Dhammapada 399

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who, though he has committed no offense, endures reproach, bonds, and stripes, who has endurance for his force, and strength for his army. 

IMAGE: Antonio Zucchi, Justice and Fortitude (1767) 

Proverbs 2:9-19

[9] Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
[10] for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
[11] discretion will watch over you;
understanding will guard you;
[12] delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
[13] who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
[14] who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil;
[15] men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.
[16] You will be saved from the loose woman,
from the adventuress with her smooth words,
[17] who forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God;
[18] for her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the shades;
[19] none who go to her come back
nor do they regain the paths of life. 

IMAGE: Hermann von Kaulbach, Allegory of Wisdom and Justice (1888) 

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) 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 1.5

. . . Again, the souls choose their particular ways of living, according to their former dignity and disposition; but still, the behaving themselves well or ill in each of these ways, is left in their own power. Upon this account, we see many, who have chosen a way of trade, and business, and great temptation, yet continue very honest and good men in it; and many who profess philosophy, and the improvement of wisdom and virtue, are yet of very loose conversation, notwithstanding all the advantages of such an employment. 

For the different methods of life, as that of husbandry, or merchandise, or music, or the like, are chosen by the soul according to her former disposition; and men’s station in the world is assigned them, suitable to their dignity and deserts: but the management of themselves, in any of these callings, is the choice and work of the soul afterwards; and we do not so much blame or commend men for their callings themselves, as for their different behavior in them. 

Farther yet: this fatal position or revolution does never (as some men too boldly affirm it does) cause anything of wickedness in us, so as to make it necessary, that men born under it should be knaves and cheats, adulterous, or addicted to beastly and unnatural lusts. For, though the casters of nativities sometimes say true, when they foretell these things; yet this only happens, according as we receive particular qualities or impressions; which is done, sometimes in a moderate, and sometimes in an immoderate degree. 

And it is not the influence of the stars, but the corruption of the mind, that makes men knavish, or lascivious, or unnatural and brutish. Those that receive these influences moderately, and do not assist them by their own depravity, are cautious and wary, correct the heat of youth, and use it virtuously; but those that receive them immoderately, that is, give way to them, and promote them, debase and prostitute themselves to all manner of wickedness. 

And what reflection upon nature can this be? For, even that, which is most beneficial to us, may turn to our prejudice by a perverse use of it. The sun gives us light; it both makes things visible, and enables us to see them; And yet, if a man will be so foolish, as to take too much of it, to gaze upon his rays when they shine in their full strength, he may lose his eyesight by his folly. But then, that folly, and not the brightness of the sun, is to be blamed; if that, which is the author of light to all the world, be the occasion of blindness and darkness to him. 

Now, when the astrologers have (as they think) formed to themselves certain marks and rules, whereby to know, who will receive these impressions in a due measure, and who in a vicious excess; then they pronounce some men wise, and others subtle and knavish accordingly. Those, after all, I very much doubt, whether the erecting of any schemes can furnish them with such marks of distinction, or no: some things indeed are so manifest, that all the world must allow them; as, that when the sun is in Cancer, our bodies feel excessive heat; but some again are exceedingly dark and doubtful, and such as none, but those who have made themselves masters of astrology, can make anything of. 

Now, that those things which act constantly according to the design and directions of nature, preserve the original constitution given them at first by their great creator, and are endued with the greatest power and strength, that such things, I say, always act upon a good design, and properly speaking, are never the cause of any evil, seems to me very plain. 

For all evil is occasioned, not by the excess, but by the want of power; and if it were not so, power ought not to be reckoned among those things that are good. And yet it is as plain that even good things in excess oftentimes prove hurtful to us; but then, that hurt is not owing to the things, but to ourselves. And thus much may suffice, in answer to them who deny the freedom of the will, upon the pretense of any fatality from the motion or position of the heavens. 

