WHETHER VICE IS SUFFICIENT TO CAUSE UNHAPPINESS.304

"That sharpness for which madmen are so vehement,"

as Sophocles says.

§xiv.I have already said that it is a very great indication of progress in virtue to transfer our judgement to action,and not to let our words remain merely words, but to make deeds of them. A manifestation of this is in the first place emulation as regards what we praise, and a zeal to do what we admire, and an unwillingness either to do or allow what we censure. To illustrate my meaning by an example, it is probable that all Athenians praised the daring and bravery of Miltiades; but Themistocles alone said that the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep, but woke him up of a night, and not only praised and admired him, but manifestly emulated and imitated his glorious actions. Small, therefore, can we think the progress we have made, as long as our admiration for those who have done noble things is barren, and does not of itself incite us to imitate them. For as there is no strong love without jealousy, so there is no ardent and energetic praise of virtue, which does not prick and goad one on, and make one not envious but emulous of what is noble, and desirous to do something similar. For not only at the discourses of a philosopher ought we, as Alcibiades said,290to be moved in heart and shed tears, but the true proficient in virtue, comparing his own deeds and actions with those of the good and perfect man, and grieved at the same time at the knowledge of his own deficiency, yet rejoicing in hope and desire, and full of impulses that will not let him rest, is, as Simonides says,

"Like sucking foal running by side of dam,"291

being desirous all but to coalesce with the good man. For it is a special sign of true progress in virtue to love and admire the disposition of those whose deeds we emulate, and to resemble them with a goodwill that ever assigns due honour and praise to them. But whoever is steeped in contentiousness and envy against his betters, let him know that he may be pricked on by a jealous desire for glory or power, but that he neither honours nor admires virtue.

§xv.Whenever, then, we begin so much to love good men that we deem happy, "not only," as Plato292says, "the temperate man himself, but also the man who hearsthe words that flow from his wise lips," and even admire and are pleased with his figure and walk and look and smile, and desire to adapt ourselves to his model and to stick closely to him, then may we think that we are making genuine progress. Still more will this be the case, if we admire the good not only in prosperity, but like lovers who admire even the lispings and paleness of those in their flower,293as the tears and dejection of Panthea in her grief and affliction won the affections of Araspes,294so we fear neither the exile of Aristides, nor the prison of Anaxagoras, nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the condemnation of Phocion, but think virtue worthy our love even under such trials, and join her, ever chanting that line of Euripides,

"Unto the noble everything is good."295

For the enthusiasm that can go so far as not to be discouraged at the sure prospect of trouble, but admires and emulates what is good even so, could never be turned away from what is noble by anybody. Such men ever, whether they have some business to transact, or have taken upon them some office, or are in some critical conjuncture, put before their eyes the example of noble men, and consider what Plato would have done on the occasion, what Epaminondas would have said, how Lycurgus or Agesilaus would have dealt; that so, adjusting and re-modelling themselves, as it were, at their mirrors, they may correct any ignoble expression, and repress any ignoble passion. For as those that have learnt the names of the Idæan Dactyli296make use of them to banish their fear by quietly repeating them over, so the bearing in mind and remembering good men, which soon suggests itself forcibly to those who have made some progress in virtue in all their emotions and difficulties, keeps them upright and not liable to fall. Let this also then be a sign to you of progress in virtue.

§xvi.In addition to this, not to be too much disturbed,nor to blush, nor to try and conceal oneself, or make any change in one's dress, on the sudden appearance of a man of distinction and virtue, but to feel confident and go and meet such a one, is the confirmation of a good conscience. It is reported that Alexander, seeing a messenger running up to him full of joy and holding out his right hand, said, "My good friend, what are you going to tell me? Has Homer come to life again?" For he thought that his own exploits required nothing but posthumous fame.297And a young man improving in character instinctively loves nothing better than to take pride and pleasure in the company of good and noble men, and to display his house, his table, his wife, his amusements, his serious pursuits, his spoken or written discourses; insomuch that he is grieved when he remembers that his father or guardian died without seeing him in that condition in life, and would pray for nothing from the gods so much, as that they could come to life again, and be spectators of his life and actions; as, on the contrary, those that have neglected their affairs, and come to ruin, cannot look upon their relatives even in dreams without fear and trembling.

