Letter 117

[1] You will cook up a great deal of trouble for me, and without realizing it you will push me into a serious quarrel and a real nuisance, by setting me these little puzzles in which I can neither dissent from our own school without forfeiting their goodwill, nor agree with them without forfeiting my own conscience. You ask whether what the Stoics hold is true: that wisdom is a good, but that being wise is not a good. First I will set out what the Stoics think; then, at that point, I will dare to give my own opinion. [2] Our school holds that what is good is a body, because what is good acts, and whatever acts is a body. What is good is beneficial; but it must do something in order to benefit; and if it acts, it is a body. They say that wisdom is a good; it follows, then, that they must also call it corporeal. [3] But being wise, they think, is not of the same condition. It is incorporeal and is an accident of something else, namely of wisdom; and so it neither acts nor benefits. "What, then?" the objection runs, "do we not say: it is good to be wise?" We do say so, but by referring it back to that on which it depends, namely to wisdom itself. [4] Before I myself begin to withdraw and take up my position on the other side, hear what answer others make against these men. "On that reasoning," they say, "living happily is not a good either. Like it or not, they must answer that the happy life is a good, but that living happily is not a good." [5] And our school is met with this further objection too: "You wish to be wise; therefore being wise is a thing to be sought; if it is a thing to be sought, it is good." Our people are forced to twist their words and to insert into 'to be sought' a single syllable that our language does not allow to be inserted. I myself, with your permission, will add it. "What is good," they say, "is to be sought (expetendum); but what falls to us once we have attained the good is desirable-as-a-consequence (expetibile). It is not pursued as a good, but is added once the good has been pursued." [6] I do not share this view, and I judge that our school stoops to this argument because they are already held fast by the first link of the chain and are not permitted to alter their formula. We are accustomed to grant much to the presumption shared by all human beings, and with us the fact that something seems true to everyone is itself an argument for its truth; for instance, we infer that the gods exist, among other reasons, from this: that an opinion about the gods is implanted in everyone, and no nation anywhere is cast so far outside laws and customs that it does not believe in gods of some kind. When we discuss the eternity of souls, the consensus of mankind carries no slight weight with us, whether they fear the powers below or worship them. I make use of this public conviction: you will find no one who does not think both that wisdom is a good and that being wise is. [7] I will not do what the beaten are wont to do, and appeal to the populace; let us begin to fight it out with our own weapons. What befalls a thing as an accident: is it outside the thing it befalls, or in the thing it befalls? If it is in the thing it befalls, it is as much a body as that which it befalls. For nothing can befall a thing without touching it; and what touches is a body: nothing can befall without acting; and what acts is a body. If it is outside, then it withdrew after it had befallen; and what withdrew has motion; and what has motion is a body. [8] You expect me to say that a 'race' is not one thing and 'running' another, that 'heat' is not one thing and 'being hot' another, that 'light' is not one thing and 'giving light' another. I grant that these are different, but not of a different rank. If health is indifferent, then so is being in good health; if beauty is indifferent, then so is being beautiful. If justice is a good, then so is being just; if baseness is an evil, then being base is an evil too, exactly as, by Hercules, if sore eyes are an evil, having sore eyes is also an evil. To see this, neither can exist without the other: he who is wise is a wise man; he who is a wise man is wise. So far is it from being doubtful that, given the quality of the one, such is the other, that to some people both seem to be one and the same thing. [9] But this is what I would gladly inquire: since all things are either evil or good or indifferent, in which category does being wise fall? They deny it is a good; it is certainly not an evil; it follows that it is something in the middle. But what we call a middle and indifferent thing is that which can fall as readily to an evil man as to a good one - such as money, beauty, noble birth. This thing, being wise, cannot fall to anyone but a good man; therefore it is not indifferent. And yet it is not an evil either, since it cannot fall to an evil man; therefore it is a good. What none but a good man possesses is a good; being wise none but a good man possesses; therefore it is a good. [10] "It is an accident," he says, "of wisdom." Then this thing you call being wise: does it produce wisdom or undergo it? Whether it produces it or undergoes it, in either case it is a body; for both what is produced and what produces is a body. If it is a body, it is a good; for the one thing it lacked, to keep it from being a good, was that it was incorporeal. [11] The Peripatetics hold that there is no difference between wisdom and being wise, since in either of them the other is present too. For do you suppose that anyone is wise except one who has wisdom? Or that anyone who is wise does not have wisdom? [12] The ancient dialecticians draw this distinction; from them the division has come down as far as the Stoics. I will tell you what kind of distinction it is. A field is one thing, owning a field another - of course, since owning the field belongs to the owner, not to the field. So wisdom is one thing, being wise another. You will grant, I think, that these are two: the thing possessed and the one who possesses it; wisdom is possessed, and the one who is wise possesses it. Wisdom is a mind made perfect, or brought to its highest and best point; for it is the art of living. What is being wise? I cannot call it "a mind made perfect," but rather that which falls to the one who has a mind made