Sayings of Publilius Syrus 181

He who has forfeited his honor can lose nothing more. 

IMAGE: Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1828) 

Ruins 15

Thomas Cole, The Roman Campagna (1843) 

Ruins 14

Thomas Cole, The Ruins of Taormina (1842) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 79.3

Now if Aetna does not make your mouth water, I am mistaken in you. You have for some time been desirous of writing something in the grand style and on the level of the older school. For your modesty does not allow you to set your hopes any higher; this quality of yours is so pronounced that, it seems to me, you are likely to curb the force of your natural ability, if there should be any danger of outdoing others; so greatly do you reverence the old masters.
 
Wisdom has this advantage, among others—that no man can be outdone by another, except during the climb. But when you have arrived at the top, it is a draw; there is no room for further ascent, the game is over. 
 
Can the sun add to his size? Can the moon advance beyond her usual fulness? The seas do not increase in bulk. The Universe keeps the same character, the same limits. Things which have reached their full stature cannot grow higher. 
 
Men who have attained wisdom will therefore be equal and on the same footing. Each of them will possess his own peculiar gifts: one will be more affable, another more facile, another more ready of speech, a fourth more eloquent; but as regards the quality under discussion—the element that produces happiness—it is equal in them all.
 
I do not know whether this Aetna of yours can collapse and fall in ruins, whether this lofty summit, visible for many miles over the deep sea, is wasted by the incessant power of the flames; but I do know that virtue will not be brought down to a lower plane either by flames or by ruins. 
 
Hers is the only greatness that knows no lowering; there can be for her no further rising or sinking. Her stature, like that of the stars in the heavens, is fixed. Let us therefore strive to raise ourselves to this altitude. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 79 
 
This section strikes awfully close to home, for I have long been prone to selling myself short. I could easily try to blame the bullies and the beautiful people, for regularly reminding me how I wasn’t good enough, though I really know that the fault has always been my own. Let another man compete where there is no need to compete, and let me remember why the good life is never about winning a race. 
 
While Lucilius may feel intimidated by the greatness of the writers who came before him, his work must stand on its own merits. Perhaps just one entrepreneur can negotiate the lucrative contract, or only one athlete can win the gold medal, but in the end, happiness is not about the fortune and the fame. Once obtained, however we might manage to approach them, wisdom and virtue leave nothing more to be desired, and there is no limited supply, reserved for the select few. 
 
There is good reason why the analogy of climbing a mountain is so universal, even as I fear that too many of us are now denied such a rousing experience; begrudgingly taking the stairs when the elevator is broken is hardly the same. The various paths may be straight or winding, steep or gradual, long or short, scenic or bleak, yet we all hope to arrive at the very same summit. And after we reach that peak, no one wanderer is better or worse than any other. 
 
Whatever our peculiarities, and wherever we may have come from, the destination is shared in common, and it admits of no rank. If I care solely for the content of character, it will make little difference how any of us got there, or what baggage we carried with us. When understanding and love are the goal, there is no call for pretending to be special, as the accidents fall away from the essence. 
 
Consider how any rivalry must immediately cease, when a peace of mind has been achieved. Where there is prudence, there is no malice. Where there is fortitude, there is no doubt. Where there is temperance, there is no lust. Where there is justice, there is no envy. Name the human failing, and the virtues will always remove it, one person at a time. 
 
We only stumble if our priorities are out of order. All schemes must eventually fail, and every empire will surely crumble, but a soul filled with integrity is unassailable, because virtue is itself the pinnacle of our human nature. I am well-advised to recall this, the next time I find myself hindered by any fear or resentment about being good enough. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013

IMAGE: Thomas Cole, Mount Etna from Taormina (1843) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.14

What does it matter if running water is cut off and flows away, as long as the fountain from which it has flowed is unharmed? 
 
You will not maintain that a man's life is more just if his children are unharmed than if they have passed away, nor yet better appointed, nor more intelligent, nor more honorable; therefore, no better, either. 
 
The addition of friends does not make one wiser, nor does their taking away make one more foolish; therefore, not happier or more wretched, either. 
 
As long as your virtue is unharmed, you will not feel the loss of anything that has been withdrawn from you. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
No, don’t be like the stingy bean counter, who is always worried about how much is coming in. Be rather like the carefree sage, who delights at how much is going out. Since virtue is a limitless resource, there is no need to be so tightfisted. 
 
If I crudely presume that my happiness derives merely from selfish pleasure, the bitter irony is then that no pleasure will ever be quite enough. If, on the other hand, I calmly consider how my happiness is in the excellence of my actions, the living becomes its own reward. It is, to borrow the language of the Peripatetics, complete and self-sufficient. 
 