But indeed, to all who deny this liberty, upon any argument whatsoever, it may be replied in general, that those who go about to destroy it, do by no means consider or understand the nature of the soul, but overthrow its very original constitution, without seeming to be sensible of it. For they take away all principle of internal and self-motion, in which the essence of the soul chiefly consists. For it must be either moved of its own accord, and then it is excited by a cause within itself to its appetites and affections, and not thrust forward and dragged along, as bodies are; or else it is moved by an external force, and then it is purely mechanical. 

Again, They who will not allow us to have our actions at our own disposal, do not attend to, nor are able to account for, the vital energy of the soul, and its assenting and dissenting, accepting or rejecting power. Now this is what experience and common sense teaches every man; that he has a power of consenting and refusing, embracing and declining, agreeing to or denying; and it is to no purpose to argue against that, which we feel and find every moment. But now all these are internal motions, begun in the soul itself; and not violent impulses and attractions from things without us, such as inanimate creatures must be moved by. 

For this is the difference between animate and inanimate bodies, that the one sort are moved by an internal principle, and the other are not. Now, according to this distinction, that which puts the inanimate into motion, must have a principle of motion of its own, and cannot itself be moved mechanically. For if this also derived its motion from something else, the body (as was urged before) is not moved by this, but by that other cause, from whence the motion is at first imparted to this; and so the body, being moved no longer from within, but by some forcible impression from without, as all other inanimate creatures are, must itself be concluded inanimate.

Once more, by denying that we have power over our actions, and a liberty of willing or not willing, of considering, comparing, choosing, desiring, declining, and the like, all moral distinctions are lost and gone, and virtue and vice are utterly confounded. There is no longer any just ground left for praise or dispraise, applause or reproach, rewards or punishments. 

The laws of God and man instituted for those purposes, and enforced by these sanctions, are evacuated; and the very foundations of them all torn up, and quite overturned. And then, do but consider, how dismal the consequences must be. For when once we are come to this pass, all order and society must needs be lost; and nothing left us, but a life of rapine and violence, of misery and confusion; a life, not of civilized men, but of ravenous and wild beasts. . . . 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 175

A prosperous worthlessness is the curse of high life. 

IMAGE: Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888) 

Maxims of Goethe 67

The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not exactly hit upon the right way of saying it. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 79.2

There is a well-known place in Lycia—called by the inhabitants “Hephaestion”—where the ground is full of holes in many places and is surrounded by a harmless fire, which does no injury to the plants that grow there. Hence the place is fertile and luxuriant with growth, because the flames do not scorch but merely shine with a force that is mild and feeble. 
 
But let us postpone this discussion, and look into the matter when you have given me a description just how far distant the snow lies from the crater—I mean the snow which does not melt even in summer, so safe is it from the adjacent fire. 
 
But there is no ground for your charging this work to my account; for you were about to gratify your own craze for fine writing, without a commission from anyone at all. Nay, what am I to offer you not merely to describe Aetna in your poem, and not to touch lightly upon a topic which is a matter of ritual for all poets? 
 
Ovid could not be prevented from using this theme simply because Vergil had already fully covered it; nor could either of these writers frighten off Cornelius Severus. Besides, the topic has served them all with happy results, and those who have gone before seem to me not to have forestalled all that could be said, but merely to have opened the way.
 

It makes a great deal of difference whether you approach a subject that has been exhausted, or one where the ground has merely been broken; in the latter case, the topic grows day by day, and what is already discovered does not hinder new discoveries. 

 
Besides, he who writes last has the best of the bargain; he finds already at hand words which, when marshalled in a different way, show a new face. And he is not pilfering them, as if they belonged to someone else, when he uses them, for they are common property. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 79 
 
Nature is full of instances where forces that would appear to be in violent opposition will resolve themselves into a delicate balance. I have yet to see plants thriving in the midst of fire, or snow resting next to lava, though I was delighted to see wildflowers growing from barrels of industrial waste, and a family of birds nested inside a neglected jet engine. 
 