perfect; so the one is a good mind, the other is, as it were, having a good mind. [13] "There are," he says, "natures of bodies, as 'this is a man,' 'this is a horse'; and then there follow upon these certain movements of the mind that make statements about the bodies. These movements have something of their own, set apart from bodies; for example, 'I see Cato walking': this the senses display, the mind believed. What I see is a body, on which I have fixed both my eyes and my mind. Then I say: 'Cato is walking.' What I am now saying," he says, "is not a body, but a kind of statement about a body - what some call an utterance, others a proposition, others a thing-said. So when we say 'wisdom,' we understand something corporeal; when we say 'he is wise,' we are speaking about a body. And it makes a great difference whether you name the thing itself or speak about it." [14] Let us suppose for the moment that these are two (for I am not yet declaring what I myself think): what prevents one of them from being different and yet none the less a good? I was saying a little while ago that a field is one thing, owning a field another. Of course: for the one who owns and the thing owned are of different natures - the one is earth, the other is a man. But in the matter under discussion both are of the same nature, both the one who has wisdom and wisdom itself. [15] Besides, in that case the thing possessed is one thing and the possessor another; here, the thing possessed and the possessor are in the same subject. A field is held by law, wisdom by nature; the field can be alienated and handed over to another, wisdom never departs from its owner. So there is no reason to compare such unlike things with one another. I had begun to say that these two can exist and yet both be goods, just as wisdom and the wise man are two, and you grant that both are good. As nothing stands in the way of both wisdom being a good and the one who has wisdom being a good, so nothing stands in the way of both wisdom being a good and the having of wisdom - that is, being wise - being a good. [16] I, for my part, want to be a wise man precisely so that I may be wise. What then? Is that not a good without which the other is not a good either? You yourselves certainly say that wisdom, if it were given without any use, ought not to be accepted. What is the use of wisdom? Being wise: this is the most precious thing in it, the thing that, once removed, makes it superfluous. If tortures are evils, then being tortured is an evil - so much so, indeed, that the tortures would not be evils if you removed what follows from them. Wisdom is the settled disposition of a perfect mind, being wise is the use of a perfect mind: how can the use of that thing not be a good, which without its use is not a good? [17] I ask you whether wisdom is to be sought: you admit it. I ask whether the use of wisdom is to be sought: you admit it. For you say you would not accept wisdom if you were forbidden to use it. What is to be sought is a good. Being wise is the use of wisdom, just as speaking is the use of eloquence, and seeing the use of the eyes. Therefore being wise is the use of wisdom; but the use of wisdom is to be sought; therefore being wise is to be sought; if it is to be sought, it is a good. [18] For a long time now I have been condemning myself, for imitating these men even while I accuse them, and spending words on a self-evident matter. For who can doubt that, if scorching heat is an evil, being scorched is an evil too? If freezing cold is an evil, being frozen is an evil? If life is a good, being alive is a good too? All these things lie around wisdom, not in wisdom itself; but it is in wisdom itself that we must dwell. [19] Even if one cares to wander off a little, wisdom has broad and spacious retreats: let us inquire into the nature of the gods, into the fuel that feeds the stars, into these so varied courses of the heavenly bodies, whether our affairs are moved by their movements, whether the impulse of all bodies and minds comes from there, whether even the things called accidental are bound by a fixed law and nothing in this world rolls along suddenly or apart from order. These topics have by now drawn away from the shaping of character, yet they lift up the mind and raise it to the grandeur of the very things it handles; whereas those matters I was speaking of a moment ago diminish and depress it and - not, as you suppose, sharpening it - actually wear it thin. [20] I beg you, are we to grind away on a matter perhaps false and certainly useless the attention so necessary, owed to greater and better things? What good will it do me to know whether wisdom is one thing and being wise another? What good will it do me to know that the one is a good and the other is not? I will act rashly and take the gamble of this prayer: may wisdom fall to you, being wise to me. We shall be equals. [21] Rather do this: show me the road by which I may reach those goals. Tell me what I should avoid, what I should pursue, by what studies I may steady my faltering mind, how I may drive far from me the blows that strike me from the flank and knock me about, how I may be a match for so many evils, how I may remove the calamities that have burst in upon me, and those upon which I myself have burst. Teach me how to bear hardship without any groan of mine, prosperity without making anyone else groan, how not to wait for the last and inevitable hour but, when it seems right, to take my own leave of my own accord. [22] Nothing seems to me baser than to pray for death. For if you want to live, why pray to die? And if you do not want to, why ask the gods for what they gave you at birth? For that you will die at some point is settled even against your will, but that you may do so when you wish lies in your own hand; the one is a necessity laid upon you, the other is permitted to you. [23] In these days I read a most disgraceful opening from a man, by Hercules, of eloquence: "And so," he says, "may I die as soon as possible." Madman, you are praying for what is already yours. "May I die as soon as possible." Perhaps you have grown old in the midst of these very words; otherwise, what holds you back? No one detains you: escape by whatever way you please; choose any part of the nature of things you like, and order it