Seneca - Moral Letters - 85: On Some Vain Syllogisms

85. On some vain syllogisms. Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius. I had been inclined to spare you, and had omitted any knotty problems that still remained undiscussed. I was satisfied to give you a sort of taste of the views held by the men of our school, who desire to prove that virtue is of itself sufficiently capable of rounding out the happy life. But now you bid me include the entire bulk either of our own syllogisms or of those which have been devised by other schools for the purpose of belittling us. If I shall be willing to do this, the result will be a book instead of a letter, and I declare again and again that I take no pleasure in such proofs. I am ashamed to enter the arena and undertake battle on behalf of gods and men, armed only with an awl. He that possesses prudence is also self-restraint. He that possesses self-restraint is also unwavering. He that is unwavering is unperturbed. He that is unperturbed is free from sadness. He that is free from sadness is happy. Therefore the prudent man is happy, and prudence is sufficient to constitute the happy life. Certain of the peripatetics reply to this syllogism by interpreting unperturbed, unwavering, and free from sadness in such a way as to make unperturbed mean one who is rarely perturbed, and only to a moderate degree, and not one who is never perturbed. Likewise they say that a person is called free from the sadness who is not subject to sadness, one who falls into this objectionable state not often nor into greater degree. It is not, they say, the way of human nature that a man's spirit should be exempt from sadness, or that a wise man is not overcome by grief, but is merely touched by it, and other arguments of this sort, all in accordance with the teachings of their school. They do not abolish the passions in this way, they only moderate them. But how petty is the superiority which we attribute to the wise man if he is merely braver than the most craven, happier than the most dejected, more self-controlled than the most unbridled, and greater than the lowliest. Would Laddus boast his swiftness in running by comparing himself with the halt and the weak? For she could skim the topmost blades of corn and touch them not, nor bruise the tender ears, nor travel over seas well poised above the swollen floods, nor dip her flying feet in oceans' waters. This is speed estimated by its own standard, not the kind which wins praise by comparison with that which is slowest. Would you call a man well who has a light case of fever? No, for good health does not mean moderate illness. They say, the wise man is called unperturbed in the sense in which pomegranates are called mellow, not that there is no hardness at all in their seeds, but that the hardness is less than it was before. That view is wrong, for I am not referring to the gradual weeding out of evils in a good man, but to the complete absence of evils. There should be in him no evils at all, not even any small ones. For if there are any, they will grow, and as they grow will hamper him. Just as a large and complete cataract wholly blinds the eye, so a medium-sized cataract dulls the vision. If by your definition the wise man has any passions whatever, his reason will be no match for them and will be carried swiftly along as it were on a rushing stream. Particularly if you assign to him not one passion with which he must wrestle, but all the passions, and a throng of such, even though they may be moderate, can affect him more than the violence of one powerful passion. He has a craving for money, although in a moderate degree. He has ambition, but it is not yet fully aroused. He has a hot temper, but it can be appeased. He has inconstancy, but not the kind that is very capricious or easily set in motion. He has lust, but not the violent kind. We could deal better with a person who possessed one full-fledged vice than with one who possessed all the vices, but none of them in extreme form. Again, it makes no difference how great the passion is. No matter what its size may be, it knows no obedience and does not welcome advice. Just as no animal, whether wild or tamed and gentle, obeys reason, since nature made it deaf to advice, so the passions do not follow or listen, however slight they are. Tigers and lions never put off their wildness. They sometimes moderate it, and then, when you are least prepared, their softened fierceness is roused to madness. Vices are never genuinely tamed. Again, if reason prevails, the passions will not even get a start, but if they get underway against the will of reason, they will maintain themselves against the will of reason, for it is easier to stop them in the beginning than to control them when they gather force. This halfway ground is accordingly misleading and useless. It is to be regarded just as the declaration that we ought to be moderately insane or moderately ill. Virtue alone possesses moderation. The evils that afflict the mind do not admit of moderation. You can more easily remove than control them. Can one doubt that the vices of the human mind, when they have become chronic and callous, diseases, we call them, are beyond control, as, for example, greed, cruelty, and wantonness? Therefore the passions also are beyond control, for it is from the passions that