§xvii.Add, if you please, to what I have already said, as no small indication of progress in virtue, the thinking no wrong-doing small, but being on your guard and heed against all. For as people who despair of ever being rich make no account of small expenses, thinking they will never make much by adding little to little,298but when hope is nearer fruition, then with wealth increases the love of it,299so in things that have respect to virtue, not he that generally assents to such sayings as "Why trouble about hereafter?" "If things are bad now, they will some day be better,"300but the man who pays heed to everything, and is vexed and concerned if vice gets pardon, when it lapses into even the most trifling wrongdoing, plainly shows that he hasalready attained to some degree of purity, and deigns not to contract defilement from anything whatever. For the idea that we have nothing of any importance to bring disgrace upon, makes people inclined to what is little and careless.301To those who are building a stone wall or coping it matters not if they lay on any chance wood or common stone, or some tombstone that has fallen down, as bad workmen do, heaping and piling up pell-mell every kind of material; but those who have made some progress in virtue, whose life "has been wrought on a golden base,"302like the foundation of some holy or royal building, undertake nothing carelessly, but lay and adjust everything by the line and level of reason, thinking the remark of Polycletus superlatively good, that that work is most excellent, where the model stands the test of the nail.303

249See Erasmus, Adagia, "Eadem pensari trutina."

250Euripides, "Iphigenia in Tauris," 569.

251See Ovid, "Metamorphoses," xii. 189, sq.

252See Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 1103.

253Compare Shakspere, "Tempest," A. i. Sc. i. 63, "And gape at widest to glut him."

254Hesiod, "Works and Days," 361, 362. Quoted again by our author, "On Education," § 13.

255"In via ad virtutem qui non progreditur, is non stat et manet, sed regreditur."—Wyttenbach.

256Adopting the reading of Hercher. See Pausanias, x. 37, where the oracle is somewhat different.

257For the town which parleys surrenders.

258From Homer, "Iliad," xix. 386.

259Compare Aristotle,Rhetoric, i. 11. και ἀρχή δὲ τοῦ ἔρωτος γίγνεται αὕτη πᾶσιν, ὅταν μὴ μόνον παρόντος χαίρωσιν, ἀλλὰ και ἀπόντος μεμνημένοι ἔρῶσιν.

260The line is a Fragment of Sophocles.

261See Hesiod, "Works and Days," 289-292.

262The well-known Cynic philosopher.

263Bergk. fr. 15. Compare Homer, "Iliad," vi. 339. νίκη δ᾽ ἐπαμείβεται ἄνδρας.

264We are told by Diogenes Läertius, v. 37, that Theophrastus had 2000 hearers sometimes at once.

265"Republic," vii. p. 539, B.

266Sentences borrowed from some author or other, such, as we still possess from the hands of Hermogenes and Aphthonius; compare the collection of bon-mots of Greek courtesans in Athenæus.

267A reference to Æsop's Fable, Λέων και Ἀλώπηξ. Cf. Horace, "Epistles," i. i. 73-75.

268This passage is alluded to also in "On Love to one's Offspring."§ ii.

269Madvig's text.

270Thucydides, i. 18.

271Homer, "Iliad," ix. 323, 324. Quoted also in "On Love to One's Offspring,"§ ii.

272The remark about Demosthenes has somehow slipped out, as Wyttenbach has suggested.

273Does this refer to Πηληίαδεω before Ἀχιλῆος in "Iliad," i. 1?

274An allusion to some passage in a Play that has not come down to us.