As it is with the inanimate, so it is with the animate, and as it is with the beast, so it is with the man. My tomcat has now become fast friends with the neighbor’s pit bull, and I need to stop thinking that my own efforts are somehow in conflict with the achievements of others. False dichotomies are among the greatest barriers we face in securing our peace of mind. 
 
Like Lucilius, let my action be its own reward, with no worry over whether it is perceived as being original or derivative; different descriptions should rightly complement one another, not exclude one another. It did not concern Ovid that Vergil had already written about Aetna, and I should not be frightened of presenting a fresh account of a road formerly traveled. 
 
Innovation is in service to the truth, instead of the truth being at the whims of innovation. If it has served to enlighten before, then it is certainly worth repeating, and if the matter is not yet decided, I may yet add a new perspective, however slight and unassuming. In practice, I have yet to come across a question that has been answered thoroughly, so every contribution ought to be welcome. 
 
And if it happens to be true, it belongs to everyone, not just to the fellow who was fortunate enough to stumble across it earliest. Once a man claims a sole possession of knowledge, and he wishes to deny its benefits to his fellows, I fear he is no longer dealing in science, but rather in lust. 
 
I imagine that people assume I opted out of academic publishing because I wasn’t smart enough, and that may well be the case, yet my motive came from a point of conscience, a refusal to treat my friends as if they were enemies, my own thinking as an act of war against my colleague’s thinking. 
 
No one has to be first, and the latecomer has just as much to offer. There is more than enough of the truth to go around, whether we contribute at the beginning or at the end, in shining lights or in dusty footnotes. Resentment and jealousy are the marks of a puny man. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 1.4

. . . We are told again, that our desires and our opinions are carried to their proper object with as invincible a necessity, as a stone or clod of earth is carried downwards; and consequently, that nature has left us nothing in our own power: nor have we any more reason to conclude, that we are free to think, or to desire, after this or that manner, when we see our assent and appetite always moved by the credibility or the desirableness of their objects, than we have, to suppose that a stone can ascend, when we never see it do so. 

Now to this it may be replied, that there is a twofold necessity, the one absolutely destructive of free will, the other very consistent with it. 

That kind of necessity, which proceeds from any things without us, does indeed take away all liberty and choice; for no man can be said to act freely, when he is compelled by any other external cause, to do a thing, or to leave it undone. 

But then there is another sort of necessity from within ourselves, which keeps everything within its due bounds, and obliges each faculty and part to act agreeably to its own nature and original constitution. And this is so far from destroying free will, that it rather preserves and supports it. For by this means it comes to pass, that a free agent can be wrought upon by no other ways, but such as are consistent with the nature of a free agent, which is from a principle of motion within itself. 

And this necessity is by no means a mechanical necessity, because it is not imposed by anything from without us; but is what the nature of such an agent admits and requires; what is necessary for its preservation, and for exerting the operations, proper to a creature endued with such a faculty as self-motion. 

Besides, if the soul can bring itself to such habits and dispositions as are virtuous or vicious; can grow better by wisdom and sobriety, and worse by perverseness and a dissolute behavior; and can confirm itself in each of these courses, by the frequent repetition of acts suitable to them; then the soul is the true cause of all this. 

Though, in truth, it must not be admitted for a general rule neither, that the liberty and power of the will is to be judged of, by men being able to do things, contrary to one another. For the souls immediately united to the original good, prefer that constantly; and yet the freedom of their choice is still the same; for that preference is no more constrained and necessary, than if they took evil instead of it. But it is their excellence and perfection, that they continue steadfast in their own good, and never suffer themselves to be drawn off to the contrary. 

But as for our souls, which are more remotely descended from that great original, their desires are according to their tempers and dispositions; those of them that are well disposed, have good desires, and those that are ill, have evil ones: but still these souls of ours are capable of great alterations; they frequently recover themselves from vice to virtue, by reformation and better care; they decline too, and sink down from virtue to vice, by supineness and a foolish neglect; and both these changes are wrought in them by their own voluntary choice, and not by any force or necessity that compels them to it. So that there can be no manner of pretense for charging any part of our wickedness upon God. 

