Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] You want me to write and tell you what I think about a question debated among our school: whether justice, courage, prudence, and the other virtues are living beings. With this kind of subtlety, my dear Lucilius, we've managed to look like men exercising their wits on trifles, wasting our leisure on disputes that get us nowhere. I'll do as you ask and lay out our school's view; but I declare that I hold a different opinion myself: I think there are certain things that suit a man in slippers and a Greek cloak, and no one else. So let me tell you what has moved the old masters, or what ought to move them.
[2] It's agreed that the mind is a living being, since it is what makes us living beings, and living beings (animalia) take their very name from it (anima); virtue, however, is nothing other than the mind disposed in a certain way; therefore it is a living being. Furthermore, virtue does something; but nothing can act without impulse; if it has impulse, which belongs to nothing but a living being, then it is a living being. [3] 'If virtue is a living being,' comes the objection, 'then virtue itself has virtue.' Why shouldn't it possess itself? Just as the wise man does everything through virtue, so virtue acts through itself. 'Then,' the objection continues, 'all the arts are living beings too, and everything we think and everything we grasp with the mind. It follows that many thousands of living beings inhabit this narrow space of the chest, and each of us is many living beings, or contains many living beings.' You want to know how this is answered? Each one of these things taken singly will be a living being; but they won't be many living beings. Why? I'll tell you, if you'll lend me your subtlety and attention. [4] Individual living beings ought each to have its own individual substance; but all these things share one single mind; so they can each individually be a living being, but they cannot be many. I am both a living being and a man, yet you wouldn't say we are two. Why not? Because to be two, they would have to be separate. Here's my point: one thing must be set apart from another for there to be two. Whatever within one thing is manifold falls under a single nature; and so it is one. [5] My mind is a living being, and I am a living being, yet we are not two. Why? Because my mind is a part of me. A thing is counted as one in its own right only when it stands on its own; but when it is a limb of something else, it cannot be seen as something separate. Why? I'll tell you: because whatever is a separate thing must be its own, proper to itself, whole, and self-contained.
[6] I've declared that I hold a different view: for if this argument is accepted, it won't be only the virtues that turn out to be living beings, but their opposite vices and passions too — anger, fear, grief, suspicion. The thing will go further still: every opinion, every thought will be a living being. And that's something that must not be accepted on any account; for not everything produced by a man is a man. [7] 'What is justice?' comes the question. The mind disposed in a certain way. 'So if the mind is a living being, so is justice.' Not at all; for justice is a state and a certain power of the mind. The same mind turns itself into various shapes, and it isn't a different living being every time it does something different; nor is what is produced by the mind itself a living being. [8] If justice is a living being, if courage is, if the other virtues are, do they cease to be living beings from time to time and then start again, or are they always living beings? Virtues cannot cease to exist. So there are many living beings — countless, in fact — dwelling in this one mind. [9] 'They aren't many,' comes the reply, 'because they're bound together from one source and are parts and limbs of a single thing.' So the picture of the mind we're being offered is like that of a hydra with many heads, each of which fights on its own, does harm on its own. And yet none of those heads is itself a living being, but the head of a living being; the whole is one single living being. No one has ever said that the lion in the Chimera is a living being, or the serpent: these were parts of it; and parts are not living beings. [10] What's your basis for concluding that justice is a living being? 'It acts,' comes the answer, 'and does good; but whatever acts and does good has impulse; and whatever has impulse is a living being.' True — if it has its own impulse; but it doesn't have its own, it has the mind's. [11] Every living being, until it dies, remains what it began as: a man is a man until he dies, a horse a horse, a dog a dog; it cannot pass into something else. Justice — that is, the mind disposed in a certain way — is a living being. Let's grant it. Then courage too is a living being, that is, the mind disposed in a certain way. Which mind? The same one that a moment ago was justice? It's held fast in the earlier living being; it isn't allowed to pass into another living being; it must persist in the one it first began to be. [12] Besides, one mind cannot belong to two living beings, still less to more. If justice, courage, temperance, and the other virtues are living beings, how will they share one mind? Each ought to have its own, or else they aren't living beings. [13] One body cannot belong to several living beings. Even they admit this. What is the body of justice? 'The mind.' Well, what is the body of courage? 'The same mind.' And yet one body cannot belong to two living beings. [14] 'But the same mind,' comes the answer, 'puts on the guise of justice, and of courage, and of temperance.' This could happen if, at the time justice existed, courage did not exist, and at the time courage existed, temperance did not; but as it stands, all the virtues exist at once. So how can they each be living beings, when there is one single mind, which cannot make more than one living being? [15] Finally, no living being is part of another living being; but justice is part of the mind; therefore it is not a living being.
