My impious brother fain would have me eat
My children, and thus serves them up for meat.
To what length now will not anger go? even as far as madness. Therefore we say properly enough, that angry men have given up their power, that is, they are out of the power of advice, reason, and understanding: for these ought to have power over the whole mind. Now you should put those out of the way, whom they endeavour to attack, till they have recollected themselves; but what does recollection here imply, but getting together again the dispersed parts of their mind into their proper place? or else you must beg and entreat them, if they have the means of revenge, to defer it to another opportunity, till their anger cools. But the expression of cooling implies, certainly, that there was a heat raised in their minds in opposition to reason: from which consideration that saying of Archytas is commended: who being somewhat provoked at his steward, “How would I have treated you,” said he, “if I had not been in a passion?”
XXXVII. Where, then, are they who say that anger has its use? Can madness be of any use? But still it is natural. Can anything be natural that is against reason? or how is it, if anger is natural, that one person is more inclined to anger than another? or that the lust of revenge should cease before it has revenged itself? or that any one should repent of what he had done in a passion? as we see that Alexander the king did, who could scarcely keep his hands from himself, when he had killed his favourite Clytus: so great was his compunction! Now who, that is acquainted with these instances, can doubt that this motion of the mind is altogether in opinion and voluntary? for who can doubt that disorders of the mind, such as covetousness, and a desire of glory, arise from a great estimation of those things, by which the mind is disordered? from whence we may understand, that every perturbation of the mind is founded in opinion.
And if boldness, that is to say, a firm assurance of mind, is a kind of knowledge and serious opinion, not hastily taken up: then diffidence is a fear of an expected and impending evil: and if hope is an expectation of good, fear must of course be an expectation of evil. Thus fear and other perturbations are evils. Therefore as constancy proceeds from knowledge, so does perturbation from error. Now they who are said to be naturally inclined to anger, or to pity, or to envy, or to any feeling of this kind; their minds are constitutionally, as it were, in bad health, yet they are curable, as the disposition of Socrates is said to have been; for when Zopyrus, who professed to know the character of every one from his person, had heaped a great many vices on him in a public assembly, he was laughed at by others, who could perceive no such vices in Socrates; but Socrates kept him in countenance, by declaring that such vices were natural to him, but that he had got the better of them by his reason. Therefore, as any one who has the appearance of the best constitution, may yet appear to be naturally rather inclined to some particular disorder, so different minds may be more particularly inclined to different diseases. But as to those men who are said to be vicious, not by nature, but their own fault; their vices proceed from wrong opinions of good and bad things, so that one is more prone than another to different motions and perturbations. But, just as it is in the case of the body, an inveterate disease is harder to be got rid of than a sudden disorder; and it is more easy to cure a fresh tumour in the eyes, than to remove a defluxion of any continuance.
XXXVIII. But as the cause of perturbations is now discovered, for all of them arise from the judgment or opinion, or volition, I shall put an end to this discourse. But we ought to be assured, since the boundaries of good and evil are now discovered, as far as they are discoverable by man, that nothing can be desired of philosophy greater, or more useful, than the discussions which we have held these four days. For besides instilling a contempt of death, and relieving pain so as to enable men to bear it; we have added the appeasing of grief, than which there is no greater evil to man. For though every perturbation of mind is grievous, and differs but little from madness: yet we are used to say of others, when they are under any perturbation, as of fear, joy, or [pg 431] desire, that they are agitated and disturbed; but of those who give themselves up to grief, that they are miserable, afflicted, wretched, unhappy. So that it doth not seem to be by accident, but with reason proposed by you, that I should discuss grief, and the other perturbations separately; for there lies the spring and head of all our miseries: but the cure of grief, and of other disorders, is one and the same, in that they are all voluntary, and founded on opinion; we take them on ourselves because it seems right so to do. Philosophy undertakes to eradicate this error, as the root of all our evils: let us therefore surrender ourselves to be instructed by it, and suffer ourselves to be cured; for whilst these evils have possession of us, we not only cannot be happy, but cannot be right in our minds. We must either deny that reason can effect anything, while, on the other hand, nothing can be done right without reason; or else, since philosophy depends on the deductions of reason, we must seek from her, if we would be good or happy, every help and assistance for living well and happily.