we pass over to the vices. Again, if you grant any privileges to sadness, fear, desire, and all the other wrong impulses, they will cease to lie within our jurisdiction. And why? Simply because the means of arousing them lie outside our own power. They will accordingly increase in proportion as the causes by which they are stirred up are greater or less. Fear will grow to greater proportions if that which causes the terror is seen to be of greater magnitude or in closer proximity. And desire will grow keener in proportion as the hope of a greater gain has summoned it to action. If the existence of the passions is not in our own control, neither is the extent of their power. For if you once permit them to get a start, they will increase along with their causes, and they will be of whatever extent they shall grow to be. Moreover, no matter how small these vices are, they grow greater. That which is harmful never keeps within bounds. No matter how trifling diseases are at the beginning, they creep on apace, and sometimes the slightest augmentation of disease lays low the enfeebled body. But what folly it is, when the beginnings of certain things are situated outside our control, to believe that their endings are within our control. How have I the power to bring something to a close when I have not the power to check it at the beginning? For it is easier to keep a thing out than to keep it under after you let it in. Some men have made a distinction as follows, saying, If a man has self-control and wisdom, he is indeed at peace as regards the attitude and habit of his mind, but not as regards the outcome. For as far as his habit of mind is concerned, he is not perturbed, or saddened, or afraid, but there are many extraneous causes which strike him and bring perturbation upon him. What they mean to say is this, So and so is indeed not a man of an angry disposition, but still he sometimes gives way to anger. And he is not, indeed, inclined to fear, but still he sometimes experiences fear. In other words, he is free from the fault, but is not free from the passion of fear. If, however, fear is once given an entrance, it will by frequent use pass over into a vice. And anger, once admitted into the mind, will alter the earlier habit of a mind that was formerly free from anger. Besides, if the wise man, instead of despising all causes that come from without, ever fears anything, when the time arrives for him to go bravely to meet the spear or the flames, on behalf of his country, his laws, and his liberty, he will go forth reluctantly and with flagging spirit. Such inconsistency of mind, however, does not suit the character of a wise man. Then again we should see to it that two principles which ought to be tested separately should not be confused. For the conclusion is reached independently that that alone is good which is honorable, and again independently the conclusion that virtue is sufficient for a happy life. If that alone is good which is honorable, everyone agrees that virtue is sufficient for the purpose of living happily. But, on the contrary, if virtue alone makes men happy, it will not be conceded that that alone is good which is honorable. Xenocrates and Speusippus hold that a man can become happy even by virtue alone, not, however, that that which is honorable is the only good. Epicurus also decides that one who possesses virtue is happy, but that virtue of itself is not sufficient for the happy life, because the pleasure that results from virtue and not virtue itself makes one happy. This is a futile distinction. For the same philosopher declares that virtue never exists without pleasure, and therefore if virtue is always connected with pleasure and always inseparable therefrom, virtue is of itself sufficient. For virtue keeps pleasure in its company and does not exist without it even when alone. But it is absurd to say that a man will be happy by virtue alone and yet not absolutely happy. I cannot discover how that may be, since the happy life contains in itself a good that is perfect and cannot be excelled. If a man has this good, life is completely happy. Now if the life of the gods contains nothing greater or better, and the happy life is divine, then there is no further height to which a man can be raised. Also, if the happy life is in want of nothing, then every happy life is perfect, it is happy and at the same time most happy. Have you any doubt that the happy life is the supreme good? Accordingly, if it possesses the supreme good, it is supremely happy. Just as the supreme good does not admit of increase, for what will be superior to that which is supreme, exactly so the happy life cannot be increased either, for it is not without the supreme good. If, then, you bring in one man who is happier than another, you will also bring in one who is much happier. He will then be making countless distinctions in the supreme good, although I understand the supreme good to be that which admits of no degree above itself. If one person is less happy than another, it follows that he eagerly desires the life of that other and happier man in preference to his own, but the happy man prefers no other man's life to his own. Either of these two things is incredible, that there should be anything left for a happy man to wish for in preference to what is, or that he should not prefer the thing