275Compare our Author,De Audiendis Poetis, § xi. ὥσπερ ὁ Ἀγησίλαοσ οὐκ ὑπέμεινεν ὑπὸ τοῦ καλοῦ φιληθῆναι προσιόντος.

276Reading with Madvig and Hercher, τὸ γὰρ αὺτὸν, sq.

277Literallycork-like, so vain, empty. So Horace, "levior cortice," "Odes," iii. 9, 22.

278Marks of a philosopher among the ancients. Compare our Author, "How one may discern a flatterer from a friend," § vii.

279"Odyssey," xvi. 187.

280Æschylus, "Toxotides," Fragm. 224. Quoted again by our author, "On Love," § xxi.

281"Turpe habitum fuisse in caupona conspici, et hoc exemplo apparet, et alia sunt indicia. Isocrates Orat. Areopagitica laudans antiquorum Atheniensium mores, p. 257: ἐν καπηλείῳ δὲ φαγεῖν ἢ πιεῖν οὐδεὶς ἃν οἰκέτης ἐπιεικὴς ἐτὸλμησε: quem locum citans Athenæus alia etiam adfert xiii. p. 566, F."—Wyttenbach.

282Wyttenbach compares Quintilian, "Institut. Orat." iii. 6, p. 255: "Nam et Hippocrates clarus arte medicinæ videtur honestissime fecisse, qui quosdam errores suos, ne posteri errarent, confessus est."

283Homer, "Odyssey," vi. 187.

284Homer, "Odyssey," xxiv. 402.

285Plato, "Republic," ix. p. 571, D.

286A somewhat similar story about Stilpo is told in Athenæus, x. p. 423, D.

287So Haupt and Herscher very ingeniously for ἱερεῦσιν.

288Adopting the suggestion of Wyttenbach as to the reading. The Dorian measure was grave and severe, the Lydian soft and effeminate.

289See our author, "Apophthegmata Laconica," p. 220 C.

290Plato, "Symposium," p. 25, E.

291This line is quoted again by our author, "On Moral Virtue," § vii.

292Plato, "Laws," iv. p. 711, E.

293See those splendid lines of Lucretius, iv. 1155-1169.

294"Res valde celebrata ex Institutione Cyri Xenophontea, v. 1, 2; vi. 1, 17."—Wyttenbach.

295This line is very like a Fragment in the "Danae" of Euripides. Dind. (328).

296On these see Pausanias, v. 7.

297Such as Homer could have brought. Compare Horace, "Odes," iv. ix. 25-28; and Cicero, "pro Archia," x. "Magnus ille Alexander—cum in Sigeo ad Achillis tumulum adstitisset, O fortunate, inquit, adolescens, qui tuæ virtutis Homerum præconem inveneris."

298Contrary to Hesiod's saw, "Works and Days," 361, 362.

299So Juvenal, xiv. 138-140.

300Like Horace's "Non si male nunc, et olim Sic erit." "Odes," ii. x. 16, 17.

301Noblesse obligein fact.

302Pindar, Frag. 206.

303Like Horace'sfactus ad unguem, because the sculptor tries its polish and the niceness of the joints by drawing his nail over the surface. Casaub. Pers. i. 64; Horace, "Sat." i. v. 32, 33; A. P. 294; Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 507.

§i.... He who gets a dowry with his wife sells himself for it, as Euripides says,305but his gains are few and uncertain; but he who does not go all on fire through many a funeral pile, but through a regal pyre, full of panting and fear and sweat got from travelling over the sea as a merchant, has the wealth of Tantalus, but cannot enjoy it owing to his want of leisure. For that Sicyonian horse-breeder was wise, who gave Agamemnon as a present a swift mare, "that he should not follow him to wind-swept Ilium, but delight himself at home,"306in the quiet enjoyment of his abundant richesand painless leisure. But nowadays courtiers, and people who think they have a turn for affairs, thrust themselves forward of their own accord uninvited into courts and toilsome escorts and bivouacs, that they may get a horse, or brooch, or some such piece of good luck. "But his wife is left behind in Phylace, and tears her cheeks in her sorrow, and his house is only half complete without him,"307while he is dragged about, and wanders about, and wastes his time in idle hopes, and has to put up with much insult. And even if he gets any of those things he desires, giddy and dizzy at Fortune's rope-dance, he seeks retirement, and deems those happy who live obscure and in security, while they again look up admiringly at him who soars so high above their heads.308