to furnish you an exit. These, surely, are the very elements by which this world is governed - water, earth, air; all of them are as much causes of living as they are paths to death. [24] "May I die as soon as possible": what do you want this "as soon as possible" to mean? What day do you set for it? It can come about sooner than you pray for. These are the words of a feeble mind, courting pity by this cursing of itself: he who prays for it does not want to die. Pray to the gods for life and well-being; if you are resolved to die, the reward of death is to stop praying. [25] These are the things, my dear Lucilius, that we should handle; with these let us mold the mind. This is wisdom, this is being wise: not to drive the most empty subtlety round and round in trifling little debates. Fortune has set you so many problems, and you have not yet solved them - and already you are quibbling? How foolish it is, when you have received the signal for battle, to go on practicing your strokes in the air. Put away these toy weapons: you need ones that settle the matter. Tell me by what method no grief, no dread may disturb my mind, by what method I may pour off this load of secret cravings. Let something be done. [26] "Wisdom is a good, being wise is not a good": this is how it comes about that we are said not to be wise, and that this whole pursuit is mocked as labor spent on superfluities. What if you knew that this too is being asked, whether future wisdom is a good? For what doubt can there be, I ask you, that the barns do not yet feel the harvest that is to come, nor does boyhood perceive its coming young manhood by any strength or vigor? To the sick man, meanwhile, the health that will come is of no use, no more than the rest that will follow many months later refreshes the man who is now running and wrestling. [27] Who does not know that what is yet to come is, by that very fact, not a good, because it is yet to come? For what is good is in every case beneficial; but only present things can benefit. If it does not benefit, it is not a good; if it does benefit, it already exists. I am going to be wise; this will be a good when I am wise; meanwhile it is not. A thing must first be, and then be of a certain kind. [28] How, I ask you, can something that is as yet nothing already be a good? And in what way would you rather have it proved to you that something does not exist than by my saying "it is going to be"? For what will come has plainly not yet come. Spring will follow: I know that it is now winter. Summer will follow: I know it is not summer. I have the strongest argument that what is to come is not yet present. [29] I shall be wise, I hope; but meanwhile I am not wise. If I had that good, I would already be free of this evil. It is going to come about that I am wise: from this you may understand that I am not yet wise. I cannot be at once in that good and in this evil; the two do not coincide, nor are evil and good together at the same time in the same person. [30] Let us hurry past these most ingenious trifles and press on toward the things that will bring us some real help. No one who, anxious for his daughter in labor, sends for a midwife stops to read through the magistrate's edict and the program of the games; no one running to put out the fire in his house pores over a game board to learn how the blockaded piece may get out. [31] But, by Hercules, every kind of news is reported to you from all sides - the fire in your house, the danger to your children, the siege of your country, the plundering of your goods; add to that shipwrecks, earthquakes, and whatever else can be feared: torn apart in the midst of all this, do you have time for nothing but things that merely amuse the mind? You are inquiring what the difference is between wisdom and being wise? You tie and untie knots while so great a mass hangs over your head? [32] Nature has not given us a time so generous and lavish that we can afford to lose any of it. And see how much is lost even by the most diligent: one man's own ill health has robbed him of some, another's the ill health of his family; one man necessary business, another public affairs have taken up; sleep divides our life with us. Out of this time, so narrow and swift and carrying us off, what good is it to send the greater part away into emptiness? [33] Add to this that the mind grows used to delighting itself rather than to healing itself, and to making philosophy a diversion when it is a remedy. What the difference is between wisdom and being wise, I do not know: I do know that it makes no difference to me whether I know these things or not. Tell me: when I have learned what the difference is between wisdom and being wise, shall I be wise? Why then do you detain me among the terms of wisdom rather than among its works? Make me braver, make me freer from care, make me a match for Fortune, make me her superior. And I can be her superior, if I direct toward that end everything that I learn. Farewell.

You will be fabricating much trouble for me, and you will be unconsciously embroiling me in a great discussion, and in considerable bother, if you put such petty questions as these; for in settling them I cannot disagree with my fellow-Stoics without impairing my standing among them, nor can I subscribe to such ideas without impairing my conscience. Your query is, whether the Stoic belief is true: that wisdom is a Good, but that being wise is not a Good. I shall first set forth the Stoic view, and then I shall be bold enough to deliver my own opinion. We of the Stoic school believe that the Good is corporeal, because the Good is active, and whatever is active is corporeal. That which is good, is helpful. But, in order to be helpful, it must be active; so, if it is active, it is corporeal. They (the Stoics) declare that wisdom is a Good; it therefore follows that one must also call wisdom corporeal. But they do not think that being wise can be rated on the same basis. For it is incorporeal and accessory to something else, in other words, wisdom; hence it is in no respect active or helpful. "What, then?” is the reply; “Why do we not say that being wise is a Good?” We do say so; but only by referring it to that on which it depends—in other words, wisdom itself. Let me tell you what answers other philosophers make to these