He created the soul after such a manner indeed, as to leave it capable of being corrupted; because its essence is not of the first and best sort of natures, but has a mixture of the middle and the lowest; and this mixture was fit, that so all might remain in its perfection; and the first and best continue still such, without degenerating into barrenness, and imperfection, and matter. 

God therefore, who is infinitely good himself, made the soul in a capacity of being perverted; and it is an argument of his mercy, and the exceeding riches of his goodness, that he did so: for he has set it above the reach of all external violence and necessity, and made it impossible for it to be corrupted without its own consent. 

There is one argument more still behind; which pretends, that a fatal revolution of the heavens has so strong and absolute a power upon us, as not only to influence our actions, but even to determine our choice, and all our inclinations, and leave us no liberty at all to dispose of ourselves, but only the empty name of such a liberty. 

Now to these we may answer, that if the rational soul be eternal, and immortal, (which I shall not go about to prove, that being foreign to this subject, but shall desire at present to take for granted, though it must be confessed, not in all points agreeable to the doctrine of the Stoics in this particular, but) if the soul, I say, be eternal and immortal, it cannot be allowed to receive its being from, or to have its dependence upon, matter and motion. 

Its instrument indeed, that is, the animal taken in the gross, by which I mean, the body animated by the soul, may owe its nature and its changes to such causes: for material causes produce material effects; and these may differ, according as those causes are differently disposed; with regard to things here below. 

And the instrument is formed so, as to be proper and serviceable to the soul, whose business it is to make use of it now; as the difference of tools teaches us to distinguish the several professions that use them, so as to say, these belong to the carpenter’s, those to the mason’s, and others to the smith’s trade; and not only to distinguish the trades themselves, but the skill and capacity of the artificers themselves; to judge of their designs and intentions, and the perfection of the work itself; for those who are masters of their trade, have better tools, and use them with greater dexterity, than others. 

In like manner, they who have attained to the knowledge of astrology, find out the nature and temper of the instrument (the body) from the different constitution of material causes, and from hence make their conjectures of the disposition of the soul; and this is the reason, why they often guess aright. 

For indeed, the generality of souls, when falling under ill management, and the conversation of naughty men, (a sort of degradation, inflicted upon them by way of punishment, for the loss of their primitive purity) addict themselves too much to the body, and are governed and subdued by it; so as to use it no longer as their instrument of action, but to look upon it as a part and piece of their own essence, and conform their desires to its brutish appetites and inclinations. 

Besides, this position, and fatal revolution of the heavens, carries some sort of argument to the production of the souls united to bodies under it, yet not so, as to impose any absolute necessity upon their appetites and inclinations, but only to infer a resemblance of their temper. 

For, as in cities, there are some particular solemn seasons and places, which give us good grounds to distinguish the persons assembled in them: as the days and places of public worship commonly call those that are wise, and religious, and well-disposed, together; and those that are set apart for pomp and public sports, gather the rabble, and the idle, and the dissolute; so that the observing these solemnities gives us a clear knowledge of the people that attend upon them: by the same reason, the particular seasons and places, (the houses and conjunctions of the planets) may be able to give us some light, into the temper of the souls united to bodies under them, as carrying some affinity to the conjunctions, under which men are born. 

For, when God in his justice has ordained such a particular position, and all the fatalities consequent to it; then those souls, which have deserved this vengeance, are brought under that position. For likeness, and affinity of tempers, has a strange power of bringing all that agree in it together. 

This fatal revolution then, does by no means constrain or bind up the soul, nor take away its native freedom; but the soul only bears some resemblance to the temper of this revolution; and is framed agreeably to such a body, as itself has deserved to be given it for its use. And This gives men an opportunity of learning its particular desires and Inclinations, by considering the constellations that people are born under. . . . 

