XVI.  Philosophy, The Guide of Life

    It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom; you know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun. This idea, however, clear though it is, must be strengthened and implanted more deeply by daily reflection; it is more important for you to keep the resolutions you have already made than to go on and make noble ones. You must persevere, must develop new strength by continuous study, until that which is only a good inclination becomes a good settled purpose. Hence you no longer need to come to me with much talk and protestations; I know that you have made great progress. I understand the feelings which prompt your words; they are not feigned or specious words. Nevertheless I shall tell you what I think, - that at present I have hopes for you, but not yet perfect trust. And I wish that you would adopt the same attitude towards yourself; there is no reason why you should put confidence in yourself too quickly and readily.

     Examine yourself; scrutinize and observe yourself in divers ways; but mark, before all else, whether it is in philosophy or merely in life itself that you have made progress. Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show. It is a matter, not of words, but of facts. It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us. It molds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. Without it, no one can live fearlessly or in peace of mind. Countless things that happen every hour call for advice; and such advice is to be sought in philosophy.

     Perhaps someone will say: "How can philosophy help me, if Fate exists? Of what avail is philosophy, if God rules the universe? Of what avail is it, if Chance governs everything? For not only is it impossible to change things that are determined, but it is also impossible to plan beforehand against what is undetermined; either God has forestalled my plans, and decided what I am to do, or else Fortune gives no free play to my plans." Whether the truth, Lucilius, lies in one or in all of these views, we must be philosophers; whether Fate binds us down by an inexorable law, or whether God as arbiter if the universe has arranged everything, or whether Chance drives and tosses human affairs without method , philosophy ought to be our defense. She will encourage is to obey God, cheerfully, but Fortune defiantly; she will teach us to follow God and endure Chance.  But it is not my purpose now to be led into a discussion as to what is within our own control,-if foreknowledge is supreme, or if a chain of fated events drags us along in its clutches, or if the sudden and the unexpected play the tyrant over us; I return now to my warning and my exhortation, that you should not allow the impulse of your spirit to weaken and grow cold. Hold fast to it and establish it firmly, in order that what is now impulse may become a habit of the mind.

     If I know you well, you have already been trying to find out, from the very beginning of my letter, what little contribution it brings to you. Sift the letter, and you will find it. You need not wonder at any genius of mine; for as yet I am lavish only with other men’s property.-But why did I say "other men"? Whatever is well said by anyone is mine.- This also is a saying of Epicurus : "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor ; if you live according to opinion, you will never to rich," Nature’s wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless. Suppose that the property of many millionaires is heaped up in your possession. Assume that fortune carries you far beyond the limits of a private income, decks you to such a degree of luxury and wealth that you can bury the earth under your marble floors; that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches. And statues, paintings, and whatever any art has devised for the satisfaction of luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater.

     Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point. The false has no limits. When you are traveling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless. Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point. If you find, after having traveled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature. Farewell.

XXXVII.  On Allegiance To Virtue

    You have promised to be a good man; you have enlisted under oath; that is the strongest chain which will hold you to a strongest understanding.  Any man will be but mocking you, if he declares that this is an effeminate and easy kind of soldiering.  I  will not have you deceived.  The words of this most honourable compact are the same as the words of that most disgraceful one, to wit:  "through burning, imprisonment, or death by the sword.  From the men who hire out their strength for the arena, who eat and drink what they must pay for with their blood, security is taken that they will endure such trials even though they be unwilling; from you, that you will endure them willingly and with alacrity.  The gladiator may lower his weapon and test the pity of the people; but you will neither lower your weapon nor beg for life.  You must die erect and unyielding.  Moreover, what profit is it to gain a few days or a few years?  There is no discharge for us from the moment we are born.

  "Then how can I free myself?"  you ask.  You  cannot escape necessities, but you can overcome them.  By force a way is made.