objectors, before I myself begin to form my own creed and to take my place entirely on another side. “Judged in that light,” they say, “not even living happily is a Good. Willy nilly, such persons ought to reply that the happy life is a Good, but that living happily is not a Good.” And this objection is also raised against our school: “You wish to be wise. Therefore, being wise is a thing to be desired. And if it be a thing to be desired it is a Good.” So our philosophers are forced to twist their words and insert another syllable into the word “desired,”—a syllable which our language does not normally allow to be inserted. But, with your permission, I shall add it. “That which is good,” they say, “is a thing to be desired; the desirable thing is that which falls to our lot after we have attained the Good. For the desirable is not sought as a Good; it is an accessory to the Good after the Good has been attained.” I myself do not hold the same view, and I judge that our philosophers have come down to this argument because they are already bound by the first link in the chain and for that reason may not alter their definition. People are wont to concede much to the things which all men take for granted; in our eyes the fact that all men agree upon something is a proof of its truth. For instance, we infer that the gods exist, for this reason, among others—that there is implanted in everyone an idea concerning deity, and there is no people so far beyond the reach of laws and customs that it does not believe at least in gods of some sort. And when we discuss the immortality of the soul, we are influenced in no small degree by the general opinion of mankind, who either fear or worship the spirits of the lower world. I make the most of this general belief: you can find no one who does not hold that wisdom is a Good, and being wise also. I shall not appeal to the populace, like a conquered gladiator; let us come to close quarters, using our own weapons. When something affects a given object, is it outside the object which it affects, or is it inside the object it affects? If it is inside the object it affects, it is as corporeal as the object which it affects. For nothing can affect another object without touching it, and that which touches is corporeal. If it is outside, it withdraws after having affected the object. And withdrawal means motion. And that which possesses motion, is corporeal. You expect me, I suppose, to deny that “race” differs from “running,” that “heat” differs from “being hot,” that “light” differs from “giving light.” I grant that these pairs vary, but hold that they are not in separate classes. If good health is an indifferent quality, then so is being in good health; if beauty is an indifferent quality, then so is being beautiful. If justice is a Good, then so is being just. And if baseness is an evil, then it is an evil to be base—just as much as, if sore eyes are an evil, the state of having sore eyes is also an evil. Neither quality, you may be sure, can exist without the other. He who is wise is a man of wisdom; he who is a man of wisdom is wise. So true it is that we cannot doubt the quality of the one to equal the quality of the other, that they are both regarded by certain persons as one and the same. Here is a question, however, which I should be glad to put: granted that all things are either good or bad or indifferent—in what class does being wise belong? People deny that it is a Good; and, as it obviously is not an evil, it must consequently be one of the “media.” But we mean by the “medium,” or the “indifferent” quality that which can fall to the lot of the bad no less than to the good—such things as money, beauty, or high social position. But the quality of being wise can fall to the lot of the good man alone; therefore being wise is not an indifferent quality. Nor is it an evil, either; because it cannot fall to the lot of the bad man; therefore, it is a Good. That which the good man alone can possess, is a Good; now being wise is the possession of the good man only; therefore it is a Good. The objector replies: “It is only an accessory of wisdom.” Very well, then, I say, this quality which you call being wise—does it actively produce wisdom, or is it a passive concomitant of wisdom? It is corporeal in either case. For that which is acted upon and that which acts, are alike corporeal; and, if corporeal, each is a Good. The only quality which could prevent it from being a Good, would be incorporeality. The Peripatetics believe that there is no distinction between wisdom and being wise, since either of these implies the other also. Now do you suppose that any man can be wise except one who possesses wisdom? Or that anyone who is wise does not possess wisdom? The old masters of dialectic, however, distinguish between these two conceptions; and from them the classification has come right down to the Stoics. What sort of a classification this is, I shall explain: A field is one thing, and the possession of the field another thing; of course, because “possessing the field” refers to the possessor rather than to the field itself. Similarly, wisdom is one thing and being wise another. You will grant, I suppose, that these two are separate ideas—the possessed and the possessor: wisdom being that which one possesses, and he who is wise its possessor. Now wisdom is Mind perfected and developed to the highest and best degree. For it is the art of life. And what is being wise? I cannot call it “Mind Perfected,” but rather that which falls to the lot of him who possesses a “mind perfected”; thus a good mind is one thing, and the so-called possession of a good mind another. “There are,” it is said, “certain natural classes of bodies; we say: ‘This is a man,’ ‘this is a horse.’ Then there attend on the bodily natures certain movements of the mind which declare something about the body. And these have a certain essential quality which is sundered from body; for example: ‘I see Cato walking.’ The senses indicate this, and the mind believes it. What I see, is body, and upon this I concentrate my eyes and my mind. Again, I say: ‘Cato walks.’ What I say,” they continue, “is not body; it is a certain declarative fact concerning body—called variously an ‘utterance,’ a ‘declaration,’ a ‘statement.’ Thus, when we say ‘wisdom,’ we mean something pertaining to body; when we say ‘he is wise,’ we are speaking concerning body. And it makes considerable difference whether you mention the person directly, or speak concerning the person.” Supposing for the present that these are two separate conceptions (for I am not yet prepared to give my own opinion); what prevents the existence of still a third—which is none the less a Good? I remarked a little while ago that a “field” was one thing, and the “possession of a field” another; of course, for possessor and possessed are of different natures; the latter is the land, and the former is the man who owns the land. But with regard to the point now under discussion, both are of the same nature—the possessor of wisdom, and wisdom itself. Besides, in the one case that which is possessed is one thing, and he who possesses it is another; but in this case the possessed and the possessor come under the same category. The field is owned by virtue of law, wisdom by virtue of nature. The field can change hands and go into the ownership of another; but wisdom never departs from its owner. Accordingly, there is no reason why you should try to compare things that are so unlike one another. I had started to say that these can be two separate conceptions, and yet that both can be Goods—for instance, wisdom and the wise man being two separate things and yet granted by you to be equally good. And just as there is no objection to regarding both wisdom and the possessor of wisdom as Goods, so there is no objection to regarding as a good both wisdom and the possession of wisdom,—in other words, being wise. For I only wish to be a wise man in order to be wise. And what then? Is not that thing a Good without the possession of which a certain other thing cannot be a Good? You surely admit that wisdom, if given without the right to be used, is not to be welcomed! And wherein consists the use of wisdom? In being wise; that is its most valuable attribute; if you withdraw this, wisdom becomes superfluous. If processes of torture are evil, then being tortured is an evil—with this reservation, indeed, that if you take away the consequences, the former are not evil. Wisdom is a condition of “mind perfected,” and being wise is the employment of this “mind perfected.” How can the employment of that thing not be a Good, which without employment is not a Good? If I ask you whether wisdom is to be desired, you admit that it is. If I ask you whether the employment of wisdom is to be desired, you also admit the fact; for you say that you will not receive wisdom if you are not allowed to employ it. Now that which is to be desired is a Good. Being wise is the employment of wisdom, just as it is of eloquence to make a speech, or of the eyes to see things. Therefore, being wise is the employment of wisdom, and the employment of wisdom is to be desired. Therefore being wise is a thing to be desired; and if it is a thing to be desired, it is a Good. Lo, these many years I have been condemning myself for imitating these men at the very time when I am arraigning them, and of wasting words on a subject that is perfectly clear. For who can doubt that, if heat is an evil, it is also an evil to be hot? Or that, if cold is an evil, it is an evil to be cold? Or that, if life is a Good, so is being alive? All such matters are on the outskirts of wisdom, not in wisdom itself. But our abiding-place should be in wisdom itself. Even though one takes a fancy to roam, wisdom has large and spacious retreats: we may investigate the nature of the gods, the fuel which feeds the constellations, or all the varied courses of the stars; we may speculate whether our affairs move in harmony with those of the stars, whether the impulse to motion comes from thence into the minds and bodies of all, and whether even these events which we call fortuitous are fettered by strict laws and nothing in this universe is unforeseen or unregulated in its revolutions. Such topics have nowadays been withdrawn from instruction in morals, but they uplift the mind and raise it to the dimensions of the subject which it discusses; the matters, however, of which I was speaking a while ago, wear away and wear down the mind, not (as you and yours maintain) whetting, but weakening it. And I ask you, are we to fritter away that necessary study which we owe to greater and better themes, in discussing a matter which may perhaps be wrong and is certainly of no avail? How will it profit me to know whether wisdom is one thing, and being wise another? How will it profit me to know that the one is, and the other is not, a Good? Suppose I take a chance, and gamble on this prayer: “Wisdom for you, and being wise for me!” We shall come out even. Try rather to show me the way by which I may attain those ends. Tell me what to avoid, what to seek, by what studies to strengthen my tottering mind, how I may rebuff the waves that strike me abeam and drive me from my course, by what means I may be able to cope with all my evils, and by what means I can be rid of the calamities that have plunged in upon me and those into which I myself have plunged. Teach me how to bear the burden of sorrow without a groan on my part, and how to bear prosperity without making others groan; also, how to avoid waiting for the ultimate and inevitable end, and to beat a retreat of my own free will, when it seems proper to me to do so. I think nothing is baser than to pray for death. For if you wish to live, why do you pray for death? And if you do not wish to live, why do you ask the gods for that which they gave you at birth? For even as, against your will, it has been settled that you must die some day, so the time when you shall wish to die is in your own hands. The one fact is to you a necessity, the other a privilege. I read lately a most disgraceful doctrine, uttered (more shame to him!) by a learned gentleman: “So may I die as soon as possible!” Fool, thou art praying for something that is already thine own! “So may I die as soon as possible!” Perhaps thou didst grow old while uttering these very words! At any rate, what is there to hinder? No one detains thee; escape by whatsoever way thou wilt! Select any portion of Nature, and bid it provide thee with a means of departure! These, namely, are the elements, by which the world’s work is carried