Complete Works of Plutarch Part 35

Lies, fawning speeches, and deceitful manners, (Hesiod, "Works and Days," 78.)

if, when these are taken away, virtue will also vanish and be lost?

Or do you desire to understand the greatest sweetness of his eloquence and persuasion? "For," says he, "as comedies have in them sometimes ridiculous epigrams, which, though bad in themselves, give nevertheless a certain grace to the whole poem; so, though you may blame vice in itself, yet is it not useless to other things." First, then, to say that vice was made by the providence of G.o.d, as a wanton epigram by the will of the poet, transcends in absurdity all imagination. For this being granted, how will the G.o.ds be rather givers of good than evil? How will wickedness be displeasing to them, and hated by them? And what shall we have to oppose against these ill-sounding sentences of the poets.--

A cause to men G.o.d sends, When to chastise some house his wrath intends; (From the "Niobe" of Aeschylus, Frag. 151.)

and again,

What G.o.d those seeds of strife 'twixt them did sow?

(Iliad, i. 8.)

Moreover, a lewd epigram adorns the comedy and contributes to its end, which is to delight the spectators and make them laugh. But Jupiter, who is surnamed fatherly, supreme, just, and (as Pindar has it) the most perfect artist, framing the world, not as a great interlude, full of variety and great learning, but as a common city of G.o.ds and men, living together in concord and happiness with justice and virtue,--what need had he, for the attaining to this excellent end, of thieves, murderers, parricides, and tyrants? For vice entered not as a morris-dance, pleasing and delightful to the Divinity; nor was it brought in amongst the affairs of men, to cause mirth and laughter by its raillery and facetiousness, since there is not to be seen in it so much as a dream of that celebrated agreement with Nature. Besides, that foolish epigram is a very small part of the poem, and takes up but a very little place in the comedy; neither do such things abound in it, nor do they corrupt any of those things which seem to have been well done, or spoil their grace.

But all human affairs are replete with vice, and the whole life, from the very prologue and beginning to the end, being disordered, depraved, and disturbed, and having no part of it pure or irreprehensible (as these men say), is the most filthy and most unpleasant of all farces.

Wherefore I would willingly ask, in what vice is profitable to the universe. Not surely in respect of heavenly things, and such as are divine by nature. For it would be ridiculous to say, that if there had not arisen, or were not amongst men, malice and covetousness and lying, or that if we did not rob, plunder, slander, and murder one another, the sun would not run his appointed course, the world enjoy its seasons and periods of time, or the earth, which is seated in the midst of the universe, afford the principles of the wind and rain. It remains, then, that the existence of vice must be profitable for us and our affairs; and that perhaps these men mean. Are we more healthy for being vicious, or do we more abound with necessaries? Or does vice contribute anything to our beauty and strength? They say, no. But where on earth is virtue to be met with? Is it then only a base name, and a visionary opinion of night-walking Sophists, and not an actual thing lying conspicuous to all, like vice, so that we cannot partake of anything as profitable,...

but least, O ye G.o.ds! of virtue, for which we were created? Is it not then absurd, that the utensils of the husbandman, mariner, and charioteer should be serviceable and aiding towards his intended end, whilst that which was by G.o.d made for virtue destroys and corrupts virtue? But perhaps it is time now to leave this point, and pa.s.s to another.

LAMPRIAS. Not for my sake, my dear friend, I beseech you; for I desire to understand, in what manner these men bring in evil things before the good, and vice before virtue.

DIADUMENUS. It is indeed, sir, a thing worth knowing. They babble indeed much; but in conclusion they say that prudence, being the knowledge of good and evil, would be wholly taken away if there were no evil. For as, if there are truths, it is impossible but there must be some lies also near to them; so it stands with reason, that if there are good things, there must also be evil things.

LAMPRIAS. One of these things is not said amiss; and I think also that the other is not unapprehended by me. For I see a difference here: that which is not true must immediately be false; but that is not of necessity evil which is not good; because that between true and false there is no medium, but between good and evil there is the indifferent.

Nor is it of necessity that the one must subsist with the other. For Nature may have good without having any need of evil, but only having that which is neither good nor evil. But if there is anything to be said by you to the former reason, let us hear it.

DIADUMENUS. Many things indeed are said; but at present we shall make use only of what is most necessary. In the first place, it is a folly to imagine that good and evil have their existence for the sake of prudence. For good and evil being already extant, prudence came afterwards; as the art of physic was invented, there being already things wholesome and unwholesome. For good and evil are not therefore extant that there may be prudence; but the faculty by which we judge good and evil that are already in being is named prudence. As sight is a sense distinguishing white from black; which colors were not therefore made that we might have sight, but we rather wanted sight to discern these things. Secondly, when the world shall be set on fire (as the Stoics hold), there will then no evil be left, but all will then be prudent and wise. There is therefore prudence, though there is no evil; nor is it of necessity for evil to exist that prudence may have a being.

