether the human soul is immortal, and whether our judgments now have very real consequences later, is indeed a critical question, and our answer will shape much of how we view our place in the totality of things. Nevertheless, I must be careful not to ask the question for all the wrong reasons. 

 

Coming to know what my future state might be isn’t a problem, but relying on that future state to make excuses for my life now is a problem. I find it too easy to look to what will happen then, instead of focusing on what is happening now. There is something base and mercenary in me when I expect treats for myself and my friends later, and only tricks for my enemies and opponents later. 

 

My sense of justice can all too easily be replaced by a desire for gratification and vengeance. 

 

So I do not ignore the question, but I put it aside, for the moment, when I consider why I should choose to do good instead of evil. I should follow virtue because it fulfills my very humanity, and expresses itself in happiness simply by itself. I should avoid vice because it cripples my humanity, and expresses itself in misery simply by itself. Do not tell me that there needs to be more, because this is already enough: the good life is good for its own sake, or it is not a good life to begin with. 

 

It seems that Lady Philosophy is trying to guide Boethius in a similar manner, affirming that the effects of our actions are indeed greater than we might think, but also reminding him to see Providence at work right in front of him, here and now. He does not need to wait for his rewards, and those who have treated him unjustly do not need to wait for their punishments. The rewards and punishments cannot be separated form the thoughts and deeds themselves. 

 

Perhaps thinking in this way can also help me to learn pity, not by looking down on others, but by showing genuine compassion for others. When another tries to hurt me, he may attack me on the outside, while he only hurts himself on the inside. 

 

Should I not want what is good for him, instead of stewing with anger? There is something I can do about that immediately, and I don’t need to dwell on his fate down the road. If I offer love, I will surely become better, and there is a chance, just a chance, that he may use that as an opportunity to become better himself. Let me worry about the joy and suffering in front of me at the moment. 

 

I have a rather unpleasant memory of a religious zealot I once knew giving me what he intended as a pep talk, but instead ended up making me far more aware of the malice in my own motives. 

 

“Look, just rest assured that they will be in Hell, and you will be in Heaven. You will have the last laugh! You will have eternal glory, and they will only have eternal pain. God’s power takes care of it that way!”

 

No, just no. I cannot bring myself to imagine either God or his Saints taking pleasure in laughing last. Love is the law of Nature, and the will of Nature’s God. The evil man deserves to be helped, not to be hated. 

 

 

 

4.18

 

“When I hear your arguments, I feel sure that they are true as possible. But if I turn to human opinions, I ask what man would not think them not only incredible, but even unthinkable?”

 

“Yes,” she said, “for men cannot raise to the transparent light of truth their eyes which have been accustomed to darkness. They are like those birds whose sight is clear at night, but blinded by daylight. So long as they look not upon the true course of Nature, but upon their own feelings, they think that the freedom of passion and the impunity of crime are happy things.

 

“Think upon the sacred ordinances of Eternal Law. If your mind is fashioned after better things, there is no need of a judge to award a prize; you have added yourself to the number of the more excellent. If your mind sinks to worse things, seek no avenger from without; you have thrust yourself downward to lower things. 

 

“It is as though you were looking at the squalid earth and the heavens in turn; then take away all that is about you, and by the power of sight, you will seem to be in the midst now of mud, now of stars. 

 

“But mankind looks not to such things. What then shall we do? Shall we join ourselves to those whom we have shown to be as beasts? If a man lost utterly his sight, and even forgot that he had ever seen, so that he thought he lacked nothing of human perfection, should we think that such a blind one can see as we do?”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

Won’t people start thinking that I am confused and disturbed if I speak of such things, and won’t they laugh and walk away from me if I actually try to live according to these principles? Very many of them most certainly will; they already look at me funny whenever my conscience happens to even slightly stray from what is popular. 

 

It can be deeply uncomfortable to go against the grain, to strike out on my own. This is only compounded by a shameful sense of snobbery and elitism for dismissing what the majority would wish of me. Who am I to say that I know better? Aren’t many heads together better than one? 

 

I can just remind myself that I should not worry about contradicting certain opinions, though I should worry about contradicting Nature, for these two are not always in agreement. It need not be about me believing that I am better, but it can be about me struggling to become better. It isn’t arrogant to seek the best path, nor is it dismissive to be wary of bad advice. 

 

Instead of looking for a conflict between the many and the few, I should focus on the distinction between the true and false. Whether it is the majority or the minority who manage to get it right, I should not confuse what is good with any degree of approval from others. By all means listen to the wise man, but not just to any man, or to the loudest man, or to the most esteemed man. 

 

There is a perfectly good reason why the crowd is so easily prone to error, and it arises from the default position of human nature. In the order of things, a man is born with the power to understand, but he is not born with the content of understanding. He must acquire his understanding through experience and reasoning, and this will demand an active effort from him. To think without reflection, to choose without sound judgment, or to act without commitment will be remarkably easy; to do nothing at all, to go with flow, will be the simplest solution. 

 

This is what many of us will do, as I have done far too often. It will be hard for us to find our own way. Virtue will require sweat, and blood, and sacrifice. It will mean putting ourselves in places that are not comfortable, when we would rather bask in comfort. Yet complacency asks only the ease of surrender, not the struggle for victory. 

 

And so we give way, instead of finding our way. We swim with the current, instead of swimming for shore. We conform to expectations, instead of expecting anything of ourselves. 

 

I was born to be a good man, yet I wasn’t already born as a good man; I was given a potency to actualize. Now let us be honest: how many people will rise to that challenge?

 

So God made us all to succeed, even as many of us will freely decide to fail, simply by doing nothing at all but going through the motions. 

 

As in Plato’s Cave, many prefer the darkness to the light. When shown the light, they squint, and they squirm, and they want nothing of it. Impressions and passions rule them, so they are certain there can be nothing more to life. They call themselves free, while they choose to become slaves to the objects of their desires. 

 

Yet if I only know myself rightly, I will see that virtue is its own reward, and vice is its own punishment. Will they laugh at me for saying that? Yes, but they don’t know any better. Now should I hate them and cast them away, or should I love them and offer my help?

 

A blurred, distorted, or blinded sense of vision is a fitting analogy for a blurred, distorted, or blinded sense of reason. When my eyes are weak, I will not be able to see what is in front of me. When my mind is weak, I will not be able to grasp who I ought to be. 

 

Will I be a man or a beast? Will I be looking at the mud or at the stars? Sadly, many will turn away, and my own sloth will ask me to follow them. I can still love without being a pushover; I can still fulfill myself without leaving them behind. 

 

Popular? Maybe, or maybe not. Decent? Absolutely. 

 

 

 

4.19

 

“Most people would not even allow another point, which rests no less firmly upon strong reasons, namely, that those who do an injury are more unhappy than those who suffer one.”

 

“I would hear those strong reasons,” I said.

 

“You do not deny that every wicked man deserves punishment?”

 

“No.”

 

“It is plain for many reasons that the wicked are unhappy?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then you doubt not that those who are worthy of punishment are miserable?”

 

“No, I agree.”

 

“If then you were sitting as a judge, upon which would you consider punishment should fall—the man who did the injury, or the man who suffered it?”

 

“I have no hesitation in saying that I would make amends to the sufferer at the expense of the doer of the injustice.”

 

“Then the doer of the injustice would seem to you more miserable than the sufferer?”

 

“That follows.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

It isn’t just that virtue is its own reward, and that vice is its own punishment. 

 

It isn’t just that a punishment avoided is worse than a punishment received for the vicious man. 

 

It isn’t just that we should be grateful for the opportunity to make the wrong things right. 

 

It will take us so far, that we will also see how the offender is always in a worse place than his victim could ever be. 

 

I have a very fond memory of a fine young lady in one my classes on Boethius, who had lightheartedly promised that she would make a note every time a fellow student rolled his eyes, or sighed, or smirked, or snorted at a certain passage. 

 

We came to precisely this section, and there was predictably much rolling of eyes, sighing, smirking, and snorting. “What’s our count now?”

 

“Oh, sorry, I lost track somewhere during Book Three. Everyone just kept being angry and feeling insulted.”

 

I was hardly surprised. I think I felt much the same way when I first read the Consolation, and I assumed that Boethius was deliberately trying to question everything that I held dear.

 

Well yes, he most certainly was doing that. I somehow felt wronged that the bad guys actually had the worst lives, and the good guys actually had the best lives, instead of it being a perverted reverse. It suddenly sounds quite foolish to see the world working in the exact opposite way that Nature intends, doesn’t it?

 

It all depends on where we start with our estimation of human nature. Who we are in our essence will, in turn, determine what hurts us and what helps us. Start with the right apprehension, and you will then come to the right conclusions. 

 

Measure a man by what he possesses through fortune, and his life will indeed be a mess. Measure a man by what he possesses through his own nature, and everything is in its rightful place. 

 

What does the vicious man gain by his actions? He gains his property, and his reputation, and his influence, and his immediate pleasures. What does the vicious man lose by his actions? He loses his ability to love, his integrity, his respect, and his very character. He trades the internal for the external. 

 

What does the virtuous man gain by his actions? He gains the merit of knowing who he is, and of living with justice and compassion. What does the virtuous man lose by his actions? He leaves behind his concern for fame, and power, and gratification. He trades the external for the internal. 

 

Ask yourself which path of life you prefer, and you have already determined everything about where you will be going. 

 

Nature remains constant, while Fortune is fickle. Change your priorities, and your whole life will now be flipped, no longer up side down, but right side up. 

 

In the simplest of terms, if I choose an evil, I have freely abandoned myself. If I suffer an evil, I still retain the power to be myself. The vicious man fails to even be a man, while the virtuous man is only given more chances to be a man. The sins of another will take away my circumstances, while the sins of another will destroy his very own soul. 

 

Am I so sure, having thought of it in this way, that I still want to be a liar, or a thief, or an abuser? Will I still, having thought of it in this way, be so hurt when they lie to me, steal from me, or dispose of me like so much garbage?

 

Who is the real garbage? Who deserves the greater mercy? 

 

Dismiss me, and shrug me off, and tell me that I don’t matter. Who has suffered more, the offender or the victim? The offender, as it turns out, is his own worst victim. 

 

 

 

4.20

 

“Then from this,” said she, “and other causes which rest upon the same foundation, it is plain that, since baseness makes men more miserable by its own nature, the misery is brought not to the sufferer of an injustice, but to the doer thereof. 

 

“But the speakers in law-courts take the opposite course: they try to excite the pity of the judges for those who have suffered any heavy or bitter wrong; but more justly their pity would be due to those who have committed the wrong. 

 

“These guilty men ought to be brought, by accusers kindly rather than angry, to justice, as patients to a doctor, that their disease of crime may be checked by punishment. Under such an arrangement the occupation of advocates for defense would either come to a complete standstill, or if it seemed more to the advantage of mankind, it might turn to the work of prosecution. 

 

“And if the wicked too themselves might by some device look on virtue left behind them, and if they could see that they would lay aside the squalor of vice by the pain of punishment, and that they would gain the compensation of achieving virtue again, they would no longer hold it punishment, but would refuse the aid of advocates for their defense, and would entrust themselves unreservedly to their accusers and their judges. 

 

“In this way there would be no place left for hatred among wise men. For who but the most foolish would hate good men? And there is no cause to hate bad men. Vice is as a disease of the mind, just as feebleness shows ill health in the body. As, then, we should never think that those, who are sick in the body, deserve hatred, so are those, whose minds are oppressed by a fiercer disease than feebleness, namely wickedness, much more worthy of pity than of persecution.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 4

 

I am wary of presenting a passage like this, because it will all soon degrade into a fight about the petty politics of justice. One man will tell me that we are too easy on criminals, that we must punish them more severely. Another man will tell me that we have no heart, that we must reform rather than inflict any suffering. 

 

The one man says he loves the victim, and demands a harsh repayment from the offender. The other man says he loves the offender, and demands complete forgiveness from the victim. 

 

And these two combatants will duke it out, and the hatred they have for one another will overshadow the original question. It will become a battle of the tribes, the red versus the blue in modern America, or the blue versus the green in Constantinople, or the green Drazi versus the purple Drazi on Babylon 5. 

 

The limitations of labels will become apparent when we look beyond the party lines, and we turn instead to a deeper philosophy. Yes, embrace both punishment and compassion. Be just to them all, and love them all, because any justice or love that is preferential will never be justice or love at all. There can be no opposition here, but only a harmony between both. Justice is an expression of love, and love is the source of justice. 

 

Pay the price that you must pay, balance out those scales, and then there is a chance for both compensation and reformation. Give back what you have unjustly taken, and then you have the opportunity to both make the wrong right and to redeem yourself. Might the punishment need to be harsh? Perhaps. Must the motive always be love? Absolutely. 

 

If I have done wrong it is from my own choice, but my vice is still a sickness of ignorance and poor habits. A sick man requires a doctor, not another man who inflicts another round of hatred upon him. Will the cure be painful? It most often is. Will it be worth the cost? Most certainly. 

 

Me versus you? No. All of us together? Yes. 

 

Lawyers and judges get a bad rap, but not because there is anything wrong with the practice of law itself. There is, rather, something wrong with the way a good number of them go about interpreting the law. Many assume that it must be confrontational, and from manipulating this confrontation they make their own profits, winning their ill-gained fame and fortune. 

 

One man wins, and another man loses; it never occurs to them that all men should win. This side has succeeded, and that side has failed; it never occurs to them all sides can succeed. 

 

How might I help a wicked fellow come to recognize what he has done, and who he might still become? How might I help a poor fellow, who has been dragged in the dirt, recognize that he can still reach out a merciful hand? That is justice, as Nature intended.

 

It is a difficult goal, but it is not an impossible one. It is far less ridiculous than assuming we can make life better for one half by destroying the other half. 

 

My resentment comes from thinking I have been wronged, and my hatred comes from lashing out against that perceived wrong. Now I am no better than what I condemn. Nature, and Nature’s God, do their work by healing, not by condemnation. 

 

Bring out physicians for the soul, not executioners of the spirit. 

 

 

 

4.21

 

“To what good end do men their passions raise, 

even to drag from fate their deaths by their own hands? 

If you seek death, she is surely nigh of her own will;

And her winged horses she will not delay. 

Serpents and lions, bears, tigers and boars, 

All seek your lives with their fangs, 

yet do you seek them with swords?

Is it because your manners are so wide in variance 

that men raise up unjust battles and savage wars, 

and seek to perish by each other's darts? 

Such is no just reason for this cruelty. 

Would you apportion merit to merit fitly? 

Then love good men as is their due,

and for the evil show your pity.”

 

—from Book 4, Poem 4

 

It is so easy to act poorly, because it is so easy not to understand; it requires no effort. 

 

It is so easy to condemn, because it so easy not to love; it requires no effort. 

 

I recall an old episode of Gunsmoke, the sort of show that is not in fashion at the moment, called “The Deadly Innocent.” Festus has befriended an orphaned young man, Billy, who has lived his whole life out in an isolated valley. 

 

The boy has no family, no home, no profession, and absolutely no awareness of how the “real world” is supposed to operate. He won’t take charity, but will gladly do odd jobs for food, and he finds his happiness in telling fantastical stories and riddles to anyone who will listen. 

 

People are slowly leaving his valley, and so Billy decides he will come to Dodge City. Festus, who has always been a kind soul, takes the boy in, trying to give him work, and trying to help him adapt to a world that can often be harsh and unforgiving. 

 

One day, when Billy sees a rough and drunken cowboy attempting to drown a helpless cat, he fights to save the cat. He almost kills the cowboy in his rage, and he now finds himself subject to the law. He has a strong body joined to the mind of a child. He does what he thinks is right, but he violates all the customs of what we might call civilization. 

 

One day, when Billy sees Festus shoot a deer for dinner, Billy lashes out in violence once again. He cannot bear to see what he thinks of as brutality. 

 

Clearly something must be done with this boy. He is dangerous, a threat to the town, and not at all the sort of person we can allow in the midst of decent folk. Perhaps we should lock him up, or hide him away, where he can no longer do any harm?

 

I will not spoil the rest of the episode, but I heartily recommend it to anyone who is interested in the struggle between morality and social conformity. I do believe it was one of the first Gunsmoke episodes I ever saw, even if it was from one of the later seasons. It has stuck with me through all the years. It has imprinted something on my soul. 

 

Perhaps I have related to Billy more than I would like to admit. Unlike Billy, I have an education, but I am still not all that bright. Unlike, Billy, I don’t have the strength to beat the crap out of a drunken cowboy, as much as I would often like to. I’m not sure where that puts me in the order of things. 

 

The assumption is that Billy is “retarded”, or “special”, or “challenged”, or whatever words we are now expected to use. Yet notice that Billy has no worries about being anyone at all but a person who loves, who shows compassion, who defends the weak against the strong. He may not always understand the circumstances, but he has a better heart that most anyone else around him. 

 

Festus sees this in him, because Festus also has a better heart than most anyone else around him. 

 

There is a difference between innocence and ignorance: an innocent man can’t possibly know any better, but an ignorant man certainly should know better. 

 

Look at how we hate, look at how we fight, look at how we dwell upon all the things that make us different, only as an excuse to abuse, to take advantage of the enemy, to kill whatever we do not prefer. Is this civilization? Am I sure I need that?

 

Nature will give us death in any event; why do we speed our demise with this false righteousness?

 

If they called me a Billy, I’ll gladly take the name. It isn’t an insult at all, but a compliment in the eyes of Nature: love those who love you, and love those who hate you just as much. 

 

 

 

4.22

 

Then I said, “I see how happiness and misery lie inseparably in the deserts of good and bad men, but I am sure that there is some good and some bad in the general fortune of men. For no wise man even would wish to be exiled, impoverished, and disgraced rather than full of wealth, power, veneration, and strength, and flourishing securely in his own city. 

 

“The operation of wisdom is shown in this way more nobly and clearly, when the happiness of rulers is in a manner transmitted to the people who come into contact with their rule; and especially when prisons, bonds, and other penalties of the law become the lot of the evil citizens for whom they were designed. 

 

“I am struck with great wonder why these dues are interchanged; why punishments for crimes fall upon the good, while the bad citizens seize the rewards of virtue; and I long to learn from you what reason can be put forward for such unjust confusion. 

 

“I should wonder less if I could believe that everything was the confusion of accident and chance. But now the thought of God's guidance increases my amazement. He often grants happiness to good men and bitterness to the bad, and then, on the other hand, sends hardships to the good and grants the desires of the wicked. Can we lay our hands on any cause? If not, what can make this state different in any way from accidental chance?”

 

—from Book 4. Prose 5

 

Like most of us when we are trying to work through a problem, Boethius will jump from one place to another, working something out on this side, only to find that it has revealed a different difficulty on the other side. It will involve all the frustration that comes from trying to herd cats. 

 

At this point in the text, Boethius feels more comfortable with the small picture, and yet he once again becomes more confused about the big picture. He is making more sense of how his own life is working out, while he is increasingly troubled that the Universe as a whole isn’t working out. 

 

Recall, of course, that we began with his deepest despair about his personal situation, that he has been treated unjustly, that his enemies have triumphed over him, and that his happiness has been stolen from him. 

 

He now begins to see that his act of living well is its own reward, that his enemies’ act of living poorly is its own punishment, and that his happiness is his to determine, only through the content of his character. 

 

Still, why is Providence, the very order behind the unfolding of the world, not doing more to encourage and support the good life? If a man chooses to pursue wisdom, would it not be best if he were given the best means to do so? If a man commits to living with virtue, would it not be best if he were offered the best opportunities to practice it?

 

Surely God should cease allowing the just to be cast aside, the workers to be denied prosperity, or the loving to be shown disrespect? After all, if God really loved us, he would give us benevolent rulers, to assist us in our own benevolence. If He cared enough, he would do enough to show us how much He cares. 

 

Does this mean that a man can do right, but he will never be treated right? It hardly seems fair. 

 

The answer, however, is already to be found in everything Lady Philosophy has taught. It is because we are still mixing standards that we are confused about our human worth. Boethius only sees an inconsistency at this point because he is not applying one and the same measure of the human good. He accepts that he is made to do well, and yet he still expects others to do well for him. 

 

Will being offered wealth, power, veneration, and strength necessarily make a person better? They could just as easily make him worse, depending on what he makes of them. 

 

Will being burdened with poverty, exile, disgrace, and weakness necessarily make a person worse?  They could just as easily make him better, depending on what he makes of them. 

 

It may indeed seem that the way circumstances are distributed is random and arbitrary. That seeming comes only from failing to understand the part and whole as working together. 

 

 

 

4.23

 

“It is no wonder,” she answered, ”if one who knows not the order and reasons of Nature, should think it is all at random and confused. 

 

“But doubt not, though you know not the cause of such a great matter of the world's government, doubt not, I say, that all is rightly done, because a good Governor rules the Universe.”

 

—from Book 4. Prose 5

 

I will tie myself up in knots of skepticism and relativism if I fail to distinguish between a sound judgment about things and the force of my moods. My passions and inclinations will tell me how something feels to me at that time, but it is my reason that will tell me what something is for its own sake. 

 

Just because my emotions say it is pleasant does not mean it is necessarily good; just because my emotions say it is painful does not mean it is necessarily bad. Wisdom can peel away the immediate appearance to uncover a deeper meaning, and it is that deeper meaning that can allow me to find some peace with my world and myself. 

 

I am hardly living with any understanding or purpose when I try to consider my own nature apart from the whole of Nature, creature divorced from Creator, effects without causes, or my desires without reference to the goods they were made to serve. I should not be surprised when I say that the world makes no sense, if I have failed to actually look beyond my own confusion to the order of the world.

 

When have I found life to be pointless and chaotic? Whenever it has not satisfied my appetites on my own narrow terms. Nature is not then to blame; my thinking about Nature is to blame. Has it occurred to me that the Universe doesn’t need fixing, but that I need to work on fixing myself? All things will happen for their rightly appointed reasons, even when I am too stubborn to recognize it. 

 

What at first appears wrong may well be right, if I work from the proper measures and standards of right. What seems to be a failure may well be a success, if I reconsider my judgment of success. If it feels pointless or unfair, might I find a way to grasp the point, or to do something to make it fair? It is my unwillingness and my ignorance that are getting in the way. 

 

How often have I grown frustrated when I hear people say there is no truth because they have not bothered to look, or that a problem in unsolvable because it requires some time and effort to solve? Then my petty anger is no better than their closed minds, and I need to do some work on my own attitude before I point fingers. 

 

There are reasons we are tempted to insist that there are no reasons. There is always some pain behind our complaints that life is unfair. If I can think it through patiently and carefully, I might discover something of those reasons, and I might make some sense of all those feelings. 

 

 

 

4.24

 

“If any man knows not that the star Arcturus

has his course nearest the topmost pole 

how shall he not be amazed 

that Boötes so slowly takes his wain 

and is so late to dip his brightness in the ocean, 

and yet so swiftly turns to rise again? 

The law of heaven on high will but bewilder him. 

When the full moon grows dim to its horns,

darkened by the shadow of dull night,

when Phoebe thus lays bare all the varying bands of the stars, 

which she had hidden by the power of her shining face:

then are the nations stirred by the errors of the vulgar, 

and beat without ceasing brazen cymbals. 

No man is surprised when the blasts of the wind 

beat a shore with roaring waves, 

nor when a solid mass of frozen snow 

is melted by the warmth of Phoebus' rays; 

for herein the causes are ready at hand to be understood. 

But in those other matters the causes are hidden, 

and so do trouble all men's hearts, 

for time does not grant them 

to advance with experience in such things as seldom recur: 

the common herd is ever amazed at all that is extraordinary. 

But let the cloudy errors of ignorance depart, 

and straightway these shall seem no longer marvelous.”

 

—from Book 4. Poem 5

 

Why might I be perfectly willing to accept order, purpose, and design in some aspects of Nature, while being quite clueless about such meaning in other aspects? 

 

If science has taught me that there is causality and balance in the physical world, why am I so quick to assume that there is no causality and balance in the moral world? 

 

Are there facts and reasons governing the body, but no facts and reasons governing the soul? 

 

Will some things in the Universe work out as they should, while other things will never work out at all?

 

If I only think it through for a moment, it seems rather ridiculous for me to deny that there is any order at all, just because I don’t immediately perceive that order. Perhaps I have not looked carefully at the right things, or in the right way? 

 

Perhaps a man cannot immediately work out why heavy things fall, or water flows, or the wind blows, or fire burns, but he will soon see a pattern in how they behave, and before long their behavior will become so everyday that he will hardly think twice about them. 

 

There are things far grander in scale, and far more mysterious, like the motions of the heavens or the changes of the seasons, that may puzzle him far more, but even there he learns that the sun, the moon, and the stars follow a complex sequence, one that repeats itself over and over again. The causes may remain hidden for some time, and he may be filled with wonder, but the harmony is already peeking through. 