on—water, earth, air. All these are no more the causes of life than they are the ways of death. “So may I die as soon as possible!” And what is thy wish with regard to this “as soon as possible”? What day dost thou set for the event? It may be sooner than thy prayer requests. Words like this come from a weak mind, from one that courts pity by such cursing; he who prays for death does not wish to die. Ask the gods for life and health; if thou art resolved to die, death’s reward is to have done with prayers. It is with such problems as these, my dear Lucilius, that we should deal, by such problems that we should mould our minds. This is wisdom, this is what being wise means—not to bandy empty subtleties in idle and petty discussions. Fortune has set before you so many problems—which you have not yet solved—and are you still splitting hairs? How foolish it is to practise strokes after you have heard the signal for the fight! Away with all these dummy-weapons; you need armour for a fight to the finish. Tell me by what means sadness and fear may be kept from disturbing my soul, by what means I may shift off this burden of hidden cravings. Do something! “Wisdom is a Good, but being wise is not a Good;” such talk results for us in the judgment that we are not wise, and in making a laughing-stock of this whole field of study—on the ground that it wastes its effort on useless things. Suppose you knew that this question was also debated: whether future wisdom is a Good? For, I beseech you, how could one doubt whether barns do not feel the weight of the harvest that is to come, and that boyhood does not have premonitions of approaching young manhood by any brawn and power? The sick person, in the intervening period, is not helped by the health that is to come, any more than a runner or a wrestler is refreshed by the period of repose that will follow many months later. Who does not know that what is yet to be is not a Good, for the very reason that it is yet to be? For that which is good is necessarily helpful. And unless things are in the present, they cannot be helpful; and if a thing is not helpful, it is not a Good; if helpful, it is already. I shall be a wise man some day; and this Good will be mine when I shall be a wise man, but in the meantime it is non-existent. A thing must exist first, then may be of a certain kind. How, I ask you, can that which is still nothing be already a Good? And in what better way do you wish it to be proved to you that a certain thing is not, than to say: “It is yet to be”? For it is clear that something which is on the way has not yet arrived. “Spring will follow”: I know that winter is here now. “Summer will follow:” I know that it is not summer. The best proof to my mind that a thing is not yet present is that it is yet to be. I hope some day to be wise, but meanwhile I am not wise. For if I possessed that Good, I should now be free from this Evil. Some day I shall be wise; from this very fact you may understand that I am not yet wise. I cannot at the same time live in that state of Good and in this state of Evil; the two ideas do not harmonize, nor do Evil and Good exist together in the same person. Let us rush past all this clever nonsense, and hurry on to that which will bring us real assistance. No man who is anxiously running after a midwife for his daughter in her birth-pangs will stop to read the praetor’s edict or the order of events at the games. No one who is speeding to save his burning house will scan a checker-board to speculate how the imprisoned piece can be freed. But good heavens!—in your case all sorts of news are announced on all sides—your house afire, your children in danger, your country in a state of siege, your property plundered. Add to this shipwreck, earthquakes, and all other objects of dread; harassed amid these troubles, are you taking time for matters which serve merely for mental entertainment? Do you ask what difference there is between wisdom and being wise? Do you tie and untie knots while such a ruin is hanging over your head? Nature has not given us such a generous and free-handed space of time that we can have the leisure to waste any of it. Mark also how much is lost even when men are very careful: people are robbed of one thing by ill-health and of another thing by illness in the family; at one time private, at another public, business absorbs the attention; and all the while sleep shares our lives with us. Out of this time, so short and swift, that carries us away in its flight, of what avail is it to spend the greater part on useless things? Besides, our minds are accustomed to entertain rather than to cure themselves, to make an aesthetic pleasure out of philosophy, when philosophy should really be a remedy. What the distinction is between wisdom and being wise I do not know; but I do know that it makes no difference to me whether I know such matters or am ignorant of them. Tell me: when I have found out the difference between wisdom and being wise, shall I be wise? Why then do you occupy me with the words rather than with the works of wisdom? Make me braver, make me calmer, make me the equal of Fortune, make me her superior. And I can be her superior, if I apply to this end everything that I learn. Farewell.

[1] Multum mihi negotii concinnabis et, dum nescis, in magnam me litem ac molestiam inpinges, qui mihi tales quaestiunculas ponis, in quibus ego nec dissentire a nostris salva gratia nec consentire salva conscientia possum. Quaeris an verum sit quod Stoicis placet, sapientiam bonum esse, sapere bonum non esse. Primum exponam quid Stoicis videatur; deinde tunc dicere sententiam audebo. [2] Placet nostris quod bonum est corpus esse, quia quod bonum est facit, quidquid facit corpus est. Quod bonum est prodest; faciat autem aliquid oportet ut prosit; si facit, corpus est. Sapientiam bonum esse dicunt; sequitur ut necesse sit illam corporalem quoque dicere. [3] At sapere non putant eiusdem condicionis esse. Incorporale est et accidens alteri, id est sapientiae; itaque nec facit quicquam nec prodest. 'Quid ergo?' inquit 'non dicimus: bonum est sapere?' Dicimus referentes ad id ex quo pendet, id est ad ipsam sapientiam. [4] Adversus hos quid ab aliis respondeatur audi, antequam ego incipio secedere et in alia parte considere. 