Seneca, Moral Letters 65.5

Either give your opinion, or, as is easier in cases of this kind, declare that the matter is not clear and call for another hearing. 
 
But you will reply: "What pleasure do you get from wasting your time on these problems, which relieve you of none of your emotions, rout none of your desires?" 
 
So far as I am concerned, I treat and discuss them as matters which contribute greatly toward calming the spirit, and I search myself first, and then the world about me.
 
And not even now am I, as you think, wasting my time. For all these questions, provided that they be not chopped up and torn apart into such unprofitable refinements, elevate and lighten the soul, which is weighted down by a heavy burden and desires to be freed and to return to the elements of which it was once a part. 
 
For this body of ours is a weight upon the soul and its penance; as the load presses down the soul is crushed and is in bondage, unless philosophy has come to its assistance and has bid it take fresh courage by contemplating the Universe, and has turned it from things earthly to things divine. There it has its liberty, there it can roam abroad; meantime it escapes the custody in which it is bound, and renews its life in heaven. 

 
Just as skilled workmen, who have been engaged upon some delicate piece of work which wearies their eyes with straining, if the light which they have is niggardly or uncertain, go forth into the open air and in some park devoted to the people's recreation delight their eyes in the generous light of day; so the soul, imprisoned as it has been in this gloomy and darkened house, seeks the open sky whenever it can, and in the contemplation of the Universe finds rest.
 
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 65 

I no longer take offense when someone tells me how philosophy is a waste of time, because they have not yet considered how the exercise of thought is at the root of all liberation. Yes, the abstraction can at first feel dizzying, like becoming accustomed to mountain air, and there may be some pain, like finally using a muscle after years of neglect. 
 
We all feel within us a yearning for something better, even as we struggle to define it. The first instinct is to reach outwards, to the gratification from objects of sense. It will take some time to recognize why the power of self-reflection is the key to self-mastery. Beyond the circumstances, behind the body, the soul waits to be nurtured. 
 
I fear that we complain about the many burdens of this world, and we are, in a sense, quite right to be dissatisfied with petty drudgery for the sake of winning cheap trinkets. We then make the unfortunate error, however, of just grasping for a slightly different set of diversions, believing that they will surely be different. 
 
No, the trick is in starting fresh from a whole new set of values, in rebuilding our lives from the inside out. The integrity of our own thoughts and deeds is what counts, not any new arrangement to the deck chairs, and this can only become possible when we focus on our powers of reason and choice, the very core of our human identity. 
 
Now some will tell you that you are “thinking too much”, though I like to suggest that the problem is not in the quantity, but rather in the quality of the thinking. Intellectual posturing and specious quibbling are the marks of those who wish to appear important instead of being worthy, so have compassion on the sophists, for they do not know what they do. Anxiety, insecurity, and resentment will twist our judgments into sad excuses for accountability and commitment. 
 
When life gets me down, it is time for me to remember that I am really just getting myself down. My worries are the consequence of lacking a wider perspective, and for this I must strive to raise myself up. As the mind elevates itself to what is lasting and certain, my frustrations are now left far below. 
 
Fresh air and sunlight are good for the body, just as the serenity that comes from contemplation is good for the soul. Searching for the cause, the answer to the question of “Why?”, is not a mere escape from the world—it is finally a genuine awareness of that world. Remove the blinders. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

IMAGE: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, The Soul Breaking the Ties That Bind It to Earth (1823) 

The True Beauty

"The True Beauty" 

Thomas Carew (1595-1640) 

He that loves a rosy cheek 

Or a coral lip admires, 

Or from starlike eyes doth seek 

Fuel to maintain his fires; 

As old Time makes these decay, 

So his flames must waste away. 

But a smooth and steadfast mind, 

Gentle thoughts, and calm desires, 

Hearts with equal love combined, 

Kindle never-dying fires: — 

Where these are not, I despise 

Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes. 

IMAGE: Felix Fossey, Allegory of Truth and Beauty (1852) 

The Art of Peace 105

Construction of shrine and temple buildings is not enough. 