Book V. Whether Virtue Alone Be Sufficient For A Happy Life.
I. This fifth day, Brutus, shall put an end to our Tusculan Disputations: on which day we discussed your favourite subject. For I perceive from that book which you wrote for me, with the greatest accuracy, as well as from your frequent conversation, that you are clearly of this opinion, that virtue is of itself sufficient for a happy life: and though it may be difficult to prove this, on account of the many various strokes of fortune, yet it is a truth of such a nature, that we should endeavour to facilitate the proof of it. For among all the topics of philosophy, there is not one of more dignity or importance. For as the first philosophers must have had some inducement, to neglect everything for the search of the best state of life: surely, the inducement must have been the hope of living happily, which impelled them to devote so [pg 432] much care and pains to that study. Now, if virtue was discovered and carried to perfection by them; and if virtue is a sufficient security for a happy life: who can avoid thinking the work of philosophising excellently recommended by them, and undertaken by me? But if virtue, as being subject to such various and uncertain accidents, were but the slave of fortune, and were not of sufficient ability to support herself; I am afraid that it would seem desirable rather to offer up prayers than to rely on our own confidence in virtue, as the foundation for our hope of a happy life. And, indeed, when I reflect on those troubles, with which I have been so severely exercised by fortune, I begin to distrust this opinion; and sometimes even to dread the weakness and frailty of human nature, for I am afraid lest, when nature had given us infirm bodies, and had joined to them incurable diseases, and intolerable pains, she perhaps also gave us minds participating in these bodily pains, and harassed also with troubles and uneasinesses, peculiarly their own. But here I correct myself, for forming my judgment of the power of virtue more from the weakness of others, or of myself perhaps, than from virtue itself: for she herself (provided there is such a thing as virtue, and your uncle Brutus has removed all doubt of it) has everything that can befal mankind in subjection to her; and by disregarding such things, she is far removed from being at all concerned at human accidents; and, being free from every imperfection, she thinks that nothing which is external to herself can concern her. But we, who increase every approaching evil by our fear, and every present one by our grief, choose rather to condemn the nature of things, than our own errors.
II. But the amendment of this fault, and of all our other vices and offences, is to be sought for in philosophy: and as my own inclination and desire led me, from my earliest youth upwards, to seek her protection; so, under my present misfortunes, I have had recourse to the same port from whence I set out, after having been tossed by a violent tempest. O Philosophy, thou guide of life! thou discoverer of virtue, and expeller of vices! what had not only I myself, but the whole life of man been without you? To you it is that we owe the origin of cities; you it was who called together the dispersed race of men into social life; you united them [pg 433] together, first, by placing them near one another, then by marriages, and lastly, by the communication of speech and languages. You have been the inventress of laws; you have been our instructress in morals and discipline: to you we fly for refuge; from you we implore assistance; and as I formerly submitted to you in a great degree, so now I surrender up myself entirely to you. For one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an eternity of error. Whose assistance, then, can be of more service to me than yours, when you have bestowed on us tranquillity of life, and removed the fear of death? But Philosophy is so far from being praised as much as she has deserved by mankind, that she is wholly neglected by most men, and actually evil spoken of by many. Can any person speak ill of the parent of life, and dare to pollute himself thus with parricide! and be so impiously ungrateful as to accuse her, whom he ought to reverence, even were he less able to appreciate the advantages which he might derive from her? But this error, I imagine, and this darkness, has spread itself over the minds of ignorant men, from their not being able to look so far back, and from their not imagining that those men by whom human life was first improved, were philosophers: for though we see philosophy to have been of long standing, yet the name must be acknowledged to be but modern.