 

I can learn why something acts as it does only when I have rightly understood what it is by its nature. Though it may take me many years, or it may take the whole human race many generations, to solve a puzzle, it is patient observation and careful reasoning that yield greater understanding. The Universe, slowly but surely, reveals her workings to an open and willing mind. 

 

The obstacle will not be in the things themselves, but in my poor estimation of them. I do myself a great disservice when I assume there is no order, or likewise when I make up imaginary causes to satisfy my eagerness for a hasty solution. 

 

Some people may shrug their shoulders and give up farming if the weather won’t cooperate, while others may learn to plant at the right time. Some people may yell at the sky or sacrifice a goat when it doesn’t rain, while others will become familiar with the cycle of the seasons. 

 

Now if I insist that my life is unfair, that nothing good can come from my situation, or that there is no Providence, am I not like the lazy farmer? If I pray to shadows, and worship false idols, am I not replacing wisdom with mere superstition?

 

I only think life is unjust, and that vice is unpunished while virtue goes unrewarded, when I am ignorant of my own nature, and when I turn away from the my place in all of Nature. It looks upside down, but I am upside down. I have started with a confusion about what is greater or lesser in life, and so I grow frustrated with life. 

 

Wisdom can make ordinary what ignorance found extraordinary. 

 

The stars don’t disappear if I am looking for them on the ground. Justice doesn’t disappear if I am searching for it in the wrong place. 

 

 

 

4.25

 

“That is true,” I said, “but it is your kind office to unravel the causes of hidden matters, and explain reasons now veiled in darkness; wherefore I beg of you, put forth your decree and expound all to me, since this wonder most deeply stirs my mind.”

 

Then said she, smiling, “Your question calls me to the greatest of all these matters, and a full answer thereto is well-nigh impossible. For this is its kind: if one doubt be cut away, innumerable others arise, as the Hydra's heads; and there can be no limit unless a man restrains them by the most quick fire of the mind. 

 

“For herein lie the questions of the directness of Providence, the course of Fate, chances which cannot be foreseen, knowledge, Divine predestination, and freedom of judgment. You can judge for yourself the weight of these questions. 

 

“But since it is a part of your treatment to know some of these, I will attempt to make some advantage therefrom, though we are penned in by our narrow space of time. But if you enjoy the delights of song, you must wait a while for that pleasure, while I weave together for you the chain of reasons.”

 

“As you will,” said I. 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

The scale of these questions will seem so daunting, precisely because we are now concerned with the most fundamental and ultimate matters, with the beginning and the end of all things, with the very way the whole of Universe runs its course. How can a finite human mind, bound to this body, limited in space, subject to the fluctuations of time, ever ascend to what is infinite and absolute?

 

How might I be expected to suddenly see everything as God sees it? Surely that is not what I should be aiming at, striving instead to discover some meaning and order from who I am and from where I am. The confusion will come largely out of the hastiness of my own thinking, the fear and panic that can so easily grip me when I am facing something so massive and imposing. Clarity and patience of mind will be required, not hacking away at everything I see, but focusing in on what I can manage, one little step at a time. 

 

I will not come to comprehend it all, but I may just come to comprehend enough. 

 

What is at stake? A whole span of principles and causes, many of which may at first seem to be in conflict with one another. 

 

If Providence is the way the Divine Mind rules and orders all things, am I to understand that everything is subject to a necessary Fate? If everything is directed by Providence, and always happens for a purpose, can that still leave any room for chance? 

 

My own perception is certainly clouded, and so I do not see the reasons behind so much of what happens around me. My ignorance of causes may lead to me assume that things are still open-ended, that there is still contingency at work. Yet while my mind is quite incomplete, is not the Divine Mind perfectly complete? What could possibly be unknown to it? And if all is known to it, then doesn’t that knowledge set in stone what absolutely must happen? 

 

Perhaps most critically for a sense of my own place in the world, can such design allow for any human freedom at all? If I have no freedom, am I to simply abandon myself to what must be, never able to choose how I participate in my own life? 

 

See, there is that feeling of helplessness, as the Hydra grows back two new heads for every one I might manage to cut off. How easy it would be to just give up!

 

I seem to recall, however, from the version of the story I learned, that Heracles managed to work something out. He asks his nephew, Iolaus, to help him in the task of slaying the Hydra. After Heracles chopped off the heads, Iolaus quickly cauterized each neck before the heads could return. 

 

Sometimes there are thoughtful solutions to seemingly impossible problems. Lady Philosophy will now help Boethius work through the problems of Providence, Fate, and the place of human freedom, in this next part of the text that can be quite challenging, but is also deeply rewarding. 

 

 

 

4.26

 

Then, as though beginning afresh, she spoke thus:

 

“The engendering of all things, the whole advance of all changing natures, and every motion and progress in the world, draw their causes, their order, and their forms from the allotment of the unchanging mind of God, which lays manifold restrictions on all action from the calm fortress of its own directness.

 

“Such restrictions are called Providence when they can be seen to lie in the very simplicity of Divine Understanding; but they were called Fate in old times when they were viewed with reference to the objects which they moved or arranged. 

 

“It will easily be understood that these two are very different if the mind examines the force of each. For Providence is the very Divine Reason which arranges all things, and rests with the Supreme Disposer of all; while Fate is that ordering which is a part of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together in their own order.

 

“Providence embraces all things equally, however different they may be, even however infinite. When they are assigned to their own places, forms, and times, Fate sets them in an orderly motion; so that this development of the temporal order, unified in the intelligence of the mind of God, is Providence. The working of this unified development in time is called Fate. These are different, but the one hangs upon the other. For this order, which is ruled by Fate, emanates from the directness of Providence.

 

“Just as when a craftsman perceives in his mind the form of the object he would make, he sets his working power in motion, and brings through the order of time that which he had seen directly and ready present to his mind. So by Providence does God dispose all that is to be done, each thing by itself and unchangeably; while these same things which Providence has arranged are worked out by Fate in many ways and in time.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

These next parts of the text will sometimes frustrate readers, and they may well be tempted to give up. At first glance, it may appear that the argument is growing quite technical, exactly the reason why so many folks are turned off by philosophy as a whole, by a profusion of fancy words with little relevance to real life. I understand completely, because, despite my own bookishness, I also want answers that will improve my condition, not merely look good on paper. 

 

I would respectfully suggest, however, that the problem here is not a technical one at all, but rather one grounded in the difficulty of changing our attitudes. I know that whenever I see something new and challenging, I am prone to becoming defensive, and whenever I am asked to question a cherished assumption, I am ready to walk away. I take a deep breath, I calm my mind, and I try to counter my own panicked confusion with a careful clarity. 

 

When I see these two terms, for example, Providence and Fate, I have all sorts of baggage that goes along with them. Providence can imply something terribly mysterious, perhaps even superstitious, so vague and imprecise that it can be used to justify most anything. Fate immediately brings me an image of something impersonal and heartless, a cold prison of necessity from which we can never hope to escape. 

 

If I begin with such an approach to the concepts, it is no wonder that I will feel discouraged; the world, it might seem, is subject to a nebulous force, and it really won’t make any difference what I think about it all. I might as well be back at the beginning of the Consolation.

 

But let me cast aside my previous thinking, and ask myself if either assumption needs to be the case. Does Providence really have to be so transcendent that it becomes unintelligible? Does Fate really have to be so destined that it leaves no place for me?

 

How does Boethius begin to define his terms here? The meaning will become more refined as we move along, but for the moment he simply argues that all moving and changing things are subject to a rational order; no effect can proceed without a cause, no motion is possible without a mover, and a degree of relative imperfection is only possible through the existence of an absolute perfection. We already saw these principles introduced earlier in the text. 

 

In the most direct terms, this means that the Universe must always act according to a single design and purpose that binds all things together as one. It necessitates the activity of Divine Mind in all things, for otherwise there would be, quite literally, nothing. 

 

Within this context Providence and Fate are simply two different ways of approaching that order. Providence describes how everything flows from the timeless perfection of God, and Fate describes how that actions flows intocreated things, each in their own particular way. One can look at the world from the aspect of the cause of Providence, and from the aspect of the effect of Fate. The Divine Mind, in its boundless wisdom, wills it, and the Universe follows suit. 

 

The analogy of the craftsman can work quite well. Within his own mind, the artist conceives his plan, and through his actions, at a specific time and place, he engages in his work to produce a masterpiece. In their basic senses, Providence and Fate are no more complex or confusing than that. 

 

“But wait! I don’t get exactly what’s going on in the Divine Mind! Why can’t I see the blueprint like He does?” 

 

For now, it is sufficient to say that reason demands that there must be a blueprint, even if I am not privy to the details. Does the apprentice always know precisely what the master craftsman intends?

 

“Hold on! If God determines how everything will be, how do the things he creates have any of their own power, any of their own worth?”

 

For now, it is sufficient to say that all lower power comes from a highest power, and that all created things receive their worth from their Creator. Does the master craftsman not still allow the apprentice to contribute his own share to the art that he makes? 

 

Providence does not need to be cryptic, and Fate does not need to be uncaring.

 

 

 

4.27

 

“Whether, therefore, Fate works by the aid of the divine spirits that serve Providence, or whether it works by the aid of the soul, or of all nature, or the motions of the stars in heaven, or the powers of angels, or the manifold skill of other spirits, whether the course of Fate is bound together by any or all of these, one thing is certain, namely that Providence is the one unchangeable direct power that gives form to all things which are to come to pass, while Fate is the changing bond, the temporal order of those things which are arranged to come to pass by the direct disposition of God.” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

Because Providence is what gives meaning and order to all things, Fate will unfold through the medium of all things. Every creature, in its own particular way, participates in a unified whole, and everything that happens does indeed always happen for a reason. I may not know all the inner workings of precisely how or why events come to pass as they do, but I can know that they are exactly as they were meant to be. 

 

Sometimes, perhaps even very often, I will look at the ways of the world, and I will be quite confused, discouraged, disappointed, or angry at the state of affairs. Surely, this can’t be right? Was there a mistake or an oversight? Is it possible that God has overlooked this suffering? It is quite a big deal for me, but maybe it isn’t significant enough for Him to worry about?

 

That path of thinking will only lead me to my own ruin. It neglects the fact that where there is action, there is purpose, and where there is purpose, there is Intelligence. It ignores the necessity that all things must reduce to Absolute Being. It confuses my own finite imperfection with the rule of Infinite Perfection. Nothing is too small for that which has no limits and is bound by no distinctions. 

 

It all works together, all the parts following their own natures while being joined to one Nature. This hardly negates the dignity of created things, but rather gives weight to their individual roles, in all their glorious diversity. Providence works its way in them and with them, not over them or against them. 

 

A dear friend once told me that he didn’t think he could manage the faith in Providence I seemed to have. I was taken aback by this, because he clearly thought more of me than I could of myself, but also because my convictions, when I do manage to live up to them, are not only matters of faith. 

 

Some people have told me, for all my life, that everything will work out right, to let go and to let God, to accept what I cannot, and should not, try to change. I was grateful for the advice, but I could not get beyond the sense that this was just an act of blind surrender. What reasons, beyond wishful thinking, might you have to support this?

 

It takes a certain humble openness to reason itself to uncover the reasons, to get over my own negativity. I don’t just believe in Providence; I know there is Providence, active in everything I do, in everything that comes to me. I know this by the effects I observe around me, and then thinking backwards to the cause. My trust is not unfounded. It is all of a One. 

 

 

 

4.28

 

“Wherefore everything which is subject to Fate is also subject to Providence, to which Fate is itself subject. But there are things which, though beneath Providence, are above the course of Fate. Those things are they which are immovably set nearest the primary Divinity, and are there beyond the course of the movement of Fate. 

 

“As in the case of spheres moving round the same axis, that which is nearest the center approaches most nearly the simple motion of the center, and is itself, as it were, an axis around which turn those which are set outside it. 

 

“That sphere which is outside all turns through a greater circuit, and fulfils a longer course in proportion as it is farther from the central axis; and if it be joined or connect itself with that center, it is drawn into the direct motion thereof, and no longer strays or strives to turn away. 

 

“In like manner, that which goes farther from the primary Intelligence, is bound the more by the ties of Fate, and the nearer it approaches the axis of all, the more free it is from Fate. But that which clings without movement to the firm Intellect above, surpasses altogether the bond of Fate.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

All created things, by the very fact that they come to be and pass away, and through their acts of changing for the sake of an end, are ordered and given purpose by Providence. Yet not all created things share in Providence in the same way, for by their specific natures they are gifted with different levels of freedom. 

 

We are quite used to thinking that for something to be free in any sense, it would have to be completely outside of the power of anything else. We easily overlook the possibility that the agency of a lesser being can exist within the agency of a greater being, and that the lower can be granted its own power by what is higher. We become accustomed to assuming that there must be a conflict of hierarchy, where there could just as easily be a harmony of hierarchy. 

 

In other words, the fact that God possesses absolute power does not exclude creatures possessing different degrees of relative power, all according to their specific forms, all acting as parts of a whole. 

 

A parent has authority over his children, yet he may also permit his children to learn from their own choices. A boss has control over his workers, yet he may also allow his workers to follow their own judgments. 

 

In its strictest sense, Fate applies most to those creatures that do not move themselves in any way at all, and are only moved by other things. As creatures are gifted with their own life, with senses, with instincts, and ultimately with reason, they gain more self-control, and are less subject to Fate alone. They still work within Providence, but they also perform more and more of their own work. 

 

It took me a little while to visualize it, but the image used here by Lady Philosophy was of great assistance in understanding this concept. It allows me to appreciate the various grades of things acting together, as beings cooperating in Being. Just as the pieces of the puzzle only make sense in the big picture, so the actions of individuals relate to one another in a unity. 

 

Imagine a set of concentric circles or spheres, upon which we can place increasing degrees of perfection in beings, from the outside toward the inside, until we come to the center, where we find total perfection. The outer circles move more widely, the inner circles more narrowly, though all receive their motion from the center. It helps me to actually animate it in my own imagination, and not just look at it in a static state. 

 

Approaching to the middle, creatures become more complete. Approaching to the edge, creatures become more incomplete.

 

Approaching to the middle, creatures becomes more independent. Approaching to the edge, creatures become more dependent.

 

Approaching to the middle, creatures become more free. Approaching to the edge, creatures become more determined. 

 

All are moved from the axis, but all move in their own ways. The closer to the source of the motion, the more like that source of motion. Self-sufficiency increases or decreases for what is closer or further from the point of origin. 

 

Another way to picture this is with Matryoshka dolls, those nesting figures where each hollow larger one contains another hollow smaller one, and so on, until the last figure is solid. I could certainly line them all up separately, but the charm is in putting them all together. 

 

Some things are held firmly by Fate, while other things are more able to rise above Fate through their own freedom. All of them, however, still proceed out of the single source of Providence. 

 

 

 

4.29

 

“As, therefore, reasoning is to understanding; as that which becomes is to that which is; as time is to eternity; as the circumference is to the center: so is the changing course of Fate to the immovable directness of Providence. 

 

“That course of Fate moves the heavens and the stars, moderates the first principles in their turns, and alters their forms by balanced interchangings. The same course renews all things that are born and wither away by like advances of offspring and seed. 

 

“It constrains, too, the actions and fortunes of men by an unbreakable chain of causes, and these causes must be unchangeable, as they proceed from the beginnings of an unchanging

Providence.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

As fancy as my abstract reflections might get, I will still make two critical mistakes about the way of the world in my daily thinking; those old habits of action don’t change overnight. 

 

First, I will view things in separation, this object as independent of that, one occurrence unconnected to the other. I must regularly remind myself that all things are inexorably joined together. 

 

Second, I will view events as haphazard, taking the comings and goings as if they had arisen out of nothing, and were heading nowhere. I forget that no effect proceeds without a cause, however hidden it may seem at the moment. 

 

It is no wonder, then, that my living is out of balance, because it depends on incomplete thinking. I fail to see a unity, and so I think only of myself. I fail to see a purpose, and so I slip into aimlessness. I am not connecting the proximate with the ultimate. 

 

Things are always coming into being, and then passing out of it. My own mind operates in precisely this way, by the act of reasoning, working by stages from what is more evident to me to what is more evident in itself. As fantastic as it may seem to me, the Divine Mind is already itself the act of perfect understanding, the presence of complete self-evidence. 

 

I am made to do a lot of growing, even as I must relate that growth to a measure of universal and unchanging meaning. Without such a standard, change is without direction. 

 

For the aspects of the world that change, I take time as if it were a constant. Yet time is relative, and it means nothing outside the context of an absolute. Recall Boethius’ image of the concentric spheres, where the motion on the outside spins around the immovable axis at the center. It is all joined together, and it all works together. 

 

So, whenever something happens, however mundane it may seem, I should be thinking about it in a larger context. Whenever I act, in however ordinary a way, I should be placing myself within the whole. It is all significant, it is all intended, and it is all part of a greater design. 

 

My reasoning has, of course, not risen to a state of total understanding, but I don’t need to follow every thread to know that there is a woven pattern, or comprehend every individual cause to know that there is a why. This awareness is as necessary in practice as it is in theory, if I ever hope to live in peace. 

 

One lesson the Ancients and the Medievals have to offer us is a profound appreciation for the purpose and harmony that pervades Nature. We may like to smugly mock them for their myths being unscientific, or their astronomy being naïve in perceiving the Earth as stationary, but the best of them had an insight that went deeper than all of that, to something we too often neglect: they respected Providence. 

 

Their stories and legends operated from a perspective of moral design, and they hardly thought this little Earth was ultimately the center of the Universe, but they knew that God was the true center of the Universe. 

 

Their God was not a slick C.E.O., or a glorified bank manager, or even an old man with a white beard somewhere up there in the sky. Their God was Being itself, without which there is nothing. 

 

Providence can only make sense by placing the many within the One. 

 

 

 

4.30

 

“Thus is the world governed for the best if a directness, which rests in the intelligence of God, puts forth an order of causes that may not swerve. This order restrains by its own unchangeableness changeable things, which might otherwise run hither and thither at random.

 

“Wherefore in disposing the Universe this limitation directs all for good, though to you who are not strong enough to comprehend the whole order, all seems confusion and disorder. 

 

“Nothing is there that comes to pass for the sake of evil, or due to wicked men, of whom it has been abundantly shown that they seek the good, but misleading error turns them from the right course; for never does the true order, which comes forth from the center of the highest good, turn any man aside from the right beginning.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

Whenever I find myself burdened by doubt and despair, a moment of calm reflection will usually reveal that my problems are not with whatever may be happening, but are rather with my own estimation of their meaning. 

 

My hasty assumption will be that there is no purpose to things, that occurrences are pointless or arbitrary, that perhaps there is no God at all, or, even worse, that He is completely indifferent to my suffering. My wallowing comes from allowing my feelings to overwhelm me, instead of letting my reason guide me through them. 

 

How much like the troubled Boethius I actually turn out to be, and how desperately I need to listen to Lady Philosophy at those times! 

 

What I describe as chance comes only from my ignorance of causes, for while I may not grasp the particulars, reason shows me the necessity of a universal design. What I describe as evil comes only from my ignorance of a plan, for while it may cause me pain, reason shows me that it is made to be transformed into good.

 

What is so variable, and appears so chaotic to me, can only proceed from what is invariable. A dog might not understand his master’s intentions, but his loyalty expresses itself in a sort of trust. Could I not, gifted further with mind and choice, express a similar trust in Providence?

 

Even when I face wickedness in others, however selfish or brutal, I need to remember that vice is only a misguided divergence from the good that is within our human nature. The desire is always for the good, and though ignorance has clouded this direction, ignorance calls out to be informed by wisdom. 

 

Lies demand to be corrected by truth. Hatred waits to be consumed by love. Everything was made to be reforged and fulfilled, and every weakness provides the very opportunity to achieve that fulfillment. It is already there for the taking, if I only choose to accept it. 

 

Will I freely cooperate with this harmony, or will I stubbornly insist on only playing my own tune? Providence will continue on her way, and it is for me to decide if I will make myself happy or miserable in relation to the whole. 

 

I was drawn to philosophy from very early on, as soon as I could ask all those sorts of questions about “Why?” and “Why not?” Yet when I thought I might pursue the study of philosophy as a profession, I found so many of my peers already taking it for granted that such questions had no real answers. 

 

Perhaps it had something to do with the intellectual fashion of the age, but I suspect it also reflected the very same sense of hopelessness and dread that was felt by Boethius, and can so easily gnaw at us all, in any time or place. I saw little except skepticism, relativism, and even nihilism, and the grand academic theories would rarely cross over into the needs of daily practice. 

 

We walked about, depressed and forlorn, and we dressed for the part so very well. Were we really searching for the truth, or were we too busy feeling sorry for ourselves? 

 

I will never find Providence at the center of things if I have already decided that there can be no center to begin with. Then I am only letting myself get in the way of truly being myself. 

 

 

 

4.31

 

“But you will ask, ‘What more unjust confusion could exist than that good men should sometimes enjoy prosperity, sometimes suffer adversity, and that the bad too should sometimes receive what they desire, sometimes what they hate?’ 

 

“Are then men possessed of such infallible minds that they, whom they consider honest or dishonest, must necessarily be what they are held to be? No, in these matters human judgment is at variance with itself, and those who are held by some to be worthy of reward, are by others held worthy of punishment. 

 

“But let us grant that a man could discern between good and bad characters. Can he therefore know the inmost feelings of the soul, as a doctor can learn a body's temperature? For it is no less a wonder to the ignorant why sweet things suit one sound body, while bitter things suit another; or why some sick people are aided by gentle draughts, others by sharp and bitter ones. 

 

“But a doctor does not wonder at such things, for he knows the ways and constitutions of health and sickness. And what is the health of the soul but virtue? and what the sickness, but vice? And who is the preserver of the good and banisher of the evil, who but God, the guardian and healer of minds?” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

I become far too hasty in my judgment, too narrow in my scope, when I am ever so quick to determine who should be rewarded and who should be punished. I first commit the error of making foolish assumptions about what is right and wrong to begin with, and I then compound it by thinking I fully apprehend the hearts and minds of others, that I can see all their most hidden intentions, and grasp all the circumstances they have had to face. 

 

Who am I to flippantly decide such things? Let me spend some of that time and energy attending to myself, and slowly learning something more about the deeper workings of Providence. 

 

We are easily tempted to give legal, or financial, or medical advice, even if we know next to nothing about such matters. I sometimes observe that it is precisely those who understand the least who will often dictate to us the most. I would be best served by trusting competent and experienced lawyers, bankers, and doctors over the loud fellow at the end of the bar. 

 

Should it be any different when it comes to questions of morality and justice? Pay heed to the lover of wisdom, who has humbly and carefully learned a little something of his own nature, and the order within all of Nature. He will advise patience and compassion, an open mind and an open heart. 

 

A fine doctor will comprehend the nature of the disease, as well as the nature of the cure; he sees what is wrong, and then how to make it right. Even when I can’t figure out all the difficult terms or the mysterious causes he speaks of, I will trust that he can make me well. How odd that I will gladly follow his directions to heal my body, but I stubbornly refuse to follow God’s directions to heal my soul. 

 

I ought to step back. Have I truly made sense of what is good or bad for a human being, right to the very core? Am I too easily impressed by the appearance instead of the content? Perhaps what is worthy of praise or blame is very different than I at first think, and my estimation of character is founded on a crafty illusion.

 

Why am I assuming that receiving riches, or gratification, or fame is necessarily of benefit, while receiving poverty, or hardship, or anonymity is necessarily of harm? Perhaps what I consider rewards or punishments are not that at all, but serve to assist our moral health in ways I have not foreseen. 

 

Too often I am concerned with the accidents over the substance, and so my very measure of losses and gains is disordered. I worry about property, and luxuries, and reputation, when I should be focused on the pursuit of virtue and the avoidance of vice. Integrity is worth more than anything in my bank account, and love commands a far greater value than all the worldly vanities put together. 

 

Once I begin to see the human good from the perspective of character, I will also begin to see that Providence prescribes prudent remedies. As long as it can encourage me to improve the excellence of my soul, it works with justice. The Doctor knows best. 

 

 

 

4.32

 

“God looks forth from the high watchtower of His Providence, He sees what suits each man, and applies to him that which suits him. Hence then comes that conspicuous cause of wonder in the order of Fate, when a wise man does that which amazes the ignorant. For, to glance at the depth of God's works with so few words as human reason is capable of comprehending, I say that what you think to be most fair and most conducive to justice's preservation, that appears different to an all-seeing Providence. 

 

“Has not our fellow-philosopher Lucan told us how ‘the conquering cause did please the gods, but the conquered cause pleased Cato?’ What then surprises you when done on this earth, is the true-guided order of things; it is your opinion which is perverted and confused. 

 

“But if there is any one whose life is so good that divine and human estimates of him agree, yet he must be uncertain in the strength of his mind; if any adversity befall him, it may always be that he will cease to preserve his innocence, by which he found that he could not preserve his good fortune. 

