Stoicism [3]

Curing the Sickness of the Passions

I.  Apatheia and Human Happiness

As we have seen above, Seneca believes that once the passions have gained entrance into the soul they threaten the stable functioning of the whole reasoning faculty. Unlike the Peripatetics, who believe that the passions, if modified, can ultimately be used to serve reason, Seneca maintains that these impulses can never be of any practical use, since they are completely ungovernable. Because it makes no sense to limit or restrain the passions, the Stoics believe that the passions must be extirpated before they begin to contaminate reason. "In the first place," says Seneca, "it is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance, then, after they have been admitted, to control them; for when they have established themselves in possession, they are stronger than their ruler and do not permit themselves to be restrained or reduced" (Anger 1.7.2-3). The wise man, knowing how dangerous the passions are, makes every possible attempt to destroy them from their incipience: this is Stoic apatheia—the state of freedom that the sage experiences by eliminating the passions from his soul and being moved by reason alone.

A.  Living Free of the Passions:  The Sage

For all the Stoics, the goal of moral practice is to become a sapiens (a sage or wise person).  The sapiens is that individual who so completely embodies the life of virtue that nothing can disturb his tranquility of mind.  His soul is totally freed of the influence of the passions and therefore he is able to follow the path of perfect reason in all aspects of his life.  The classic example of the sapiens for the Roman stoics was Cato, who lived a life of such austerity that there was nothing that fortune could take away from him.  In the end he was willing even to take his own life rather than pander to Julius Caesar, who he considered a tyrant.  The Stoics also recognize Socrates as a sapiens, and were particularly impressed by the dignified manner of his death.

Diogenes Laertius describes the characteristics of the sage according to the Stoic:

     
 

The Stoic Sage

 

    Now they say that the wise man is passionless, because he is not prone to fall into such infirmity.  But they add that in another sense the term apathy is applied to the bad man, when, that is, it means that he is callous and relentless.  Further, the wise man is said to be free from vanity; for he is indifferent to good or evil report.  However, he is not alone in this, there being another who is also free from vanity, he who is ranged among the rash, and that is the bad man.  Again, they tell us that all good men are austere or harsh, because they neither have dealings with pleasure themselves nor tolerate those who have.  The term harsh is applied, however, to others as well, and in much the same sense as a wine is said to be harsh when it is employed medicinally and not for drinking at all.

    ...At the same time they are free from pretence; for they have stripped off all pretence or "make-up" whether in voice or in look.  Free too are they from all business cares, declining to do anything which conflicts with duty.  They will take wine, but not get drunk.  Nay more, they will not be liable to madness either; not but what there will at times occur to the good man strange impressions due to melancholy or delirium, ideas not determined by the principle of what is choice-worthy but contrary to nature.  Nor indeed will the wise man ever feel grief; seeing that grief is irrational contraction of the soul...

    They are also, it is declared, godlike;  for they have a something divine within them; whereas the bad man is godless.  And yet of this word-godless or ungodly-there are tow senses, one in which it is the opposite of the term "godly," the other denoting the man who ignores the divine altogether: in this latter sense, as they note, the term does not apply to every bad man.  The good, it is added are also worshippers of God; for they have acquaintance with the rites of the gods, and piety is the knowledge of how to serve the gods.  Further, they will sacrifice to the gods and they keep themselves pure; for they avoid all acts that are offences against the gods, and the goods think highly of them: for they are holy and just in what concerns the gods.  The wise too are the only priests; for they have made sacrifices their study, as also the building of temples purifications and all the other matters appertaining to the gods...

    Again, the Stoics say that the wise man will take part in politics, if nothing hinders him...since thus he will restrain vice and promote virtue.  Also (they maintain) he will marry...and beget children.  Moreover, they say that the wise man will never form mere opinions, that is to say, he will never give assent to anything that is false....  They declare that he alone is free and bad men are slaves, freedom being power of independent action, whereas slavery is privation of the same: though indeed there is also a second form of slavery consisting in subordination, and a third which implies possession of the slave as well as his subordination; the correlative of such servitude being lordship; and this too is evil....  

 

--Diogenes Laertius, Lives

 
     

Of course, not everyone is capable of becoming a sage.  The vast majority of human beings (the Crowd) are so immersed in the life of the passions, that they live more like animals than human beings.  There are others, however, who aspire to live like sages, but who have not yet perfected themselves.   The break-down of humanity according to the Stoic would look something like this:

  THE REST OF MANKIND [The Crowd]

  THOSE IN TRAINING  [Proficiens]

  THE SAGE  [Sapiens]

Naturally, the Stoics believed that there was little or no hope for the average morally corrupt individual.  Such individuals are focused solely on attaining lives of pleasure and diversion. Since they are not the least bit interested in living lives guided by virtue and reason, they have almost no hope of ever being freed from the corrupting influence of the passions. 