Delphic Maxims 76

Εὐτυχίαν εὔχου 

Pray for happiness 

IMAGE: John William Waterhouse, Flora (1890) 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 13

Pierre Patel, Landscape with Jacob Wrestling the Angel (c. 1650) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 79.1

Letter 79: On the rewards of scientific discovery   

I have been awaiting a letter from you, that you might inform me what new matter was revealed to you during your trip round Sicily, and especially that you might give me further information regarding Charybdis itself. 
 
I know very well that Scylla is a rock—and indeed a rock not dreaded by mariners; but with regard to Charybdis I should like to have a full description, in order to see whether it agrees with the accounts in mythology; and, if you have by chance investigated it (for it is indeed worthy of your investigation), please enlighten me concerning the following: is it lashed into a whirlpool by a wind from only one direction, or do all storms alike serve to disturb its depths? Is it true that objects snatched downwards by the whirlpool in that strait are carried for many miles under water, and then come to the surface on the beach near Tauromenium? 
 
If you will write me a full account of these matters, I shall then have the boldness to ask you to perform another task—also to climb Aetna at my special request. Certain naturalists have inferred that the mountain is wasting away and gradually settling, because sailors used to be able to see it from a greater distance. The reason for this may be, not that the height of the mountain is decreasing, but because the flames have become dim and the eruptions less strong and less copious, and because for the same reason the smoke also is less active by day. 
 
However, either of these two things is possible to believe: that on the one hand the mountain is growing smaller because it is consumed from day to day, and that, on the other hand, it remains the same in size because the mountain is not devouring itself, but instead of this the matter which seethes forth collects in some subterranean valley and is fed by other material, finding in the mountain itself not the food which it requires, but simply a passageway out. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 79 
 
I have always been one of those pesky fellows who not only likes to figure out how things work, but also to discover why they work as they do, yet I struggled greatly with my classes in physics, chemistry, biology, or mathematics. While I was desperately curious, I was a painfully slow learner, hardly helped by a tendency to dwell upon the details, and by the time I had worked my way through the first chapter, the other students had already finished the rest of the book.
 
If I asked for explanations, I was given a hasty description, or I was merely told to memorize the formula. Without building on an account of the causes, I was clueless, so, at some point, my betters decided I was more creative than I was analytical, and they steered me toward literature, history, and philosophy. It’s a shame, not just because such a dichotomy is facile, but because a touch of patient demonstrating might have helped me to become a very different sort of man. 
 
I did, however, strive to become a teacher who never left anyone behind, even if it meant learning less while learning it thoroughly. Years later, I was asked to teach algebra and geology to high school students, by a headmaster who foolishly assumed I was a polymath, despite my protests. I spent the summer ploddingly teaching myself, and I then presented the material with a certain type of student in mind, the one who was inquisitive, though he had sadly been labeled as “dumb”. 
 
Seneca’s enthusiasm about the natural sciences is precisely the sort of attitude I believe can return some vitality to the rote tedium of education. What sort of conditions will generate a whirlpool? Are the stories about Charybdis to be taken literally, or are they symbolic? Why do people observe that Mt. Aetna seems to be shrinking? Is it something about the composition of the volcano itself, or should we rather examine the qualities of our own perceptions? 
 
We have an unfortunate tendency to dismiss the ancients as being ignorant about the sciences, when our own advancements depend upon the very foundations they had gradually built. There is a good reason why it was once called “natural philosophy”, a wisdom that seeks to discover the hidden reasons behind the order of the material world; we would do well to recover that authentic sense of wonder. 
 
I’m afraid I often see “science” reduced to a yet another form of dogmatism, a blind deference to the infallible authority of supposed experts, not unlike the distortion of faith we see employed by so many religious demagogues. Instead of standing in awe of the mysterious, it is a surrender to conformity, where the matter is either “settled” or has suddenly “evolved”, depending upon whatever happens to be politically convenient.
 