'Isto modo' inquiunt 'nec beate vivere bonum est. Velint nolint, respondendum est beatam vitam bonum esse, beate vivere bonum non esse.' [5] Etiamnunc nostris illud quoque opponitur: 'vultis sapere; ergo expetenda res est sapere; si expetenda res est, bona est'. Coguntur nostri verba torquere et unam syllabam expetendo interponere quam sermo noster inseri non sinit. Ego illam, si pateris, adiungam. 'Expetendum est' inquiunt 'quod bonum est, expetibile quod nobis contingit cum bonum consecuti sumus. Non petitur tamquam bonum, sed petito bono accedit.' [6] Ego non idem sentio et nostros iudico in hoc descendere quia iam primo vinculo tenentur et mutare illis formulam non licet. Multum dare solemus praesumptioni omnium hominum et apud nos veritatis argumentum est aliquid omnibus videri; tamquam deos esse inter alia hoc colligimus, quod omnibus insita de dis opinio est nec ulla gens usquam est adeo extra leges moresque proiecta ut non aliquos deos credat. Cum de animarum aeternitate disserimus, non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus hominum aut timentium inferos aut colentium. Utor hac publica persuasione: neminem invenies qui non putet et sapientiam bonum et sapere. [7] Non faciam quod victi solent, ut provocem ad populum: nostris incipiamus armis confligere. Quod accidit alicui, utrum extra id cui accidit est an in eo cui accidit? Si in eo est cui accidit, tam corpus est quam illud cui accidit. Nihil enim accidere sine tactu potest; quod tangit corpus est: nihil accidere sine actu potest; quod agit corpus est. Si extra est, postea quam acciderat recessit; quod recessit motum habet; quod motum habet corpus est. [8] Speras me dicturum non esse aliud cursum, aliud currere, nec aliud calorem, aliud calere, nec aliud lucem, aliud lucere: concedo ista alia esse, sed non sortis alterius. Si valetudo indifferens est, <et> bene valere indifferens est; si forma indifferens est, et formonsum esse. Si iustitia bonum est, et iustum esse; si turpitudo malum est, et turpem esse malum est, tam mehercules quam si lippitudo malum est, lippire quoque malum est. Hoc ut scias, neutrum esse sine altero potest: qui sapit sapiens est; qui sapiens est sapit. Adeo non potest dubitari an quale illud sit, tale hoc sit, ut quibusdam utrumque unum videatur atque idem. [9] Sed illud libenter quaesierim, cum omnia aut mala sint aut bona aut indifferentia, sapere in quo numero sit? Bonum negant esse; malum utique non est; sequitur ut medium sit. Id autem medium atque indifferens vocamus quod tam malo contingere quam bono possit, tamquam pecunia, forma, nobilitas. Hoc, ut sapiat, contingere nisi bono non potest; ergo indifferens non est. Atqui ne malum quidem est, quod contingere malo non potest; ergo bonum est. Quod nisi bonus non habet bonum est; sapere non nisi bonus habet; ergo bonum est. [10] Accidens est' inquit 'sapientiae.' Hoc ergo quod vocas sapere, utrum facit sapientiam an patitur? Sive facit illud sive patitur, utroque modo corpus est; nam et quod fit et quod facit corpus est. Si corpus est, bonum est; unum enim illi deerat quominus bonum esset, quod incorporale erat. [11] Peripateticis placet nihil interesse inter sapientiam et sapere, cum in utrolibet eorum et alterum sit. Numquid enim quemquam existimas sapere nisi qui sapientiam habet? numquid quemquam qui sapit non putas habere sapientiam? [12] Dialectici veteres ista distinguunt; ab illis divisio usque ad Stoicos venit. Qualis sit haec dicam. Aliud est ager, aliud agrum habere, quidni? cum habere agrum ad habentem, non ad agrum pertineat. Sic aliud est sapientia, aliud sapere. Puto, concedes duo esse haec, id quod habetur et eum qui habet: habetur sapientia, habet qui sapit. Sapientia est mens perfecta vel ad summum optimumque perducta; ars enim vitae est. Sapere quid est? non possum dicere 'mens perfecta', sed id quod contingit perfectam mentem habenti; ita alterum est mens bona, alterum quasi habere mentem bonam. [13] 'Sunt' inquit 'naturae corporum, tamquam hic homo est, hic equus; has deinde sequuntur motus animorum enuntiativi corporum. Hi habent proprium quiddam et a corporibus seductum, tamquam video Catonem ambulantem: hoc sensus ostendit, animus credidit. Corpus est quod video, cui et oculos intendi et animum. Dico deinde: Cato ambulat. Non corpus' inquit 'est quod nunc loquor, sed enuntiativum quiddam de corpore, quod alii effatum vocant, alii enuntiatum, alii dictum. Sic cum dicimus "sapientiam", corporale quiddam intellegimus; cum dicimus "sapit", de corpore loquimur. Plurimum autem interest utrum illud dicas an de illo.' [14] Putemus in praesentia ista duo esse (nondum enim quid mihi videatur pronuntio): quid prohibet quominus aliud quidem <sit> sed nihilominus bonum? Dicebam paulo ante aliud esse agrum, aliud habere agrum. Quidni? in alia enim natura est qui habet, in alia quod habetur: illa terra est, hic homo est. At in hoc de quo agitur eiusdem naturae sunt utraque, et qui habet sapientiam et ipsa. [15] Praeterea illic aliud est quod habetur, alius qui habet: hic in eodem est et quod habetur et qui habet. Ager iure possidetur, sapientia natura; ille abalienari potest et alteri tradi, haec non discedit a domino. Non est itaque quod compares inter se dissimilia. Coeperam dicere posse ista duo esse et tamen utraque bona esse, tamquam sapientia et sapiens duo sunt et utrumque bonum esse concedis. Quomodo nihil obstat quominus et sapientia bonum sit et habens sapientiam, sic nihil obstat quominus et sapientia bonum sit et habere sapientiam, id est sapere. [16] Ego in hoc volo sapiens esse, ut sapiam. Quid ergo? non est id bonum sine quo nec illud bonum est? Vos certe dicitis sapientiam, si sine usu detur, accipiendam non esse. Quid est usus sapientiae? sapere: hoc est in illa pretiosissimum, quo detracto supervacua fit. Si tormenta mala sunt, torqueri malum est, adeo quidem ut illa non sint mala si quod sequitur detraxeris. Sapientia habitus perfectae mentis est, sapere usus perfectae mentis: quomodo potest usus eius bonum non esse quae sine usu bonum non est? [17] Interrogo te an sapientia expetenda sit: fateris. Interrogo an usus sapientiae expetendus sit: fateris. Negas enim te illam recepturum si uti ea prohibearis. Quod expetendum est bonum est. Sapere sapientiae usus est, quomodo eloquentiae eloqui, quomodo oculorum videre. Ergo sapere sapientiae usus est, usus autem sapientiae expetendus est; sapere