Establish yourself as a living buddha image. 

We all should be transformed into goddesses of compassion or victorious buddhas. 

Maxims of Goethe 35

It is much easier to put yourself in the position of a mind taken up with the most absolute error, than of one which mirrors to itself half-truths. 

IMAGE: Lukas Furtenagel, The Painter Hans Burgkmair and his Wife, Anna (1529) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 65.4

This throng of causes, defined by Aristotle and by Plato, embraces either too much or too little. 
 
For if they regard as "causes" of an object that is to be made everything without which the object cannot be made, they have named too few. Time must be included among the causes; for nothing can be made without time. They must also include place; for if there be no place where a thing can be made, it will not be made. And motion too; nothing is either made or destroyed without motion. There is no art without motion, no change of any kind.
 
Now, however, I am searching for the first, the general cause; this must be simple, inasmuch as matter, too, is simple. Do we ask what cause is? It is surely Creative Reason—in other words, God. 
 
For those elements to which you referred are not a great series of independent causes; they all hinge on one alone, and that will be the creative cause.
 
Do you maintain that form is a cause? This is only what the artist stamps upon his work; it is part of a cause, but not the cause. 
 
Neither is the pattern a cause, but an indispensable tool of the cause. His pattern is as indispensable to the artist as the chisel or the file; without these, art can make no progress. But for all that, these things are neither parts of the art, nor causes of it.
 
"Then," perhaps you will say, "the purpose of the artist, that which leads him to undertake to create something, is the cause." It may be a cause; it is not, however, the efficient cause, but only an accessory cause. But there are countless accessory causes; what we are discussing is the general cause. 
 
Now the statement of Plato and Aristotle is not in accord with their usual penetration, when they maintain that the whole Universe, the perfectly wrought work, is a cause. For there is a great difference between a work and the cause of a work. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 65 
 
People will generally assume that philosophy is quite useless for everyday life, and yet I have found the exercise of philosophy, in the sense of a constant critical reflection on my own judgments, to be the most eminently practical tool at my disposal. How well I manage all the pesky little bits is entirely determined by how well I get my overall thinking in order. 
 
One part of this is making sure that I can define my terms, or put more concretely, that I know what I mean, as precisely as I am able. The devil is in the details. So, if you ask me why something is so, I will first ask myself how to wrap my head around the nature of a cause, well before I go rattling off a long list of origins. 
 
I admire the way Seneca questions the usual Platonic and Aristotelian premises, and thereby shows how he is making his own way. Sometimes we use terms far too broadly, in which case we include too much, and sometimes we use terms far too narrowly, in which case we include too little. 
 
Perhaps we are so impressed by the seeming multiplicity of causes that we overlook the purity and the simplicity of a common source. 
 
If a cause is anything that somehow contributes to the way something presents itself, then absolutely everything ends up being a cause. Plato and Aristotle would have to add far more components to their models.
 
And if we are so caught up in tabulating these many influences, we have neglected the necessity of a cause being a unifying principle, the ultimate instead of the proximate. Plato and Aristotle would have to go deeper to a common beginning. 
 
Simply put, any quality or characteristic, or what the Ancients sometimes called a category, helps to describe an identity, and if a cause is what adds to that definition, then our list of causes grows longer and longer. We must now add time, place, motion, and so on, as further causes. 
 
All the while, we are so busy with what Seneca calls the accessory causes that we have forgotten about a general cause. We are missing the forest for the trees. The artist, for example, lays out his plans with a pattern in mind, and he imposes a specific form on the matter, and he does so with a certain goal, yet while all of these are stages of the process, none of these are the agent that is actually doing the making or the creating. 
 
In asserting the primacy of an efficient cause, Seneca is defending a distinctly Stoic view of the Universe, where the order to be found in Nature is the direct result of Creative Reason, of God. It is necessary to discern the presence of such a Grand Design, however imperfectly and indirectly, if we are going to make sense of our own parts within the workings of the whole. 
 