§ii.Vice has universally an ill effect on everybody, being in itself a sufficient producer of infelicity, needing no instruments nor ministers. For tyrants, anxious to make those whom they punish wretched, keep executioners and torturers, and contrive branding-irons and other instruments of torture to inspire fear309in the brute soul, whereas vice attacks the soul without any such apparatus, and crushes and dejects it, and fills a man with sorrow, and lamentation, and melancholy, and remorse. Here is a proof of what I say. Many are silent under mutilation, and endure scourging or torture at the hand of despots or tyrants without uttering a word, whenever their soul, abating the pain by reason, forcibly as it were checks and represses them: but you can never quiet anger or smother grief, or persuade a timid person not to run away, or one suffering from remorse not to cry out, nor tear his hair, nor smite his thigh. Thus vice is stronger than fire and sword.

§iii.You know of course that cities, when they desire to publicly contract for the building of temples or colossuses, listen to the estimates of the contractors who compete for the job, and bring their plans and charges, and finally select the contractor who will do the work at leastexpense, and best, and quickest. Let us suppose then that we publicly contract to make the life of man miserable, and take the estimates of Fortune and Vice for this object. Fortune shall come forward, provided with all sorts of instruments and costly apparatus to make life miserable and wretched. She shall come with robberies and wars, and the blood-guiltiness of tyrants, and storms at sea, and lightning drawn down from the sky, she shall compound hemlock, she shall bring swords, she shall levy an army of informers, she shall cause fevers to break out, she shall rattle fetters and build prisons. It is true that most of these things are owing to Vice rather than Fortune, but let us suppose them all to come from Fortune. And let Vice stand by naked, without any external things against man, and let her ask Fortune how she will make man unhappy and dejected. Fortune, dost thou threaten poverty? Metrocles laughs at thee, who sleeps during winter among the sheep, in summer in the vestibules of temples, and challenges the king of the Persians,310who winters at Babylon, and summers in Media, to vie with him in happiness. Dost thou bring slavery, and bondage, and sale? Diogenes despises thee, who cried out, as he was being sold by some robbers, "Who will buy a master?" Dost thou mix a cup of poison? Didst not thou offer such a one to Socrates? And cheerfully, and mildly, without fear, without changing colour or countenance, he calmly drank it up: and when he was dead, all who survived deemed him happy, as sure to have a divine lot in Hades. And as to thy fire, did not Decius, the general of the Romans, anticipate it for himself, having piled up a funeral pyre between the two armies, and sacrificed himself to Cronos, dedicating himself for the supremacy of his country? And the chaste and loving wives of the Indians strive and contend with one another for the fire, and she that wins the day and gets burnt with the body of her husband, is pronounced happy by the rest, and her praises sung. And of the wise men in that part of the world no one is esteemed or pronounced happy, who does not in hislifetime, in good health and in full possession of all his faculties, separate soul from body by fire, and emerge pure from flesh, having purged away his mortal part. Or wilt thou reduce a man from a splendid property, and house, and table, and sumptuous living, to a threadbare coat and wallet, and begging of daily bread? Such was the beginning of happiness to Diogenes, of freedom and glory to Crates. Or wilt thou nail a man on a cross, or impale him on a stake? What cares Theodorus whether he rots above ground or below? Such was the happy mode of burial amongst the Scythians,311and among the Hyrcanians dogs, among the Bactrians birds, devour according to the laws the dead bodies of those who have made a happy end.