It has come so far in academic circles that skepticism is no longer a healthy sense of doubt, but more of a fortress mentality, where anything extraordinary is immediately rejected as being impossible. The shortsighted once claimed that gorillas and Komodo dragons didn’t exist, since no scientist had yet studied one in his laboratory; we should have the humility to admit that we simply don’t know, before we denounce it as ridiculous. And here I thought only stubborn children will insist that it isn’t real if they can’t see it. 
 
I am so relieved to find Seneca with a heart full of wonder about what makes the world tick, which Aristotle rightly described as the beginning of all philosophy. The true scientist is characterized by a mind both open and logical, at once broad and precise, not by the status of his professional credentials. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013 

IMAGE: Carl Spitzweg, A Scholar of the Natural Sciences (c. 1880) 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 1.3

. . . These are the cavils commonly made use of against free will; though indeed a great many men insist upon one more; and fancy, that there is a fatality in the motion and position of the heavens, which influencing, not only all other things, but even our very desire and inclinations too, determines us in the opinions we shall espouse, and the choices we shall make. 

And in confirmation of this argument, they produce the predictions of astrologers, who, upon calculating nativities, and finding what planet each person is born under, take upon them to pronounce very peremptorily, that such a one shall be a voluptuous person; a second, covetous; a third, a lover of learning and wisdom; and thus declare beforehand the inclinations and desires, which in the whole course of their lives, shall afterwards be discovered by their behavior and conversation. 

Now these men could never say true, nor describe such tempers and practices so exactly as they do, if there were not some constellation, some fatal overruling influence, which enforces these particular inclinations and appetites, and puts it past men’s power to change or conquer them. And in any such fatality there be; how absurd is it to pretend to a power of regulating and determining our own desires, and of fixing them upon what objects we please, when we are absolutely and irrevocably staked down to this or that particular object beforehand, and must desire and pursue it, whether we will or no? 

This, I think, is the sum of all the objections, commonly urged against that liberty we profess to assert, and the power of disposing our desire and our aversions, the resolutions we take, and the actions we do, as we see fit ourselves. 

Now, in answer to the first of these, which made out wants the foundation of that pretended necessity and constraint; we may rely, that, if this were true, then want would always create desire. But this it does not do. For there are many things, and particularly, inanimate creatures, that are oftentimes in great want of some quality or other; heat, or cold, or drought, or moisture, and yet they never desire what they stand so much in need of. The reason is plain, because their nature is not capable of desire: for, in order to desire, it is necessary, both to have a sense of the thing desired, an to be moved by that sense: from whence it is plain, that want does not always infuse, or infer desire. 

But the creatures, which are endued with a faculty of desiring, when they feel themselves in want, do then exert desire, in order to the relief of the wants they feel. 

Thus (to illustrate the thing by a familiar instance) itching disposes us to scratch; and upon a sense of the uneasiness it give us, the hands apply themselves to the relief we want; but yet this itching does not give us the hands we scratch with: nor is it true, that the necessities of human life have invented the arts and trades made use of for the support of it. 

For it is the mind of man, which invented them, saw the need there was of them, and took occasion from thence to seek out this relief. For all desire is a motion of the soul desiring, born and begun within, and exerted by the soul, when called out by any desirable object; but it is by no means infused into the soul from without. 

Now the irrational life of brute beasts, being wholly corporeal, and having, in truth, little or nothing, but what is matter and body belonging to it, is troubled with no difference or distraction of desires, has no wants, except those relating to the body, to supply; and consequently, but one sort of desires to exert. And this constant uniformity in their case, makes us think them the effect, not of liberty, but necessity. 

But now, the rational soul of man, being placed, as I said before, in a middle station, may be considered in a threefold capacity and disposition; one, that inclines it to the worst part, that is, the bodily and brutish; a second, that regards its own self; and a third, that better and more excellent part above it: so that here may be a threefold conversation, a threefold want, and a threefold desire. 

When it gives itself tamely up to the body, and consults the brutish appetites and wants of that part only; then, of necessity, it complies and concurs with all the bodily desires. And this is that sort of desire, which captivates the will, and has brought the freedom of it to be a matter of so much controversy. But when it pursues the inclinations, and lives agreeably to the nature, either of its own self, or the excellent beings above it; then it exerts its faculties freely, and desires the good peculiar to these conditions, without difficulty or opposition. 