which is better than what he already has. For certainly the more prudent he is, the more he will strive after the best, and he will desire to attain it by every possible means. But how can one be happy who is still able, or rather who is still bound, to crave something else? I will tell you what is the source of this error. Men do not understand that the happy life is a unit, for it is its essence and not its extent that establishes such a life on the noblest plane. Hence there is complete equality between the life that is long and the life that is short, between that which is spread out and that which is confined, between that whose influence is felt in many places and in many directions and that which is restricted to one interest. Those who reckon life by number or by measure or by parts rob it of its distinctive quality. Now in the happy life what is the distinctive quality? It is its fullness. Satiety, I think, is the limit to our eating or drinking. A eats more and B eats less. What difference does it make? Each is now sated. Or A drinks more and B drinks less. What difference does it make? Each is no longer thirsty. Again A lives for many years and B for fewer. No matter, if only A's many years have brought as much happiness as B's few years. He whom you maintain to be less happy is not happy. The word admits of no diminution. He who is brave is fearless. He who is fearless is free from sadness. He who is free from sadness is happy. It is our own school which has framed this syllogism. They attempt to refute it by this answer, namely that we Stoics are assuming as admitted a premise which is false and distinctly controverted, that the brave man is fearless. What, they say, will the brave man have no fear of evils that threaten him? That would be the condition of a madman and a lunatic rather than of a brave man. The brave man will, it is true, feel fear in only a very slight degree, but he is not absolutely free from fear. Now those who assert this are doubling back on their old argument, in that they regard vices of less degree as equivalent to virtues. For indeed the man who does feel fear, though he feels it rather seldom and to a slight degree, is not free from wickedness, but is merely troubled by it in a milder form. Not so, is the reply, for I hold that a man is mad if he does not fear evils which hang over his head. What you say is perfectly true if the things which threaten are really evils, but if he knows that they are not evils and believes that the only evil is baseness, he will be bound to face dangers without anxiety and to despise things which other men cannot help fearing. Or if it is the characteristic of a fool and a madman not to fear evils, then the wiser a man is, the more he will fear such things. It is the doctrine of Eustoics then, they reply, that a brave man will expose himself to dangers. By no means, he will merely not fear them, though he will avoid them. It is proper for him to be careful, but not to be fearful. What then? Is he not to fear death, imprisonment, burning, and all the other missiles of fortune? Not at all, for he knows that they are not evils, but only seem to be. He reckons all these things as the bugbears of man's existence. Paint him a picture of slavery, lashes, chains, want, mutilation by disease or by torture, anything else you may care to mention, he will count all such things as terrors caused by the derangement of the mind. These things are only to be feared by those who are fearful. Or do you regard as an evil that to which some day we may be compelled to resort of our own free will? What then, you ask, is an evil? It is the yielding to those things which are called evils. It is the surrendering of one's liberty into their control, when really we ought to suffer all things in order to preserve this liberty. Liberty is lost unless we despise those things which put the yoke upon our necks. If men knew what bravery was, they would have no doubts as to what a brave man's conduct should be. For bravery is not thoughtlessness, rashness, or love of danger, or the courting of fear-inspiring objects. It is the knowledge which enables us to distinguish between that which is evil and that which is not. Bravery takes the greatest care of itself, and likewise endures with the greatest patience all things which have a false appearance of being evils. What then, is the query? If the sword is brandished over your brave man's neck, if he is pierced in this place and in that continually, if he sees his entrails in his lap, if he is tortured again after being kept waiting in order that he may thus feel the torture more keenly, and if the blood flows afresh out of bowels where it has but lately ceased to flow, has he no fear? Shall you say that he has felt no pain either? Yes, he has felt pain, for no human virtue can rid itself of feelings. But he has no fear. Unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings. Do you ask me what spirit animates him in these circumstances? It is the spirit of one who is comforting a sick friend. That which is evil does harm. That which does harm makes a man worse. But pain and poverty do not make a man worse, therefore they are not evils. Your proposition, says the objector, is wrong, for what harms one does not necessarily make one worse. The storm and the squall work harm to the pilot, but they