B.  Training in Virtue

But can anything be done to help the average person who sincerely wants to become freed of the horrible effects of the passions (to become a sage in other words)?  Fortunately, the Stoics believe that with proper practice almost anyone has the potential to become a wise person and to live a life of perfect serenity.

In general Seneca recommends three practices which aim at preventing the passions form rising up in the soul of those who would aspire to a life of virtue.  (1) The first of these practices, which is by far the least intensive is philosophical contemplation.  In the following epistle Seneca describes how such contemplation, if practiced faithfully, can help the proficiens to deal with the ordinary annoyances which typically trouble the soul:

 

 

  
 

Epistle 24

On Despising Death

 

       You write me that you are anxious about the result of a lawsuit, with which an angry opponent is threatening you; and you expect me to advise you to picture to yourself a happier issue, and to rest in the allurements of hope.  Why, indeed, is it necessary to summon trouble,--which must be endured soon enough when it has once arrived,-or to anticipate trouble and ruin the present through fear of the future? It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time.  But I shall conduct you to peace of mind by another route : if you would put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen will certainly happen in any event; whatever the trouble may be, measure it in your own mind, and estimate the amount of your fear.  You will thus understand that what you fear is either insignificant or short-lived. And you need not spend a long time in gathering illustrations which will strengthen you; every epoch has produced them.  Let your thoughts travel into any era of Roman or foreign history, and there will throng before you notable examples of high achievement or of high endeavor.

 

Common Roman Examples of Virtue

 

       If you lose this case, can anything more severe happen to you than being sent into exile or led to prison?  Is there a worse fate that any man may fear than being burned or being killed?  Name such penalties one by one, and mention the men who have scorned them; one does not need to hunt for them,-it is simply a matter of selection....    Socrates in prison discoursed, and declined to flee when certain persons gave him the opportunity; he remained there, in order to free mankind from the fear of two most grievous things, death and imprisonment.  Mucius put his hand into the fire.  It is painful to be burned; but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself!  Here was a man of no learning, not primed to face death and pain by any words of wisdom, and equipped only with the courage of a soldier, who punished himself for his fruitless daring; he stood and watched his own right hand falling away piecemeal on the enemy's brazier, nor did he withdraw the dissolving limb, with its uncovered bones, until his foe removed the fire.  He might have accomplished something more successful in that camp, but never anything more brave....  

       "Oh,"  say you, "those stories have been droned to death in all the schools; pretty soon, when you reach the topic 'On Despising Death,' you will be telling me about Cato."  But why should I not tell you about Cato, how he read Plato's book on that last glorious night, with a sword laid at his pillow?  He had provided these two requisites for his last moments,-the first, that he might have the will to die, and the second, that he might have the means.  So he put his affairs in order,-- as well as one could put in order that which was ruined and near its end, -and thought that he ought to see to it that no one should have the power to slay or the good fortune to save Cato.  Drawing the sword,-which he had kept unstained from all bloodshed against the final day,-- he cried : "Fortune, you have accomplished nothing by resisting all my endeavors.  I have fought, till now, for my country's freedom, and not for my own;   I did not strive so doggedly to be free, but only to live among the free. Now, since the affairs of mankind are beyond hope, let Cato be withdrawn to safety."  So saying, he inflicted a mortal wound upon his body.  After the physicians had bound it up, Cato had less blood and less strength, but no less courage ; angered now not only at Caesar but also at himself, he rallied his unarmed hands against his wound, and expelled, rather than dismissed, that noble soul which had been so defiant of all worldly power.

       I am not now heaping up these illustrations for the purpose of exercising my wit, but for the purpose of encouraging you to face  that which is thought to be most terrible.  And I shall encourage you all the more easily by showing that not only resolute men have despised that moment when the soul breaths its last, but that certain persons, who were craven in other respects, have quelled in this regard the courage of the bravest.  Take, for example, Scipio, the father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius : he was driven back upon the African coast by a head-wind and saw his ship in the power of the enemy.  He therefore pierced his body with a sword; and when they asked where the commander was, he replied: "All is well with the commander."  These words brought him up to the level of his ancestors and suffered not the glory with fate gave to the Scorpios in Africa to lose its continuity.  It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death.  "All is well with the commander!"  Ought a general to die otherwise, especially one of Cato's generals?  I shall not refer you to history, or collect examples of those men who throughout the ages have despised death; for they are very many.  Consider these times of ours, whose enervation and over refinement call forth our complaints; they never the less will include men of ever rank, of every lot in life, and of every age, who have cut short their misfortunes by death.