§iv.Who then are made unhappy by these things? Those who have no manliness or reason, the enervated and untrained, who retain the opinions they had as children. Fortune therefore does not produce perfect infelicity, unless Vice co-operate. For as a thread saws through a bone that has been soaked in ashes and vinegar, and as people bend and fashion ivory only when it has been made soft and supple by beer, and cannot under any other circumstances, so Fortune, lighting upon what is in itself faulty and soft through Vice, hollows it out and wounds it. And as the Parthian juice, though hurtful to no one else nor injurious to those who touch it or carry it about, yet if it be communicated to a wounded man straightway kills him through his previous susceptibility to receive its essence, so he who will be upset in soul by Fortune must have some secret internal ulcer or sore to make external things so piteous and lamentable.

§v.Does then Vice need Fortune to bring about infelicity? By no means. She lashes not up the rough and stormy sea, she girds not lonely mountain passes with robbers lying in wait by the way, she makes not clouds of hail to burst on the fruitful plains, she suborns not Meletus or Anytus or Callixenus as accusers, she takes not away wealth, excludes not people from the prætorship to make them wretched; but she scares the rich, the well-to-do, and great heirs; by land and sea she insinuates herself andsticks to people, infusing lust, inflaming with anger, afflicting them with superstitious fears, tearing them in pieces with envy.

304The beginning of this short Treatise is lost. Nor is the first paragraph at all clear. We have to guess somewhat at the meaning.

305In a fragment of the "Phaethon." Compare also "On Education,"§ 19.

306"Iliad," xxiii. 297, 298.

307"Iliad," ii. 700, 701.

308'Tis ever so. Compare Horace, "Sat." i. i. 1-14.

309Adopting Reiske's reading.

310Proverbial for extreme good fortune. Cf. Horace, "Odes," iii. ix. 4, "Persarum vigui rege beatior."

311See Herodotus, iv. 72.

§i.Homer, looking at the mortality of all living creatures, and comparing them with one another in their lives and habits, gave vent to his thoughts in the words,

"Of all the things that on the earth do breathe,Or creep, man is by far the wretchedest;"312

assigning to man an unhappy pre-eminence in extreme misfortune. But let us, assuming that man is, as thus publicly declared, supreme in infelicity and the most wretched of all living creatures, compare him with himself, in the estimate of his misery dividing body and soul, not idly but in a very necessary way, that we may learn whether our life is more wretched owing to Fortune or through our own fault. For disease is engendered in the body by nature, but vice and depravity in the soul is first its own doing, then its settled condition. And it is no slight aid to tranquillity of mind if what is bad be capable of cure, and lighter and less violent.

§ii.The fox in Æsop313disputing with the leopard as to their respective claims to variety, the latter showed its body and appearance all bright and spotted, while the tawny skin of the former was dirty and not pleasant to look at. Then the fox said, "Look inside me, sir judge, and you will see that I am more full of variety than my opponent," referring to his trickiness and versatility in shifts. Let us similarly say to ourselves, Many diseases and disorders, good sir, thy body naturally produces of itself, many also it receives from without; but if thou lookest at thyself within thou wilt find, to borrow the language of Democritus, avaried and susceptible storehouse and treasury of what is bad, not flowing in from without, but having as it were innate and native springs, which vice, being exceedingly rich and abundant in passion, produces. And if diseases are detected in the body by the pulse and by pallors and flushes,314and are indicated by heats and sudden pains, while the diseases of the mind, bad as they are, escape the notice of most people, the latter are worse because they deprive the sufferer of the perception of them. For reason if it be sound perceives the diseases of the body, but he that is diseased in his mind cannot judge of his sufferings, for he suffers in the very seat of judgement. We ought to account therefore the first and greatest of the diseases of the mind that ignorance,315whereby vice is incurable for most people, dwelling with them and living and dying with them. For the beginning of getting rid of disease is the perception of it, which leads the sufferer to the necessary relief, but he who through not believing he is ill knows not what he requires refuses the remedy even when it is close at hand. For amongst the diseases of the body those are the worst which are accompanied by stupor, as lethargies, headaches, epilepsies, apoplexies, and those fevers which raise inflammation to the pitch of madness, and disturb the brain as in the case of a musical instrument,