do not make a worse pilot of him for all that. Certain of the Stoic school reply to this argument as follows. The pilot becomes a worse pilot because of storms or squalls, inasmuch as he cannot carry out his purpose and hold to his course. As far as his art is concerned, he becomes no worse a pilot, but in his work he does become worse. To this the peripatetics retort, therefore poverty will make even the wise man worse, and so will pain, and so will anything else of that sort. For although those things will not rob him of his virtue, yet they will hinder the work of virtue. This would be a correct statement were it not for the fact that the pilot and the wise man are two different kinds of person. The wise man's purpose in conducting his life is not to accomplish at all hazards what he tries, but to do all things rightly. The pilot's purpose, however, is to bring his ship into port at all hazards. The arts are handmaids, they must accomplish what they promise to do, but wisdom is mistress and ruler. The arts render a slave service to life, wisdom issues the commands. For myself I maintain that a different answer should be given, that the pilot's art is never made worse by the storm, nor the application of his art either. The pilot has promised you not a prosperous voyage, but a serviceable performance of his task, that is, an expert knowledge of steering a ship, and the more he is hampered by the stress of fortune, so much the more does his knowledge become apparent. He who has been able to say, Neptune, you shall never sink this ship except on an even keel, has fulfilled the requirements of his art. The storm does not interfere with the pilot's work, but only with his success. What then, you say, is not a pilot harmed by any circumstance which does not permit him to make port, frustrates all his efforts, and either carries him out to sea, or holds the ship in irons, or strips her masts? No, it does not harm him as a pilot, but only as a voyager, otherwise he is no pilot. It is indeed so far from hindering the pilot's art, that it even exhibits the art. For anyone, in the words of the proverb, is a pilot on a calm sea. These mishaps obstruct the voyage, but not the steersman in capacity of steersman. A pilot has a double role, one he shares with all his fellow passengers, for he also is a passenger, the other is peculiar to him, for he is the pilot. The storm harms him as a passenger, but not as a pilot. Again, the pilot's art is another's good. It concerns his passengers just as a physician's art concerns his patients. But the wise man's good is a common good. It belongs both to those in whose company he lives, and to him himself also. Hence our pilot may perhaps be harmed, since his services which have been promised to others are hindered by the storm, but the wise man is not harmed by poverty, or by pain, or by any other of life's storms. For all his functions are not checked, but only those which pertain to others. He himself is always in action, and is greatest in performance at the very time when fortune has blocked his way. For then he is actually engaged in the business of wisdom, and this wisdom I have declared already to be both the good of others and also his own. Besides, he is not prevented from helping others, even at the time when constraining circumstances press him down. Because of his poverty he is prevented from showing how the state should be handled, but he teaches nonetheless how poverty should be handled. His work goes on throughout his whole life. Thus no fortune, no external circumstance, can shut off the wise man from action. For the very thing which engages his attention prevents him from attending to other things. He is ready for either outcome. If it brings goods, he controls them. If evils, he conquers them. So thoroughly, I mean, has he schooled himself, that he makes manifest his virtue in prosperity as well as in adversity, and keeps his eyes on virtue itself, not on the objects with which virtue deals. Hence neither poverty nor pain nor anything else that deflects the inexperienced and drives them headlong restrains him from his course. Do you suppose that he is weighed down by evils? He makes use of them. It was not of ivory only that Phidias knew how to make statues. He also made statues of bronze. If you had given him marble or a still meaner material, he would have made of it the best statue that the material would permit. So the wise man will develop virtue, if he may, in the midst of wealth, or, if not, in poverty, if possible, in his own country, if not, in exile, if possible, as commander, if not, as a common soldier, if possible, in sound health, if not, enfeebled. Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy. Animal tamers are unerring. They take the most savage animals which may well terrify those who encounter them, and subdue them to the will of man. Not content with having driven out their ferocity, they even tame them so that they may dwell in the same abode. The trainer puts his hand into the lion's mouth. The tiger is kissed by his keeper. The tiny Ethiopian orders the elephant to sink down to its knees, or to walk the rope. Similarly, the wise man is a skilled hand at taming evils. Pain, want, disgrace, imprisonment, exile. These are universally to be feared. But when they encounter the wise man, they are tamed. Farewell.