Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] You want to know whether one wise man can benefit another. We say that the wise man is full of every good and has reached the summit: the question is how anyone can benefit a man who already possesses the highest good. Good men do benefit one another. Each exercises his virtues and keeps his wisdom in trim; each needs someone with whom to compare notes, with whom to seek. [2] Practice keeps skilled wrestlers sharp; a musician who has learned his fellow's part is set in motion by him. The wise man too needs the exercise of his virtues; and just as he sets himself in motion, so he is set in motion by another wise man. [3] How will one wise man benefit another? He will give him momentum, and point out occasions for honorable action. Besides this, he will voice some of his own thoughts; he will teach what he has discovered. For even the wise man will always have something left to discover, some direction for his mind to run. [4] A bad man harms another bad man and makes him worse, by inflaming his anger, seconding his gloom, praising his pleasures; and the wicked do the most damage to each other precisely where their vices have mingled most and their depravity has been pooled. So, by the same logic in reverse, a good man will benefit a good man. 'How?' you ask. [5] He will bring him joy, he will strengthen his confidence; from the sight of each other's calm, the happiness of both will grow. Besides, he will pass on to him knowledge of certain things; for the wise man does not know everything, and even if he did, another might work out shorter paths to some things and point them out, paths by which the whole task is more easily carried through. [6] One wise man will benefit another, and not merely by his own resources but by those of the man he is helping. That man, left to himself, could certainly work out his own part; he would use his own speed. But even a runner already running is helped by someone cheering him on. 'No, the wise man does not benefit the wise man - he benefits himself. To see this, take away his own power, and he will accomplish nothing.' [7] By that reasoning you might as well say that there is no sweetness in honey; for the man whose tongue and palate are not so tuned as to be receptive to that particular taste will not be pleased by it - he will be offended by it; there are people whose sickness makes honey taste bitter to them. Both parties must be sound: the one so that he can benefit, and the other so that he is fit material for the benefit to work on.
[8] 'When heat,' he says, 'has been brought to its peak, it is pointless to heat it further, and when the good has been brought to its peak, a helper is pointless. Does the fully equipped farmer go looking for someone else to equip him? Does the armed soldier, once he has enough weapons to go into battle, want any more? So it is with the wise man too; he is sufficiently equipped for life, sufficiently armed.' [9] To this I answer: even a thing brought to the peak of heat needs added heat to stay at the peak. 'But,' he says, 'heat sustains itself.' First, there's a great difference between the two things you're comparing. Heat is one single thing; benefiting is various. Second, heat is not helped to stay hot by an addition of heat, whereas the wise man cannot maintain the state of his mind unless he admits some friends like himself, with whom he can share his virtues. [10] Add to this that friendship exists among all the virtues together; so a man benefits another simply by loving the virtues of someone equal to him, and by offering virtues in turn to be loved. Like things delight each other, especially when they are honorable and know how to approve and be approved. [11] Furthermore, no one but a wise man can skillfully move the mind of a wise man, just as no one but a human being can move a human being rationally. So just as reason is needed to move reason, perfect reason is needed to move perfect reason. [12] People are also said to benefit us when they hand us the ordinary means - money, influence, safety, and other things dear or necessary for use in life; in this sense even a fool will be said to benefit the wise man. But true benefit is moving the mind, in accordance with nature, by one's own virtue. And since this happens to the man who is moved, it cannot happen without benefit also to the man who does the moving; for in exercising another's virtue he necessarily exercises his own. [13] But even if you set aside all this - whether it is itself the highest good or productive of the highest goods - wise men can still benefit one another. For finding another wise man is, in itself, something a wise man should seek, because by nature every good is dear to the good, and each is drawn to the good exactly as he is drawn to himself.
[14] From this question, for the sake of argument, I must move on to another. For it is asked whether the wise man will deliberate, whether he will call anyone into counsel. This he must necessarily do when he comes to matters civic and domestic and, so to speak, mortal; here he needs another's counsel just as he needs a doctor, a helmsman, an advocate, or someone to manage a lawsuit. So the wise man will sometimes benefit the wise man; he will offer advice. But also in those great and divine matters we spoke of, he will be useful by working through honorable questions in common and by mingling minds and thoughts. [15] Besides, it is in accordance with nature to embrace friends and to rejoice in their growth as in one's own; for if we do not do this, not even virtue will endure in us, since virtue's strength lies in its exercise and feeling. Now virtue counsels us to make good use of the present, to plan for the future, to deliberate and focus the mind; and a man will focus and work this out more easily if he has taken someone alongside himself. So he will seek out either a perfect man, or one making progress and near to perfection. And the perfect man will benefit him, if he assists his counsel with shared good sense. [16] People say that others see more clearly into someone else's business than into their own. This happens to people whom love of self blinds, and whom fear, in moments of danger, shakes free of clear judgment about their own interest; a man will begin to see straight once he is safer and set beyond fear. But even so there are certain things that even wise men see more carefully in another than in themselves. And besides, that sweetest and most honorable thing - 'to want the same things and refuse the same things' - one wise man will grant another; they will pull a fine work together under a shared yoke.