Now the power and liberty of the soul consists in this; that, whereas nature has made her capable of desires of several qualities, some of a better and more excellent kind, and others of a worse and more vile; she can so far dispose of herself, as to fix upon either the one or the other of these sorts: which yet is done with this difference, that, by pursuing the worse her faculties are enfeebled and debased, and by following the better they are exalted and confirmed; for the choice of these is indeed truly and properly choice. 

And hence we see it often happens, that when the body finds itself low and empty, and requires meat, or some other sustenance, the mind steps in and countermands this desire, with another overruling one of fasting or abstemiousness; and this too taken up possibly upon some religious account, or in obedience to some law, or perhaps, merely in point of prudence, as thinking it better upon its own account, or more conducing to the health of the body. 

Now I think nobody can say, but the mind, in such a case, might, if it had so pleased, have complied with those first desires, as indeed we find the generality of people do upon these occasions; but you see, it exerted another opposite desire, and prosecuted that, as the greater good, and so more eligible of the two. So that Epictetus, looking upon the soul as endued with reason, might upon this account very justly say, that she had it in her power to qualify her desires, and to place them upon such or such objects, as she saw cause. 

The next objection, which tells us, the object of desire necessarily excites the soul to a desire of it, must be acknowledged to have a great deal of truth in it; but yet not so much, as the persons who urge it imagine. For, the object does not move the soul to desire forcibly and mechanically, but by proposing itself, as something fit to be embraced; and thus calling forth those powers of the soul into action, which nature has qualified to meet, and to receive it: just as the sensible object does not infuse the faculty of sensation into the person who receives its impressions, nor draws him by violence to itself; but only presents itself to the eye, in such proportions as are proper for uniting with that organ of sense, which was ordained by nature, and fitted for that union. 

And so the object of desire presents its convenience and fitness to the soul, and this invites such motions, as nature has provided proper for this purpose. Thus it must needs be; because we see, that, when desirable objects offer themselves, some people are, and others are not, affected with them; whereas, if the object were endued with such efficacy and power, as perfectly to constrain the person desiring; and if the motion of the mind were necessarily impressed by it, it must needs follow, that upon such occasions everyone must be affected with it, though perhaps not everyone in the same degree. 

And, in truth, such an operation upon the mind would not be desire, but a violent impulse, or forcible attraction; such as we see, when one body is thrust forward, or dragged along by one another. For desire is a kind of expansion in the mind, as moving forwards towards the thing desired, without any local motion in the person desiring; such as we may resemble to a man’s stretching out his hand to meet or embrace one, while the rest of his body is in no motion. So that desire is a motion, begun originally, and proceeding from within; as are also our opinions, and the other things mentioned here by Epictetus. 

This motion, indeed, is sometimes what it ought to be, and is duly proportioned to the nature of the thing, which we desire or conceive of: and sometimes it is mistaken and very different from it, when we are inclined to something, which to us appears very desirable, but is really what should rather provoke our aversion. For it shows us a gaudy outside to invite our desire, and has a great deal of hidden evil within, which all the while lies concealed, under some advantage, which the idea of this object flatters us with. 

Thus the thief is carried away with an idea of gain and riches, as a desirable thing; and this keeps him from considering, or having any dread at all of that horrible evil, which lies sheltered under this gain, defiles his soul, and taints it with injustice, and then, as for any apprehensions of discovery, and imprisonment, and punishment, which are the only calamities so wicked a wretch fears; the excessive eagerness of his desires utterly overlooks and stifles all these; for he presently represents to himself, what a world of men do such things, and yet are never found out. 

Now, thus much is plainly in our power, to examine this object of our desire more nicely; and to inform ourselves well, whether it be a real good and worth our pursuing; or whether it only cheats us with a fair outside and counterfeit appearance of good; as, particularly, in the instance of gain just now mentioned. 