 

“Thus then a wise dispensation spares a man who might be made worse by adversity, lest he should suffer when it is not good for him to be oppressed. Another may be perfected in all virtues, wholly conscientious, and very near to God. Providence holds that it is not right such an one should receive any adversity, so that it allows him to be troubled not even by bodily diseases.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

I think of that wonderful line from Tolkien: “Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

 

I could be so very clear in my thinking, but I would still not perceive all aspects of the whole. I could be so very diligent in avoiding my prejudices, but I would still only be looking from my own limited perspective. I could tell myself that I have considered the circumstances fully, but I would still only be gazing from the outside in. 

 

I know that everything should be for the sake of the good, even as I do not always comprehend the fullness of how and why the good will unfold as it does. Perhaps it seems right and fair that a villain should feel pain, or that a hero should feel pleasure; is that truly looking to what is best for him, or only to what is easiest for him? I do not know how his circumstances will affect him, or how he will respond to them, or whether this or that action will ultimately make his judgment better or worse. 

 

I do not know how it will play itself out; Providence most certainly does know. It gives me a whole new dimension of what it means for a man to play God. “If there was a God, He would never have allowed this to happen!” Might it instead be that I am missing something that is essential? 

 

When Cato the Younger stood up against Julius Caesar, who was the better man, and who deserved to win? It is all the more important to consider what actually makes the better man, and what really constitutes winning, to view choices and events in the context of Nature, not of Fortune. 

 

Cato failed in the political struggle, and died by his own hand. Caesar made himself the master of Rome, only to die later through betrayal. History would speak of Cato as the conquered, and Caesar as the conqueror, though it really all depends on whether we think that possessing character or possessing power is the greater reward. 

 

Perhaps the gods really did want Cato to be defeated in his body, so that he could be greater in his spirit, and Caesar to be victorious in his body, so that he could learn a very important lesson about his spirit. 

 

There have been times when suffering an expected punishment has helped me to become better, but there have also been times when being granted an unexpected reprieve has helped me to become better. It will depend on my state of mind, the disposition of my habits, the balance of my strengths and weaknesses, and the weight of the circumstances. 

 

Justice will always be justice, even as the particulars of how it is best applied will be variable. We suffer under different conditions, and so require different remedies. Providence takes all of this into account, sometimes giving, sometimes taking away. 

 

Imagine, for example, someone who is struggling to live with virtue, while still quite susceptible to giving up the fight. A punishment of hardship might actually encourage him to become worse, not better. There are all sorts of possible combinations, just as there are people in all sorts of situations. 

 

In the end, whether it expresses itself through prosperity or adversity, it will be just where it strengthens moral worth, and unjust where it weakens moral worth.

 

 

 

4.33

 

“As a better man than I has said, ‘The powers of virtues build up the body of a good man.’ 

 

“It often happens that the duty of a supreme authority is assigned to good men for the purpose of pruning the insolent growth of wickedness. 

 

“To some, Providence grants a mingled store of good and bad, according to the nature of their minds. 

 

“Some she treats bitterly, lest they grow too exuberant with long continued good fortune. Others she allows to be harassed by hardships that the virtues of their minds should be strengthened by the habit and exercise of patience. 

 

Some have too great a fear of sufferings which they can bear; others have too great contempt for those which they cannot bear: these she leads on by troubles to make trial of themselves. 

 

“Some have brought a name to be honored for all time at the price of a glorious death. Some by showing themselves undefeated by punishment, have left a proof to others that virtue may be invincible by evil. 

 

“What doubt can there be of how rightly such things are disposed, and that they are for the good of those whom we see them befall?”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

We are all quite familiar with a model of justice where the righteous should have things granted to them, while the unrighteous should have them taken away. Given that we view wealth, power, and honor as desirable commodities, it makes sense that we would accordingly distribute them based upon our measure of merit, employing their presence or absence as rewards or punishments. 

 

We remember it from school, and it passed effortlessly into our adult lives. For many of us, it soon became an automatic association between good character and good fortune on the one hand, and bad character and bad fortune on the other. Decent people got promotions, and the criminal element went to prison. 

 

As effective as the stick and the carrot may appear, is this the only way to achieve a deeper justice? I wondered, from an early age, if it always worked out the way it should, because the debits and credits didn’t necessarily seem to add up. If I looked closely, I also saw that prosperity made some people worse, and if I looked even more closely, I also saw that hardship made some people better. 

 

Was it perhaps our assumption that wealth was always beneficial, and poverty was always harmful, that was getting in the way? Didn’t it encourage a reversal of priorities, where one simply behaved, followed the rules, and colored inside the lines as a means to becoming successful, instead of viewing the life of virtue as its own success? If character was just a stepping-stone to something better, was it really a measure of merit at all? Is this why so many people seemed to cheat, worried more about appearing good than being good?

 

Most of my betters frowned upon these sorts of questions, which made me wonder if they were hiding something, or perhaps afraid that the whole edifice would collapse if we didn’t keep our blinders on. 

 

Perhaps our system of rewards and punishments is the best that humans can do, limited as we are in the scope of our knowledge and power. Perhaps Providence, having no limits in the scope of her knowledge and power, can do something more. 

 

If the content of character is indeed the human end, and not merely a means, then any other conditions will be relative to it. There are times when giving me more will help me to improve myself, and there are times when giving me less will help me to improve myself. 

 

Fortune spins her wheel, and I should not assume that those who go up are necessarily blessed, while those who go down are necessarily cursed. The image reminds me that the fruits of life will come and go, that circumstances are fickle, but it need not be some random or heartless game. If there is Divine Mind behind all things, then it must all work for a purpose, however obscure it is in my eyes. 

 

A few always seem to get ahead, and a few always seem to fall behind. We carelessly and heartlessly call them “winners” and “losers”, though we are not at all considering how they will choose to respond to their place on the wheel, and whether they will take the opportunity from it to live well. 

 

Most of us seem to get a mixed bag, and it isn’t always clear why this happens as it does. Careful, honest, and humble reflection, however, can reveal how certain events, however insignificant they at first seemed, can be a point of focus for us. We stand at the crossroads, and the smallest things may inspire us to pick one path or another. 

 

And some of us, however pure our intentions, however hard we struggle to be good, seem to get more and more obstacles thrown in our way. It hardly comes across as fair, and that is probably because I am looking at the part and not the whole. 

 

There are times, for all of us, when trouble and strife make it possible to become stronger, not by a mastery over others, but by a mastery over ourselves. 

 

There are also times, for all of us, when what we choose to do will have an effect on others we might not foresee, where our sacrifices, even to the point of death, might give heart to others who struggle. 

 

We may become great cooperators with Providence, taking the little bits of wisdom and love within us and passing them on to others. 

 

 

 

4.34

 

“The other point too arises from like causes, that sometimes sorrows, sometimes the fulfillment of their desires, falls to the wicked. 

 

“As concerns the sorrows, no one is surprised, because all agree that they deserve ill. Their punishments serve both to deter others from crime by fear, and also to amend the lives of those who undergo them. 

 

“Their happiness, on the other hand, serves as a proof to good men of how they should regard good fortune of this nature, which they see often attends upon the dishonest. 

 

“And another thing seems to me to be well arranged: the nature of a man may be so headstrong and rough that lack of wealth may stir him to crime more readily than restrain him; for the disease of such a one Providence prescribes a remedy of stores of patrimony: he may see that his conscience is befouled by sin, he may take account with himself of his fortune, and will perhaps fear lest the loss of this property, of which he enjoys the use, may bring unhappiness. Wherefore he will change his ways, and leave off from ill-doing so long as he fears the loss of his fortune.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

I am always wary of putting people into separated camps of saints and sinners, since, as Solzhenitsyn said, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” 

 

Nevertheless, when my own thoughts and actions tend in one direction or the other, then my own nature inevitably becomes richer or poorer, and Providence never fails to offer me the appropriate encouragement or discouragement. 

 

If I am on the wrong path, Providence can act in a variety of ways, some more obvious and some more subtle. However it may unfold, I must try to discern how the circumstances are arranged to provide the best particular opportunities, suited to my own particular situation. 

 

Justice, in this fullest sense, does not operate only by abstract precepts or inflexible rules, but looks deeper into our habits and our motives. 

 

I am equally called to recognizing such patterns when it comes to the wrongdoing of others, always hoping that they are given the chance to improve, just as I would also wish to be given the chance to improve. 

 

When fortune is taken away, whether it be by losing property, or freedom, or reputation, or life and limb, it would seem the most direct and appropriate form of correction. The pain can be a forceful means of retribution, and can serve as a clear deterrent to others. The fear of suffering has a powerful way of making us think twice about our choices. 

 

The danger for me, however, is that I too easily confuse justice with vengeance, replacing the righting of wrongs with the inflicting of further wrongs. Am I seeing the loss as a vehicle for a greater gain, or am I dwelling on taking pleasure in someone else’s hurt? 

 

An opposite course can be just as fitting, though I do not always take kindly to it in the heat of the moment. When an offender grows in fortune, and keeps hold of his ill-gotten gains, he may still be getting his just deserts. His spoils inevitably bring him misery, because they only make his character worse. Those who look on also learn an important lesson, that riches and righteousness do not necessarily go hand in hand. 

 

Take it away, or give me more, it will all ultimately be in the service of what is best. I only need to remember where the true sources of happiness and misery lie, and then I will not be so stubborn in seeing fortune as something worthy in itself. 

 

It may even be that maintaining what I have will help me to acquire virtues that would otherwise be out of reach. In first grade, I once grabbed a friend’s toy I had taken a liking to, and I wouldn’t return it. Instead of complaining to the teacher, he finally told me to keep it. “You want it more than I do.”

 

I thought I had won, but I was immediately overcome by a powerful sense of guilt and fear. What if someone decided to take away my playthings? How could I enjoy playing with that toy now? Within a day, I gave it back, apologized to him, and the memory of that event still comes over me whenever I am tempted to run away with something that isn’t mine. 

 

Would being sent to the principal’s office have had the same sort of effect, I wonder? 

 

Sometimes we get caught, and we then pay one sort of price. Sometimes we don’t get caught, and we then pay another sort of price. Either way, each offers its own possibility for compensation and redemption. 

 

 

 

4.35

 

“Again, good fortune, unworthily improved, has flung some into ruin.

 

“To some the right of punishing is committed that they may use it for the exercise and trial of the good, and the punishment of evil men. 

 

“And just as there is no league between good and bad men, so also the bad cannot either agree among themselves: no, with their vices tearing their own consciences asunder, they cannot agree with themselves, and do often perform acts which, when done, they perceive that they should not have done.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

Providence will indeed dispense justice in an odd variety of ways, often the ones we least expect, and yet it always manages to get straight to the point. It only remains for me to embrace or run away from the opportunity I have been given to become better, to return what I have wrongly taken. 

 

It doesn’t at first seem to make sense that good fortune can actually become a punishment, for example, though it only takes some hard experience to recognize that having something can be just as much of a curse as not having something. I should not assume that the rich, or powerful, or popular have it better, because those conditions, like all others, only become good or bad when accompanied by virtue or vice. 

 

The most dissatisfied person I have ever known, constantly racked by anxiety, doubt, and unfulfilled longing, had also been provided with most every worldly blessing one could imagine. 

 

I don’t think it ever occurred to her that her emptiness was a consequence of what she chose to value, not of what she may or not have received. As long as I knew her, she would seek out more pleasures, strive to achieve greater fame, and tirelessly work her way up the social ladder. It all ended up being salt rubbed into the wounds. 

 

I am, so many years later, still moved to tears whenever I remember her own tears. 

 

I will often forget yet another aspect of Providential justice, that while I am certainly subject to it in every aspect of my life, with all of the foolish and selfish things I have done, I will also, in however humble a way, myself become a means of distributing that justice, even when I am not fully aware of it. 

 

I have rarely been put in a position of formal authority, and that is probably for the best. I have a difficult enough time managing myself, and so I can hardly be asked to manage anyone else. Nevertheless, on those few occasions where it fell on me to dish out rewards and punishments, I became acutely aware that the responsibility cannot be taken lightly. 

 

My own superiors expected me to censure students and other faculty, or if they became too much trouble, to demand that they be expelled or fired. The basic premise was almost always the same, that when someone was stirring the pot, they needed to be silenced or terminated. It was rarely an exercise in pursuing the good, most often just a policy of saving face and tossing out the garbage. 

 

I would try to think of ways to heal a wound, and this was seen as being too lenient. In a world where we think it best to right a wrong only by taking things away, it was probably precisely that. However naïve it may seem, I always thought there were better solutions. 

 

All sorts of things can serve to punish, even things that may at first look like rewards. Have I helped others, in whatever form, to redeem themselves? That would weigh on my mind throughout my meager professional life, just as it did when I tried to raise my own children. 

 

I must finally remember that the greatest penalty that comes from vice is in the vice itself, that the constant disagreement and conflict it engenders are a deeply torturous type of suffering. 

 

Loving people will be hard-pressed to find common ground with hateful people, and yet hateful people can certainly find no common ground in their own circles. They are already at war with themselves to begin with, and then further at war with everyone else. Their malice inherently rejects the possibility of understanding and compassion. 

 

Having been there, and done that, I can think of no greater suffering than such a nastiness in my own soul. Looking at it from the positive side, I can also think of no greater chance to make the wrong in me right. 

 

 

 

4.36

 

“Wherefore high Providence has thus often shown her strange wonder, namely, that bad men should make other bad men good. 

 

“For some find themselves suffering injustice at the hands of evil men, and, burning with hatred of those who have injured them, they have returned to cultivate the fruits of virtue, because their aim is to be unlike those whom they hate. 

 

“To Divine power, and to that alone, are evil things good, when it uses them suitably so as to draw good results from them. 

 

“For a definite order embraces all things, so that even when some subject leaves the true place assigned to it in the order, it returns to an order, though another, it may be, lest anything in the realm of Providence be left to random chance.” 

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

This remains one of my favorite passages in the Consolation, and I have pretty much learned it by heart, not because I am any good at memorizing anything, but because I have turned to it so many times when I feel beaten down by circumstances. 

 

It encapsulates so much of what this wonderful text is about, and so much of what life is ultimately about. 

 

I repeatedly make the mistake of judging what is “good” or “bad” by incomplete measures. I look only to the immediate presence of pleasure or pain, of prosperity or poverty, of honor or dishonor. It feels this way right here and now, and so I take that to be all that there is. 

 

I fail to see that such states do not constitute the goods of human nature, and that their presence or absence are in turn only beneficial or harmful in relation to the cultivation of my own moral worth. 

 

I also fail to see that my own good is necessarily bound up with the workings of the whole, with the order of Providence. This hardly makes my own happiness irrelevant, but it does mean that I should only consider such a happiness in the context of everything else around me, with and through the fulfillment of all other creatures. 

 

And so what can happen, quite remarkably, is that I will begin to discern how even the most painful situations can become the means to something far better, that Providence transforms every suffering or loss into the opportunity for a more profound blessing or gain. 

 

Has my neighbor acted poorly? At first it appears to be a grave injustice, quite unforgivable, and I may blame not only his actions, but even God himself for allowing it all to occur. 

 

But what has actually been taken away, and what else has accordingly been given? A decrease on the outside is now the chance for an increase on the inside. The goods of the body come and go, and in each and every case those variations are calling for the greater cultivation of the goods of the soul. There is absolutely no “losing” here at all, if only I perceive it rightly. 

 

One man uses his freedom to practice vice, and Providence turns it upon itself, allowing another man to use his freedom to practice virtue. I see the evil in it, and I struggle with it, and I may boil with resentment over it, and then I stumble across something I did not at first expect; how might I improve upon it, instead of merely suffering from it? Isn’t that the very reason we are given freedom to begin with, to discover the good of our own accord?

 

What of that poor fellow who did me wrong, who first slipped into ignorance? Is he just cast aside? Not at all; that exact same moment of epiphany is open to him from his end, to correct his wrong, and to become better. Nothing is wasted at all, since everyone is granted the option of redemption. 

 

Providence has already taken into account the path of our choices, and even as the whole pattern appears to deviate from the way things should be, it inevitably comes right back around again to the same place, though by a different route. 

 

 

 

4.37

 

“But ‘hard is it for me to set forth all these matters as a god,’ nor is it right for a man to try to comprehend with his mind all the means of Divine working, or to explain them in words. 

 

“Let it be enough that we have seen that God, the Creator of all Nature, directs and disposes all things for good. And while He urges all, that He has made manifest, to keep His own likeness, He drives out by the course of Fate all evil from the bounds of His state. Wherefore if you look to the disposition of Providence, you will reckon nothing as bad of all the evils which are held to abound upon earth.

 

“But I see that now you are weighed down by the burden of the question, and wearied by the length of our reasoning, and waiting for the gentleness of song. Take then your draught, be refreshed thereby and advance further the stronger.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 6

 

Protagoras famously said that “Man is the measure of all things.” Some academics I know primarily attribute such thinking to modernity, though I would argue that it can be found in any time or place, precisely because it is an easy way to avoid coming to terms with anything ultimate beyond ourselves. It is both quite understandable and also quite dangerous.

 

I begin with my own awareness, and I recognize that my comprehension has it limits. Much passes before it, but not all of it is clear. I feel the effects, though I do not directly see the causes. I engage with the parts, but the whole seems to spread beyond my horizon. 

 

Two ways are now open to me. 

 

I may embrace humility by admitting that I am not everything, or I may embrace pride by insisting that I am everything. 

 

I may accept that the world is only just starting where I stop, or I may believe that it all stops until I say start. 

 

I may only allow it to be true if I fully know it, or I may allow that there are so many truths I do not yet know. 

 

For better or for worse, I eventually committed my life to the former path, that a mystery, as the pithy saying has it, is not something about which we know nothing, but rather something about which we don’t know everything. All that is real is bigger than all that is me, or all that I can wrap my own hands around.

 

I learned quickly that I could not think as God thought, but this did not mean that God did not think, or that I could not know that my imperfect thinking wasn’t the same as His perfect thinking. I learned quickly that I had a role to play, but this did not mean that I wrote the play, as much as I knew there was an author. 

 

I see through a glass darkly, and yet I still see. 

 

My own reason tells me that all relative degrees of being are only possible through an Absolute, and that what is Absolute can admit of no weakness. 

 

I can grow frustrated, and become angry, and point the finger of blame when I do not understand all the inner workings, and yet I can still understand that there is something bigger at work, something to which I can offer my complete awe, reverence, and trust. 

 

Does it feel so evil to me at the moment? As mysterious as it may seem, I can still know that it is allowed to be there in the service of some more profound good. 

 

 

 

4.38

 

“If you would diligently behold with unsullied mind

 the laws of the God of thunder upon high, 

look to the highest point of heaven above. 

There, by a fair and equal compact, 

do the stars keep their ancient peace. 

The sun is hurried on by its whirl of fire, 

but impedes not the moon's cool orb. 

The Bear turns its rushing course 

around the highest pole of the Universe, 

and dips not in the western depths, 

and though it sees the other constellations sink, 

it never seeks to quench its flames in the ocean stream. 

In just divisions of time does the evening star 

foretell the coming of the late shadows, 

and, as Lucifer, brings back again the warming light of day. 

Thus does the interchanging bond of love 

bring round their never-failing courses; 

and strife is forever an exile from the starry realms. 

This unity rules by fair limits the elements, 

so that wet yields to dry, its opposite, 

and it faithfully joins cold to heat. 

Floating fire rises up on high, 

and matter by its weight sinks down. 

From these same causes in warm spring 

the flowering season breathes its scents; 

then the hot summer dries the grain; 

then with its burden of fruits comes autumn again, 

and winter's falling rain gives moisture. 

This mingling of seasons nourishes and brings forth 

all on earth that has the breath of life; 

and again snatches them away and hides them, 

whelming in death all that has arisen. 

Meanwhile the Creator sits on high, rules all and guides, 

king and Lord, fount and source of all, 

Law itself and wise judge of justice. 

He restrains all that stirs nature to motion, 

holds it back, and makes firm all that would stray. 

If He were not to recall them to their true paths,

 and set them again upon the circles of their courses, 

they would be torn from their source and so would perish. 

This is the common bond of love; 

all seek thus to be restrained by the limit of the good. 

In no other manner can they endure 

if this bond of love be not turned round again, 

and if the causes, which He has set, return not again.”

 

—from Book 4, Poem 6

 

In my younger days, when I still naively assumed that other people would get as excited as I did about learning something new and off the beaten path, I was once passionately explaining to one of my professors how life-changing it was for me to finally read Boethius’ Consolation with care. I could tell he was being patient with me, and that he would surely prefer to be doing something else, but I had him cornered, and in my elation I just didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. 

 

“Boethius is sort of old and tired, isn’t he? It’s not like he’s on the cutting edge of scholarship. You might be better off studying something more contemporary, something that isn’t so derivative of outdated attitudes.”

 

I should have nodded and been on my way, but I stubbornly persisted. I suggested that the arguments were timeless, precisely because they spoke to a universal meaning and purpose in Nature we too often overlook. If we think it’s obsolete, could it be that we’ve forgotten something? Wasn’t there a great truth in recognizing that the whole of the world is ruled by love?

 

I had clearly gone too far, because I got the smirk and the roll of the eyes. “Well, I really can’t help you if you want to follow all that crude physics, and I hardly think anyone in their right mind would say that Boethius has anything to do with love.”

 

I have come to accept that these are not the most popular views, and yet I still believe there is something crucial to be learned from them. Yes, all the talk about the four elements, and the balance of hot and cold, of wet and dry, and the music of the spheres, may not fit our current scientific jargon. I can go deeper than the differences of symbolism and expression, however, and see a common Universe of causality, balance, and order. 

 

And yes, while Boethius may not speak with the emotional intensity of a romantic poet, or with the social conscience of the flower generation, he does most certainly believe that love makes the world go around, as he again makes very clear in the poem above. 

 

In that every aspect of Nature, to whatever degree of awareness or perfection, moves and act for the sake of the good, all creatures are driven by love, drawn toward their fulfillment as parts within the whole. They all work together, admittedly in often mysterious ways, but they are all charged with direction. 

 

It is, in this sense, a love that binds all things together in a unity. 

 

Nothing happens in vain. Each event balances itself out with every other event. Wherever there seems to be a diversion, that diversion itself becomes a means for a correction. Aristotle, or Boethius, or Aquinas understood this just as well as Kepler, or Newton, or Einstein. 

 

I can speak of such a love not just in a metaphorical sense, since the reality of design necessitates the ultimate presence of mind and will. It may not be fashionable to say that the heavens make music, but the fact that they do not literally produce sounds does not mean that they do not reflect the most beautiful harmony. 

 

 

 

4.39

 

“Do you see now,” she continued, “what follows upon all that we have said?”

 

“What is it?” I asked.

 

“That all fortune is plainly good,” she answered.

 

“How can that be?” said I.

 

“Consider this,” she said. “All fortune, whether pleasant or difficult, is due to this cause; it is for the sake of rewarding the good or exercising their virtue, and of punishing and correcting bad men. Therefore, it is plain that all this fortune, which is allowed to be just or expedient, must be good.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 7

 

Even as the whole argument of the Consolation has been leading us to this insight, it can still be a difficult conclusion to accept. We are so accustomed to thinking that bad things happen to good people, and that good things happen to bad people, precisely because we assume that happiness or misery proceed from our external conditions. We look to the circumstances to provide our blessings, instead of looking to our own character to give meaning to the circumstances. 

 

We can hardly be blamed for such habits, having been told for our entire lives, by those who would call themselves our betters, that “getting what we want” requires making the world fit our preferences. We remain ignorant of the other path, that we need only master ourselves. 

 

Rarely will a day pass when I don’t find it necessary to remind myself that all fortune can be good for me, if only I understand it rightly. If I deliberately go through the argument in my head, then I restore my sense that nothing is ever wasted, and that every occurrence is an opportunity. 

 

What is good for me? All that increases my own virtue, my power to live well through understanding and love. What is bad for me? All that increases my own vice, my weakness of living poorly through ignorance and hatred. Once I clearly understand this, and I put it into concrete action instead of merely mouthing the words, then everything else will fall into place. 

 

If I am working toward improving myself, then any kind of fortune, whether we traditionally call it “good” or “bad”, will be of assistance in that improvement. If something is given to me, I now have a chance to make proper use of the situation, and if something is taken away, I also have a chance to make proper use of the situation. Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, easy or difficult, it is helpful to me, and therefore it is good for me. 

 

Do I need to be encouraged in one way? Some things come to me as rewards. Do I need to be discouraged in another way? Other things come to me as corrections. My own awareness of my moral worth will tell me the difference. 

 

And what if I am oblivious to the content of my character, only interested in acquiring and consuming more? Then, out of my own confusion, no state of affairs will be of any use to me at all. Closing myself to the difference between right and wrong, I won’t know where the value is in something that is given to me, and I won’t recognize the benefit in something that is taken away. 