"And move the mind's strings hitherto untouched."316

§iii.And so doctors wish a man not to be ill, or if he is ill to be ignorant of it, as is the case with all diseases of the soul. For neither those who are out of their minds, nor the licentious, nor the unjust think themselves faulty—some even think themselves perfect. For no one ever yet called a fever health, or consumption a good condition of body, or gout swift-footedness, or paleness a good colour; but many call anger manliness, and love friendship, and envy competition,and cowardice prudence. Then again those that are ill in body send for doctors, for they are conscious of what they need to counteract their ailments; but those who are ill in mind avoid philosophers, for they think themselves excellent in the very matters in which they come short. And it is on this account that we maintain that ophthalmia is a lesser evil than madness, and gout than frenzy. For the person ill in body is aware of it and calls loudly for the doctor, and when he comes allows him to anoint his eye, to open a vein, or to plaster up his head; but you hear mad Agave in her frenzy not knowing her dearest ones, but crying out, "We bring from the mountain to the halls a young stag recently torn limb from limb, a fortunate capture."317Again he who is ill in body straightway gives up and goes to bed and remains there quietly till he is well, and if he toss and tumble about a little when the fit is on him, any of the people who are by saying to him,

"Gently,Stay in the bed, poor wretch, and take your ease,"318

restrain him and check him. But those who suffer from a diseased brain are then most active and least at rest, for impulses bring about action, and the passions are vehement impulses. And so they do not let the mind rest, but when the man most requires quiet and silence and retirement, then is he dragged into the open air, and becomes the victim of anger, contentiousness, lust, and grief, and is compelled to do and say many lawless things unsuitable to the occasion.

§iv.As therefore the storm which prevents one's putting into harbour is more dangerous than the storm which will not let one sail, so those storms of the soul are more formidable which do not allow a man to take in sail, or to calm his reason when it is disturbed, but without a pilot and without ballast, in perplexity and uncertainty through contrary and confusing courses, he rushes headlong and falls into woeful shipwreck, and shatters his life. So thatfrom these points of view it is worse to be diseased in mind than body, for the latter only suffer, but the former do ill as well as suffer ill. But why need I speak of our various passions? The very times bring them to our mind. Do you see yon great and promiscuous crowd jostling against one another and surging round the rostrum and forum? They have not assembled here to sacrifice to their country's gods, nor to share in one another's rites; they are not bringing to Ascræan Zeus the firstfruits of Lydian produce,319nor are they celebrating in honour of Dionysus the Bacchic orgies on festival nights with common revellings; but a mighty plague stirring up Asia in annual cycles drives them here for litigation and suits at law at stated times: and the mass of business, like the confluence of mighty rivers, has inundated one forum, and festers and teems with ruiners and ruined. What fevers, what agues, do not these things cause? What obstructions, what irruptions of blood into the air-vessels, what distemperature of heat, what overflow of humours, do not result? If you examine every suit at law, as if it were a person, as to where it originated, where it came from, you will find that one was produced by obstinate temper, another by frantic love of strife, a third by some sordid desire.320

312Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 446, 447.

313See the Fable Ἀλώπηξ και Πὰρδαλις. No. 42, Ed. Halme.

314Reading with Wyttenbach, ὠχριάσεσι και ἐρυθήμασι.

315Forte ἄγνοιαν."—Wyttenbach. The ordinary reading is ἂνοιαν. "E cœlo descendit γνῶθι σεαυτόν," says Juvenal truly, xi. 27.

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