Nay, we may go something farther yet; for, we may correct and regulate our desires; may bring them to fix upon such objects only, as are truly desirable, and may teach them not to be imposed upon with false appearances. . . . 

My Heart Leaps Up

"My Heart Leaps Up" 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

   A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man; 

So be it when I shall grow old,

   Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety. 

IMAGE: George Inness, The Rainbow (c. 1879) 

The Human Seasons

"The Human Seasons" 

John Keats (1795-1821) 

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;

     There are four seasons in the mind of Man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

     Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

     Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

     Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

     He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness—to let fair things

     Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forego his mortal nature. 

IMAGE: Kano Eitoku, Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons (1566) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 78.9

All these things, however, can be easily endured—gruel, warm water, and anything else that seems insupportable to a fastidious man, to one who is wallowing in luxury, sick in soul rather than in body—if only we cease to shudder at death. 
 
And we shall cease, if once we have gained a knowledge of the limits of good and evil; then, and then only, life will not weary us, neither will death make us afraid. For surfeit of self can never seize upon a life that surveys all the things which are manifold, great, divine; only idle leisure is wont to make men hate their lives. 
 
To one who roams through the Universe, the truth can never pall; it will be the untruths that will cloy. And, on the other hand, if death comes near with its summons, even though it be untimely in its arrival, though it cut one off in one’s prime, a man has had a taste of all that the longest life can give. 
 
Such a man has in great measure come to understand the Universe. He knows that honorable things do not depend on time for their growth; but any life must seem short to those who measure its length by pleasures which are empty and for that reason unbounded.
 
Refresh yourself with such thoughts as these, and meanwhile reserve some hours for our letters. There will come a time when we shall be united again and brought together; however short this time may be, we shall make it long by knowing how to employ it. 
 
For, as Posidonius says: “A single day among the learned lasts longer than the longest life of the ignorant.” 
 
Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do. That which has been long expected comes more gently. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 78 
 
It makes no difference if it is a decadence in the professional class or a vulgarity in the working class, a coddled life is invariably an empty life, where an assembly of amusements pretends to stand in for the content of character. Whether our dreams revolve around driving a Volvo or a Bronco, vacationing on the Vineyard or in Vegas, the gratification of acquisition and consumption betrays a surrender to convenience at the expense of conscience. 
 
Why do we continue to do it? Any model of psychology will only be as good as the philosophy of human nature upon which it is built, and so reducing man to a mere creature of appetites drives us to cling to the longest existence with the greatest pleasures. We fear death, and we flee from pain. If our heads were on straight, we would instead fear ignorance, and we would flee from vice. 
 
At his fullest, man is a rational animal, and so he is in want of a moral compass, an understanding of the true and the false, the right and the wrong. This direction is not cold and restrictive, as some would claim, but rather vital and liberating, as Nature intends, an awareness of the harmony of the self within the whole. 
 
Why would there be any fear or doubt, when I am charged with meaning and purpose, with a sense of who I am, what I came from, and where I am going? With my eyes fixed upon the absolute good, death cannot threaten me, and hardship does not hinder me. If it has been done with excellence, it won’t matter when it ends, as the dignity of the act is complete within itself, perfect at each and every moment. 
 
I am learning to distinguish between a pleasure that is grasping and a joy that is abiding, since always yearning for more is a sure sign that I am not fulfilling my essential needs, while finding satisfaction in a single instant is a proof that the deed is its own reward, demanding nothing else. Lust is hungry, and love is sated. 
 
The drunk reaches for another bottle, the playboy searches for his next conquest, the tycoon longs for further profits. Meanwhile, the man of conviction and integrity is quietly happy to be wherever he may be, for however long he may be given, delighted by every breath, enriched by each small work of kindness. They are as different as night and day. 
 
Duration becomes meaningless once the soul is composed. Prepare for everything to be at peace with anything. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Graham, Wandering Shadows (1878)