Yes, it is good to speak of all the elements that go together in building the aspects of our world, as Plato and Aristotle rightly do, but it is even better to return back to the source. The relative must be measured by the absolute, the consequent must be judged by means of the precedent, and the tools must be placed in the hands of the craftsman. We do ourselves a disservice by focusing on the pieces without asking who arranged the puzzle. 
 
I am disappointed when I see attempts at a “contemporary” Stoicism that denies the guiding role of Providence, simply because it happens to go against the intellectual fashions of the moment. We are then left with only a “life hack” for gaining the usual worldly vanities, and thereby divorce human nature from its Divine harmony. 
 
Man without God, or a creature without a Creator, is really nothing at all. I return to the importance of perceiving the primary cause both in theory and in practice, since my view of what is great is what gives meaning to my appreciation of what is small. Seneca stresses the complete dependence of our mortal lives on God, so that we might more fully know who we are. 
 
I probably refer to it far too often, but it once again reminds me of one of my favorite passages, from Book 7 of Augustine’s Confessions: 
 
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. 
 
The Stoic certainly does not need to be a Christian, or an adherent of any particular faith, but I think it no accident that Stoicism is also so compatible with all genuine religion, precisely because Stoicism is inherently theistic. 
 
Though a more thorough reflection is best saved for another time, I will briefly add that the Stoic teaching of pantheism, or perhaps panentheism, depending upon how we are using our terms, is yet another aspect of this reverence for the totality. All that exists is reducible to the One, and it can only be said to be real insofar it participates in the One. 
 

All sectarian bickering aside, I honestly believe that Augustine would agree, as would any lover of wisdom who is on a quest for the fountainhead. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

Delphic Maxims 46

Δόλον φοβοῦ 

Fear deceit 

IMAGE: Lorenzo Lippi, The Allegory of Deception (1650) 

The Little Things

Albert Durer Lucas (1828-1919) 

Sayings of Heraclitus 78

It is best to hide folly; but it is hard in times of relaxation, over our cups. 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 234

The waters of a swiftly-flowing current move round and round in eddies and whirlpools, but quickly crossing these they resume their former course. 

So the hearts of the pious fall sometimes into the whirlpools of despondency, grief, and unbelief, but it is only a momentary aberration. It does not last long. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 65.3

To these four Plato adds a fifth cause—the pattern which he himself calls the "idea"; for it is this that the artist gazed upon when he created the work which he had decided to carry out. Now it makes no difference whether he has his pattern outside himself, that he may direct his glance to it, or within himself, conceived and placed there by himself. 
 
God has within himself these patterns of all things, and his mind comprehends the harmonies and the measures of the whole totality of things which are to be carried out; he is filled with these shapes which Plato calls the "ideas"—imperishable, unchangeable, not subject to decay. And therefore, though men die, humanity itself, or the idea of man, according to which man is molded, lasts on, and though men toil and perish, it suffers no change.
 
Accordingly, there are five causes, as Plato says: the material, the agent, the make-up, the model, and the end in view. Last comes the result of all these. Just as in the case of the statue—to go back to the figure with which we began—the material is the bronze, the agent is the artist, the make-up is the form which is adapted to the material, the model is the pattern imitated by the agent, the end in view is the purpose in the maker's mind, and, finally, the result of all these is the statue itself.
 
The Universe also, in Plato's opinion, possesses all these elements. The agent is God; the source, matter; the form, the shape and the arrangement of the visible world. The pattern is doubtless the model according to which God has made this great and most beautiful creation. The purpose is his object in so doing. 
 
Do you ask what God's purpose is? It is goodness. Plato, at any rate, says: "What was God's reason for creating the world? God is good, and no good person is grudging of anything that is good. Therefore, God made it the best world possible." 
 
Hand down your opinion, then, O judge; state who seems to you to say what is truest, and not who says what is absolutely true. For to do that is as far beyond our ken as truth itself. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 65 
 
To the modern student of philosophy, it may seem odd how Seneca is “overlaying” Plato upon Aristotle, and speaking of Plato’s “Ideas” or “Forms” as being a sort of fifth cause. I am grateful, however, that Seneca is seeking a model for the whole, and not merely unrelated sets of compartmentalized theories. It is better to ask whether these arguments can somehow work together, instead of merely isolating them from one another. 
 