 

Death is Not an Evil

 

       Believe me, Lucilius; death is so little to be feared that through its good  offices nothing is to be feared.  Therefore, when your enemy threatens, listen unconcernedly.  Although your  conscience makes you confident, yet, since many things have weight which are outside your case, both hope for that which is utterly just, and prepare yourself against that which is utterly unjust.  Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear.  What you see happening to boys happens also to ourselves, who are only slightly bigger boys:  when those whom they love, with whom they daily associate, with whom  they play, appear with masks on, the boys are frightened out of their wits.  We should strip the mask, not only from men, but from things, and restore to each object its own aspect.

       "Why dost thou hold up before my eyes swords, fires, and a throng of executioners raging about thee?  Take away all that vain show, behind which thou lurkest and scarest fools!  Ah!  thou art naught but Death, whom only yesterday a manservant of mine and a maid-servant did despise!  Why dost  thou  again unfold and spread before me, with all that great display, the whip and the rack?  Why are those engines of torture made ready, one for each several member of the body, and all the other innumerable machines for tearing a man apart piecemeal?  Away with all such stuff, which makes us numb with terror!  And thou, silence the groans, the cries, and the bitter shrieks ground out of the victim as he is torn on the rack!  Forsooth thou are naught but Pain, scorned by yonder gout-ridden wretch, endured by yonder dyspeptic in the midst  of his dainties, borne bravely by the girl in travail.  Slight thou art, if I can bear thee; short thou art if I cannot bear thee!"

       Ponder these words which you have often heard and often uttered.  Moreover, prove by the result whether that which you have heard and uttered is true.  For there is a very disgraceful charge often brought against our school,-that we deal with the words, and not with the deeds, of philosophy.  

 

The Inevitability of Suffering

 

       What, have you only at this moment learned that death is hanging over your head, at this moment exile, at this moment grief?  You  were born to these perils.  Let us think of everything that can happen as something which will happen.  I know that you have really done what I advise you to do; I now warn you not to drown your soul in these petty anxieties of yours; if you do, the soul in these petty anxieties of yours; if you do, the soul will be dulled and will have too little vigor left when the time comes for it to arise.  Remove the mind from this case of yours to the case of men in general.  Say to yourself that our petty bodies are mortal and frail; pain can reach them from other sources than from wrong or the might of the stronger.  Our pleasures themselves become torments; banquets bring indigestion, carousals paralysis of the muscles and palsy , sensual habits affect the feet, the hands, and every joint of the body. 

       I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many.  I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent.  They may put me in chains.  What then?  Am I  free from bonds now?  Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me!  "I shall die,"  you say, you mean  to say; "I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death."  I am not so foolish as to go through at this juncture the arguments which Epicurus harps upon, and say that the terrors of the world below are idle,-that Ixion does not whirl round on his wheel, that Sisyphus does not shoulder his stone uphill, that a man's entrails cannot be restored and devoured everyday; no one is so childish as to fear  Cerberus, or the shadows, or the spectral garb of those who are held together by naught but their unfleshed bones.  Death either annihilates us or strips us bare.  If we are then released, there remains the better part, after the burden has been withdrawn; if we are annihilated, nothing remains; good and bad are alike removed....

 

Concluding Thoughts

 

    The brave and wise man should not beat a hasty retreat from life; he should make a becoming exit.  And above all, he should avoid the weakness which has taken possession of so many,-the lust of death.  For just as there is an unreflecting tendency of the mind towards other things, so, my dear Lucilius, there is an unreflecting tendency towards death; this often seizes upon the noblest and most spirited men, as well as upon the craven and the abject.  The former despise life; the latter find it irksome. 

       Others also are moved by a satiety of doing and seeing the same things, and not so much by a hatred of life as because they are cloyed with it.  We slip into this condition, while philosophy itself pushes us on, and we say : "How long must I endure the same things?  Shall I continue to wake and sleep, be hungry and be cloyed, shiver and perspire.  There is an end to nothing; all things are connected in a sort of circle; they flee and they are pursued.  Night is close at the heels of day, day at the heels of night; summer ends in autumn, winter rushes after autumn, and winder softens into spring; all nature in this way passes, only to return.  I do nothing new; I see nothing new; sooner or later one sickens of this, also."  There are many who thing that living is not painful, but superfluous.  Farewell.