But supposing that prudence must always be a knowledge of good and evil, what inconvenience would it be if, evil being taken away, prudence should no longer subsist; but instead of this we should have another virtue, not being the knowledge of good and evil, but of good only? So, if black should be wholly lost from among the colors, and any one should therefore contend that sight is also lost, for that there is no more the sense of discerning black and white, what should hinder us from answering him: It is no prejudice to us, if we have not what you call sight, but in lieu of that have another sense and faculty, by which we apprehend colors that are white and not white. For I indeed think that neither our taste would be lost, if bitter things were wanting, nor our feeling, if pain were taken away, nor prudence, if evil had no being; but that these senses would remain, to apprehend things sweet and grateful and those that are not so, and prudence to be the science of things good and not good. But let those who think otherwise take the name to themselves, leaving us the thing.

Besides all this, what should hinder but there may be an understanding of evil, and an existence of good? As the G.o.ds, I believe, enjoy health, but understand the fever and pleurisy. Since even we, who, as they say, have abundance of evils but no good, are not yet dest.i.tute of the knowledge what prudence, what goodness, and what happiness is. And this also would be remarkable, that if virtue were absent, there should be those who could teach us what it is and give us a comprehension of it, when if vice were not extant, it should be impossible to have any understanding of it. For see what these men persuade us who philosophize against the conceptions,--that by folly indeed we comprehend prudence, but prudence without folly cannot so much as comprehend folly itself.

And if Nature had absolutely stood in need of the generation of evil, yet might one or two examples of vice have been sufficient; or if you will, it might have been requisite that ten, a thousand, or ten thousand vicious men should be brought forth, and not that the mult.i.tude of vices should be so great as "to exceed in number the sands of the sea, the dust of the earth, and the feathers of all the various kinds of birds in the world," and yet that there should not be so much all this while as a dream of virtue. Those who in Sparta had the charge of the public halls or eating places called Phiditia were wont to bring forth two or three Helots drunken and full of wine, that the young men, seeing what drunkenness was, might learn to keep sobriety. But in human life there are many such examples of vice. For there is not any one sober to virtue; but we all stagger up and down, acting shamefully and living miserably. Thus does reason inebriate us, and with so much trouble and madness does it fill us, that we fall in nothing short of those dogs of whom Aesop says, that seeing certain skins swimming in the water, they endeavored to gulp down the sea, but burst before they could get at them. For reason also, by which we hope to gain reputation and attain to virtue, does, ere we can reach to it, corrupt and destroy us, being before filled with abundance of heady and bitter vice;--if indeed, as these men say, they who are got even to the uppermost step have no ease, cessation, or breathing from folly and infelicity.

But let us see what manner of thing he shows vice to be who says that it was not brought forth unprofitably, and of what use and what a thing he makes it to be to those who have it, writing in his book of right conduct, that a wicked man wants nothing, has need of nothing, nothing is useful to him, nothing proper, nothing fit for him. How then is vice useful, with which neither health nor abundance of riches nor advancement in virtue is profitable? Who then does not want these things, of which some are "preferable" and "acceptable" and therefore highly useful, and others are "according to Nature," as themselves term them? But (they affirm) no one has need of them, unless he become wise.

So the vicious man does not even stand in want of being made wise.

Nor are men hungry and thirsty before they become wise. When thirsty, therefore, they have no need of water, nor when hungry, of bread.

Be like to courteous guests, and him Who asks only fire and shelter:

does this man now not need entertainment? Nor had he need of a cloak, who said,

Give Hipponax a cloak, for I'm stiff with cold.

But will you speak a paradox indeed, both extravagant and singular? Say then that a wise man has need of nothing, that he wants nothing, he is fortunate, he is free from want, he is self-sufficient, blessed, perfect. Now what madness is this, that he to whom nothing is wanting has need of the goods he has, but that the vicious indeed wants many things, and stands in need of nothing. For thus indeed says Chrysippus, that the vicious wants but stands not in need; removing the common notions, like chessmen, backwards and forwards. For all men think that having need precedes wanting, esteeming him who stands in need of things that are not at hand or easy to be got, to want them. For no man wants horns or wings, because no one has need of them. But we say that those want arms and money and clothes who are dest.i.tute of them, when they have occasion for them. But these men are so desirous of seeming always to say something against the common notions, that for the love of novelty they often depart from their own opinions, as they do here.