 

Can I still choose to turn myself around? Of course, but that will be entirely up to my own judgment, not up to the whims of Fortune. No reward or punishment has its intended effect without my willingness to embrace its purpose. 

 

Now I can see more clearly what was at first so confusing: All situations are good for the good man, and all situations are bad for the bad man. The one sees them as occasions to act well, while the other sees them as excuses to act poorly. 

 

The light or the darkness are in the quality of my thinking about things, not in the mere presence or absence of things. 

 

 

 

4.40

 

“Yes,” I said, “that is a true argument, and when I think of the Providence or Fate about which you have taught me, the conclusion rests upon strong foundations. But if it please you, let us count it among those conclusions which you a little while ago set down as inconceivable.”

 

“Why?” she asked.

 

“Because it is a commonplace saying among men—indeed an especially frequent one—that some people have bad fortune.”

 

“Would you then have us approach more nearly the common conversation of men, lest we should seem to withdraw too far from human ways?”

 

“If you will,” I said.

 

“Do you not think that that, which is advantageous, is good?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And that fortune, which exercises or corrects, is advantageous?”

 

“I agree,” said I.

 

“Then it is good, is it not?”

 

“It must be so.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 7

 

Nevertheless, it will take some time for the argument, however simple and direct, to sink in and do some work on our prejudices. There is a certain irony in how the things we consciously reflect upon the least will be precisely the ones we take for granted the most. The more commonly accepted an attitude is, the more likely it is to be passed over in silence. There is a heavy weight to conformity. 

 

I am hardly an old man, but in the few dozen times I have circled the Sun, I have seen many common conceptions come and go. With almost all of them, the discussion would begin and end with an appeal to popularity. Debate would rely on certain expressions: “of course”, “obviously”, “that’s unacceptable and offensive”, “only an idiot would think otherwise”. 

 

How often do we actually start with self-evident first principles, and then offer a valid demonstration from them? The disagreements usually arise from confusions about the terms, or from failing to address the truth or falsehood of the supposed facts from which we proceed. When people can’t agree on the most basic of measures, then only the forces of violent opinion can hold sway. 

 

Hence, we are tempted to pontificate on what is best or worst for society, while we have no clear conception of what truly benefits or harms the individual members of society. If I wish to claim it is best for all of us, would it not also require that it is best for any one of us? When was the last time you heard someone explain what is good or bad by appealing to the fundamental identity of human nature itself? 

 

Some begin with wealth, and others begin with power. Some begin with pleasure, and others begin with fame. In all of those cases, however, the worth of a life is dependent on what we have outside of ourselves, not who we are inside of ourselves. 

 

By all means, hold such positions if you wish, but be expected to reasonably defend them if you at all can, and also be prepared to find that they will not be as satisfying as they at first appear. 

 

Boethius, like other thinkers of the universal wisdom traditions, tries to get beyond the accidents to the substance. What defines the human person at the core, behind all the differences we might have? 

 

Only the other day, I again asked someone that very question, and was once more met with an empty stare. 

 

The very fact that I can even ask the question points to one part of the solution, just as the very fact that I can even answer in different ways points to another part of the solution.

 

I know it sounds terribly old-fashioned, but I am distinctly a creature of reason and of will, whatever else I may or may not possess. The operation of the former will shape the exercise of the latter. It is precisely because I have judgment that I also have freedom. 

 

It is therefore the perfection of mind and choice, the practice of knowing and loving, that is able to perfect my nature. Whatever else may happen can only be considered within that ultimate purpose. My own moral merits are what matter for finding my happiness. 

 

Do I already know what I must do? Then all fortune gives me the opportunity to do it. 

 

Do I not yet know what I must do? The all fortune is able to teach me by correcting me. 

 

This only seems inconceivable when I do not know who I am. A belief in bad luck only comes from caring for all the wrong things. 

 

 

 

4.41

 

“This is the fortune of those who are either firmly set in virtue and struggling against their difficulties, or of those who would leave their vices and take the path of virtue?”

 

“That is true,” I said.

 

“But what of that pleasant fortune which is granted as a reward to good men? Do most people perceive that it is bad? No; but, as is true, they esteem it the best. And what of the last kind of fortune, which is hard and which restrains bad men by just punishment? Is that commonly held to be good?”

 

“No,” said I, “it is held to be the most miserable of all that can be imagined.”

 

“Beware lest in following the common conception, we come to some truly inconceivable conclusion.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“From what we have allowed,” she said, “it results that the fortune of those who are in possession of virtue, or are gaining it, or advancing therein, is entirely good, whatever it be, while for those who remain in wickedness, their fortune is the worst.”

 

“That is true, but who would dare confess it?”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 7

 

I find myself vigorously resisting the temptation to look down at popular opinion, since I know how unbearable a snob can be, and how small-minded I can so easily become when I think I have been afforded some special privilege of insight. 

 

Yet let me not swing to the opposite extreme, to blindly accept as being true only what the many propose as being true. Perhaps I should not be thinking that it is necessarily wrong because it is popular, but rather recognize that it all too easily becomes popular because it doesn’t get it entirely right. 

 

Shallow and simplistic values will quickly take hold when we appeal to a lowest common denominator, when we look for the easiest possible solutions. This tendency is only compounded when we see others taking the most convenient or gratifying path, and our passions incite us to choose the security of a well-travelled road. 

 

Put another way, how often have I heard an inspired crowd marching down the street, chanting about how they insist that we all join together in doing what requires the most precise thought, the greatest discernment, the deepest care? “Let’s act in such a way that we don’t jump to hasty conclusions! Who’s with me?”

 

I don’t think it vain to say there is a perfectly good reason that this is not a common sight. 

 

When I consider all of my own worst judgments, they are inevitably the result of wanting what is most pleasurable, and of seeking what requires the least sacrifice on my own part. I wish for the most fun, with the least amount of effort.

 

Yes, I then become the passive man, expecting to receive a feeling of satisfaction, and to do as little as is required of me. I believe that justice depends upon the depth of my gluttony, and upon my sincere commitment to sloth. 

 

This is then the root of my complaints against Fortune. “I lusted for that! Why didn’t I get it? It didn’t fit my longings! Who can I blame?”

 

It only seems so terribly unfair when I fail to take a responsibility for my own character, and, by extension, for my own happiness. 

 

If I begin with the premise that pleasure is the highest good, then I have completely surrendered a mastery of my own life. It will come and go as other things and other people come and go, and so I will constantly be in distress. 

 

If I begin with the premise that utility is the highest good, then I have also made myself subject to what may happen to me, not a ruler of what I am able to do. What is convenient for other will not always be convenient for me, and so I will always be in state of war. 

 

Many situations in life are going to hurt, and sometimes they will hurt intensely. Many situations in life will not be the easiest to manage, and sometimes they will feel insurmountable. 

 

Fortune only seems to hurt me when I let her do my business for me. I will only think it “good” if it gives me more “stuff”, or “bad” if it takes away more “stuff”, because I am reliant upon all that “stuff” to begin with. 

 

Let me learn to be reliant upon myself, and upon my own free agreement with all of Nature, and then the “stuff” takes on a completely different purpose. All of it, however pleasant or unpleasant, convenient or inconvenient, ends up being of service. 

 

It leads to peace of mind, and that brings a joy no “stuff” can ever replace. 

 

Can I use it to be a better man? Then it is always good. No harm will befall me. 

 

Do I still insist on my own immediate gratification? Then it is always bad. My own choices will bring me down. 

 

Is that a popular point of view? Hardly. Is it the right point of view? Certainly. 

 

 

 

4.42

 

“For this reason a wise man should never complain, whenever he is brought into strife with fortune; just as a brave man cannot properly be disgusted whenever the noise of battle is heard, since for both of them their very difficulty is their opportunity, for the brave man of increasing his glory, for the wise man of confirming and strengthening his wisdom. 

 

“From this is virtue itself so named because it is so supported by its strength that it is not overcome by adversity. And you who were set in the advance of virtue have not come to this pass of being dissipated by delights, or enervated by pleasure; but you fight too bitterly against all fortune. 

 

“Keep the middle path of strength and virtue, lest you be overwhelmed by misfortune or corrupted by pleasant fortune. All that falls short or goes too far ahead, has contempt for happiness, and gains not the reward for labor done. It rests in your own hands what shall be the nature of the fortune which you choose to form for yourself. 

 

“For all fortune that seems difficult, either exercises virtue, or corrects or punishes vice.”

 

—from Book 4, Prose 7

 

Is this all going to end up being another advertisement for machismo? I don’t easily buy into that. From the earliest age, I saw how often “manliness” was just an excuse for the glorification of force and violence. 

 

Men are men, I was told, because they swallow their sensitivities, and whenever they see something they want, they throw their weight around to take it for themselves. These champions of manhood also say that women will swoon for that sort of behavior.

 

You tell me that is all outdated now? I regret to say that you are sorely mistaken. I see it in my classroom, I see it at the support group I try to run, I see it at my local VFW. 

 

Men are absolutely at their worst when they are confused about what it means to be a man. Women are equally at their worst when they are confused about what it means to be a woman. Humanity somehow got lost in the shuffle. 

 

See here, once again, how the problem is in my own twisted expectations. Boethius isn’t telling me to be tough in that way. He does indeed want me to be tough, but not like a bully or an abuser. The courage is not in imposing myself upon the world—the courage is in imposing a character upon myself. 

 

What might such a character require, whether for a man or a woman? 

 

Observe carefully what is coming my way. Perhaps it already here, or perhaps I know it is imminent; I’m not sure which is the more troubling. 

 

Then see that my fears, my worries, my sadness, or my lusts are within me, and recognize that those feelings will not define me, unless I decide to let them do so. Accept them, but do not be ruled by them. 

 

Then let them be what they are, and then choose to be who I am. Keep my mind focused on one thought, as sharp as a blade: every event gives me the opportunity to become stronger, not by winning a battle with another, but by winning a battle within myself. 

 

Then stand up, whatever the external consequences might be, and have the fortitude to say: This hurts me, but I will make some good of it; this gratifies me, and yet I will still manage to make some good of it. 

 

Then resist the temptation to think that the pleasant is somehow better than the painful. They are both the same, even as one feels more enticing than the other. Each serves a purpose, however confusing it may seem. 

 

Then find peace, the joy of having done right, whether or not another has done right or done wrong. Stop caring for what others think and do. I will look to what I think and do. 

 

The true warrior does not fight to kill; I believe that would be nothing but a murderer. No, the true warrior fights to protect what is true, good, and beautiful. He, or she, understands where the real war has to be waged. 

 

There will be hardship and adversity on either side: either in my feelings of want or in my feelings of disgust. There will also be a chance to become better by means of them all. Desire drags me one way, and anger drags another. I will tame them both. 

 

Virtue is strength precisely because it demands a steady course, between one extreme or the other. It requires the conscience to lead a life, and the conviction to keep it steady.

 

With those values in mind, circumstances, whatever they might be, will push me further on the right path, or push me off of the wrong path. To use a Millennial phrase, “It’s all good.”

 

It all came to me, but it did not make me. What did I do with it? There’s the real man: not the taker, but the maker. 

 

 

 

4.43

 

“The avenging son of Atreus strove for full ten years 

before he expiated in the fall of Phrygian Troy 

the wrong done to his brother's marriage. 

The same Agamemnon must needs throw off his father's nature, 

and himself, an unwilling priest, 

thrust his knife into his unhappy daughter's throat, 

and buy the winds at the cost of blood, 

when he sought to fill the sails of the fleet of Greece. 

 

“The King of Ithaca wept sore for his lost comrades 

whom the savage Polyphemus swallowed into his huge maw 

as he lay in his vast cave; but, when mad for his blinded eye, 

he paid back with rejoicings for the sad tears he had drawn. 

 

“Hercules became famous through hard labors. 

He tamed the haughty Centaurs, 

and from the fierce lion of Nemea took his spoil. 

With his sure arrows he smote the birds of Stymphalus; 

and from the watchful dragon took the apples of the Hesperides, 

filling his hand with their precious gold; 

and Cerberus he dragged along with threefold chain. 

The story tells how he conquered the fierce Diomede 

and set before his savage mares their master as their food. 

The Hydra's poison perished in his fire. 

He took the horn and so disgraced the brow of the river Achelous, 

who hid below his bank his head ashamed. 

On the sands of Libya he laid Antæus low; 

Cacus he slew to sate Evander's wrath. 

The bristling boar of Erymanthus 

flecked with his own foam the shoulders 

which were to bear the height of heaven; 

for in his last labor he bore with unbending neck the heavens, 

and so won again his place in heaven,

the reward of his last work.

 

“Go forth then bravely 

whither leads the lofty path of high example. 

Why do you sluggards turn your backs? 

When the earth is overcome, the stars are yours.”

 

—from Book 4, Poem 7

 

This a lengthier poem, yet, as with many of the others, it seems a shame to break it into smaller pieces. 

 

I find great comfort in poring over myths and legends, and particularly those of the Greeks and Romans. The have a wonderful way of moving beyond the particulars of time or place, of this or that culture, and touch upon such profound aspects of a universal human condition. 

 

They may be grand in their scale, or fantastical in their context, but by coming to know the characters and their struggles, I also come to know a bit more about myself. By seeing where their choices take them, I also come to understand a bit more about how the Universe unfolds. 

 

Though I have been a teacher for many years, or perhaps because I have been a teacher, I have come to accept that people are often quite unwilling to listen to others, and so I now keep most of my musings to myself. 

 

I suppose there is something quite Boethian about that, since it helps me to remember that my first responsibility is to improve my own attitude above all else. 

 

So if I wrote down everything I have to say about the three tales mentioned here, I would probably fill a whole book on its own. I will limit myself to just a few observations on how they relate to what Boethius has learned. 

 

Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Hercules were all gifted with great strength, skill, and insight, and so I may forget that they were just trying to find their way in the world, like all the rest of us. 

 

They faced obstacles and they made their choices. Sometimes their actions brought them worldly spoils, and sometimes their actions brought them even more terrible suffering. There were always egregious blunders mixed in with the triumphs. 

 

What makes them heroic, despite all of their many flaws, was their courage, not just physical but also moral. They did not lie down when confronted with hardships, but rather stood against them, knowing that the dignity of their lives depended upon the merit of inner character. 

 

Was Agamemnon right to fight against the Trojans as he did? Was he right to sacrifice his own daughter so he could make it home after the war? Those are, I would suggest, precisely the sort of questions we have to ask when reading a good story. 

 

He firmly followed the path he thought was best, however, and surely he came to understand how his fate was ultimately tied up with those choices. 

 

When I first read about Odysseus, I was struck by the fact that he was not always the best of men, and that his cleverness could do him as much harm as it did him good. 

 

Yet even though he could have surrendered and given up his quest at any time, he saw it through, all the way to the end. 

 

When we think of Hercules, the Twelve Labors will come to mind, and we sometimes overlook why he had to complete those tasks to begin with. When Hera had driven him mad, he proceeded to murder his own family, and in his grief he visited the Oracle at Delphi to seek some form of absolution. 

 

He was told that he would have to serve Eurystheus for ten years, and all of Hercules’ achievements arose from his willingness to do so. 

 

Sometimes good men will do evil things, and sometimes evil men will do good things. As Solzhenitsyn said, we must learn that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. 

 

Heroism is found when we recognize that any and all misfortunes serve the purpose of helping us live well. If we have done poorly, suffering is a punishment to correct us, and if we have done well, suffering is then an opportunity to become even better. 

 

The greatness will not be in the conquest of others, but in finally coming to conquer ourselves. 

 

 

 

Book 5

 

5.1

 

Here she made an end and was for turning the course of her speaking to the handling and explaining of other subjects. 

 

Then I said: “Your encouragement is right and most worthy in truth of your name and weight. But I am learning by experience what you just now said of Providence; that the question is bound up in others. I would ask you whether you think that Chance exists at all, and what you think it is?”

 

Then she answered: “I am eager to fulfil my promised debt, and to show you the path by which you may seek your home. But these things, though all-expedient for knowledge, are none the less rather apart from our path, and we must be careful lest you become wearied by our turnings aside, and so be not strong enough to complete the straight journey.”

 

“Have no fear at all of this,” I said. “It will be restful to know these things in which I have so great a pleasure; and when every view of your reasoning has stood firm with unshaken credit, so let there be no doubt of what shall follow.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 1

 

I too have a tendency to get sidetracked, to become distracted by the trees at the expense of the forest, to jump down every intriguing rabbit hole I stumble across. 

 

Part of that comes from spending too much time in academia, where the details are what offer the greatest appearance of authority, but it also comes from a very immediate human temptation. I am prone to focusing in on one thing, that one thing only that puzzles me the most, to the point where an attention to a single aspect blots out the context of the whole. 

 

It is something like that nagging feeling I can get when I enter a beautifully furnished room, but that lone crooked picture keeps me from appreciating any of it. 

 

So it is with good reason that Lady Philosophy worries about Boethius getting diverted from the path he has been trying to follow. I think of how many times I became obsessed with the precise meaning of a Latin word, and before I knew it, I had lost track of the sentence, and the entire passage along with it. 

 

Perhaps she also sees the danger of making something more difficult that it has to be. Sometimes the solution is not found in looking more narrowly, but in understanding how the parts work together. The irony is that I wouldn’t even be having the problem to begin with, if I had only bothered to place it within the context of what lies around it. 

 

Boethius here asks a tangential question, certainly an important one, yet one that I can’t help but think has somehow been answered, at least indirectly, by everything that came before. 

 

What have we already learned about the way the Universe works, about how Providence acts, about how human freedom exists within such design, as opposed to being in conflict with it? Would Boethius still be asking the question if he had put two and two together for himself? 

 

Yet he interrupts to ask it in any event, as I would surely have done as well. It can hover over everything else, that uncertainty as to whether anything is really certain at all. 

 

Is there really such a thing as chance, or luck, or randomness? If there is, won’t that topple what sense of order we have, and if there isn’t, won’t that reduce the whole world to a pre-programmed machine?

 

I have learned about whole philosophies built on the absolute rejection of contingency, and I have seen entire systems of thought that require it to make anything work at all. I have never been satisfied with either extreme, since each will end up denying a basic fact of my experience. The lower causes will suffer at the expense of the higher causes, or the higher causes will suffer at the expense of the lower causes. 

 

Is this really a rabbit hole where I want to stick my head? I suspect I will have to, since I find the problem so puzzling. At the same time, let me not forget what is outside that hole, and let me not be surprised if following the hole leads me right back to where I started. 

 

 

 

5.2

 

“I will do your pleasure,” she made answer, and thus she began to speak:

 

“If chance is defined as an outcome of random influence, produced by no sequence of causes, I am sure that there is no such thing as chance, and I consider that it is but an empty word, beyond shewing the meaning of the matter which we have in hand. 

 

“For what place can be left for anything happening at random, so long as God controls everything in order? It is a true saying that nothing can come out of nothing. None of the old philosophers has denied that, though they did not apply it to the effective principle, but to the matter operated upon—that is to say, to nature; and this was the foundation upon which they built all their reasoning. 

 

“If anything arises from no causes, it will appear to have risen out of nothing. But if this is impossible, then chance also cannot be anything of that sort, which is stated in the definition which we mentioned.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 1

 

We live in an age where they say that “Science” is the new “God”, and while many people I know assume that “Science” and “God” are at odds, I can’t help but wonder where that supposed contradiction came from. 

 

Is it because we foolishly think that one is a matter of reason, and the other is just a matter of faith? 

 

Is it because we narrowly believe that understanding the natural world somehow excludes a supernatural cause, one that must of necessity transcend the very motion and change of matter? 

 

Is it because we are limiting ourselves to a nature defined merely by the physical, while neglecting the immediate reality of the spiritual? 

 

I can’t speak for others, and all I know is that I have grown tired of fighting over something that hardly needs to be fought over. 

 

Science is a method, not a body of doctrine. God is a principle of universal being, not a superstition to justify my preferences. The former should, in one way or another, ultimately arrive at the latter, however we may end up understanding it. 

 

Simply put, if science is the search for truth, and God is the fullness of truth, then science is the search for God. 

 

My God or your God? No, just God, the measure of all things, whatever that entails. Think bigger, not smaller. 

 

I have struggled with all sorts of questions about meaning, and I can’t claim to be as deep and profound as all the great philosophers, theologians, or physicists of the ages, but I learned fairly quickly that the use of reason requires a certain sense of consistency and order. 

 

The first principles of identity, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle are non-negotiable, as soon as I try to make sense of anything at all. 

 

It is what it is, not as a platitude at all, but as the self-evident foundation both of all being and of all thinking. 

 

Adding nothing new to that awareness, if it is one thing, it can simply not be its own opposite. 

 

Put another way, it either is or it isn’t, but it can’t be both, at the same time or in the same sense. 

 

I am amazed at how often people fight such rules, probably because they don’t like rules to begin with, without recognizing that they aren’t imposed from the outside. They are the very conditions of existence, and therefore the very conditions of judgment. 

 

“Beyond” them, there is no reality, and there is no awareness, much like there is no such thing as a square circle. There is no sense, only non-sense. There are mindless worlds, without any definition, and so representing nothing at all. 

 

The principle of causality follows clearly from the above, that if something has come into being, it follows from what already has being. Something can never proceed from nothing, or it would remain nothing, and nothing has ever created itself, as it would require it to exist before it existed. 

 

Nevertheless, how much “Science” do I hear about that posits concepts like randomness, or chance, or chaos, as if these were, in themselves, cryptic sources of existence? 

 

Can we rightly use such terms? Of course, but not as explanations for why things operate as they do; we may use them to describe our weak apprehensions of how things operate, but not as replacements for causality. 

 

“I don’t know how it works” does not mean that it doesn’t work. “I can’t tell if the cat is dead or alive” does not mean the cat is both dead and alive. 

 

We will have to read on to see more about what “chance” involves, but it certainly can’t be a cause, in and of itself. 

 

“Well, at one moment everything was really hot and really dense, and then it just sort of blew up into something else.” Now you complain when you hear Sacred Scripture, but you accept that sort of “Science” without causality? 

 

If “chance” means no causes, there can be no such thing; that’s the most unscientific concept you could possibly imagine. 

 

 

 

5.3

 

“Then is there nothing which can be justly called chance, nor anything ‘by chance’?” I asked. “Or is there anything which common people know not, but which those words do suit?”

 

“My philosopher, Aristotle, defined it in his Physics shortly and well-nigh truly.”

 

“How?” I asked.

 

“Whenever anything is done with one intention, but something else, other than was intended, results from certain causes, that is called chance: as, for instance, if a man digs the ground for the sake of cultivating it, and finds a heap of buried gold.

 

“Such a thing is believed to have happened by chance, but it does not come from nothing, for it has its own causes, whose unforeseen and unexpected coincidence seem to have brought about a chance. 

 

“For if the cultivator did not dig the ground, if the owner had not buried his money, the gold would not have been found. These are the causes of the chance piece of good fortune, which comes about from the causes that meet it, and move along with it, not from the intention of the actor.

 

“For neither the burier nor the tiller intended that the gold should be found; but, as I said, it was a coincidence, and it happened that the one dug up what the other buried. 

 

“We may therefore define chance as an unexpected result from the coincidence of certain causes in matters where there was another purpose. 

 

“The order of the Universe, advancing with its inevitable sequences, brings about this coincidence of causes. 

 

“This order itself emanates from its source, which is Providence, and disposes all things in their proper time and place.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 1

 

While I still could, I would teach the very section of Aristotle’s Physics that Lady Philosophy describes. I would, in fact, try to add the whole bit about the Four Causes, but as the curriculum became narrower, as legislated by our patriotic government or by our holy priests, I was left with very little chance to do so. 

 

Now I can only sneak it in, when on one else is looking. 

 

I know quite well that I am a dinosaur, but I do believe that a knowledge of the Four Causes will help anyone, in all aspects of life. 

 

Where did it come from? We once called that the efficient cause, the source or origin of action, either proximate or ultimate. 

 

What was it made out of? What were the parts? We once called that the material cause, that out of which things came.

 

What was its identity? What gave it a structure? We once called that the formal cause, how the bits were put together. 

 

Where was it going? What was its end or purpose? We once called that the final cause, the aim and intention. 

 

Everything in life, any aspect of life, only make sense within the context of these Four Causes, all joined together. 

 

As I learned about philosophy over the years, I gained the ability to ask about each and every cause, at each and every juncture I faced. 

 

Good Lord, how often I screwed up my life, and yet I somehow never screwed up my life when I followed that pattern of asking those precise questions. 

 

Where did I come from? What am I made of? Who am I? Where am I going? 

 

Answer those four questions with any quality, any at all, and you won’t go wrong. You’ve already won half the battle, just because you asked the questions to begin with. 

 

Now Aristotle did wonder if there might be a Fifth Cause, chance or luck, that works alongside the others. He immediately rejected it. 