 

Cato was the favorite example of the wise man for Roman Stoics.  Rather than submit himself to Caesar, who he thought was a tyrant, he committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest.

  
 

 

  

The key to the method that Seneca describes in Epistle 24 is to continually think of everything that can possibly happen to us—particularly the most odious possibilities—as something that will inevitably happen. If the possibility of being destitute, tortured or sent into exile is capable of eliciting a passion-oriented response, we should continually imagine that these possible states of affairs are necessary ones. Further, since all men fear death, we should never fail to remind ourselves that each moment of our existence is a continual process towards this inevitable conclusion. When the moment of death eventually comes, Seneca believes that the man who has trained himself to view this event with right reason (as an inevitable but insignificant affair), will face death in the same way he has lived his life, with absolute freedom from any external influences. Thus, to "think on death" or to contemplate all adverse possibilities in one's life as actualities becomes one way of escaping the slavery of the passions even before their inception (Epistle 26.9-10).

(2) The second type of practiced proposed in the Moral Epistles is the adoption of a lifestyle characterized by frugality and simplicity ---  essentially a Stoic modification of a common Epicurean practice. In Epistle 18, Seneca informs Lucilius that Epicurus frequently set aside a number of days in which he satisfied his hunger with cheap food. The goal of this exercise apparently was to develop enough self-sufficiency that he would be able to remain happy, regardless of what his circumstances might be. Using this example, Seneca similarly advises Lucilius to practice extreme poverty for limited periods in order to test the ability of his mind to withstand the loss of his wealth in the future:

 

 

  
 

18.  On Festivals and Fasting

 

     It is the month of December, and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat.  License is given to the general merrymaking.  Everything resounds with mightily preparations,--as if the Saturnalia differed at all from the usual business day!  So true it is that the difference is nil, that I regard as correct the remark of the man who said:  "Once December was a month; now it is a year."

    If  I had you with me, I should be glad to consult you and find out what you think should be done,--whether we ought to make no change in our daily routine, or whether, in order not to be out of sympathy with the ways of the public, we should dine in gayer fashion and doff the toga.  As it is now, we Romans have changed our dress for the sake of pleasure and holiday-making, though in former disturbed and had fallen on evil days.  I am sure that, if I know you aright, playing the part of an umpire you would have wished that we should be neither like the liberty-capped throng in all ways, not in all ways unlike them; unless, perhaps, that is just the season when we ought to lay down the law to the soul, and bid it be alone in refraining from pleasures just when the whole mob has let itself go in pleasures; for this is the surest proof which a man can get of his own constancy, if he neither seeks the things which are seductive and allure him to luxury, nor is led into them.  It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way,--thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd.  For one may keep holiday without extravagance.

 

Trying Out Frugal Living

 

    I am so firmly determined, however, to test the constancy of your mind that, drawing from the teachings of great men, I shall give you also a lesson:  Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while:  "Is this the condition that I feared?"  It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence.  In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil.  If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.  Such is the course which those men have followed who, in their imitation of poverty, have every month come almost to want, that they might never recoil from what they had so often rehearsed.

    You need not suppose that I mean meals like Timon's or "paupers' huts," or any other device with luxurious millionaires use to beguile the tedium of their lives.  Let the pallet be a real one, and the coarse cloak; let the bread e hard and grimy.  Endure all this for three or four days at a time, sometimes for sometimes for more, so that it may be a test of yourself instead of a mere hobby.  Then, I assure you, my dear Lucilius, you will leap for joy when filled with a pennyworth of food, and you will understand that a man's peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune; for, even when angry she grants enough for our needs.

    There is no reason, however, why you should think that you are doing anything great; for you will merely be doing what many thousands of poor men are doing every day.  But you may credit. yourself with this item,-- that you will not be doing it wonder compulsion, and that it will be as easy for you to endure it permanently as to make the experiment form time to time.  Let  us practice our guard.  We shall be rich with all the more comfort, if we once learn how far poverty is from being a burden. 