Once I make the connection between happiness and virtue, I am relieved of so many burdens, the anxieties drilled into me by the existentialists and the nihilists. Why must my frustrations and disappointments with the world get me down? Nature has granted me the power to live with integrity, and that immediately puts all the rest into its rightful place—my feelings now have a context of meaning and purpose. 
 
Seneca’s reasoning is crisp and clear. Whatever is good in my life proceeds from my virtues, and so my happiness, the end I seek above all else, can only rise or fall through my moral worth, the merit of my thoughts, words, and deeds. These are under my control, and they are the fulfillment of my nature. 
 
I can be a just man, whether my children are near or far. I can be a prudent man, whether I have many friends or none at all. I can be a temperate man, both in riches and in poverty. I can be a brave man, from the slightest nuisance to the threat of death. Because of this, I can always be a happy man. 
 
“Why do other people treat me so unfairly? Why do I have to be so miserable?” 
 
I am what I do, not what they do. I am the captain of my soul. The goodness will flow continually, if only I stay true to the source. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Thomas Cole, The Titan's Goblet (1833) 

Ruins 9

Thomas Cole, L'Allegro (1845) 

Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.4

The definitions of constancy, patience, right reason, opinion: also how obstinacy differs from constancy, and baseness of mind from patience. 

I being somewhat emboldened with these speeches of Langius, said unto him, that truly these admonitions of his were notable and worthy to be esteemed, and that I began now to lift up my self a little, but yet in vain, as it were a man in a slumber. 

"For surely, Langius, to tell you the truth, my cogitations do slide back again to my country, and the cares of the same both private and public fast in my mind. But if you are able, chase away these evil birds that thus feed upon me, and loose those bands of cares wherewith I am tied fast to the Caucasus, like Prometheus." 

Hereto Langius with a smiling countenance replied: "I will drive them away, and like a newborn Hercules will set at liberty this chained Prometheus: only give attentive care to that which I shall say unto you. 

"I have exhorted you to constancy, and placed therein all hope of your safety. First, therefore, we must know what it is. Constancy is a right and immovable strength of the mind, neither lifted up nor pressed down with external or casual accidents. By strength I understand a steadfastness not from opinion, but from judgment and sound reason. For I would in any case exclude obstinacy (or as I may more fitly term it, frowardness) which is a certain hardness of a stubborn mind, proceeding from pride or vainglory. 

"And this hardness is only in one respect incident to the froward and obstinate. For they can hardly be pressed down but are lifted up, not unlike to a blown bladder, which you cannot without much ado thrust under water, but is ready to leap upwards of itself without help. 

"Even such is the lighthardiness of those men, springing of pride and too much estimation of themselves, and therefore from opinion. But the true mother of constancy is patience, and lowliness of mind, which is a voluntary sufferance without grudging of all things whatsoever can happen to or in a man. This being regulated by the rule of right reason is the very root whereupon is settled the high and mighty body of that fair oak constancy. 

"Beware here, lest opinion beguile you, presenting unto you instead of patience a certain abjection and baseness of a dastardly mind. Being a foul vice, proceeding from the vile unworthiness of a man's own person. 

"But virtue keeps the mean, not suffering any excess or defect in her actions, because it weighs all things in the balance of Reason, making it the rule and squire of all her trials. Therefore we define right reason to be a true sense and judgment of things human and divine, so far as the same pertains to us. But opinion being the contrary to it is defined to be a false and frivolous conjecture of those things." 

IMAGE: Thomas Cole, Prometheus Bound (1847) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 36.5

In death there is nothing harmful; for there must exist something to which it is harmful. 
 
And yet, if you are possessed by so great a craving for a longer life, reflect that none of the objects which vanish from our gaze and are reabsorbed into the world of things, from which they have come forth and are soon to come forth again, is annihilated; they merely end their course and do not perish. 
 
And death, which we fear and shrink from, merely interrupts life, but does not steal it away; the time will return when we shall be restored to the light of day; and many men would object to this, were they not brought back in forgetfulness of the past. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 36 
 
Once again, the Stoics consider the topic of our mortality not because they are bleak and forlorn, but because death offers an ideal means to isolate what is most precious in life. They return to it repeatedly as the apex of all our fears, only to be overcome by the embrace of our virtues. As I realize I cannot desperately continue holding on to things, I am then free to finally live with dignity and conviction. 
 
If I merely cling to survival, then dying will appear like an evil to me, just as if I simply pursue pleasures, their fickle nature will continually torment me. If, however, I aim to live each moment I am given with understanding and goodwill, then extinction, or any sort of pain, will pose no threat. 
 
Seneca here refers to an argument, also employed by other philosophers, on how there can be no further loss where there is nothing left to lose. I may say I am terrified of death, yet if death is the complete cessation of existence, there will clearly no longer be any “self” present to experience the suffering. Absence of everything means the end of worries. 
 