ergo expetendum est; si expetendum est, bonum est. [18] Olim ipse me damno qui illos imitor dum accuso et verba apertae rei inpendo. Cui enim dubium potest esse quin, si aestus malum est, et aestuare malum sit? si algor malum est, malum sit algere? si vita bonum est, et vivere bonum sit? Omnia ista circa sapientiam, non in ipsa sunt; at nobis in ipsa commorandum est. [19] Etiam si quid evagari libet, amplos habet illa spatiososque secessus: de deorum natura quaeramus, de siderum alimento, de his tam variis stellarum discursibus, an ad illarum motus nostra moveantur, an corporibus omnium animisque illinc impetus veniat, an et haec quae fortuita dicuntur certa lege constricta sint nihilque in hoc mundo repentinum aut expers ordinis volutetur. Ista iam a formatione morum recesserunt, sed levant animum et ad ipsarum quas tractat rerum magnitudinem attollunt; haec vero de quibus paulo ante dicebam minuunt et deprimunt nec, ut putatis, exacuunt, sed extenuant. [20] Obsecro vos, tam necessariam curam maioribus melioribusque debitam in re nescio an falsa, certe inutili terimus? Quid mihi profuturum est scire an aliud sit sapientia, aliud sapere? Quid mihi profuturum est scire illud bonum esse, <hoc non esse>? Temere me geram, subibo huius voti aleam: tibi sapientia, mihi sapere contingat. Pares erimus. [21] Potius id age ut mihi viam monstres qua ad ista perveniam. Dic quid vitare debeam, quid adpetere, quibus animum labantem studiis firmem, quemadmodum quae me ex transverso feriunt aguntque procul a me repellam, quomodo par esse tot malis possim, quomodo istas calamitates removeam quae ad me inruperunt, quomodo illas ad quas ego inrupi. Doce quomodo feram aerumnam sine gemitu meo, felicitatem sine alieno, quomodo ultimum ac necessarium non expectem sed ipsemet, cum visum erit, profugiam. [22] Nihil mihi videtur turpius quam optare mortem. Nam si vis vivere, quid optas mori? sive non vis, quid deos rogas quod tibi nascenti dederunt? Nam ut quandoque moriaris etiam invito positum est, ut cum voles in tua manu est; alterum tibi necesse est, alterum licet. [23] Turpissimum his diebus principium diserti mehercules viri legi: 'ita[que]' inquit 'quam primum moriar'. Homo demens, optas rem tuam. 'Ita quam primum moriar.' Fortasse inter has voces senex factus es; alioqui quid in mora est? Nemo te tenet: evade qua visum est; elige quamlibet rerum naturae partem, quam tibi praebere exitum iubeas. Haec nempe sunt et elementa quibus hic mundus administratur; aqua, terra, spiritus, omnia ista tam causae vivendi sunt quam viae mortis. [24] 'Ita quam primum moriar': 'quam primum' istud quid esse vis? quem illi diem ponis? citius fieri quam optas potest. Inbecillae mentis ista sunt verba et hac detestatione misericordiam captantis: non vult mori qui optat. Deos vitam et salutem roga: si mori placuit, hic mortis est fructus, optare desinere. [25] Haec, mi Lucili, tractemus, his formemus animum. Hoc est sapientia, hoc est sapere, non disputatiunculis inanibus subtilitatem vanissimam agitare. Tot quaestiones fortuna tibi posuit, nondum illas solvisti: iam cavillaris? Quam stultum est, cum signum pugnae acceperis, ventilare. Remove ista lusoria arma: decretoriis opus est. Dic qua ratione nulla animum tristitia, nulla formido perturbet, qua ratione hoc secretarum cupiditatium pondus effundam. Agatur aliquid. [26] 'Sapientia bonum est, sapere non est bonum': sic fit <ut> negemur sapere, ut hoc totum studium derideatur tamquam operatum supervacuis. Quid si scires etiam illud quaeri, an bonum sit futura sapientia? Quid enim dubi est, oro te, an nec messem futuram iam sentiant horrea nec futuram adulescentiam pueritia viribus aut ullo robore intellegat? Aegro interim nil ventura sanitas prodest, non magis quam currentem luctantemque post multos secuturum menses otium reficit. [27] Quis nescit hoc ipso non esse bonum id quod futurum est, quia futurum est? Nam quod bonum est utique prodest; nisi praesentia prodesse non possunt. Si non prodest, bonum non est; si prodest, iam est. Futurus sum sapiens; hoc bonum erit cum fuero: interim non est. Prius aliquid esse debet, deinde quale esse. [28] Quomodo, oro te, quod adhuc nihil est iam bonum est? Quomodo autem tibi magis vis probari non esse aliquid quam si dixero 'futurum est'? nondum enim venisse apparet quod veniet. Ver secuturum est: scio nunc hiemem esse. Aestas secutura est: scio aestatem non esse. Maximum argumentum habeo nondum praesentis futurum esse. [29] Sapiam, spero, sed interim non sapio; si illud bonum haberem, iam hoc carerem malo. Futurum est ut sapiam: ex hoc licet nondum sapere me intellegas. Non possum simul et in illo bono et in hoc malo esse; duo ista non coeunt nec apud eundem sunt una malum et bonum. [30] Transcurramus sollertissimas nugas et ad illa quae nobis aliquam opem sunt latura properemus. Nemo qui obstetricem parturienti filiae sollicitus accersit edictum et ludorum ordinem perlegit; nemo qui ad incendium domus suae currit tabulam latrunculariam prospicit ut sciat quomodo alligatus exeat calculus. [31] At mehercule omnia tibi undique nuntiantur, et incendium domus et periculum liberorum et obsidio patriae et bonorum direptio; adice isto naufragia motusque terrarum et quidquid aliud timeri potest: inter ista districtus rebus nihil aliud quam animum oblectantibus vacas? Quid inter sapientiam et sapere intersit inquiris? nodos nectis ac solvis tanta mole inpendente capiti tuo? [32] Non tam benignum ac liberale tempus natura nobis dedit ut aliquid ex illo vacet perdere. Et vide quam multa etiam diligentissimis pereant: aliud valetudo sua cuique abstulit, aliud suorum; aliud necessaria negotia, aliud publica occupaverunt; vitam nobiscum dividit somnus. Ex hoc tempore tam angusto et rapido et nos auferente quid iuvat maiorem partem mittere in vanum? [33] Adice nunc quod adsuescit animus delectare se potius quam sanare et philosophiam oblectamentum facere cum remedium sit. Inter sapientiam et sapere quid intersit nescio: scio mea non interesse sciam ista an nesciam. Dic mihi: cum quid inter sapientiam et sapere intersit didicero, sapiam? Cur ergo potius inter vocabula me sapientiae detines quam inter opera? Fac me fortiorem, fac securiorem, fac fortunae parem, fac superiorem. Possum autem superior esse si derexero <eo> omne quod disco. Vale. Seneca the YoungerThe Latin Library The Classics Page