 

The Example of Epicurus

 

    Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfies his hunger in niggardly fashion;   he wished to see whether he thereby feel short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he feel short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort.  At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus.  Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than a penny, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet that there can be fullness on such fare?  Yes, and there is pleasure also,--not that shifty and fleeting pleasure which needs a fillip now and then, but a pleasure is steadfast and sure.   For though water, barley-meal, and crusts of barley-bread, are not a cheerful diet, yet is is the highest kind of pleasure to be able to derive pleasure from this sort of food, and to have reduced one's needs to that modicum which no unfairness of Fortune can snatch away.  Even prison fare is more generous; and those who have been set apart for capital punishment are not so meanly fed by the man who is to execute them.  Therefore, what a noble should must one have, to descend of one's own free will to a diet which even those who have been sentenced to death have into to fear!  This is indeed forestalling the spear thrust of Fortune. 

 

A Challenge to Lucilius

 

    So begin, my dear Lucilius, to follow the custom of these men, and set apart certain days on which you shall withdraw from your business and make yourself at home with the scantiest fare. Establish business relations with poverty.

    Dare, O my friend, to scorn the sight of wealth, And mould thyself to kinship with thy God.    For he alone is in kinship with God  who has scorned wealth.  Of course I do not forbid you to possess it, but I would have you reach the point at which you possess it dauntlessly;  this can be accomplished only be persuading yourself that you can live happily without it as well as with it, and by regarding riches always as likely to elude you.

    But   now I must begin to fold up my letter.  "Settle your debts first," you cry.  Here is a draft on Epicurus; he will pay down the sum:  "Ungoverned anger begets madness."  You  cannot help knowing the truth of these words, since you have had not only slaves, but also enemies.  But indeed this emotion blazes out against all sorts of persons; it springs from love as much as from hate, and shows itself not less in serious matters than in jest and sport.  And it makes no difference how important the provocation may be, but into what kind of soul it penetrates.  Similarly with fire; it does not matter how great is the flame, but what it falls upon.  For solid timbers have repelled a very great fire; conversely, dry and easily inflammable stuff nourished the slightest spark into a conflagration.  So it is with anger, my dear Lucilius; the outcome of a mighty anger is merely that we may escape excess, but that we may have a healthy mind.  Farewell.

 

Saturnalia:  A Roman festival which took place from December 17-23 in honor of Saturnus, god of the harvest.  During this time many wild and decadent amusements were arranged for the Roman people.  Seneca obviously has mixed feeling about the merits of this sort of activity.

  
 

 

  

Although Seneca does not expect this type of practice to go on indefinitely or to be too severe, he makes it clear to Lucilius in Epistle 13 that it should be more than just a "mere hobby" that rich young men might play to "beguile the tedium of their lives." Even though it is meant to last for only a few days at a time, the method should be harsh enough that it can prepare the subject for the most extreme reversal of fortune—the possibility of utter destitution. In this way when a man is reduced to poverty by fortune he will realize that his happiness is not incumbent upon the amount of wealth he has or the quality of his food; "for even when angry [fortune] grants quite enough for our needs" (Epistle 13.7). Such a man, once again, will never be subjected to the influence of the passions, because he has trained himself in peaceful times to develop a proper attitude towards externals.

A more radical proposal of Seneca's to those who wish to progress even more rapidly in the life of virtue is  for these men and women to adopt a habit of living simply every day of their lives.  In his moral essay, On the Tranquility of Spirit, for example, he characterizes tranquility of mind as a consequence of having nothing that can be removed by fate: the fewer possessions a man has, needless to say, the more he is able to be freed from their eventual loss. If we are not able to give up everything we own, he advises that we at least make every effort possible to simplify our lives:

     
 

Worldly Possession as Impediments to Virtue

 

    8.  Let us now pass on to property, the greatest cause of human troubles.  For if you compare all the other things  by which we are troubles, deaths, sicknesses, fears, desires, endurance of pains and labors, with those evils which our money causes, this last part will far outweigh the others.  Therefore we must consider how much less the pain is not to possess money than to  lose it; then we shall understand that the less opportunity for loss poverty has, the less trouble  she has.  For you are mistaken if you think that the rich bear their losses more courageously:  a wound causes an equal amount of pain to the greatest and the smallest bodies.  Bion neatly says  that "it is no less unpleasant for those who have a luxuriant growth of hair to have their hair torn out than for those who are bald."  You may know that the same thing holds true concerning the rich and the poor; their trouble is equal; for their money clings to both and cannot be torn away without being felt.  But it is more endurable, as I have said, and easier not to acquire than to lose; therefore you will find that those whom fortune has never favored are more joyful than those whom she has deserted.  