I will resist the temptation to ramble on about Plato’s whole system, so at the risk of speaking too vaguely or hastily, the point here is that we should consider if the identity or form of any particular thing is really just an imperfect duplicate of a universal ideal. This throws a fifth component into our causality toolbox. 
 
When I look at many dogs, for example, all of them will have different qualities, each one lacking in something present in the other, and yet all of them also share in a common essence, which remains constant and unchanging. The lesser proceeds out of the greater. 
 
The relative instances might thus be said to participate in, and receive their being from, an absolute standard. It is what the artist ponders, and seeks to replicate, when he produces his work, just as it is what God himself conceives, and effects into existence, when he brings order to the entire material world. The “Idea” is like a model, or a blueprint, or an archetype, through which creation takes place. 
 
Though I am probably ruminating far too wildly here, I find it interesting how Seneca employs the Platonic “Idea” as a way to bind all agency into the Divine Mind, and to connect or bridge the efficient cause to the final cause. He wishes to see the causes united, not torn asunder. 
 
If there is a universal concept that joins all particulars together, then such a concept must exist within an intellect, and if all things must be reduced to a first cause, then the perfect awareness of God is the benchmark by which they must be judged. The buck stops here! 
 
Furthermore, the final cause, the purpose or end, is then expressed by the intention of the efficient cause, the original agent, and so the beginning and the end are two sides of the same coin. It took some study of philosophy for me to understand what was meant by the Divine being the alpha and the omega. What comes around, goes around! 
 
When we ask why God bothered to make anything at all, since he is already, by definition, the perfection of being, we too easily forget that the good of the creature is the plan of the Creator. It reminds me of how any act of love is an act of self-giving, and that is a comforting thought. 
 
Finally, I am rightly put in my place when Seneca affirms how our human knowledge is not meant to be total or all-encompassing, and why we are made to slowly increase in our degree of certainty, not to demand instant enlightenment. 
 
As I grow older, I see more and more value in a sort of practical doubt, not the excessive skepticism of the Pyrrhonians, which denies any truth altogether, but rather the patience and caution of the Academics, which humbly recognizes the limits of our perceptions. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

Stoic Snippets 227

Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise yourself about this part of philosophy. 

For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. 

Such a man has put off the body, and as he sees that he must, no one knows how soon, go away from among men and leave everything here, he gives himself up entirely to just doing in all his actions, and in everything else that happens he resigns himself to the Universal Nature. 

But as to what any man shall say or think about him or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things—with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him. 

And he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.11 

Tidbits from Montaigne 61

I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is my own. 

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 3.12 

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 175

Never call yourself a Philosopher, nor talk much among the unlearned about Principles, but do that which follows from them. 

Thus at a banquet, do not discuss how people ought to eat; but eat as you ought. 

Remember that Socrates thus entirely avoided ostentation. Men would come to him desiring to be recommended to philosophers, and he would conduct them thither himself—so well did he bear being overlooked. 

Accordingly, if any talk concerning principles should arise among the unlearned, be you for the most part silent. For you run great risk of spewing up what you have ill digested. 

And when a man tells you that you know nothing, and you are not nettled at it, then you may be sure that you have begun the work. 

IMAGE: Pier Francesco Mola, The Teachings of Socrates (c. 1660) 

Dhammapada 362

He who controls his hand, he who controls his feet, he who controls his speech, he who is well controlled, he who delights inwardly, who is collected, who is solitary and content, him they call Bhikshu. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 65.2

All art is but imitation of nature; therefore, let me apply these statements of general principles to the things which have to be made by man. 
 
A statue, for example, has afforded matter which was to undergo treatment at the hands of the artist, and has had an artist who was to give form to the matter. Hence, in the case of the statue, the material was bronze, the cause was the workman. And so it goes with all things—they consist of that which is made, and of the maker.
 