 

No, not because it is an inconvenience, but because it is unintelligible. Do I not understand the why? That does not negate the why; it only means that I did not see where it came from, or why it was here, or where it was meant to go. 

 

Deal me a hand of cards, and I might say it is all about chance. Hardly. If I knew the stack of the deck, however shuffled it might be, there would be no chance. 

 

Throw me some dice on the table, and I might say it is all about chance. Hardly. If I knew all the physical variables, the position, the force, and the resistance, I would win every time. 

 

“Well, you don’t know those things, so there is chance!”

 

Yes, but only in my own ignorance, not in how the cards are dealt, or how the dice will fall. 

 

“Idiot! Only God could know all of that!”

 

Yes, exactly. 

 

See? No Fifth Cause. 

 

 

 

5.4

 

“In the land where the Parthian, as he turns in flight, 

shoots his arrows into the pursuer's breast, 

from the rocks of the crag of Achmaenia, 

the Tigris and Euphrates flow from out one source, 

but quickly with divided streams are separate. 

If they should come together 

and again be joined in a single course, 

all that the two streams bear along 

would flow in one together. 

Boats would meet boats, 

and trees meet trees torn up by the currents,

and the mingled waters 

would together entwine their streams by chance;

but their sloping beds restrain these chances vague, 

and the downward order of the falling torrent guides their courses. 

Thus does chance, 

which seems to rush onward without rein, 

bear the bit, and take its way by rule.”

 

—from Book 5, Poem 1

 

Mesopotamia was one anchor of the Fertile Crescent, and like Egypt, the other anchor, people have fought about it incessantly. As I jot down my scribblings right now, almost two thousand years after Boethius wrote, we still find ourselves fighting for it, and dying for it. 

 

Those two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, start out in the mountains to the north, and they wind their own paths to the sea in the south. Rivers are mighty things, yet they are bound by their banks, and the laws of Nature limit their power. 

 

I have never seen either the Tigris or the Euphrates in person, but I have seen the Danube, and the Rhine, and the Mississippi, and the Missouri, and I learned fairly quickly that these are forces you don’t mess with. Rivers can give life, and they can all too easily take life away. 

 

Still, they are made to follow a course. They can be turbulent and destructive, but they are kept in their place. Even when they flood, they must ultimately return right back to where they started. 

 

Fortune, or chance, or luck, or probability, or whatever else we might like to call it, is much the same as one of those rivers. It is still at one moment, and it rushes violently at the next. It comes and it goes. On this day it provides sustenance, and on another day it brings death. You will rely upon it, and yet you can never be quite sure about it. 

 

Does it seem chaotic to me, so terribly unpredictable? That is only because I do not understand how all the pieces fit together. 

 

I do not know that there was more snow up in the mountains a few months ago, and so I do not suspect that my humble home will soon be swept away. 

 

I do not know that there was no rain a thousand miles away, and so I do not suspect that my meager crops will soon die. 

 

Luck, good or bad, is only in how I perceive it, in my own limited way. 

 

None of it is ever random, just like the flow of a great river is never random. I may fish from it today, and I may drown in it tomorrow. I may bless it or curse it, but it is not random. 

 

The river will run in ways I won’t immediately predict, even as I could make some sense of it, if only I bothered to look with some care. 

 

 

 

5.5

 

“I have listened to you,” I said, “and agree that it is as you say. But in this close sequence of causes, is there any freedom for our judgment or does this chain of fate bind the very feelings of our minds too?”

 

“There is free will,” she answered. “Nor could there be any reasoning nature without freedom of judgment. For any being that can use its reason by nature, has a power of judgment by which it can without further aid decide each point, and so distinguish between objects to be desired and objects to be shunned. 

 

“Each therefore seeks what it deems desirable, and flies from what it considers should be shunned. Wherefore all who have reason have also freedom of desiring and refusing in themselves.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 2

 

Being confronted with the vast cosmic scale of things, I may easily feel intimidated. If everything is truly subject to a grand design, with all the bits and pieces meant to be precisely where they are, I will begin to wonder if I can actually matter, if my own choices really make any difference. Perhaps I don’t even have any choices to begin with; perhaps I am just a puppet on a string? 

 

If nothing is ever random, can anything ever move of its own accord? Under the firm hand of Providence, what becomes of my own freedom? 

 

At first, I wish to laugh a little bit, remembering that Boethius originally thought the Universe ran far too loosely, and yet now he worries that it is wound far too tightly. Then, however, I begin to take his dilemma more seriously, when I remember how often I have swung from one extreme to another in my own life. 

 

Here, once again, I may be tempted to think that there are hidden forces at work, such that the decisions I think of as my own are not my own at all. Yes, I seem to be doing the picking and choosing, but could that all be an illusion? Might there be unseen causes, quite beyond my power, lurking behind the causes I think I can see?

 

There are indeed many things I don’t know, and as I get older, I realize that I know ever less and less. But let me not be overwhelmed by what is beyond me, or swept away by a panic about my own significance. Let me begin with what I do know, with what is most immediate and self-evident within my own experience. 

 

I observe many different things, acting in many different ways, and moving along many different paths. Behind all of it, I am conscious of their presence, and I reflect upon their identity. Who am I, then, in contrast to all of this? I have unwittingly answered my own question, just by asking it: I am a creature of understanding, driven by reason. 

 

It is my own judgment, the power to distinguish between what I consider true or false, right or wrong, that determines how I will perceive my world, and in turn determines how I will act. 

 

Yes, things will act upon me, and produce a vast variety of impressions within me, and they may push me this way or pull me that way, bit I will ultimately be the one who decides what is worthy or unworthy, desirable or undesirable, and so I will have the final say in how I act in the face of them. Their meaning is uncovered by my own awareness, and their value is revealed through my own estimation. 

 

I will pursue what I judge as being good, and I will avoid what I judge as being bad. The world will be what it will be, but how I respond to it will be up to me. 

 

“But how do I really know the choice is from me, and not from something else?”

 

A moment of calm is called for here. Am I saying that it will be my judgment that I have no judgments? However contradictory that is, it has still determined how I will act. My internal disposition remains my own. 

 

“But maybe I can decide all I want, and it just doesn’t make any difference with how other things behave, or with what happens to me?”

 

That may well be the case, and my decision may not determine what those things do, but my decision still determines my own attitude. That may not seem like much at first, but it is the fullness of who I am. The rest is about externals. 

 

To the degree that a creature possesses reason, it also possesses the freedom to shape its own thoughts. Where there is consciousness, there is also choice, not as something added to it, but as inherent in its very identity. 

 

In the simplest of terms, my own judgment is the very measure by which I choose. 

 

Before considering how that might possibly fit in with an all-knowing and all-powerful Providence, I need to start with just that. One step at a time! 

 

 

 

5.6

 

“But I do not lay down that this is equal in all beings. Heavenly and divine beings have with them a judgment of great insight, an imperturbable will, and a power which can effect their desires. 

 

“But human spirits must be more free when they keep themselves safe in the contemplation of the mind of God; but less free when they sink into bodies, and less still when they are bound by their earthly members. 

 

“The last stage is mere slavery, when the spirit is given over to vices and has fallen away from the possession of its reason. For when the mind turns its eyes from the light of truth on high to lower darkness, soon they are dimmed by the clouds of ignorance, and become turbid through ruinous passions; by yielding to these passions and consenting to them, men increase the slavery which they have brought upon themselves, and their true liberty is lost in captivity. 

 

“But God, looking upon all out of the infinite, perceives the views of Providence, and disposes each as its destiny has already fated for it according to its merits: ‘He looketh over all and heareth all.’”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 2

 

Perhaps it was simply my eccentric interest in all things medieval, but I was immediately taken by the concept of the “Great Chain of Being”. I had a college professor, a scholar of the old school, who described it with such brilliance and beauty that I could not help but come across it wherever I went. I deeply miss that man; you won’t find ones like that anymore. 

 

I would look at all the scenes that passed before me in life, and I would suddenly no longer see a messy hodgepodge. I noticed how things fit together, both in the horizontal and in the vertical, each part playing a role, each part in the service of the whole. 

 

Who needs all those fancy drugs when you can start thinking like that? 

 

I could blow my own mind by watching a dog chase a cat, or a man mow a lawn, or hundreds of people milling about their business. There was actually an order, a pattern to it all, even when the pieces did not necessarily understand what they were doing. 

 

From the boundless and immovable center, that which alone can properly be called Being, there are many emanations. They differ in the degrees of their perfection, some containing this, and other containing that, and yet they are all intended for a reason. 

 

Go closer to the source, and creatures become more complete. Go further from the source, and they become less complete. A rock is not a fern, and a fern is not a slug, and a slug is not man. In the end, a man is most certainly not a god. 

 

“How dare you say that a man is better than a slug!”

 

Nothing that is meant to be is, strictly speaking, any better than anything else, for the simple reason that is meant to be, by its own nature. No, in the way these things exist they are either more or less independent, and therefore more or less free. 

 

The rock does not think at all, and it is only moved by other things. The fern has life, though it only grows and reproduces. The slug has sensation, but it has no consciousness. A man, however, possesses reason, and so he also possesses choice. 

 

Does this make man the pinnacle of creation? Hardly. Above him, think of creatures of pure intellect and will, not bound to a body as we understand it, and so not limited by mortality. Now think of what is even above that, and there you will find God, the ultimate principle and measure, that by which all other things exist. 

 

Where there is more self-sufficient being, there is also greater freedom. 

 

Human nature fits in a wonderful place, and also a frightening place, a sort of point in the middle. My mind can rise to the highest highs, if only I allow myself to do so. My mind can also fall to the lowest lows, if only I allow myself to do so. 

 

Sometimes I will feel called to greatness by my soul, and at other times I will feel dragged down by the weakness of my body. These two aspects of myself should work together, but I will often get the priorities confused. 

 

The irony of it all is that I am the one who actually chooses whether I am free or a slave, at least in the ways that matter. My own judgements and decisions will determine that. Which part of myself will I allow to rule me? 

 

Am I miserable because of my circumstances? Yes, I am beholden to them, but that was my choice to begin with. I could have chosen very differently. 

 

I can still choose very differently now, while it remains in my power. I am sharing and participating in my fate. 

 

 

 

5.7

 

“Homer with his honeyed lips 

sang of the bright sun's clear light; 

yet the sun cannot burst with his feeble rays 

the bowels of the earth or the depths of the sea. 

Not so with the Creator of this great sphere. 

No masses of earth can block His vision as He looks over all. 

Night's cloudy darkness cannot resist Him. 

With one glance of His intelligence 

He sees all that has been, 

that is,

 and that is to come. 

He alone can see all things, 

so truly He may be called the Sun.” 

 

—from Book 5, Poem 2

 

All analogies are implicitly incomplete, and those concerning the Divine will be especially so, given that we try to describe an infinite and perfect Creator by means of finite and imperfect creatures. To say, for example, that God is like a mighty fortress is quite helpful in one sense, but can also be misleading in another. 

 

Nevertheless, certain images are especially powerful when it comes to describing what is absolute and transcendent, and so mythology and philosophy from many different traditions will often speak of light as a symbol for wisdom and truth, and the Sun as a symbol for the very source of all wisdom and truth. 

 

Light makes things clear and visible, provides warmth and comfort, and is one of the necessary conditions for us to live. I would be a fool to try to stare straight into the Sun, and yet I see everything by means of the Sun. Where there is light we think of a fulfilling presence, and where there is darkness we think of a disturbing absence. 

 

Yet even the light of the Sun cannot reach all places or penetrate within all things. If I consider that all beings are only possible through the unity of Being, that every particular is but a ray of emanation for the Universal, then I will also understand that nothing is beyond the reach of that which is everything.

 

Wherever there is existence, there it is present, not coming from the outside in, but proceeding from the inside out. Wherever there is action, there is the Mind that guides all action. Past, present, and future, and every little aspect, are completely known to it. 

 

I feel relieved to be aware that nothing is in vain, that nothing is beyond the totality and design of what is, but I may now be troubled by something else: how do I, as only a part, fit into the totality of the whole? What will become of me when God not only knows where I came from, and who I am now, but also exactly where I will be going? 

 

Boethius will now struggle mightily with this problem, and he will challenge Lady Philosophy about how much he can possibly matter in the face of what is omnipotent and omniscient. 

 

 

5.8

 

Then said I, “Again am I plunged in yet more doubt and difficulty.”

 

“What are they,” she asked, “though I have already my idea of what your trouble consists?”

 

“There seems to me,” I said, “to be such incompatibility between the existence of God's universal foreknowledge and that of any freedom of judgment. For if God foresees all things and cannot in anything be mistaken, that, which His Providence sees will happen, must result. 

 

“Wherefore if it knows beforehand not only men's deeds but even their designs and wishes, there will be no freedom of judgment. For there can neither be any deed done, nor wish formed, except such as the infallible Providence of God has foreseen. For if matters could ever so be turned that they resulted otherwise than was foreseen of Providence, this foreknowledge would cease to be sure. But, rather than knowledge, it is opinion which is uncertain; and that, I deem, is not applicable to God.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 3

 

This is another one of those spots in the text where people are prone to jump ship; the topic may seem too abstract, the concepts involved too confusing. It’s the sort of problem, like a tree falling in the forest, or going back in time to kill your father, or the sound of one hand clapping, that just makes the head hurt. 

 

My own experience suggests to me, however, that my confusion and frustration does not necessarily mean a question is either irrelevant or unsolvable. Sometimes it simply indicates that I am not being clear in defining the terms involved, or I am seeing a contradiction where none needs to be present, or I am failing to ground the theory in concrete practice. Oftentimes I am all twisted up on all three. 

 

If I start by asking about the dilemma of causal compatibility between Divine omniscience and human autonomy, I am already in over my head. Let me begin with something more immediate and direct, to help me understand why any of this even matters, and to give me some indication of how I can make sense of it. 

 

It is important to me to know that the world has a sense of order and purpose to it, and it is at the same time important to me to know that I am in control of my own choices. It would be disconcerting to live in a universe where nothing makes sense, but it would also be discouraging to live in a universe where I am just a machine with no control over my own life. 

 

Philosophers will sometimes swing between extreme models of what they call determinism and freedom, and yet I find that no one is ever quite satisfied with having one at the exclusion of the other. 

 

Is it possible for things to be subject to design, to a single measure of existence, and still allow people to follow their own paths? Put that way, there is already a sneaking concern: if God runs it all, what’s left for me to run? 

 

Couldn’t God simply choose to let us choose? Yet if God, or however we wish to name such an ultimate reality, is perfect, then He will also possess absolute power and complete knowledge, that which has no limit and beyond which there can be nothing. Surely the Divine, then, must be both omnipotent and omniscient? 

 

This may seem quite fine, until I specifically start wondering more about God’s knowledge, and then it feels like my brain is tied up in knots. 

 

If God knows absolutely everything, He must know what I am going to do, even before I have decided to do it. Furthermore, if God knows everything, He must know it with absolutely certainty; if He didn’t, His knowledge would hardly be perfect.

 

So, does this end up meaning that I really have no freedom at all? I can’t seem to say that God knows my future actions without a doubt, and then add some sort of conditions to that knowledge, that His knowledge depends on what I choose. If God knows it, surely it will happen, and it has to happen. I now worry whether God has to go, or my freedom has to go, because it’s hard to see how they can go together. 

 

Oh dear. Do I now have to become either a Sartre or a Spinoza? Sorry, that’s a philosopher’s inside joke. Is it possible for my judgment and God's judgment to coexist?

 

 

 

5.9

 

“And, further, I cannot approve of an argument by which some men think that they can cut this knot; for they say that a result does not come to pass for the reason that Providence has foreseen it, but the opposite rather, namely, that because it is about to come to pass, therefore it cannot be hidden from God's Providence.

 

“In that way it seems to me that the argument must resolve itself into an argument on the other side. For in that case it is not necessary that that should happen which is foreseen, but that that which is about to happen should be foreseen; as though, indeed, our doubt was whether God's foreknowledge is the certain cause of future events, or the certainty of future events is the cause of Providence.

 

“But let our aim be to prove that, whatever be the shape which this series of causes takes, the fulfilment of God's foreknowledge is necessary, even if this knowledge may not seem to induce the necessity for the occurrence of future events. For instance, if a man sits down, it must be that the opinion, which conjectures that he is sitting, is true; but conversely, if the opinion concerning the man is true because he is sitting, he must be sitting down. There is therefore necessity in both cases: the man must be sitting, and the opinion must be true. But he does not sit because the opinion is true, but rather the opinion is true because his sitting down has preceded it. 

 

“Thus, though the cause of the truth of the opinion proceeds from the other fact, yet there is a common necessity on both parts. In like manner we must reason of Providence and future events. For even though they are foreseen because they are about to happen, yet they do not happen because they are foreseen. None the less it is necessary that either what is about to happen should be foreseen of God, or that what has been foreseen should happen; and this alone is enough to destroy all free will.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 3

 

I can’t help but admire how thorough Boethius’ entire objection is, such a far cry from the thoughtless determinism I see around me far too often. He doesn’t merely take things for granted, or avoid his own responsibility by passing it on to greater powers; he genuinely wishes to understand if human freedom can possibly exist in the presence of any kind of omniscience. 

 

Now the problem may arise from assuming that we somehow have to act because God knows what we will do, when the reverse could also be true, that God knows what we will do because we decide to act. This could seemingly retain our free choice within God’s perfect awareness, by pointing out that the certitude of the latter proceeds from the liberty of the former. 

 

But notice how we are still speaking in terms of what is certain, what has to be, and the fact that Providence is absolutely necessary, having within it no possibility of error or contingency, is really what is getting in the way. 

 

In other words, it hardly matters if we bicker about whether the egg came before the chicken or the chicken came before the egg. The unavoidable fact seems to be that if God knows it, He knows it without a doubt. 

 

I can talk all I want about how my own judgments were the cause behind it turning out the way it did, and that still doesn’t get around the final inevitability of it all. There is no other way it could ever turn out. It is written in stone, in whatever way I speak of it, and so it will come to pass, however much I may object or try to take it back. 

 

Though the scale and degree are obviously rather different, it would be a bit like someone telling me he has written a brilliant computer program, one capable of calculating all the relevant variables, and thereby able to predict all of my actions. 

 

I protest, of course, and insist that I’m the one in charge, that I am following my own way, however clever his technology and programming might be. Of all the nerve!

 

Yet when it’s properly put to the test, it turns out that the program manages to forecast every move I make, long before I come to a particular decision. It’s uncanny, seemingly to be known better than I know myself. 

 

This imaginary computer is not God, of course, and its scope could never be omniscient, but it offers a similar challenge. Where is the freedom, if it has already been prophesied? This is the troubling problem of foreknowledge. 

 

 

 

5.10

 

“Yet how absurd it is that we should say that the result of temporal affairs is the cause of eternal foreknowledge! And to think that God foresees future events because they are about to happen, is nothing else than to hold events of past time to be the cause of that highest Providence. 

 

“Besides, just as, when I know a present fact, that fact must be so; so also when I know of something that will happen, that must come to pass. Thus, it follows that the fulfilment of a foreknown event must be inevitable.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 3

 

Man is a creature granted reason and will, and yet it is in the very nature of these powers of judgment and free choice to permit him to use them well or to use them poorly. 

 

A weakness I discern, both in myself and in others, is the tendency to put the cart before the horse, starting with preferred conclusions and then inserting favorable premises, instead of starting with true premises and proceeding to sound conclusions. If you are unsure of the prevalence of this problem, I ask you only to observe the state of politics and religion in public discourse. 

 

Whenever I have taught Boethius, which I try to do whenever I can, some people will simply grow bored, because they don’t see how the questions are relevant to their immediate gratifications. In that sense, they have already determined what is most important to them, I suppose, even if they haven’t given it much thought. 

 

For those who take up the challenge, however, there is still a further obstacle. Beginning only with what they already take for granted as an unquestionable orthodoxy, of whatever sort, they try to resolve the tension by stressing only one aspect of the whole. 

 

If they already believe in a God, they gloss over the problem of free will by saying that it will happen however God wants it to happen. 

 

If they already don’t believe in a God, they will gloss over the problem of Providence by saying that their own freedom makes it irrelevant. 

 

And so the devout Catholic is tempted to look only one way, and the progressive existentialist is tempted to look only the other way, and both are building on a faith that is both comfortable and blind. They are sadly working backwards. 

 

It is for this reason that I vividly remember when students have taken up the challenge with an open mind and a willing heart. One young lady put it wonderfully, and so I pass on her account:

 

I see how this isn’t just an abstract question, but also a deeply personal one. 

 

In trying to make God bigger in our estimation, more necessary to us, it is too easy to make ourselves so small that we cease to have any significance. Therefore, we mistakenly think that because God matters, we don’t matter at all. 

 

In trying to make ourselves bigger in our estimation, the center of the world, it is too easy to make God so small that He ceases to have any significance. Therefore, we mistakenly think that because we matter, God doesn’t matter at all.

 

If I’m going to make sense of all of it, and not just the bits I happen to like, only having certain assumptions isn’t going to be enough.

 

I think there is a perfectly good reason Boethius has saved this dilemma for last. Yes, it can be technically difficult, but it also gets straight to the core of how our being fits together with all of Being. It won’t do to brush it under the carpet with this or that popular ideology. 

 

If I claim that God knows because we choose, then are we not just pulling God’s strings? And if I claim that we choose because God knows, isn’t God just pulling our strings?

 

I have overheard many good conversations in Texas and Oklahoma diners, most of them far more enlightening than any lecture at a fancy university. They can remarkably cover any topic under the sun, and they can become so ridiculous that they end up being profound. 

 

On one day, a classically surly waitress was wearing a button on her shirt, which informed her customers that “God knows when you don’t tip!”

 

An equally iconic customer took up the challenge, enjoying every moment of it.

 

“Well, the way I see it, if he already knows, then I guess I’m gonna have to not give you a tip, because who am I to question the wisdom of the Lord?”

 

“Shut up, Jack, don’t you get all high and mighty with me!”

 

“Hey, you’re the one who brought God into it, not me!”

 

Good times, and also rather relevant points. 

 

 

 

5.11

 

“Lastly, if anyone believes that any matter is otherwise than the fact is, he not only has not knowledge, but his opinion is false also, and that is very far from the truth of knowledge. Wherefore, if any future event is such that its fulfilment is not sure or necessary, how can it possibly be known beforehand that it will occur? 

 

“For just as absolute knowledge has no taint of falsity, so also that which is conceived by knowledge cannot be otherwise than as it is conceived. That is the reason why knowledge cannot lie, because each matter must be just as knowledge knows that it is. 

 

“What then? How can God know beforehand these uncertain future events? For if He thinks inevitable the fulfilment of such things as may possibly not result, He is wrong; and that we may not believe, nor even utter, rightly. But if He perceives that they will result as they are in such a manner that He only knows that they may or may not occur, equally, how is this foreknowledge, this which knows nothing for sure, nothing absolutely? 

 

“How is such a foreknowledge different from the absurd prophecy which Horace puts in the mouth of Tiresias: ‘Whatever I shall say, will either come to pass, or it will not ‘? How, too, would God's Providence be better than man's opinion, if, as men do, He only sees to be uncertain such things as have an uncertain result? But if there can be no uncertainty with God, the most sure source of all things, then the fulfilment of all that He has surely foreknown, is certain.” 

 

—from Book 5, Prose 3

 

Saying that we know something, as distinct from merely having an opinion, following a hunch, or hazarding a guess, carries with it a certain weight, and it is with good reason that we therefore take a claim of knowledge far more seriously. 

 

If I claim to know it, I should be able to back it up, point to the evidence, and offer irrefutable proof. “Well, just because . . .” or “You’re going to have to trust me on this one!” isn’t going to cut it. As Plato said, knowledge differs from opinion in that it is tied down, and it stays in its place. Opinions come and go with our whims, but knowledge brings with it a hard necessity. 

 

As a simple example, I was worried when I suspected that the lost love of my life was fooling around behind my back. I was absolutely devastated, however, when I actually saw her doing it. There was no getting around it anymore, and I could no longer make excuses for myself. Ironically enough, it was the event that made me start reading Boethius with a greater commitment. It’s the strangest things that will bring you closer to philosophy. 

 

That certainty can also bring with it a burden. I may not want it that way, but I have to accept that it is that way. It gets even worse when it comes to prophecies, when I am assured that it will be that way, as much as the coming prospect fills me with dread. 

 

If it is real soothsaying, the genuine article, then it will have to be as it will be. Yes, we frown on that sort of thing nowadays, but I should not be so quick to reject the possibility that some are given insights about the future straight from the source of the Divine. Whether or not there can be human messengers of such truths, God must surely know how it must play itself out. If it is known with Divine perfection, it will seem to be inevitable by means of Divine authority. 