   And this way will be afforded you by philosophy.  Betake yourself therefore to philosophy is you would be save, untroubled, happy, in fine, if you wish to be, -and that is most important,-free.  There is no other way to attain this end.  Folly is low, abject, mean, slavish, and exposed to many of the cruelest passions.  The passions, which are heavy task-masters, sometimes ruling by turns, and sometimes together, can be banished from you by wisdom, which is the only real freedom.  There is but one path leading there, and it is a straight path; you will not go astray.  Proceed with steady step, and if you would have all things under your control, put yourself under the control of reason; if reason becomes your ruler, you will become ruler over many.  You will earn from her what you should undertake, and how it should be done;  you will not blunder into things. You can show me no man who knows how he began to crave that which he craves.  He has not been led to that pass by forethought; he has been driven to it by impulse.  Fortune attacks us as often as we attack Fortune.  It is disgraceful, instead of proceeding ahead, to be carried along, and then suddenly, amid the whirlpool of events, to ask in a dazed way:  "How did I get into this condition?"  Farewell.  

XLI.  On the God Within Us

   You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself.  We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard.  God is near you, he is with you, he is within you.  This is what I mean, Lucilius:  a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian.  As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it.  Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God.  Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise?  He it is that gives noble and  upright counsel.  In each good man "a god doth dwell, but what god know we not."

   If ever you have come upon a grove that is full of ancient trees which have grown to an unusual height, shutting out a view of the sky by a veil of pleached and intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot, and your marvel at the thick unbroken shade in the midst of the open spaces, will prove to you the presence of deity.  Or if a cave, made by the deep crumbling of the rocks, holds up a mountain on its arch a place not built with hands but hollowed out into such spaciousness by natural causes, your soul will be deeply moved by a certain intimation of the existence of God.  We worship the sources of mighty rivers; we erect altars a places where great streams burst suddenly from hidden sources; we adore springs of hot water as divine, and consecrate certain pools because of their dark waters or their immeasurable depth.  If you see a man who is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires,  happy in adversity, peaceful amid the storm, who looks down upon men from a higher plane, and views the gods on a footing of equality, will not a feeling of reverence for him steal over you?  Will you not say:  "This quality is too great and too lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it dwells?  A divine power has descended upon that man."  When a soul rises superior to other souls, when it is under control, when it passes through every experience as if it were of small account, when it smiles at our fears and at our prayers, it is stirred by a force from heaven.  A thing like this cannot stand upright unless it be propped by the divine.  Therefore, a greater part of it abides in that place from whence it came down to earth.  Just as the rays of the sun do indeed touch the earth, but still abide at the source from which they are sent,; even so the great and hallowed soul, which has come down in order that we may have a nearer knowledge of divinity, does indeed associate with us, but still cleaves to its origin; on that source it depends, thither it turns its gaze and strives to go, and it concerns itself with our doings only as a being superior to ourselves.

   What, then, is such a soul?  One which is resplendent with no external good, but only with its own.  For what is more foolish than to praise in a man the qualities which come from without?  And what is more insane than to marvel at characteristics which may at the next instant be passed on to someone else?  A golden bit does not make a better horse.  The lion with gilded mane, in process of being trained and forced by weariness to endure the decoration, is sent into the arena in quite a different way from the wild lion whose spirit is unbroken, the latter, indeed, bold in his attack, as nature wished him to be, impressive because of his wild appearance,--and it is his glory that none can look upon him without fear,--is favoured in preference to the other lion, that languid and gilded brute.

   No man ought to glory except in that which is his own.  We praise a vine if it makes the shoots teem with increase,  if by its weight it bends to the ground the very poles which hold its fruit, would any man prefer to this vine one from which golden grapes and golden leaves hang down?  In a vine the virtue peculiarly its own is fertility; in man also we should praise that which is his own.  Suppose that he has a retinue of comely slaves and a beautiful house, that his farm is large and large his income; none of these things is in the man himself; they are all on the outside.  Praise the quality in him which cannot be given or snatched away, that which is the peculiar property of the man.  Do you ask what this is?  It is soul, and reason brought to perfection in the soul.  For man is a reasoning animal.  Therefore, man's highest good is attained, if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth.  And what is it which this reason demands of him?  The easiest thing in the world, --to live in accordance with his own nature.  But this is turned into a hard task by the general madness of mankind; we push one another into vice.  And how can a man be recalled to salvation, when he has none to restrain him, and all mankind to urge him on?  Farewell.