It strikes me I'm wasting effort on a point already conceded; this deserves indignation more than argument. No living being is the exact equal of another. Look around at the bodies of all creatures: every one has its own color, its own shape, its own size. [16] Among the other things that make the ingenuity of the divine craftsman a marvel, I count this too: that amid so vast an abundance of things, he never once repeats himself; even things that look alike turn out, on comparison, to differ. He has made so many kinds of leaves: not one without its own distinctive mark; so many living beings: no two of a size, some difference always present. He has made a point of ensuring that things which were otherwise different should also be unequal. The virtues, as you people say, are all equal; therefore they are not living beings. [17] No living being acts except on its own; but virtue does nothing on its own — only in conjunction with a human being. All living beings are either rational, like men and gods, or irrational, like wild beasts and cattle; virtues are certainly rational; but they are neither men nor gods; therefore they are not living beings. [18] Every rational living being does nothing unless it is first stirred by the appearance of something, then takes an impulse, then confirms that impulse through assent. Let me explain what assent is. I ought to walk: only once I have told myself this and approved my own judgment do I actually walk; I ought to sit: only then do I sit. This assent is not present in virtue. [19] Suppose prudence exists: how will it assent to 'I ought to walk'? Nature does not admit of this. Prudence looks out for the person to whom it belongs, not for itself; for it cannot walk, and it cannot sit. So it has no assent; and whatever has no assent is not a rational living being. If virtue is a living being, it is rational; but it is not rational; therefore it is not a living being either. [20] If virtue is a living being, and virtue is entirely good, then every good is a living being. Our own school admits this. Saving one's father is good, and speaking one's opinion wisely in the senate is good, and rendering a just verdict is good; therefore saving one's father is a living being, and speaking one's opinion wisely is a living being. The argument has pushed things so far that you can't hold back your laughter: keeping wise silence is good, dining is good; and so both silence and dinner are living beings.
[21] I swear, I won't stop needling this, and making sport for myself out of these subtle inanities. Justice and courage, if they are living beings, are certainly earthbound ones; every earthbound living being feels cold, hunger, thirst; therefore justice feels cold, courage feels hunger, mercy feels thirst. [22] What's more — won't I ask them what shape these living beings have? That of a man, a horse, a wild beast? If they say round, the same shape they gave to god, I'll ask whether greed and excess and madness are equally round — for they too are living beings. And if they round these off as well, I'll still ask whether a prudent stroll is a living being. They're bound to admit it — and then they'll have to say that a stroll is a living being, and a round one at that.
[23] And don't think it's only I, speaking not from our school's prescriptions but from my own opinion, who says such things: Cleanthes and his own pupil Chrysippus can't even agree on what a stroll is. Cleanthes says it's breath sent out from the ruling part all the way down to the feet; Chrysippus says it's the ruling part itself. So why shouldn't each of us, following Chrysippus's own example, claim the right to think for himself and laugh at these countless living beings that the universe itself couldn't hold?
[24] 'The virtues,' comes the reply, 'are not many living beings, yet they are living beings. For just as someone can be both a poet and an orator, and yet be one person, so these virtues are living beings but are not many. The mind is one and the same, and is just and prudent and courageous, disposed in a certain way toward each individual virtue.' [25] Once you take away... we agree on this. For I myself, for now, admit that the mind is a living being, reserving judgment on that question for later; but I deny that its actions are living beings. Otherwise every word will be a living being, and every line of verse. For if wise speech is good, and every good is a living being, then speech is a living being. A wise line of verse is good, and every good is a living being; therefore the verse is a living being. And so
it is a living being — which they can't call round, since it has six feet. [26] 'That's just weaving nonsense,' you'll say, 'this whole business as it now stands.' I burst out laughing when I picture to myself that a solecism is a living being, and a barbarism, and a syllogism, and I assign them faces to match, like a painter. Do we really debate these things with knitted brows and furrowed foreheads? I can't help but quote here that line of Caelius: 'oh, wretched trifles!' They're ridiculous.
So why don't we instead take up something useful and salutary for us, and ask how we can reach the virtues, what road can lead us to them? [27] Teach me — not whether courage is a living being, but that no living being can be happy without courage, unless it has grown strong against the blows of chance and, by rehearsing every misfortune in advance, has mastered it before it strikes. What is courage? An impregnable fortification against human weakness, which whoever has thrown up around himself endures secure through this siege of life; for he uses his own strength, his own weapons. [28] Here I want to pass on to you the view of our friend Posidonius: 'You should never think yourself safe using fortune's weapons: fight with your own. Fortune does not arm us against herself; and so we're equipped against enemies, but unarmed against her.' [29] Alexander laid waste and put to flight the Persians and Hyrcanians and Indians, and every nation the East extends as far as the ocean — but he himself, now over one friend killed, now over another lost, lay in darkness, mourning at one moment his crime, at another his loss, conqueror of so many kings and peoples yet succumbing to his own anger and gloom; for he had striven to hold everything else in his power except his own passions. [30] Oh, how great are the errors that grip men who long to extend the right to rule across the seas, and count themselves supremely fortunate if they hold many provinces by force of arms and add new ones to the old — not knowing that the truly vast kingdom, equal to the gods, is this: to command oneself is the greatest command of all. [31] Let someone teach me how sacred a thing justice is, looking to another's good, seeking nothing for itself except the exercise of itself. Let it have nothing to do with ambition or reputation: let it be content with itself. Let every man first convince himself of this above all: I ought to be just for nothing. That's not enough. Let him convince himself further of this: it should be a joy to spend myself, unasked, on this most beautiful of virtues; let every thought be turned as far as possible away from private advantage. There's no reason to look for a reward for a just act: the greater reward is in the just act itself. [32] Fix this further point in your mind, which I mentioned a little earlier: it is of no relevance how many people know of your fairness. Whoever wants his virtue made public is laboring not for virtue but for glory. Don't you want to be just without glory? Well, I swear, you'll often have to be just at the cost of a bad reputation — and then, if you're wise, let an ill opinion well earned give you pleasure. Farewell.