 

In writing his satire, Horace was having a bit of fun at the expense of Tiresias, making him out to be a sort of used car salesman, a fellow who offers conditions to every promise, and qualifies in the fine print that the guarantee is not really a guarantee at all. “I assure you that it will happen, unless, of course, it doesn’t happen.” Certain New Age psychics, self-help gurus, and politicians do much the same to this day. 

 

But they don’t really know, do they? They are playing the odds, hoping that if they are clever enough or vague enough that you will fall for the trick. They cryptically go through every letter of the alphabet, but when they arrive at ‘Z’ and notice you perk up about your Aunt Zoe, they’ve got you by the short and curlies. 

 

Providence will have to be a bit different, of course, as it proceeds from truth that cannot be doubted. The Greeks understood this when they wrote all those terrifying tragedies, where mortals vainly tried to avoid their fates. That hubris will get you every time. 

 

Laius hears from the Oracle that he will be killed by his own son, and so he immediately disposes of the boy. The young Oedipus, however, ends up being raised by Polybus and Merope. 

 

Oedipus himself also later hears from the Oracle, that he will murder his father and marry his mother. Horrified by the prospect, he leaves home and makes his way to Thebes. What happens next is seemingly unavoidable, and the more those involved try to change events, the more they assure that they will happen. 

 

Laius falls at the crossroads, Oedipus outwits the Sphinx, and he then weds Jocasta. It ends in grief, death, and blindness, as the Oracle always knew it would. 

 

Where is the freedom in that fate? 

 

 

 

5.12

 

“Thus we are led to see that there is no freedom for the intentions or actions of men; for the mind of God, foreseeing all things without error or deception, binds all together and controls their results. And when we have once allowed this, it is plain how complete is the fall of all human actions in consequence.

 

“In vain are rewards or punishments set before good or bad, for there is no free or voluntary action of the mind to deserve them; and what we just now determined was most fair, will prove to be most unfair of all, namely to punish the dishonest or reward the honest, since their own will does not put them in the way of honesty or dishonesty, but the unfailing necessity of development constrains them. 

 

“Wherefore neither virtues nor vices are anything, but there is rather an indiscriminate confusion of all deserts. And nothing could be more vicious than this; since the whole order of all comes from Providence, and nothing is left to human intention, it follows that our crimes, as well as our good deeds, must all be held due to the author of all good. 

 

“Hence it is unreasonable to hope for or pray against anything. For what could any man hope for or pray against, if an undeviating chain links together all that we can desire? Thus will the only understanding between God and man, the right of prayer, be taken away. 

 

“We suppose that at the price of our deservedly humbling ourselves before Him we may win a right to the inestimable reward of His Divine grace: this is the only manner in which men can seem to deal with God, so to speak, and by virtue of prayer to join ourselves to that inaccessible light, before it is granted to us; but if we allow the inevitability of the future, and believe that we have no power, what means shall we have to join ourselves to the Lord of all, or how can we cling to Him? Wherefore, as you sang but a little while ago the human race must be cut off from its source and ever fall away.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 3

 

When I come across forms of “hard” determinism, whether in the lofty world of the academy or in the grit and grime of daily life, I often notice some recurring patterns. 

 

At the basest level, a good many people are enamored of denying freedom for the very practical reason that it does away with the inconveniences of moral accountability. 

 

Others find a certain comfort in seeing a world where there can be absolutely no ambiguity, where any personal autonomy would only get in the way of a perfect sense of order. 

 

And still others may employ the concept of a cold and impersonal fate as a final expression of surrender and hopelessness, feeling quite resentful, but having resigned themselves to not making the slightest bit of a difference. 

 

I can’t help but think that Boethius has arrived at something like the last of these stages, having tried so hard to make sense of how all the pieces fit together, only to discover that there doesn’t seem to be any room for his own voice to be heard, for his own choices to play any role. I am reminded of Boethius’ melancholic self-pity from the beginning of the text, and I am reminded of the times I have succumbed to a similar gloom. 

 

All the theory behind it is imposing enough, but then we must come to terms with the overwhelming practical results. At first, it may seem like a “get out of jail free” card, or even a simple way to avoid the subtlety and complexity of overlapping causes, and then we are faced with nothing less than the end of our very humanity. It won’t be enough to say that my actions don’t matter, since they aren’t really my actions at all. 

 

There is no credit or blame, and so it can hardly be said that anything at all is deserved. Did I receive something I thought beneficial, or suffer something I perceived as harmful? It had nothing to do we with me to begin with, and so my estimation of it is an illusion. It was God’s all-pervading awareness that made it come to pass. 

 

A sense of moral good or evil is now completely erased; right and wrong cease to be distinct, reduced to the inevitability of destiny, clean, cold, precise, impersonal. I have foolishly thought that I can, at the very least, still follow a righteous path, only now to see that I am being led about on a leash. 

 

Is it any wonder we have become so cynical about improving ourselves, or trusting in some ultimate triumph of righteousness, or making humble attempts at prayer? My own attitude, at any level, has nothing to do with the outcome, so why even bother? 

 

It becomes all the more frustrating, since I quite clearly appear to have the power of reason, and therefore the power of decision, and yet those very judgments are now being employed to prove to me that I actually don’t have any judgments. There seems to be a terrible contradiction here, that I am free to understand how I am not free to understand. 

 

Might this conflict within me, however, be pointing to the possibility of a better solution? Whenever I claim to be accepting opposing statements simultaneously, isn’t it usually the case that my thinking is confused, not that reality is confused? If I struggled to understand the order of Providence a bit more carefully, might I then not avoid the absurdity of choosing not to choose? 

 

 

 

5.13

 

“What cause of discord is it breaks the bonds of agreement here? 

What heavenly power has set such strife between two truths? 

Thus, though apart each brings no doubt, 

yet can they not be linked together.

Comes there no discord between these truths? 

Stand they forever sure by one another? 

Yes, 'tis the mind, overwhelmed by the body's blindness, 

which cannot see by the light of that dimmed brightness 

the finest threads that bind the truth. 

But wherefore burns the spirit with so strong desire 

to learn the hidden signs of truth? 

Knows it the very object of its careful search? 

Then why seeks it to learn anew what it already knows?

If it knows it not, why searches it in blindness?

For who would desire aught unwitting? 

Or who could seek after that which is unknown? 

How should he find it, 

or recognize its form when found, 

if he knows it not? 

And when the mind of man perceived the mind of God, 

did it then know the whole and parts alike? 

Now is the mind buried in the cloudy darkness of the body,

 yet has not altogether forgotten its own self, 

and keeps the whole though it has lost the parts.

Whosoever, therefore, seeks the truth, is not wholly in ignorance, 

nor yet has knowledge wholly; for he knows not all, 

yet is not ignorant of all. 

He takes thought for the whole which he keeps in memory,

handling again what he saw on high, 

so that he may add to that which he has kept, 

that which he has forgotten.”

 

—from Book 5, Poem 3

 

Time and time again, I find myself confronting the danger of false dichotomies, where it is assumed that statements must be in contradiction to one another, when they are, in fact, quite compatible, if only they are rightly understood. We too readily limit our options, immediately seeing disagreement where there should be harmony. 

 

This happens quite often, in my experience, when we do not clearly grasp the meaning of the terms we are using, or when our definitions become too narrow, failing to see the different senses in which we can speak of the truth of a proposition. I also wonder if we sometimes just prefer the thrill that comes from completely unnecessary conflict, the weakness of wishing to divide what is made to be one. 

 

I am prone to missing the whole of something, because I am distracted by only one particular part, and my awareness is narrowed when I allow myself to be caught up in a specifically tantalizing impression. I scratch at the surface, picking away here and there, and I don’t bother to dig deeper, down to the roots. My baser instincts cloud my understanding, as if my eyes had grown atrophied from mucking about for too long in the dark. 

 

Boethius here refers of Plato’s doctrine of Recollection, the idea that learning something new is actually remembering something we have forgotten. All the specifics of the argument, and all the different ways in which it can be interpreted, are a lengthy discussion for another time, but I suggest that the point here is to consider how coming to genuinely know the truth requires uncovering principles that are, in some sense, already present within our minds. 

 

We seek out our own nature, within the order of a greater Nature guided by Providence, and we find that we are only rediscovering ourselves and our place in the world, becoming reacquainted with what we have neglected to nurture. 

 

I may have overlooked who I am in the grand scheme of things, on account of all the petty baggage that weighs me down, and all the clutter I have accumulated in my head, but now it’s time to lift myself up and dust off the cobwebs. 

 

When it comes to approaching the problem of Providence and free will, I do not need to place obstacles in my own path. Seen from a higher perspective, Creator and creature are never at odds. 

 

 

 

5.14

 

Then said she, “This is the old charge concerning Providence, which was so strongly urged to Philosophy by Cicero when treating of Divination, and you yourself have often and at length questioned the same subject. 

 

“But so far, none of you have explained it with enough diligence or certainty. The cause of this obscurity is that the working of human reason cannot approach the directness of Divine foreknowledge. If this could be understood at all, there would be no doubt left. And this especially will I try to make plain, if I can first explain your difficulties.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

The argument Boethius has made can be found in many other places, and it does not merely matter in an academic sense, but it also has very real consequences for how we approach our daily lives. If everything is already determined by fate, what will be the point of trying to do anything differently than it has to turn out? Even all the prophecies in the world will be of no good whatsoever in changing direction. 

 

Cicero said it nicely: 

 

For if all things happen by Fate, it does us no good to be warned to be on our guard, since that which is to happen, will happen regardless of what we do. But if that which is to be can be turned aside, there is no such thing as Fate; so, too, there is no such thing as divination—since divination deals with things that are going to happen. But nothing is “certain to happen” which there is some means of dealing with so as to prevent its happening.

 

Or, to put it in the simplest of terms, why even bother? I feel like I am about to be transformed into Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. 

 

Yet Lady Philosophy points out where our problem lies: it is the term of Providence itself, which we do not understand as clearly and as thoroughly as we might think. 

 

My body, as strong as I might imagine it, is but a small dot of matter, quick to come and go. My senses perceive only through narrow channels, as if they were trying to observe a grand scene through the slats of a fence. My thought, in potency able to embrace such a vastness, is in actuality bound by the limits of my experience, and, I suspect more importantly, by the blindness of my arrogance. 

 

I see the bits and pieces, as through a glass darkly, and yet I think I see everything.

 

Most restrictive of all, I am a creature in progress, and therefore a creature of change. I am subject to time. God, on the other hand, is a perfect Creator, completely transcending and beyond any change. God is timeless. 

 

And so I will impose my own limitations upon what is by definition limitless. “If God already knows, what’s the point?” Wait a moment. There is no already for Providence, and there is no past or future for Providence. There is only a now.

 

It isn’t prescience, or prophecy, or divination. It is immediacy. 

 

 

 

5.15

 

“Tell me why you think abortive the reasoning of those who solve the question thus; they argue that foreknowledge cannot be held to be a cause for the necessity of future results, and therefore free will is not in any way shackled by foreknowledge. 

 

“Whence do you draw your proof of the necessity of future results if not from the fact that such things as are known beforehand cannot but come to pass? If, then, as you yourself admitted just now, foreknowledge brings no necessity to bear upon future events, how is it that the voluntary results of such events are bound to find a fixed end? 

 

“Now for the sake of the argument, that you may turn your attention to what follows, let us state that there is no foreknowledge at all. Then are the events which are decided by free will, bound by any necessity, so far as this goes? Of course not. 

 

“Secondly, let us state that foreknowledge exists, but brings no necessity to bear upon events; then, I think, the same free will will be left, intact and absolute." 

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

The language can get a little frustrating from here on in, and the twists and turns of the arguments often require some patient rereading, so to keep it all straight in my head I try to remember that only two basic facts are being presented, and that the question revolves around how they actually work together. 

 

First, things happen. Events take place. 

 

Such actions may already have happened, may be happening now, or will still happen, but they are events in the world. Perhaps they happen from some external cause, or from some internal act of choice, but they assuredly take place. 

 

Second, things are known. Events are understood. 

 

Such awareness may be of the past, or of the present, or of the future, but a mind is conscious of them. Perhaps that knowledge is narrower, as it would be for a human, or boundless, as it would be for God, but it is still an act of knowledge. 

 

As long as I keep hold of this distinction, the problem will not seem so intimidating. I am getting tripped up and frustrated by jumping to conclusions about what comes first, and what comes second. Which one is the cause, and which one is the effect? 

 

All other things being equal, and setting aside, for the moment, the grand cosmic scope of what is at stake, would I normally say that I know something because it happens, or would I say that something happens because I know it? The former claim seems sensible, the latter one a bit confused. 

 

Why, then, am I applying a different set of rules to the bigger picture? As soon as the scale changes, I seem to insist that the event proceeds from the awareness, instead of the awareness proceeding from the event. Assuming that the ultimate order of Providence has already chosen to permit it, there is no reason to say that foreknowledge and free will are at odds. 

 

But if I look back at the earlier objections, I will recall that it was the question of the certainty of God’s knowledge that was standing in the way. There cannot possibly be any error in Divine thought, and so I am tempted to claim that an apparent necessity in the knowing is bringing about an apparent necessity in the event, failing to see that I might have it backwards. 

 

What if, for example, I hypothetically posited that there was no foreknowledge at all? Would the event still take place? Surely it would continue on, just as it was before. 

 

If I then do add foreknowledge into the equation, does that now change the fact that the event will still take place, according to its own proximate causes? What is stopping human choice from playing its role? It is what it is, on its own terms, the lower being allowed within the context of the higher. 

 

 

 

5.16

 

“‘But,’ you will say, ‘though foreknowledge is no necessity for a result in the future, yet it is a sign that it will necessarily come to pass.’ 

 

“Thus, therefore, even if there had been no foreknowledge, it would be plain that future results were under necessity; for every sign can only show what it is that it points out; it does not bring it to pass. Wherefore we must first prove that nothing happens but of necessity, in order that it may be plain that foreknowledge is a sign of this necessity.

 

“Otherwise, if there is no necessity, then foreknowledge will not be a sign of that which does not exist. Now it is allowed that proof rests upon firm reasoning, not upon signs or external arguments; it must be deduced from suitable and binding causes. How can it possibly be that things, which are foreseen as about to happen, should not occur? 

 

“That would be as though we were to believe that events would not occur which Providence foreknows as about to occur, and as though we did not rather think this, that though they occur, yet they have had no necessity in their own natures which brought them about. 

 

“We can see many actions developing before our eyes; just as chariot drivers see the development of their actions as they control and guide their chariots, and many other things likewise. Does any necessity compel any of those things to occur as they do? Of course not. All art, craft, and intention would be in vain, if everything took place by compulsion.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

Fine, perhaps I have been jumping the gun. I may have to admit that God’s knowledge isn’t actually what makessomething happen the way it does; can’t I continue to affirm that it still must happen the way it does, and so God’s knowledge is merely an indicator, a “sign”, of that inevitability? The inevitability would still be there! 

 

Still, I need to be careful about what I mean by something being inevitable or necessary. Yes, I can say that something has happened, or that it is happening, or that it will happen, and yet that does not necessarily imply that it could not be different, that it is impossible for it to be otherwise. 

 

I have done many things in my life, for example, a few of which I am proud, and a very many of which I am ashamed. There is unfortunately no changing them now, of course, well after the fact. Nevertheless, at the time I had a breadth of options open to me, and I could have followed any number of different paths. My own judgments moved me one way or another, making the results contingent, hardly inevitable or necessary. 

 

In whatever time that remains to me, I am also still going to do certain things, hopefully with somewhat of a better balance of gains and losses. They are not yet complete, even as they will depend on my future decisions, and even as I can hardly even imagine now what sort of situations I might face. There is no doubt that there will be results to come, but those result are not yet written in stone. 

 

Does God know what I have chosen in the past? Yes, just as I do, even though He surely knows me far better than I know myself. 

 

Does God know what I will choose in the future? Yes, even though for me they are only topics of wild speculation. 

 

I am sorely mistaken, however, if I think that I have to do anything because God already knows it, or even that God could only know it because I had no choice in doing it. I make the call, and God understands exactly the call I make. 

 

I have never driven a chariot, though I have tried my best at driving a car, and at least I was taught to always look around me, to always be aware of what was happening on the road. 

 

Perhaps I have been sloppy and distracted, however, and I suddenly see a tree growing larger in my windshield. The tree isn’t moving toward me, of course, but I am moving toward the tree, and it might seem that an impact is imminent. 

 

Must there be a crash? This whole situation wouldn’t have happened to begin with, if I’d paid attention a moment earlier, and it might still be resolved for the best if I react thoughtfully and quickly right now. Some variables will be up to me, and other variables will be up to forces far beyond me. 

 

To put it another way, I am not simply played upon by the world, but I am also myself a player in the world. Even as I am moved about by things outside me, I also continue to move myself. Providence accounts for that, and Providence understands that. 

 

 

 

5.17

 

“Therefore, if things have no necessity for coming to pass when they do, they cannot have any necessity to be about to come to pass before they do. 

 

Wherefore there are things whose results are entirely free from necessity. For I think not that there is any man who will say this, that things, which are done in the present, were not about to be done in the past, before they are done. 

 

“Thus these foreknown events have their free results. Just as foreknowledge of present things brings no necessity to bear upon them as they come to pass, so also foreknowledge of future things brings no necessity to bear upon things which are to come.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

I have no difficulty at all understanding the existence of my own free will right here and now, as I am quite aware of how, as a rational animal, my actions are moved by my judgments. 

 

With my apologies to Marcus Aurelius, when I woke up this morning, I had to decide if I would even get out of bed. Realizing that it will be preferable for me to have some money, so I can have a home to come back to, I commit to going to work. When I arrive, I find myself confronted with a number of different people, many of whom will treat me very poorly. Though I have feelings of irritation and resentment, I choose today to respond with patience and kindness, rather than unleashing my Irish temper. 

 

Yet I seem to have great difficulty if I consider some other situation further in the future, and I will worry that my free will has been crushed by the cold hand of fate. An awareness of my rationality is frozen by a fear of destiny. 

 

With my apologies to Douglas Adams, when I wake up on a Thursday five years from now, I will discover that a construction crew is about to tear down my house to build a bypass road. I will feel indignant, and in protest I will lie down in front of the machinery. Being in a less patient mood than usual, because his wife has left him, the foreman will simply run me over me with a bulldozer, just before my helpful friend from Guildford will arrive to defuse the situation. 

 

My management of my feelings today appears entirely within my power, and yet my gruesome death by bulldozer that is to come feels coldly determined, something I have no power to escape at all. 

 

Why is that? Somehow, a knowledge of what is at the present allows me to accept freedom, while a knowledge of what will be in the future leads me to deny it. 

 

In reality, of course, there is absolutely no difference between the two situations, besides their locations in time. In both cases I am faced with certain circumstances, and in both cases I use my own estimation to respond. My choices to be forgiving on one day and combative on another are entirely my own, and so too the consequences are mine to determine. 

 

Yes, something happens now, and yes, something will happen then, but where the actions of a rational soul become involved, those results are produced by contingency, not by necessity. 

 

Here or there, now or then, Providence fully knows what I do, and what I will do, and yet I am still the one who is doing it. 

 

 

 

5.18

 

“But you will say that there is no doubt of this too, whether there can be any foreknowledge of things which have not results bounden by necessity. For they do seem to lack harmony, and you think that if they are foreseen, the necessity follows; if there is no necessity, then they cannot be foreseen; nothing can be perceived certainly by knowledge, unless it be certain. 

 

“But if things have uncertainty of result, but are foreseen as though certain, this is plainly the obscurity of opinion, and not the truth of knowledge. For you believe that to think anything other than it is, is the opposite of true knowledge. 

 

“The cause of this error is that every man believes that all the subjects, that he knows, are known by their own force or nature alone, which are known; but it is quite the opposite. For every subject, that is known, is comprehended not according to its own force, but rather according to the nature of those who know it. 

 

“Let me make this plain to you by a brief example: the roundness of a body may be known in one way by sight, in another way by touch. Sight can take in the whole body at once from a distance by judging its radius, while touch clings, as it were, to the outside of the sphere, and from close at hand perceives through the material parts the roundness of the body as it passes over the actual circumference.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

Perhaps I am slowly zooming in on the ultimate source of my confusion here, when I can consider not only what it means for me to be the immediate cause of my own actions, but then also what it means for God to know what I willdo, just as He knows what I am doing right now. 

 

With my apologies to Douglas Adams once again, the difficulty of a finite human mind trying to understand the workings of an infinite Divine Mind is something akin to “having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.”

 

I am looking at it with a squint, seeing only tiny bits and pieces instead of the whole, and struggling to come to terms with it indirectly and incompletely; I am weakly pointing to what I can’t know by means of the little that I can know.

 

It still bothers me that I am making my own decisions, and the results are open-ended to me, while God knows those decisions with certainty, and they are like a done deal for Him. This is only happening because my awareness is limited to specific bounds, and Providence is completely boundless; the disconnect is in my own weakness of apprehension, not in the order of Nature itself. 

 

Though it may seem rather technical and obscure, one of my favorite passages from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower.” On its own, that doesn’t seem to help much at all, and may even seem to make the matter worse, but some patience is once again in order. 

 

A more accessible way of saying it is that we see things just as much by what we are as by what they are. These things are present to us, and their identities are the objects we are working with, but how we go about receiving those identities is determined by the scope of our own powers. 

 

Lady Philosophy’s example is quite helpful in bringing such an abstract concept down to earth. A ball may have the property of being a sphere, and I can certainly learn about that property, yet the means I use to come to that awareness will all have their own distinct strengths and weaknesses. 

 

Using my eyes will give me an image of the whole before me, though I will still only be seeing that image from this or that perspective. 

 

Using my hands will give me a more immediate sense of its curvature, though I will still only be in contact with one part of the ball at any given moment. 

 

Vision discerns in one way, and touch in another, and neither reveals all of the aspects that can be perceived in the ball. 

 

I am reminded of the old Hindu story about blind men running their hands over different parts of an elephant, and each man comes to a different conclusion about what is in front of him. There is no need for any skeptical panic here, since all of them are aware of the elephant, and their senses are not deceiving them, even as they allow their imaginations to run away with them. 

 

I also think of Flatland, that wonderful book by Edwin Abbott. How, for example, might beings living in a two-dimensional world perceive beings from a three-dimensional world? How do lower planes of existence look up to the higher, and how do the higher look down to the lower? Things may well be as they seem, but they are often far more than they seem. 

 

Who I am as a human being sets the conditions for how I can come to terms with my experience. This is only a burden if I fail to become aware of my own mode, of my own parameters. 

 

 

 

5.19

 

“A man himself is differently comprehended by the senses, by imagination, by reason, and by intelligence. 

 

“For the senses distinguish the form as set in the matter operated upon by the form; imagination distinguishes the appearance alone without the matter. 

 

“Reason goes even further than imagination; by a general and universal contemplation it investigates the actual kind which is represented in individual specimens. 

 

“Higher still is the view of the intelligence, which reaches above the sphere of the universal, and with the unsullied eye of the mind gazes upon that very form of the kind in its absolute simplicity.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

The power of awareness can take on many distinct forms, and this becomes evident when we consider the various expressions of our own human consciousness. It should also reveal that we ourselves, in turn, can be apprehended in a range of degrees, from the narrow to the broad, from the more concrete to the more abstract, from the imperfect to the perfect. 

 

The way a dog is aware of a man is different than the way a man is aware of a dog, and the way a man is aware of God is different than the way God is aware of a man. 

 

I apologize if my own attempts at explanation tend to come from the language and perspective of Thomist philosophy, but these are the terms that best help me to express difficult problems. There are, of course, many other schools and traditions, all of them trying, in their own ways, to arrive at an account of what it means to perceive or to know. Boethius, like St. Thomas, always tried to work from a synthesis of different classical models. 

 

On the level of the senses, the particular impression received is of a form joined to its specific matter. I am aware of this individual dog, physically present right before me. 

 

On the level of imagination, that same particular impression is retained, as in memory, separately from its matter. I am still aware of this individual dog, but I recall it without its physical presence. 

 

On the level of reason, the form is considered in universal abstraction. I am no longer looking at this dog, or at thatdog, with all of their particular differences, but I come to apprehend the identity that all dogs essentially share in common. 

 

And finally, on the level of what can be called intelligence, form is fully and completely contained within Mind, not received from the outside, or subject to any sort of alteration. 

 

This would be, however poorly we are able to speak of it, the mode of Divine knowledge, nothing less than God’s presence to Himself, as the source and measure of all creatures. 

 

The dog can sense me, and he can remember me. I can also sense and remember the dog, but I can further contemplate his inherent identity, and ponder what the meaning of “dogness” is. 

 

And beyond any of that is the perfect knowledge of God, where His existence and His knowledge are one and the same. Trying to contrast the consciousness of a creature to the consciousness of the Creator is something like comparing a drop of water to the entire ocean, and then some. 