If I reply that what I fear is the agony that may well come over me as I am dying, then that remains a situation, however challenging, where I can continue to act with integrity and decency. One might even observe, without wishing to seem morbid, how all of life, and all forms of pain, are a sort of continual passing. Once I view my purpose rightly, I will grasp why a greater trial is just a greater opportunity to do my best work. By nature, every act is fulfilled in its completion 
 
It is foolish, however, for me to think that anything ever ceases to be absolutely, since the end of one state is just the beginning of another. Many of us learn about the laws of conservation for matter and energy in our physics classes, though we rarely dare to consider how this applies to our own living and dying. What I am calling destruction turns out to be a transformation, and therefore may be considered a conversion instead of a termination. 
 
I will not be so vain as to insist on what will become of “me” after I die, and I am happy to leave the matter in the hands of Providence. Yet my reason can at least tell me why something cannot come from nothing, and in turn why something cannot vanish into nothing. However radical that transition may be, whatever disguise the old matter may assume, what I am now must pass on to another purpose. It all comes around again. 

—Reflection written in 12/2012 

IMAGE: Thomas Cole, Life, Death, and Immortality (1844) 

A View near Tivoli

Thomas Cole, A View near Tivoli (Morning) (1832)

St. John in the Wilderness

Thomas Cole, St. John in the Wilderness (1827)

 

Pilgrims

Thomas Cole, The Pilgrim of the Cross at the End of His Journey (1846)

Thomas Cole, The Pilgrim of the World at the End of His Journey (1847)

 

Arch of Nero

Thomas Cole, Arch of Nero (1846)

 

The Departure and Return

Thomas Cole, The Departure (1837)

Thomas Cole, The Return (1837)

The Past and the Present

Thomas Cole, The Past (1838)

Thomas Cole, The Present (1838)

The Voyage of Life

Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life (c. 1842)

Childhood

Youth

Manhood

Old Age

The Course of Empire

Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire (c. 1836)

The Savage State

The Arcadian or Pastoral State

The Consummation of Empire

Destruction

Desolation

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations 4.22

If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?

But how does the earth contain the bodies of those who have been buried from time so remote? For as here the mutation of these bodies after a certain continuance, whatever it may be, and their dissolution make room for other dead bodies, so the souls which are removed into the air after subsisting for some time are transmuted and diffused, and assume a fiery nature by being received into the seminal Intelligence of the Universe, and in this way make room for the fresh souls that come to dwell there.

And this is the answer that a man might give on the hypothesis of souls continuing to exist.

But we must not only think of the number of bodies which are thus buried, but also of the number of animals which are daily eaten by us and the other animals. For what a number is consumed, and thus in a manner are buried in the bodies of those who feed on them.

And nevertheless this earth receives them by reason of the changes of these bodies into blood, and the transformations into the aerial or the fiery element.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

I very much enjoy considering passages that particularly address Stoic physics and cosmology, and I am especially interested in how these accounts of the greater order of the Universe relate back to the questions of ethics in everyday life.

At the same time, I can find myself feeling frustrated with them, not because of what the Stoics themselves have to say, but because of the disagreements that can arise from our contemporary reading of them. I suggest that we are often too quick to reject what seems unfamiliar to our modern sensibilities, and we are tempted to point only to differences, and not first to what is shared in common.

In particular I have often been told, from the perspective of secular materialism, that Stoic physics is outdated, and has apparently been refuted by modern science. I have also been told, from the perspective of traditional spirituality, that Stoic thought is too quick to reject the immortality of the soul. I find that reflecting on this passage by Marcus Aurelius can give me some insight on both concerns.

When the Stoics, or other Classical sources, speak of the four elements, we can recognize this as a way of describing different states of matter, and the awareness that matter constantly changes its form through an ordered causality, by the balanced tension of opposing forces. What is passing returns back into its source, and it proceeds to be transformed into something new.

Things do not randomly come to be, or cease to be, but they are varied emanations and modifications of existence. When a body dies, it does not simply disappear. It will break down into other forms, and eventually be subsumed into the bodies of other living things. Or when one living thing consumes another, it can be said that there is a direct continuity from one life to another.

Now just as bodies, which the Stoics associated with the more condensed matter of earth, move on into other states, so too souls, which the Stoics associated with the more rarefied matter of air and fire, will surely move on into other states. Like all things, each of them according to their own qualities, they return back to their Divine source. I should not think that my consciousness just ceases, but rather that it becomes quite a different form of consciousness.

I try not to assume that one manner of explaining the physical Universe necessarily contradicts another, just as I try not to assume that one manner of explaining the permanence of mind necessarily contradicts another. I maintain that the Stoic, the modern physicists, and the traditional Christian can get along, and can learn from one another.

Written in 9/2005

Image: Thomas Cole, Catskill Mountain House, The Four Elements (c. 1844)