 

The Example of Diogenes The Cynic

 

    Diogenes, a man of extraordinary mind, comprehended this and arranged so that nothing could be taken from him.  Call this poverty, want, indigence, give it  any ignominious name you please:  I shall believe that he is not happy, if you find me another who can lose nothing.  Either I am deceived, or it is a mark of royalty among the covetous, defrauders, robbers, and thieves to be the only one who cannot be injured.  If anyone doubts concerning the happiness of Diogenes, he is able also to doubt concerning the condition of the immortal  gods, whether they do  live sufficiently happy, because they possess no farms or gardens, no costly  estates for their slaves, and no money at interest in the bank.  

    Are you not ashamed who look upon riches with admiration:  Look at the universe:  you will see that the gods are without anything, giving all things, but possessing nothing.  Do you consider that one a pauper or like the immortal gods who has divested himself of all fortuitous things?  Do you call  Demetrius, Pompey's freedman, more happy because he was not ashamed to be richer than Pompey?  The number of his slaves was reported to him daily as that of an army  is to its general, whilst long ago two under-slaves and a wider cell ought to have been wealth for him.  But Diogenes's only slave ran away, and, when he was pointed out to him, he did not consider it worth while to take him back.  "It is a disgrace," he said, "if Manes can live without Diogenes, and Diogenes cannot live without Manes."  He seems to me to have said, "Fortune, attend to your own affair:  you  have nothing to do with Diogenes.  Did a slave run away from me?  No, he went away a free man.  Slaves require clothing and food; so many stomachs of exceedingly hungry animals must  be supplied; their clothing must be bought, their most thievish hands must be guarded, and the services of weak and cursing slaves must be employed.  How much happier is he who is indebted to no one for anything except what he can very easily deny himself!"  But since we do not possess so much strength, we ought at least to circumscribe our property in order that we may be less exposed to the injuries of fortune.  Bodies which can be enclosed within their armor are more fitted for war than those which extend out beyond it and whose very magnitude exposes them to wounds on all sides.  The proper amount of wealth is that which neither descends to poverty nor is far distant from poverty.

 

Developing the Habit of Simple Living

 

   9.  But this measure will be pleasing to us, if we have previously found pleasure in economy, without which no riches are sufficient, and none are  open to us that are at all satisfactory, --especially since there is a remedy at hand and poverty itself can change itself into wealth if economy is called to its assistance.  Let us accustom ourselves to set aside all ostentation, and to estimate  the  value of  things by their uses, not by their embellishments.  Let food overcome  hunger, drinking thirst, and our desires  take their course only so far as it is necessary.  Let us learn to depend upon our own limbs, to arrange our  food and clothing not according to the latest style, but as the customs of our ancestors recommend.  Let us learn to increase moderation, to restrain luxury, to control our appetites, to appease our anger, to look upon poverty with indifference, to cultivate frugality, even if we are ashamed to be like common people, to apply to our  natural desires remedies involving little or no expense, to hold as it were  in chains unruly hopes and a mind striving to peer into the future, and to keep it in view that we seek our riches from ourselves rather than from fortune.  So great a diversity and unfairness of misfortunes can never be averted to such an extent that, if we let out a great amount of sail, many storms would not break over us:  our affairs must be confined to a narrow place in order that fortune's darts may fall in vain.  Therefore banishments and calamities have sometimes become remedies, and more grievous ills have been healed by lighter ones; when the mind does not listen to precepts and cannot be healed by milder means, why should it not be expedient, if poverty, disgrace, and the destruction of property are employed as means?  One evil is opposed to  another.  

    Let us, therefore, accustom ourselves to be able to dine without a great company,  to be served by fewer  slaves, to provide clothes  for the purpose for which they are intended, and to live on a more modest scale.  Not only in running a race and in contests of the circus, but also in the course of life we must take the inner track.  The outlay upon literary studies, which is also the most noble in the world, has justification only so long as it is kept within bounds.  What is the good of having  innumerable books and libraries, whose owner can scarcely read through their titles in his whole lifetime?  A great number of books overwhelms  the learner instead of instructing him; and it is much better to devote yourself to few authors than to skim through many.  Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria--that most  beautiful monument of royal wealth.  Let another praise it, as did Livius, who says that "this was a magnificent result  of the taste and the care of kings."   It was not taste or care, but learned luxury; nay, not even learned, since they collected it not for the love of study, but for the purpose of display, just as many men, who are ignorant even of the lower branches of learning, possess books not as means to help them in their studies, but as ornaments of their dining-rooms.  Therefore let a man provide as many books as are necessary, but none for the mere sake of display....