 

 

 

5.20

 

“Herein the chief point for our consideration is this: the higher power of understanding includes the lower, but the lower never rises to the higher. 

 

“For the senses are capable of understanding nothing but the matter; imagination cannot look upon universal or natural kinds; reason cannot comprehend the absolute form; whereas the intelligence seems to look down from above and comprehend the form, and distinguishes all that lie below, but in such a way that it grasps the very form which could not be known to any other than itself.

 

“For it perceives and knows the general kind, as does reason; the appearance, as does the imagination; and the matter, as do the senses, but with one grasp of the mind it looks upon all with a clear conception of the whole. 

 

“And reason too, as it views general kinds, does not make use of the imagination or the senses, but yet does perceive the objects both of the imagination and of the senses. 

 

“It is reason which thus defines a general kind according to its conception: Man, for instance, is an animal, biped, and reasoning. This is a general notion of a natural kind, but no man denies that the subject can be approached by the imagination and by the senses, just because reason investigates it by a reasonable conception and not by the imagination or senses. 

 

“Likewise, though imagination takes its beginning of seeing and forming appearances from the senses, yet without their aid it surveys each subject by an imaginative faculty of distinguishing, not by the distinguishing faculty of the senses.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

Each level of awareness perceives in its own distinct way, and each level adds something further to the one that came before it, such that a more fundamental and more complete grasp is achieved at each stage. The degree of apprehension for the greater stages contains the scope of the lesser stages, even as the lesser stages cannot rise up to the fullness and depth of the greater stages. 

 

By analogy, using only the level of sense, I think of the difference between eyes that can only see in black and white compared to eyes that can see in color, or ears that can only hear in narrower frequencies compared to ears that can hear in broader frequencies, or a nose that can only smell something close at hand compared to a nose that can smell something from a mile away. 

 

A veterinarian once told me that a dog can’t see colors in the same range as I can, and so the furry fellow will not recognize certain patterns that are obvious to me. At the same time, let me give the dog his credit, because he surely feels that there is something wrong with me when I can’t hear that same whistle that he hears, or I am oblivious to that irresistible scent he has latched onto. 

 

I swear, I think my cat is laughing at me whenever I trip over things in the dark. 

 

Imagination includes the range of sensation, and yet rises above it by separating the appearance. Reason includes the ranges of sensation and imagination, but rises above them by separating the universal from the particular. Intelligence includes the range of all the others, but rises above them even further by grasping everything as an absolute and immediate whole. 

 

I have little difficulty comprehending sensation and imagination through my own reason, and yet I will drive myself mad trying to comprehend the higher level of intelligence through my own reason. I can consider it only indirectly, by means of a likeness to what I do know, much like a man born blind can only conceive of colors from the context of hearing, taste, touch, or smell. 

 

I was fascinated to once see a teacher explaining music to deaf children by replacing notes with visual images, and then having them perform a piece by rhythmically moving colored cards. He was using reason to fill in a gap in sensation, a higher power to define a lower power, yet when a philosopher tries to define the Divine Mind, he is vainly attempting to work from the bottom up. 

 

I suppose all he can really say is that “This consciousness must be something like my own, but in a complete and self-sufficient way that is entirely beyond my limited range of experience.”

 

How does a goldfish see the world outside his bowl? What awareness does he have of me standing over him? I may think his reality is so terribly limited, but that divide comes nowhere close to the infinite expanse between my thoughts and God’s thoughts. 

 

 

 

5.21

 

“Do you see then, how in knowledge of all things, the subject uses its own standard of capability, and not those of the objects known?

 

“And this is but reasonable, for every judgment formed is an act of the person who judges, and therefore each man must of necessity perform his own action from his own capability and not the capability of any other.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

Whenever I know something, it is certainly made present to me, yet how it appears, which aspects of it are clear and which aspects of it are unclear, will depend on how I am able to actively approach it. The scope of my own powers determines what can be brought within myself, and what must be left outside myself. 

 

Or to put it another way, it isn’t just a matter of the thing observed; the position of the observer is the missing half I too often overlook. Any good physicist knows this, just as should any good philosopher. 

 

Relativity is not the same thing as relativism. Because all things are in relationships does not mean that there is no measure in things. 

 

When my son was a baby, he once grew very angry when he couldn’t squeeze a square peg into a round hole on his shape sorter toy. I had an epiphany right then and there, recognizing that the way he was growing ever more frustrated, finally erupting in a temper tantrum, was pretty much how I was still approaching my life as an adult. He couldn’t know better then, but I should have known better. 

 

He wanted something to fit where it couldn’t fit, not seeing that the parts will only come together in certain ways, following their specific properties. The shape of the peg and the shape of the hole are equally important. I, for one, was neglecting to accept that who I was had to be the medium for what I saw. 

 

“I can’t wrap my hands around it!” does not mean that it cannot be held, only that I can’t embrace all of it. 

 

“I don’t understand it!” does not mean that it can’t be fathomed, only that I am not capable of discerning all the senses of it. 

 

Sometimes I complain that God hasn’t given me exactly what I want, and so I scream out that He is terribly unfair. Clearly, He can’t exist if I have to suffer, can He? 

 

At other times I accuse God of making me His slave, because His Providence already knows everything that I will do. How dare He know me better than I know myself? 

 

Just like the child and his toy, no? The weakness is in my capacity to accept, not in the capacity of anything else to be acceptable. 

 

 

 

5.22

 

In days of old the Porch at Athens gave us men,

seeing dimly as in old age,

who could believe that the feelings 

of the senses and the imagination 

were but impressions on the mind from bodies without them, 

just as the old custom was to impress 

with swift-running pens

letters upon the surface of a waxen tablet 

which bore no marks before. 

But if the mind with its own force 

can bring forth nothing by its own exertions; 

if it does but lie passive and subject to the marks of other bodies; 

if it reflects, as does, forsooth, a mirror, 

the vain reflections of other things; 

whence thrives there in the soul 

an all-seeing power of knowledge? 

What is the force that sees the single parts, 

or which distinguishes the facts it knows? 

What is the force that gathers up the parts it has distinguished, 

that takes its course in order due, 

now rises to mingle with the things on high, 

and now sinks down among the things below, 

and then to itself brings back itself, 

and, so examining, refutes the false with truth? 

This is a cause of greater power, 

of more effective force by far 

than that which only receives the impressions of material bodies. 

Yet does the passive reception come first, 

rousing and stirring all the strength of the mind in the living body 

When the eyes are smitten with a light, 

or the ears are struck with a voice's sound, 

then is the spirit's energy aroused,

and, thus moved, calls upon like forms, 

such as it holds within itself, fits them to signs without 

and mingles the forms of its imagination 

with those which it has stored within. 

 

—from Book 5, Poem 4

 

Two ancient Greek concepts provide the context for this poem, and they offer us a further opportunity to consider what it really means to “know” something: Stoic apprehension and Platonic recollection. 

 

First, the Athenian Stoics spoke of perception with the analogy of an imprint, as if the senses and the imagination received a sort of stamp through experience. Other schools, from varied traditions, will use the very same image, where a likeness of an object is impressed into awareness. 

 

But is this enough to describe what it means to be conscious? Yes, I most certainly take the form of something else into my own form when I perceive, but the problem is that this alone would reduce all knowledge to a merely passive state. A piece of hot wax also is impressed by the shape of the signet ring, but I will never claim that the piece of wax knows anything at all. 

 

For all the years I have struggled with teaching, and often felt that it was a wasted effort, nothing has discouraged me as much as the prevalent idea that learning is just a matter of absorption. 

 

Expose them to it enough, and they will understand. Repeat the same pattern, over and over again, and they will follow it. Give them no other option, and they will gladly conform. 

 

The highest paying job I was ever given seemed like a godsend at first. Somehow, I managed to land myself a gig at an incredibly prestigious prep school, and all I had to do for the rest of my life was play the part of an eccentric intellectual, complete with tweed jacket, amusing students in blue blazers, and flattering rich trustees at cocktail parties. 

 

Even my own father, a man of principle, told me I was made for this job, and that I needed to get this one right. I resigned from adjunct teaching work at a state college to now hopefully become someone new. 

 

And within six months I had what can only be called a complete nervous breakdown. What went wrong? I went wrong of course, because I lacked a sense of who I needed to be, but the circumstance that so deeply discouraged me was the reduction of people to sponges. 

 

Classes were supposed to be based upon the dialectic, and yet everything revolved around preparing students for standardized tests. I could do whatever I wanted, as long as they passed those tests with acceptable scores. The tests were all multiple choice, without exception, prepared for the teachers far in advance. 

 

I still have nightmares about a veteran teacher at that academy, who loved to say, “This is what the kids need to know!” I was given lists of need-to-know facts about the Ottoman Empire, or Mughal India, or Buddhist meditation. There were formulae, and never any reflection. There were clearly set patterns for correctness, and never once the option to think for oneself. 

 

It was training young people like puppies, to become the big dogs of the future, and to never giving them any choice, or any creativity, or any chance to form a conscience for themselves. The answers were like soundbites, useful for the shallow speeches they would eventually have to give when they ran the profitable businesses they inherited from their parents, or when they ultimately ran for political office. 

 

“Dude, you screwed that one up! All that money? If you’d played it right, you could have been the Dean before you retired. What were you thinking, breaking down like that?”

 

I was thinking. That was precisely my problem. Need-to-know! Need-to-know! Need-to-know!

 

Second, the Platonists spoke of learning like a process of remembering. It isn’t enough to say that a mind is acted upon; a mind is a mind precisely because it is able to act for itself. Yes, we soak up experiences, but we are not epistemological sponges. What am I to do with the data? What will transform the facts into understanding?

 

I see one thing now, and another thing then, and beyond the seeing is the comparing and contrasting. How are they different? How are they the same? No standardized test can teach the power of judgment, and yet we have based decades of merit on tests that treat a man like a monkey. 

 

If you give me the pieces of something, only my own intelligence can find a way to put them together in an orderly way. A piece of wax can’t do it, since it is just wax. Even a machine can’t do it, unless it is given instructions by a mind. 

 

Mind is activity, not passivity. Mind is the power to make connections between things, not being put in the situation of being connected. Awareness moves, and it is not merely moved. 

 

“I was told everything I ever needed to know!” If you think that, you are sorely mistaken. You may have been told many wonderful things, but they meant nothing if you didn’t learn them for yourself. 

 

There is a power within us, a force to abstract a universal idea from many instances, to join those ideas together in judgments, and to combine those judgments into demonstrations, the very means by which we increase our knowledge. To deny that I have it is ridiculous, since I employ it all the time, even if I employ it poorly. 

 

Plato attributed this power to the fact that our souls had once known the fullness of truth, the totality of the forms, but had somehow forgotten all of it. Learning is therefore remembering, where the impression of the particular revives the awareness of the universal. 

 

I can’t speak to that, since I don’t remember any past states of my existence, but I can describe what happens to me when I proceed from ignorance to wisdom. What wasn’t there before is now suddenly there. 

 

What was given to me in experience becomes something more, by means of some other agency, and so I see many things as one, where once they seemed as diverse. I see many things as connected, where once they seemed as separated. I see many things as purposeful, where once they seemed as random. 

 

Even as most all aspects of my daily life, from sleeping it off in the gutter to a fancy teaching job, suggest that I am determined by what happens to me, a tickle in my soul tells me that I am not a product of anything except myself. It is mind that makes me myself, and my mind is my own. 

 

I am not a sponge, and I am not God. I know something, but I do not know everything. To actively know myself does not encompass All that Is, though it gives me a clue as to where I might fit into All that Is. 

 

 

 

5.23

 

“With regard to feeling the effects of bodies, natures which are brought into contact from without may affect the organs of the senses, and the body's passive affection may precede the active energy of the spirit, and call forth to itself the activity of the mind; if then, when the effects of bodies are felt, the mind is not marked in any way by its passive reception thereof, but declares that reception subject to the body of its own force, how much less do those subjects, which are free from all affections of bodies, follow external objects in their perceptions, and how much more do they make clear the way for the action of their mind? 

 

“By this argument many different manners of understanding have fallen to widely different natures of things. For the senses are incapable of any knowledge but their own, and they alone fall to those living beings which are incapable of motion, as are sea shellfish, and other low forms of life which live by clinging to rocks; while imagination is granted to animals with the power of motion, who seem to be affected by some desire to seek or avoid certain things. But reason belongs to the human race alone, just as the true intelligence is God's alone.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 5

 

Though sensation and understanding are related operations, they are not one and the same type of awareness, differing fundamentally in how they apprehend the nature of things. 

 

At the risk of sounding too much like Immanuel Kant, all human consciousness begins with sensing, but it goes above and beyond sensing by actively adding a whole new layer of depth, the grasping of an identity free from the particular limitations of matter. When I “think” of something, I consider it abstractly and universally. 

 

No profound or complex philosophy is necessary to come to terms with this concept, since any one of us can demonstrate the distinction in our own daily experience. 

 

First, I can gaze at a tree, or run my hands over its bark, or listen to the wind rustle its leaves, or even breath in its distinct smell. I would not advise tasting it, though I’m sure someone must have tried it at some time. I then possess an image of this or that individual tree, and I can turn my attention from one to the other, and then back again. 

 

I can further take these particular pictures, and I can remember them after the fact, or I can rearrange the specific pieces in my imagination. Still, I am bound to one instance of a tree, and my awareness is limited to its physical impressions. 

 

This is an ability I share, though by different degrees, with other animals, and yet what makes me unique as a human being, as a homo sapiens, is precisely my ability to reflect upon the meaning behind those impressions. 

 

It may sound silly, but I have often suggested to my students that while I am much like a dog when I sense or feel, I am also quite different, because the dog does not write romantic poetry, or work through mathematical proofs, or ponder his place in the Universe. He is quite content to just be a dog, while I am drawn to something more, to knowing who I am. 

 

People will sometimes say that an animal doesn’t have emotions, for example, but my long fascination with them tells me that they feel just as strongly as I do. They are, however, not given to existential reflection, whether that be a blessing or a burden. 

 

When I am understanding something, the action of the mind does not merely receive a sense impression, but engages that impression on its own terms, penetrating into the form as above and beyond all of its instances. I am not looking at this tree, or imagining that dog; I am, for lack of a better term pondering “treeness” or “dogness”. 

 

There is a good reason, I suggest, that the Greeks were so fascinated by geometry, since it offers a wonderful example of what it means to think abstractly and universally, and thereby get to the core of what things are. Yes, I would say that we can even speak of this mode of our awareness on a “spiritual” level of being. 

 

This pizza is shaped like a circle, and the wedding ring on my finger is shaped like a circle, and the sun over my head is shaped like a circle. What is it that all these circles share in common, considered as perfect ideas? What can I say about how they all exist, and how they all have the same properties? 

 

It works on any level. How is my pain essentially the same as yours, even as they are accidentally different? How is my life parallel to yours, even as I have done things very differently? 

 

Don’t try discussing this with a tree or a dog. The tree doesn’t seem to notice your pondering at all, and the dog may pant and wag his tail in response, but only because he likes the soothing sound of your voice. 

 

 

 

5.24

 

“Wherefore that manner of knowledge is better than others, for it can comprehend of its own nature not only the subject peculiar to itself, but also the subjects of the other kinds of knowledge.

 

“Suppose that the senses and imagination thus oppose reasoning, saying, ‘The universal natural kinds, which reason believes that it can perceive, are nothing; for what is comprehensible to the senses and the imagination cannot be universal: therefore either the judgment of reason is true, and that which can be perceived by the senses is nothing; or, since reason knows well that there are many subjects comprehensible to the senses and imagination, the conception of reason is vain, for it holds to be universal what is an individual matter comprehensible to the senses.”

 

‘To this reason might answer, that ‘it sees from a general point of view what is comprehensible to the senses and the imagination, but they cannot aspire to a knowledge of universals, since their manner of knowledge cannot go further than material or bodily appearances; and in the matter of knowledge, it is better to trust to the stronger and more nearly perfect judgment.’”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 5

 

I know a fellow who is convinced he gets everything, and yet he knows very little. He’s one of those macho, piss and vinegar guys, who believes himself an expert on all matters, and I still can’t bring myself to say to him, as kindly as possible, that he is completely clueless. 

 

“I worked at Fairchild back in the 1980’s, and I can tell you right now that the Air Force has totally retired the A-10 Thunderbolt. Heck, we only made 400 of them, and the only ones that are left are in the ANG.”

 

Good grief. Fairchild made exactly 718 of them, and the Air Force currently has four operational wings with A-10’s in front line service, in addition to those in AFR and ANG units. 

 

“My ex-wife was a Catholic, though I’m a real God-fearing Baptist, so let me tell you what it means to be a Catholic. I figured it all out.”

 

Please, tell me what you know of a faith you briefly looked at from the outside, and never bothered to engage from the inside. 

 

“I know who the good people are, and I know who the bad people are, because I learned how to kick the crap out of all those hippie liberals, way back then in high school.”

 

Jesus wept. 

 

That which is either incapable or unwilling of reaching beyond itself can never understand what is greater than itself. A stone remains a stone, taking in nothing from outside of its own limits. How sad it is when a human mind is like a stone. 

 

If my own senses and imagination had the opportunity to speak for themselves, they might well be as cocky as my foolish white trash friend. Having no other reference to appeal to, how could I explain to my senses that reason has a deeper grasp on things?

 

“Impossible! You must be some kind of faggot Communist!”

 

The senses, of course, can never really say anything, since they lack the powers of judgment and speech. Still, let us pretend that they are somehow talking back to reason. 

 

“I see all these individual things, and yet you speak of a reality in terms of crazy universal ideas. You just made it up. What a fantasy! I can’t see any of that, so clearly it can’t be real. How dare you tell me that my experience is false!”

 

No one ever told the senses that what they experienced was false, only that they saw one part, without a conception of the whole. There is no reason for the senses to take offense for being what they are. 

 

The deeper problem is that the senses assume that being what they are excludes the possibility of being anything else, something higher and better, just as, in politics, when the conservative excludes the liberal, and the liberal excludes the conservative. 

 

“I deny you, since you cannot be real in my narrow world.”

 

There is the problem Boethius faced, and there is the problem I face in every day of my life. I think small, and so I am small. 

 

Nature designed the eye to see, and what an incredible organ it is. Nature also designed the mind to think, and it’s a shame when I waste it. 

 

Consider, for a moment, that there is something greater than the human mind. It is Intelligence, the fullness of all knowing, and some of us call it the Divine. I just realized that I inadvertently ended up quoting the Bhagavad Gita. 

 

When the senses complain that they cannot understand the ways of reason, why am I then complaining that my reason cannot comprehend the ways of God? 

 

 

 

5.25

 

“If such a trial of argument occurred, should not we, who have within us the force of reasoning as well as the powers of the senses and imagination, approve of the cause of reason rather than that of the others? 

 

“It is in like manner that human reason thinks that the Divine intelligence cannot perceive the things of the future except as it conceives them itself. For you argue thus: ‘If there are events which do not appear to have sure or necessary results, their results cannot be known for certain beforehand: therefore there can be no foreknowledge of these events; for if we believe that there is any foreknowledge thereof, there can exist nothing but such as is brought forth of necessity.’

 

“If therefore we, who have our share in possession of reason, could go further and possess the judgment of the mind of God, we should then think it most just that human reason should yield itself to the mind of God, just as we have determined that the senses and imagination ought to yield to reason.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 5

 

Like a blind man telling a sighted man that there are no colors, or a thief telling a decent man it is impossible to be just, so the senses might proudly proclaim that reason is nothing but a pipe dream. The mind, however, gazes down on the senses, discerning them with the benefit of its own broader power, and can only smile with patient comprehension. 

 

It will be much the same when reason, though capable of learning about identities and causes, attempts to consider a more complete form of knowing than itself. 

 

It recognizes that its own awareness is incomplete, proceeding only by stages of experience and demonstration, and so it knows that it is bound within certain constraints.

 

Now reason can then go one of two ways: it can deny that there is any thought greater than itself, or it can admit, from grasping its own imperfection, that there must be a higher mind that is the fullness of perfection. 

 

Precisely by being conscious of what it is not, human reason thereby points to a consciousness of all that Is. The absence in me indicates a presence beyond me.

 

One of the limitations of my awareness is that I will perceive everything in terms of the passage of time and subject to constant change, observing events as if they flow from the past, through the present, and into the future. 

 

I will therefore speak of a foreknowledge as if it imposes some necessity on what is going to happen, when I should be trying to grasp, however incompletely, that the Divine Mind is beyond all time or change. 

 

Yes, that will make my head hurt, and I can only approach it in terms of what I am not, but it will be necessary to follow this path if I wish to peek beyond my human limitations. 

 

So if I say that a certain prediction of future events would remove any contingency, or if I deny human freedom because God knows what I will do, I should recognize that I am working from a misleading assumption. I see it merely as what will be, though God sees it as if it were an immediate present. 

 

My perspective is tripping me up, like the difference between being trapped in a maze and looking down at a maze from above. The mouse may be running frantically back and forth, confused about which way to turn, while the scientist in the white lab coat sees the whole pattern, wondering why the poor mouse is taking so long to find its way out. 

 

As the senses do not perceive as reason perceives, so reason does not perceive as intelligence perceives. 

 

 

 

5.26

 

“Let us therefore raise ourselves, if it so be that we can, to that height of the loftiest intelligence. 

 

“For there reason will see what it cannot of itself perceive, and that is to know how even such things as have uncertain results are perceived definitely and for certain by foreknowledge; and such foreknowledge will not be mere opinion, but rather the single and direct form of the highest knowledge unlimited by any finite bounds.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 5

 

This has made me quite unpopular with my colleagues, but I maintain that most of modern philosophy, and its inevitable offshoot, post-modernism, have suffered from a crippling case of subjectivism. There is a deeply unhealthy form of turning inward, with nothing but doubt about the possibility of any greater meaning and purpose. It is the old error of Protagoras, come back around once again, where “man is the measure of all things.”

 

We could blame Descartes, or Hume, or Nietzsche, or Sartre, but behind it all is a deeper human weakness. It is to begin and to end only with the thoughts and feelings of the self, and thereby to reduce the true and the good only to the perspectives of the self. I immediately see red when people speak of “my truth” and “your truth”, as if the mind’s conformity to reality had nothing to do with it. 

 

Even when my beloved Stoics stressed self-reliance, they did so within the greater context of Nature, that a man was in the service of Providence. You will be hard pressed to find such a principle expounded in most contemporary textbooks or classrooms, or, for that matter, in the trends of everyday life. 

 

Once I look at the world through my own greatness, it will obviously be impossible to rise above myself to any higher standard of understanding or character. When Boethius here speaks of elevating our minds, of aiming for a broader perspective, he is not just engaged in an academic exercise. The success or failure of our lives, of our very happiness or misery, hinges upon working to apprehend the relationships within the whole, not the narrow scope of one part.

 

Trying to see ourselves as others see us is a start, and then trying to see ourselves as God sees us is the ultimate standard. Throughout the entire text of the Consolation, placing our lives within a wider and richer framework has been the key to peace of mind. It is now no different when it comes to finding a harmony between the certainty of God’s knowledge and the freedom of human choice.  

 

If a man makes everything relative to himself, he is then closed off to ever transcending himself; he has built his own prison walls with his own two hands.

 

 

 

5.27

 

“In what different shapes 

do living beings move upon the earth! 

Some make flat their bodies, 

sweeping through the dust and using their strength 

to make therein a furrow without break; 

some flit here and there upon light wings which beat the breeze, 

and they float through vast tracks of air in their easy flight. 

It is others' wont to plant their footsteps on the ground, 

and pass with their paces over green fields or under trees. 

Though all these you see move in different shapes, 

yet all have their faces downward along the ground, 

and this draws downward and dulls their senses. 

Alone of all, the human race lifts up its head on high, 

and stands in easy balance with the body upright, 

and so looks down to spurn the earth. 

If you are not too earthly by an evil folly, 

this pose is as a lesson. 

Your glance is upward, and you carry high your head, 

and thus your search is heavenward:

then lead your soul too upward, 

lest while the body is higher raised, 

the mind sinks lower to the earth.” 

 

—from Book 5, Poem 5

 

The analogy is a beautiful one, though I hesitate to take it too literally or pridefully, as when I overheard one of my middle school students mocking that he was obviously the closest to God, since he was the tallest in the class. From that day forward I put a toy giraffe on my desk, as a shared reminder of humility. It has, over the years, become a wonderful conversation starter. 

 

A man can rise up, and survey what is around him and above him, not just because he can stand on two legs, but because he is granted the power of a mind. The distinctly human shape is characterized by the spirit as much as by the body; the spindly frame contains a vast sense of wonder. 

 

Even if it is housed within a material vessel, reason has the power to transcend its own particular nature by learning something about the whole of Nature. It admittedly does so in stops and starts, and only by beginning with the limited medium of the senses, and yet its capacity to compose and divide universal ideas is what can elevate a person beyond himself, striving to understand things from a higher perspective. 