The Stoics believe in one cause only—the maker; but Aristotle thinks that the word "cause" can be used in three ways: 
 
"The first cause," he says, "is the actual matter, without which nothing can be created. The second is the workman. The third is the form, which is impressed upon every work—a statue, for example." This last is what Aristotle calls the eidos. "There is, too," says he, "a fourth—the purpose of the work as a whole."
 
Now I shall show you what this last means. Bronze is the "first cause" of the statue, for it could never have been made unless there had been something from which it could be cast and molded.
 
The "second cause" is the artist; for without the skilled hands of a workman that bronze could not have been shaped to the outlines of the statue. 
 
The "third cause" is the form, inasmuch as our statue could never be called The Lance-Bearer or The Boy Binding his Hair, had not this special shape been stamped upon it. 
 
The "fourth cause" is the purpose of the work. For if this purpose had not existed, the statue would not have been made.
 
Now what is this purpose? It is that which attracted the artist, which he followed when he made the statue. It may have been money, if he has made it for sale; or renown, if he has worked for reputation; or religion, if he has wrought it as a gift for a temple. 
 
Therefore, this also is a cause contributing towards the making of the statue; or do you think that we should avoid including, among the causes of a thing which has been made, that element without which the thing in question would not have been made? 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 65 
 
The analogy of a sculptor and his sculpture is employed in all sorts of philosophical traditions to help us understand the nature of causes, and I honestly don’t know where or when it made its first appearance. I suppose it isn’t that important who may have thought of it first, as it is such a perennial image, reflecting the power of the mind to infuse beauty into matter. 
 
Just as the artist molds and shapes his medium with the order of his design, so all change is informed by a maker, all motion begun by a mover, all creatures produced by a creator. Wherever there is any activity, there is the presence of purpose, and wherever there is purpose, there is the intention of intellect. This is as true for the humble artisan in his workshop as it is for Providence and the laws of Nature. 
 
All analogies, of course, will be somewhat imperfect, because they proceed by a likeness instead of an identity, but what we see in the example of the relative is a mirroring of its source in the absolute. Once I perceive the very origin of a thing’s particular existence, that which generated it and made to be as it is, I am now closer to more fully grasping the parts in the relationship of the whole. 
 
The Stoics thought it sufficient to distinguish between the active cause, in the broad sense of agency, and the passive matter, that which is the occasion for such agency, though Aristotle, as is peculiar to his method, made further divisions in his presentation of causality. 
 
Having been trained in the whole Peripatetic and Scholastic tradition, I do appreciate such a clarity of detail, and I have found his “Four Causes” to be remarkable aids for unraveling most any problem of life, both in theory and in practice. As we shall see, they can also be of benefit to the Stoic, as long as all aspects to answering the question of “Why?” can still be reduced to a unified and pure principle of origin. 
 
As a teacher, I have employed all sorts of ways to explain the Four Causes, and made all sorts of claims about their importance, but here I limit myself to the quick version: 
 
The efficient cause tells me what something was made by, such as the sculptor. 
 
The material cause tells me what something was made from, such as the bronze. 
 
The formal cause tells me what something was made into, such as the defining shape of the sculpture. 
 
The final cause tells me what something was made for, such as the beauty of art being intended to elevate the soul. 
 
The first and the second are already a part of the Stoic model, while the third and the fourth further flesh out the elements of the form which the agent stamps upon the matter, and the end for which the agent designed it. 
 
Were the Stoics neglecting these latter components? I would suggest that they were not, as should be evident from the way Seneca already includes both the imprinting of the form and the direction of purpose in his account of agency. 
 
It takes an Aristotle, however, to explicitly isolate all the critical components, and I must remember how the Four Causes are not somehow four separate things, but four angles, so to speak, from which I can look at a single thing. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 5

Alexandre-Louis Leloir, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1865) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 136

Discord gives a relish for concord. 

IMAGE: Horace Vernet, Peace and War (1820) 

Aesop's Fables 73

The Lion, the Fox, and the Beasts 

The Lion once gave out that he was sick unto death, and summoned the animals to come and hear his last Will and Testament. 