 

Seneca's Advise Only for the Morally Imperfect

 

    11.  This discourse of mine is applicable to the imperfect, the mediocre, and those whose minds  are disturbed, not to the wise man.  Such an one does not need to walk about timidly or cautiously:  for he possesses such self-confidence that he does not hesitate to go to meet fortune nor will he ever yield his position  to her:  nor has he any reason to far her, because he considers not only slaves, property, and positions of honor, but also his body, his eyes, his hands,--everything which can make life dearer, even his very self, as among uncertain things, and lives as if he had borrowed them for his own use and was prepared to return them without sadness whenever claimed.  Nor does he appear worthless in his own eyes because he knows that he is not his own, but he will  do everything as diligently and carefully as a conscientious and pious man is accustomed to guard that which is entrusted to his care.  Yet whenever he is ordered to return them, he will not complain to fortune, but will say:  "I thank you for this which I have had in my possession.  I have indeed cared for your property,--even to my great disadvantage,--but, since you command it, I give it back to you and restore it thankfully and willingly:  if you still wish me to have anything of yours, I will keep it for you:  if you decide otherwise, I return to you and make restitution of my wrought and  stamped silver, my house and my servants."  If nature should demand of us that which she has previously entrusted to us, we will also say to her:  "Take back a better mind than you gave:  I seek no way of escape nor flee:  I have voluntarily improved for you what you gave me without my knowledge; take it away."  What hardship is there in returning to the place whence one has come?  that man lives badly who does not know how to die well.  In the first place, therefore, we must take away from this thing its value, and life must be numbered among the things of little value.  

 		 
     

Seneca refers to this continual practice of simplicity as "draw[ing] in our activities to a narrow compass in order that the darts of fortune may fall into nothingness" (Tranquility 9.3). It is his intention to create the condition of possibility whereby one may develop the habit of self-sufficiency and ultimately to become detached from the need to invest externals with value. Once one attains the kind of disposition that regards the things of the world with contemptuous indifference, then, and only then, can one rise above the enslaving power of fear and desire. Such a state of absolute tranquility, of freedom from the cares and woes of daily existence, can come about only once one has made the commitment "to form the habit of"  simplicity of life. Economy, austerity and frugality limit the degree to which one can fall victim to fate, since the simple life contains little that can be removed by circumstance. In rejecting all excesses, the virtuous man ultimately comes to realize that the only true good in life is that which he possesses in himself and thereby assures himself of a happy existence

(3) The most intense form of moral practice that Seneca recommends for all would-be sages is the voluntary withdrawal from the society and all of its temptations:

 

    
 

8.  On The Philosopher's Seclusion

 

    "Do you bid me," you say, "shun the throng, and withdraw from men, and be content with my own conscience?  Where are the counsels of your school, which order a man to die in the midst of active work?"  As to the course which I seem to you to be urging on you now and then, my object in shutting myself up and locking the door is to be able to help a greater number.  I never spend a day in idleness; I appropriate even a part of the night for study.  I do not allow time for sleep but yield to it when I must, and when my eyes are wearied with waking and ready to fall shut, I keep them at their task.  I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially from my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.  There are certain wholesome counsels, which may be compared to prescriptions of useful drugs; these I am putting into writing; for I have found them helpful in ministering to my own sores, which, if not wholly cured, have at any rate ceased to spread.

    I point other men to the right path, which I have found late in life, when wearied with wandering.  I cry out to them:  "Avoid whatever pleases the throng:  avoid the gifts of Chance!  Halt before every good which Chance brings to you, in spirit of doubt and fear; for it is the dumb animals and fish that are deceived by tempting hopes.  Do you call these things the 'gifts' of Fortune?  They are snares.  And any man among you who wishes to live a life of safety will avoid, to the utmost his power, these limed twigs of her favour, by which we mortals, most wretched in this respect also, are deceived; for we think that we hold them in our grasp, but they hold us in theirs.  Such a career leads us into precipitous ways, and life on such heights ends in a fall.  Moreover, we cannot even stand up against prosperity when she begins to drive us to leeward; nor can we go down, either, 'with the ship at least on her course', or once for all; Fortune does not capsize us,-she plunges our bows under and dashes us on the rocks.

    "Hold fast, then, to this sound and wholesome rule of life; that you indulge the body only so far as is needed for good health.  The body should be treated more rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind.  Eat merely to relieve your hunger; drink merely to quench you thirst; dress merely to keep out of cold; house yourself merely as a protection against personal discomfort.  It matter little whether the house be built of turf, or of variously coloured imported marble; understand that a man is sheltered just as well by a thatch as by a roof of gold.  Despise everything that useless toil creates as an ornament and an object of beauty.  And reflect that nothing except the soul is worthy of wonder; for to the soul if it be great, naught is great."