 

He not only is presented with the what, but also reflects upon the why. 

 

I have often been told that this is all nice and well for a scientist, or a philosopher, or a theologian, even as it is totally unnecessary for everyone else. “The rest of us just have to go on living, and so we don’t need any of the fancy thinking!”

 

But don’t we see that even the most basic act of living already presumes conclusions about what is true or false, good or bad? A very statement about not needing to think is itself an act of thinking, not unlike certain philosophers who say they understand that man is incapable of understanding. Taking the reason out of a man is like taking the round out of a circle, or the finicky out of a cat. 

 

It isn’t whether or not we’re thinking, but whether or not we’re thinking well. 

 

On some days I stare at my shoes, because I’m afraid to look anywhere else. Still, it is my own free judgment that has limited me to that view.

 

On other days I venture to look at some of the things closest to me, but no further, because I’m only stubbornly interested in the trees, not the fullness of the forest. Still, it is my own free judgment that has limited me to that view. 

 

Then, on the best of days, I look up, and I want to see what is around that corner, and over the horizon, and I know that it is only by rising up that I will gain the broader view. That is what my free judgment was made for. 

 

 

 

5.28

 

“Since then all that is known is apprehended, as we just now showed, not according to its nature but according to the nature of the knower, let us examine, so far as we lawfully may, the character of the Divine Nature, so that we may be able to learn what its knowledge is. 

 

“The common opinion, according to all men living, is that God is eternal. Let us therefore consider what is eternity. For eternity will, I think, make clear to us at the same time the Divine Nature and knowledge. 

 

“Eternity is the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life. This will appear more clearly if we compare it with temporal things. 

 

“All that lives under the conditions of time moves through the present from the past to the future; there is nothing set in time which can at one moment grasp the whole space of its lifetime. It cannot yet comprehend tomorrow; yesterday it has already lost. 

 

“And in this life of today your life is no more than a changing, passing moment. 

 

“And as Aristotle said of the Universe, so it is of all that is subject to time; though it never began to be, nor will ever cease, and its life is co-extensive with the infinity of time, yet it is not such as can be held to be eternal. For though it apprehends and grasps a space of infinite lifetime, it does not embrace the whole simultaneously; it has not yet experienced the future.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

The school of hard knocks has taught me to be very careful when someone promises an eternity, almost as much as when someone swears undying love. Combine the two terms together, and you may face the prospect of the gravest disappointment. 

 

This is not necessarily because we don’t mean well, but because we don’t always understand precisely what we are saying. Love isn’t just a current pleasure, and an eternity is something more than just the foreseeable future. 

 

If I am ever going to gain some insights on Divine knowledge, however indirectly and incompletely, I will have to grapple with what it means for such knowledge to be eternal.

 

Perhaps I am imagining eternity like some line with no beginning and with no ending, always continuing on and on in both directions. 

 

Perhaps it is like an infinite number, where something else can always still be added to it. 

 

Perhaps I am picturing the familiar symbols, that sideways eight, or a snake eating its own tail, where everything is always coming around again, right back to where it started. 

 

Lady Philosophy might say that I am then describing what goes on forever, or what is potentially infinite, but I am not quite describing what is eternal, or what is actually infinite. The distinction will be between what remains determined by time, and what is in and of itself timeless. 

 

My use of words like “continuing”, and “adding”, and “coming and going” are getting in my way. 

 

Both Aristotle and Einstein, working from very different perspectives and in very different circumstances, wondered if time had any absolute existence, or if it was relative. 

 

Both came to the conclusion that time is measured by motion and change, just as space is measure by extension, and that there is no such thing as “time” at all where there is no variation. 

 

Eternity is something far more profound than what is forever. While change might be infinite, as with the Universe Aristotle postulated, eternity is an infinity that is changeless. 

 

It is all as if it were like a constant now, the only analogy I can use to comprehend it. There is no past, because nothing has gone away. There is no future, because nothing will still come to be. 

 

My own life passes, while in the life of God nothing passes at all. It is, in all the beauty of its simplicity and perfection. Where there is only absolute Being, there is nothing lost or gained, because everything is completely present. 

 

 

 

5.29

 

“What we should rightly call eternal is that which grasps and possesses wholly and simultaneously the fullness of unending life, which lacks nothing of the future, and has lost nothing of the fleeting past; and such an existence must be ever present in itself to control and aid itself, and also must keep present with itself the infinity of changing time. 

 

“Therefore, people who hear that Plato thought that this Universe had no beginning of time and will have no end, are not right in thinking that in this way the created world is co-eternal with its Creator. For to pass through unending life, the attribute which Plato ascribes to the Universe is one thing; but it is another thing to grasp simultaneously the whole of unending life in the present; this is plainly a peculiar property of the mind of God. 

 

“And further, God should not be regarded as older than His creations by any period of time, but rather by the peculiar property of His own single Nature. For the infinite changing of temporal things tries to imitate the ever simultaneously present immutability of His life: it cannot succeed in imitating or equaling this, but sinks from immutability into change, and falls from the single directness of the present into an infinite space of future and past. 

 

“And since this temporal state cannot possess its life completely and simultaneously, but it does in the same manner exist for ever without ceasing, it therefore seems to try in some degree to rival that which it cannot fulfill or represent, for it binds itself to some sort of present time out of this small and fleeting moment; but inasmuch as this temporal present bears a certain appearance of that abiding present, it somehow makes those, to whom it comes, seem to be in truth what they imitate. 

 

“But since this imitation could not be abiding, the unending march of time has swept it away, and thus we find that it has bound together, as it passes, a chain of life, which it could not by abiding embrace in its fullness. And thus, if we would apply proper epithets to those subjects, we can say, following Plato, that God is eternal, but the Universe is continual.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

When I first read this passage many years ago, I was immediately taken by the image of the creatures, existing in the limits of time, striving to grow in perfection, and trying to emulate the completeness of the Creator, existing beyond the limits of time. 

 

Yes, it is partly the hopeless romantic in me, I’m sure, but I would like to think that it is also a hazy reflection of what actually goes on, each and every day, as people rise and fall, succeed and fail, learn to love and learn to let go. 

 

There is a reason why we fight tooth and nail to become richer in being, even if we don’t always understand what we are doing, or why we are doing it. Even when we confuse right and wrong, better and worse, that irresistible urge gets to the heart of the matter. I can deny God all I want, and yet everything I do is to become more like Him. The concept of God is only a hindrance when I am thinking too small. 

 

I must be careful here not to conceive of a Divine transcendence at the expense of a Divine immanence, as if what is beyond time is somehow far distant from me. 

 

I remember what Lady Philosophy told me earlier, that while the lower cannot exist in the same way as the higher, the higher always includes within itself the lower. Providence is closer to me than I am to myself, though I do not see it at the time. 

 

Perhaps my choice of saying that God is “beyond” time is not quite right; perhaps it would be better to say that I don’t quite live up to the eternity, that I am mere becoming instead of being. What I am is only one tiny aspect of All that is. 

 

Following St. Augustine, I once again also remember: 

 

And I viewed the other things below You, and perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are they not. They are, indeed, because they are from You. But they are not, because they are not what You are. For that truly is which remains immutably.

 

There is no part without the whole, nothing relative without the absolute, no change without the changeless. 

 

Time may go on forever and ever, but creatures have their bounds. Accordingly, they undergo a process, where the end of one thing transforms into the beginning of another. I have a lovely image of one of my other heroes, Marcus Aurelius, nodding his head in approval. 

 

Will I end, at least in the form I am now? Yes, and that is right and good. Will God end? It’s a nonsense question, since what is eternal has no beginning or end, and that is what is best. 

 

 

 

5.30

 

“Since then, all judgment apprehends the subjects of its thought according to its own nature, and God has a condition of ever-present eternity, His knowledge, which passes over every change of time, embracing infinite lengths of past and future, views in its own direct comprehension everything as though it were taking place in the present. 

 

“If you would weigh the foreknowledge by which God distinguishes all things, you will more rightly hold it to be a knowledge of a never-failing constancy in the present, than a foreknowledge of the future. Whence Providence is more rightly to be understood as a looking forth than a looking forward, because it is set far from low matters and looks forth upon all things as from a lofty mountain-top above all. 

 

“Why then do you demand that all things occur by necessity, if Divine light rests upon them, while men do not render necessary such things as they can see? Because you can see things of the present, does your sight therefore put upon them any necessity? Surely not. If one may not unworthily compare this present time with the Divine, just as you can see things in this your temporal present, so God sees all things in His eternal present. 

 

“Wherefore this Divine foreknowledge does not change the nature or individual qualities of things: it sees things present in its understanding just as they will result some time in the future. It makes no confusion in its distinctions, and with one view of its mind it discerns all that shall come to pass whether of necessity or not. 

 

“For instance, when you see at the same time a man walking on the earth and the sun rising in the heavens, you see each sight simultaneously, yet you distinguish between them, and decide that one is moving voluntarily, the other of necessity. In like manner the perception of God looks down upon all things without disturbing at all their nature, though they are present to Him, but future under the conditions of time.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

Whenever I feel confused by a problem, whether in the form of a refined abstraction or an immediate experience, I have often found it helpful to do two things. 

 

First, I should understand that the source of my difficulty is most likely in my own limitations of perception, and not in the very structure of reality itself. The latter, of course, would become quite unbearable, but the former can be made quite bearable. 

 

How am I failing to think of the trouble as broadly as I can, instead of despairing that there can ever be a satisfying answer? 

 

Second, given that I most likely need to fix my own perspective, what familiar tools, close at hand and within the scope of my awareness, can I employ to make the situation clearer to me? 

 

If the terms I am using are too slippery to grab a hold of, then let me turn to examples that are easier to manage. I can start with what is nearer to me to rise up to what is further from me. 

 

The conundrum of foreknowledge and freedom has really arisen because Boethius, or most anyone who first approaches the question, gets tripped up by the context of time. The human mind, subject to change, sees things as moving through past, present, and future, while the Divine Mind, absolute and eternal in its being, sees all things as if they were present. 

 

And the use of “as if” is surely important, since we can only speak of such consciousness through the scale of our familiarity. It is useful to think of God’s awareness as constantly looking “forth” at a now, not as looking “forward” to what will be. 

 

As a child, one of my favorite trips involved climbing up a rocky hill in the middle of the town I’d been born in, and observing all the people going about their business on the streets below. Even at a young age, I innocently wondered if they could tell that someone was watching them, or if being looked down at from a height above could somehow change what they would choose to do. 

 

Years later, I would find it very soothing to do much the same from the top floors of the Hancock or Prudential towers in Boston. 

 

It is quite silly, of course, and more than a bit presumptuous, to suggest that my seeing of other people in any way makes them to act in a certain manner. Quite the contrary, what they are doing causes me to perceive them, not that my perceiving them causes them to do anything. Why should it be any different with Providence?

 

“Yes, but what if you could see what they were going to do ten minutes, or an hour, or a year ahead of time? Wouldn’t that force it all into place?”

 

I must once again remember, the distinction of “now” and “then” does not exist in the completeness of eternity. Just as I see some things currently, God sees all things currently. 

 

The image Lady Philosophy uses, one of watching the sun rising and a man walking, is extremely useful, since it so common and everyday. 

 

The motions of the heavenly bodies, including the Earth itself, follow from certain laws governing matter, and the choice of a fellow deciding to take a stroll proceeds from the movements of his own judgment. 

 

I may observe both happening right now, and yet I am completely aware that each comes to be in its own distinct way, to different degrees of necessity, and that they are in no way brought into being by my perception. 

 

It is, in the simplest of terms, not the knowledge that makes the event, but the event that makes the knowledge. 

 

 

 

5.31

 

“Wherefore this foreknowledge is not opinion but knowledge resting upon truth, since He knows that a future event is, though He knows too that it will not occur of necessity. If you answer here that what God sees about to happen, cannot but happen, and that what cannot but happen is bound by necessity, you fasten me down to the word necessity. I will grant that we have a matter of most firm truth, but it is one to which scarce any man can approach unless he be a contemplator of the divine. 

 

“For I shall answer that such a thing will occur of necessity, when it is viewed from the point of Divine knowledge; but when it is examined in its own nature, it seems perfectly free and unrestrained. 

 

“For there are two kinds of necessities; one is simple: for instance, a necessary fact, ‘all men are mortal’; the other is conditional; for instance, if you know that a man is walking, he must be walking: for what each man knows cannot be otherwise than it is known to be; but the conditional one is by no means followed by this simple and direct necessity; for there is no necessity to compel a voluntary walker to proceed, though it is necessary that, if he walks, he should be proceeding. 

 

“In the same way, if Providence sees an event in its present, that thing must be, though it has no necessity of its own nature. And God looks in His present upon those future things which come to pass through free will. 

 

“Therefore if these things be looked at from the point of view of God's insight, they come to pass of necessity under the condition of Divine knowledge; if, on the other hand, they are viewed by themselves, they do not lose the perfect freedom of their nature. 

 

“Without doubt, then, all things that God foreknows do come to pass, but some of them proceed from free will; and though they result by coming into existence, yet they do not lose their own nature, because before they came to pass they could also not have come to pass.

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

That for God all places are a here, and that all times are a now, should help us to grasp that our own human limitations of space and time are causing our problems with foreknowledge. 

 

Providence does not somehow guess at what will happen, but from its absolute viewpoint knows, with complete certainty, what is happening. It also immediately perceives how the particular causes within Nature are bringing about what appears to us like a process or an unfolding. 

 

Our mistake has been to assume that the certainty of such knowledge must be causing the events, when a reflection back our own awareness of the present shows that this need not be the case. Even my narrow mind can know with certainty what is occurring, and that does not make my mind the agent of what occurs. 

 

Now the words can still trip me up, because when I see that God’s understanding is necessary, I will instinctively apply that backwards to the events. Lady Philosophy makes a subtle but important distinction about the range of what we can mean by the term “necessity”:

 

A simple necessity is one where the nature of something does not allow it to be otherwise, that it must be so without any other possibilities. 

 

That a square must have four sides, or that a cat is a mammal, or that a man has reason follow from the very definitions of the terms. As a wonderful student of mine used to say, “There is no wiggle room on that!”

 

A conditional necessity is one where the nature of something does indeed allow it to be otherwise, that it can possess any number of possibilities, but once it has followed one path it must be on that path. 

 

That a triangle could have different sides or angles, or that a cat could have various patterns of fur, or that a man could be sleeping or awake are all different options for those things, depending on the presence or absence of other factors. Still, it is then bound to the one or the other. “There’s some wiggle room, but not after you lock it down!”

 

When it comes to human judgment, which allows a person to make free choices, our actions can be spoken of as conditional. When choices have been made, they can be spoken of as necessary. For us, these are separated by a context of before and after, while for Providence there is no separation of before and after. 

 

A human example will never be entirely accurate, but I think of a memorable moment when my two children were arguing over who could use an old iPad we had asked them to learn to share. They bickered and grabbed, growing ever louder and angrier, and at that very moment I could see, with about as much certainty as is humanly possible, what was going to happen if I did not intervene. I knew their temperaments, and I knew how fragile that piece of electronics was. 

 

I made a call on the spot, hoping it might be an object lesson, and quietly watched them go at it. Needless to say, one of the pushes led to the device flying through the air, then crashing onto the kitchen floor. The screen was now cracked, and both of them stared with silent horror. 

 

“And now,” I said in as fatherly a tone as I could, “neither of you have it. You both made the choice.” 

 

I suppose I am pleased that they both recall this many years later, and that they will gladly tell the story of how it taught them that Dad is occasionally right. 

 

My paternal foresight is hardly Providence, but it has a few things in common. I knew where it was all going, and yet they were the ones that made it go. I could have stopped them, and yet I let them have their own way. They came from me, but now they were making themselves. 

 

 

 

5.32

 

“‘What then,’ you may ask, ‘is the difference in their not being bound by necessity, since they result under all circumstances as by necessity, on account of the condition of Divine knowledge?’

 

“This is the difference, as I just now put forward: take the sun rising and a man walking; while these operations are occurring, they cannot but occur: but the one was bound to occur before it did; the other was not so bound. What God has in His present, does exist without doubt; but of such things some follow by necessity, others by their authors' wills. 

 

“Wherefore I was justified in saying that if these things be regarded from the view of Divine knowledge, they are necessary, but if they are viewed by themselves, they are perfectly free from all ties of necessity: just as when you refer all, that is clear to the senses, to the reason, it becomes general truth, but it remains particular if regarded by itself.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

Though it should hardly surprise me, considering how often I have re-read the book, certain images from the Consolation have become like reference points for me, and they will pop up in my thinking at the oddest of times, firmly but kindly reminding me of how to find peace within Nature. 

 

One of them is the picture, back in Book Two, of the man with empty pockets whistling his way past the robber. It returns to me whenever I am complaining about my circumstances, bemoaning that life is unfair, and seething with resentment toward both God and man. 

 

Now what was really the source of my dissatisfaction? Craving things I did not need in order to be happy, and defining myself by forces well beyond my power were my downfall. If I had not wanted vain and petty things, then vain and petty men would not be of any threat to me at all. 

 

Another is the picture presented here, of the sun rising and a man walking. I have my own version of it, foraged from a long-ago memory of getting up very early to go on a mission of love. It returns to me whenever I get confused and despondent about freedom and fate, not in a textbook sort of way, but in the very immediate sense of whether my choices ever make any difference. 

 

Whatever has happened, or is happening, or will happen must, quite simply, happen. That sounds like a silly tautology, and, in a sense, it is precisely that. If it takes place, then it takes place, regardless of when it occurs; for Providence, there will be no distinction of past, present, and future, even as there is one for me. 

 

And yet all of these events follow from their own particular causes, which are themselves permitted within Divine omnipotence and omniscience. 

 

The sun rises for its own reasons, and it is ordained to do so by certain determined laws of Nature. I rise for my own reasons, and I do so from my own self-determining judgment, also as a part of Nature. 

 

The former is a simple necessity, because the sun chooses nothing in the matter, while the latter is a conditional necessity, because I have been the one to decide.

 

God, however I may choose to understand Him, made all things in specific ways. Some were made with no freedom, and others were made with degrees of freedom. 

 

That the Divine has absolute power over all creatures does not exclude autonomy, since it is within the realm of power to both restrict and to permit. That the Divine has absolute knowledge of all creatures does not hinder free will, since it is within the realm of awareness to be conscious of what it did not itself directly determine. 

 

Recall, by analogy, that I could well have stopped my children from breaking that iPad, but I did not do so. Recall that I knew what would happen, but I did not make it so. 

 

The sun could not have refused to rise that morning, but I could certainly have followed my better judgment, and refused to let myself play the fool. I could have stayed at home, and read a good book, and left all those confused passions right where they were, allowing others to live their lives as they best saw fit. I did not need to have any further part in it, and yet I made the call. 

 

For better or for worse, it went as it did. That God knew this long “before” I was even born reflects the harmony, and not the conflict, of freedom and fate. 

 

 

 

5.33

 

“’But," you will say, ‘if it is in my power to change a purpose of mine, I will disregard Providence, since I may change what Providence foresees.’

 

“To which I answer, ‘You can change your purpose, but since the truth of Providence knows in its present that you can do so, and whether you do so, and in what direction you may change it, therefore you cannot escape that Divine foreknowledge: just as you cannot avoid the glance of a present eye, though you may by your free will turn yourself to all kinds of different actions.’

 

 "’What?’ you will say, ‘can I by my own action change Divine knowledge, so that if I choose now one thing, now another, Providence too will seem to change its knowledge?’ 

 

“No; Divine insight precedes all future things, turning them back and recalling them to the present time of its own peculiar knowledge. It does not change, as you may think, between this and that alternation of foreknowledge. It is constant in preceding and embracing by one glance all your changes. 

 

“And God does not receive this ever-present grasp of all things and vision of the present at the occurrence of future events, but from His own peculiar directness. Whence also is that difficulty solved which you laid down a little while ago, that it was not worthy to say that our future events were the cause of God's knowledge. For this power of knowledge, ever in the present and embracing all things in its perception, does itself constrain all things, and owes nothing to following events from which it has received nothing.” 

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

Now perhaps I might believe that I can still “trick” God, that I can outwit Him by changing my mind. He looks over, and sees me doing one thing, but then I turn to do something else, and so I have messed up the whole plan. 

 

If I am somehow still thinking this way, I haven’t really been following along with the argument. It may seem rather childish of me, and yet this remains a quite common form of adult behavior, the manipulation of impressions to cover up a reality. I shouldn’t be trying to do that in human affairs, as a matter of my own character, but it is quite impossible for me to do that when it comes to Providence. 

 

I can certainly change myself, since that power has been conditionally gifted to me within Divine omnipotence. I cannot, however, change Divine omniscience, since that power transcends to the level of what is Absolute. Only imperfect creatures undergo change, while a perfect Creator is completely unchanging. 

 

Remember, “it has been” or “it will be” are human modes of perception; Divine existence rests in an “it is”. There is no receiving there, no absence there, only Being.

 

When I am playing games with appearances, which is really only a reflection of my own lack of integrity, I am assuming that others must be limited in their awareness, and I try to take advantage of that fact for my own gain. 

 

In a sense, it is like I am pretending to be a little god, deciding who gets to know what. A wise friend once firmly told me: “You can lie to yourself, and you can lie to your neighbors, but there’s no lying to the Universe. It has you all figured out, and there is no hiding from it.”

 

This is excellent advice. It isn’t even like I will eventually be exposed, the fear of every deceiver; I am already exposed, and I am only pulling the wool over my own eyes for the moment. 

 

Like any good geek, I do enjoy the metaphysical speculation about the possibility of time travel, and yet all of it really hinges on a question of logical order, where we run into contradictions with an opposition between past, present, and future. 

 

To truly become time travelers would actually require us to no longer be subject to the sequence of time, in which case it wouldn’t really be traveling anymore, would it? It would be existing as an eternal presence, and that is nothing less than becoming Divine. 

 

I can stand at a crossroads, and I can look right or left, forwards or backwards, considering all the possible paths and outcomes. For me, it has not yet come to be, and I will still choose to go this way or that. 

 

For Providence, my own freedom is certainly there, but all of it is there, with no unfolding. Maybe this frightens me? It can just as easily comfort me, in knowing that as long as I wish to be, I will always be held safe and secure. I hardly need to escape from Providence, since it contains within itself the fullness of all that is true, good, and beautiful. 

 

 

 

5.34

 

“Thus, therefore, mortal men have their freedom of judgment intact. And since their wills are freed from all binding necessity, laws do not set rewards or punishments unjustly. 

 

“God is ever the constant foreknowing overseer, and the ever-present eternity of His sight moves in harmony with the future nature of our actions, as it dispenses rewards to the good, and punishments to the bad. 

 

“Hopes are not vainly put in God, nor prayers in vain offered: if these are right, they cannot but be answered. 

 

“Turn therefore from vice and ensue virtue; raise your soul to upright hopes; send up on high your prayers from this earth. 

 

“If you would be honest, great is the necessity enjoined upon your goodness, since all you do is done before the eyes of an all-seeing Judge.”

 

—from Book 5, Prose 6

 

Finding myself at the last lines of the Consolation is always bittersweet for me. How could one possibly end this journey? Exactly in this way, with only a few words, charged with a life-changing meaning. 

 

Boethius would go off to die soon after he wrote this passage, and it is said that he died in quite a brutal manner. 

 

Well, I too will go off to die soon, as we all will, whatever the degree of final suffering. What will matter for me is what I did with all the circumstances of my life, both the pleasant and the painful, and whether I chose to make use of those experiences for the better or for the worse. 

 

I am tempted to write pages upon pages of further reflections here, but Boethius has already written enough, and I have already scribbled down far too much. In brief, what have I learned? 

 

I know that the Universe is not ruled by randomness or chance, since nothing comes from nothing. I also know that wherever there is more or less of anything, there must be an Absolute Something. 

 

I then know that nothing is outside of the consciousness and power of the Divine, and that Providence orders all things rightly, even when I do not see it at the time. 

 

I then know that living by Nature will always distribute justice, while living by Fortune will always bring restlessness; I will understand this when I perceive where the true human good is to be found. 

 

I then know that it is eminently reasonable to trust in God, to be open to grace, and to reach out in prayer. This is not a matter of wishful thinking or blind superstition, but rather an expression of the unity of all things, the lesser informed by the greater. 

 

I then know that my own freedom is made to work within the whole, not against it. The difference between my own virtue and vice will be the difference between my own happiness and misery. 

 

In all of this, I do not need to fight with anyone, or be consumed by jealousy and resentment, or succumb to despair, or demand anything that Nature has not already provided for me. I can find peace in the exercise of my own character, safe in the awareness that this precisely why I was created. 

 

This is how one particular volume ends; it is now up to me to take what I have learned, and to put it into practice. 

 

Nothing noble is ever in vain.