So the Goat came to the Lion's cave, and stopped there listening for a long time. 

Then a Sheep went in, and before she came out a Calf came up to receive the last wishes of the Lord of the Beasts. 

But soon the Lion seemed to recover, and came to the mouth of his cave, and saw the Fox who had been waiting outside for some time. 

"Why do you not come to pay your respects to me?" said the Lion to the Fox. 

"I beg your Majesty's pardon," said the Fox, "but I noticed the track of the animals that have already come to you; and while I see many hoof-marks going in, I see none coming out. Until the animals that have entered your cave come out again I prefer to remain in the open air." 

It is easier to get into the enemy's toils than out again. 

Maxims of Goethe 34

Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. 

Justice weighs and decides, law superintends and orders. 

Justice refers to the individual, law to society. 

IMAGE: Marco Liberi, Allegory of Truth, Justice, and Innocence (c. 1660) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 65.1

Letter 65: On the first cause
 
I shared my time yesterday with ill health; it claimed for itself all the period before noon; in the afternoon, however, it yielded to me. 
 
And so, I first tested my spirit by reading; then, when reading was found to be possible, I dared to make more demands upon the spirit, or perhaps I should say, to make more concessions to it. I wrote a little, and indeed with more concentration than usual, for I am struggling with a difficult subject and do not wish to be downed. 
 
In the midst of this, some friends visited me, with the purpose of employing force and of restraining me, as if I were a sick man indulging in some excess.
 
So, conversation was substituted for writing; and from this conversation I shall communicate to you the topic which is still the subject of debate; for we have appointed you referee. You have more of a task on your hands than you suppose, for the argument is threefold. 
 
Our Stoic philosophers, as you know, declare that there are two things in the Universe which are the source of everything—namely, cause and matter.
 
Matter lies sluggish, a substance ready for any use, but sure to remain unemployed if no one sets it in motion. 
 
Cause, however, by which we mean reason, molds matter and turns it in whatever direction it will, producing thereby various concrete results. 
 
Accordingly, there must be, in the case of each thing, that from which it is made, and, next, an agent by which it is made. The former is its material, the latter its cause. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 65 
 
When I am feeling sick, I might be inclined to fret and to mope, but Seneca understands how a weakness in the body is best remedied with a strength in the mind. While academic busywork has never cured me of what ails me, an honest reflection on why the world works the way it must has never steered me wrong. 
 
This letter delves into the philosophy of causes, including a contrast between the views of Aristotle, of Plato, and of the Stoics. The technicalities can admittedly get frustrating, and yet there is no need to apologize for any attempt at figuring out the reasons that stand behind our lives. Indeed, the fellow who refuses to ask the question “Why?” is hardly living up to his human calling. 
 
As before, Seneca further argues how, regardless of the language to our particular conclusions, the effort itself is already a relief from our many worldly troubles. The genuine philosopher rightly understands why a discovery of order and purpose is the very key to being liberated from the burden of senseless suffering. There is quite the difference between making excuses and facing the responsibilities of our proper place. 
 
I can begin by noting how, wherever there is action, there is a distinction between that which acts and that which is acted upon. The Stoics wished to keep that simple fact in mind when they viewed the structure of the whole Universe, and so they saw the agency of Divine Reason constantly at work in animating and giving form to passive matter. 
 
Ultimately, it is necessary to recognize how all action is reducible to a pure and simple source of change, by which all other things are measured. This, for the Stoic, is the only “Cause” that counts, for it is the true beginning. Without this moving power, matter would be inert, only presenting a possibility of being given any distinct identity.
 
If a man is not breathing, or walking, or talking, he is nothing more than a lump of lifeless flesh. By analogy, if the Universe is not charged with the Logos, the seminal principle of Reason, it is nothing more than a static mass of indeterminate “stuff”. 
 
Some modern commentators would sadly like to excise such arguments from Stoicism, thereby reducing it to a purely humanistic endeavor, but that doesn’t make them any less true. Deny the Cosmic order, and you inevitably also deny the human order. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013