    When I commune in such terms with myself and with future generations, do you not think that I am doing more good than when I appear as a counsel in court, or stamp my seal upon a will, or lend my assistance in the senate, by word or action, to a candidate?  Believe me, those who seem to be busied with nothing are busied with the greater tasks; they are dealing at the same time with things mortal and things immortal.

 

19.  On Worldliness and Retirement

 

     I leap for joy whenever I receive letters from you.  For they fill me with hope; they are now not mere assurances concerning you, but guarantees.  And I beg and pray you to proceed in this course; for what better request could I make of a friend than one which is to be made for his own sake?  If possible, withdraw yourself from all the business of which you speak; and if you cannot do this, tear yourself away.  We have dissipated enough of our time already; let us die in harbour.  Not that I would advise you to try to win fame by your retirement; one's retirement should neither be paraded nor concealed.  Not concealed, I say, for I shall not go so far in urging you as to expect you to condemn all men as mad and then seek out for yourself a hiding-place and oblivion; rather this your business, that your retirement be no conspicuous, though it should be obvious.  In the second place, while those whose choice is unhampered from the start will deliberate on that other question, whether they wish to pass their lives in obscurity, in your case there is not a free choice.  Your ability and energy have thrust you into the work of the world; so have the charm of your writings and the friendships you have made with famous and notable men.  Renown has already taken you by storm. You may sink yourself into the depths of obscurity and utterly hide yourself; yet your earlier acts will reveal you.  You cannot keep lurking in the dark; much of the old gleam will follow you wherever you fly.

    Peace you can claim for yourself without being disliked by anyone, without any sense of loss, and without any pangs of spirit.  For what will you leave behind you that you can imagine yourself reluctant to leave?  Your clients?  But none of these men courts you for yourself; they merely court something from you.  People used to hunt friends, but now they hunt pelf; if a lonely old man changes his will, the morning-caller transfers himself to another door.  Great things cannot be bought for small sums; so reckon up whether it is preferable to leave your own true self, or merely some of your belongings.  Would that you had had the privilege of growing old amid the limited circumstances of your origin, and that fortune had not raised you to such heights!  You were removed far from the sight of wholesome living by your swift rise to prosperity, by your province, by your position as procurator, and by all that such things promise; you will next acquire more important duties and after them still more.  And what will be the result?  Why wait until there is nothing left for you to crave?  That time will never come.  We hold that there is a succession of causes, from which fate is woven; similarly, you may be sure, there is a succession in our desires; for one begins where its predecessor ends.  You have been thrust into an existence  which will never of itself put and end to your wretchedness and your slavery.  Withdraw your chafed neck from the yoke; it is better that it should be cut off once for all, than galled for ever.  If you retreat to privacy, everything will be on a smaller scale, but you will be satisfied abundantly; in your present condition, however, there is no satisfaction in the plenty which is heaped upon you on all sides.  Would you rather be poor and sated, or rich and hungry?  Prosperity is not only greedy, but it also lies exposed to the greed of others.  And as long as nothing satisfies you, you yourself cannot satisfy others.

    "But", you say, "how can I take my leave?"  Any way you please.  Reflect how many hazards you have ventured for the sake of money, and how much toil you have undertaken for a title!  You must dare something to gain leisure, also,-or else grow old amid the worries of procuratorships abroad and subsequently of civil duties at home, living which no man has ever succeeded in avoiding by unobtrusiveness or by seclusion of life.  For what bearing on the case has your personal desire for a secluded life?  Your position in the world desires the opposite!  What if, even now, you allow that position to grow greater?  But all that is added to your successes will be added to your fears.  At this point I should like to quote a saying of Maecenas, who spoke the truth when he stood on the very summit: "There's thunder even on the loftiest peaks."  If you ask me in what book these words are found, they occur in the volume entitled Prometheus.  He simply meant to say that these lofty peaks have their tops surrounded with thunder-storms.  But is any power worth so high a price that a man like you would ever, in order to obtain it, adopt a style so debauched as that?  Maecenas was indeed a man of parts, who would have left a great pattern for Roman oratory to follow, had his good fortune not made him effeminate,-nay, had it not emasculated him!  An end like his awaits you also, unless you forthwith shorten said and,-as Maecenas was not willing to do until it was too late,-hug the shore!

 		 
     

 

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