Recall yourself to the consideration of what has been said a little above. This is one of their a.s.sertions against the common conception, that no vicious man receives any utility. And yet many being instructed profit, many being slaves are made free; many being besieged are delivered, being lame are led by the hand, and being sick are cured.

"But possessing all these things, they are never the better, neither do receive benefits, nor have they any benefactors, nor do they slight them." Vicious men then are not ungrateful, no more than are wise men.

Ingrat.i.tude therefore has no being; because the good receiving a benefit fail not to acknowledge it, and the bad are not capable of receiving any. Behold, now, what they say to this,--that benefit is ranked among mean or middle things, and that to give and receive utility belongs only to the wise, but the bad also receive a benefit. Then they who partake of the benefit partake not also of its use; and whither a benefit extends, there is nothing useful or commodious. Now what else is there that makes a kind office a benefit, but that the bestower of it is, in some respect, useful to the needy receiver?

LAMPRIAS. But let these things pa.s.s. What, I beseech you, is this so highly venerated utility, which preserving as some great and excellent thing for the wise, they permit not so much as the name of it to the vicious?

DIADUMENUS. If (say they) one wise man does but any way prudently stretch out his finger, all the wise men all the world over receive utility by it. This is the work of their amity; in this do the virtues of the wise man terminate by their common utilities. Aristotle then and Xenocrates doted, saving that men receive utility from the G.o.ds, from their parents, from their masters, being ignorant of that wonderful utility which wise men receive from one another, being moved according to virtue, though they neither are together nor yet know it. Yet all men esteem, that laying up, keeping, and bestowing are then useful and profitable, when some benefit or profit is recovered by it. The thriving man buys keys, and diligently keeps his stores,

With 's hand unlocking wealth's sweet treasury.

(From the "Bellerophontes" of Euripides, Frag. 287, vs. 8.)

But to store up and to keep with diligence and labor such things as are for no use is not seemly or honorable, but ridiculous. If Ulysses indeed had tied up with the knot which Circe taught him, not the gifts he had received from Alcinous,--tripods, caldrons, cloths, and gold,--but heaping up trash, stones, and such like trumpery, should have thought his employment about such things, and the possession and keeping of them, a happy and blessed work, would any one have imitated this foolish providence and empty care? Yet this is the beauty, gravity, and happiness of the Stoical consent, being nothing else but a gathering together and keeping of useless and indifferent things. For such are things according to Nature, and more exterior things; if indeed they compare the greatest riches to fringes and golden chamberpots, and sometimes also, as it happens, to oil-cruets. Then, as those who seem proudly to have affronted and railed at some G.o.ds or demiG.o.ds presently changing their note, fall prostrate and sit humbly on the ground, praising and magnifying the Divinity; so these men, having met with punishment of this arrogancy and vanity, again exercise themselves in these indifferent things and such as pertain nothing to them, crying out with a loud voice that there is only one thing good, specious, and honorable, the storing up of these things and the communication of them, and that it is not meet for those to live who have them not, but to despatch out of the way and famish themselves, bidding a long farewell to virtue.

They esteem indeed Theognis to have been a man altogether of a base and abject spirit, for saying, as one overfearful in regard to poverty, which is an indifferent thing:--

From poverty to fly, into the deep Throw thyself, Cyrnus, or from rocks so steep.

Yet they themselves exhort the same thing in prose, and affirm that a man, to free himself from some great disease or exceedingly acute pain, if he have not at hand sword or hemlock, ought to leap into the sea or throw himself headlong from a precipice; neither of which is hurtful, or evil, or incommodious, or makes them who fall into it miserable.

With what, then, says he, shall I begin? And what shall I take for the principle of duty and matter of virtue, leaving Nature and that which is according to Nature?

With what, O good sir, do Aristotle and Theophrastus begin? What beginnings do Xenocrates and Polemo take? Does not also Zeno follow these, who hold Nature and that which is according to Nature to be the elements of happiness? But they indeed persisted in these things, as desirable, good, and profitable; and joining to them virtue, which employs them and uses every one of them according to its property, thought to complete and consummate a perfect life and one every way absolute, producing that concord which is truly suitable and consonant to Nature. For these men did not run into confusion, like those who leap up from the ground and presently fall down again upon it, terming the same things acceptable and not desirable, proper and not good, unprofitable and yet useful, nothing to us and yet the principles of duties. But their life was such as their speech, and they exhibited actions suitable and consonant to their sayings. But they who are of the Stoic sect--not unlike to that woman in Archilochus, who deceitfully carried in one hand water, in the other fire--by some doctrines draw Nature to them, and by others drive her from them. Or rather, by their deeds and actions they embrace those things which are according to Nature, as good and desirable, but in words and speeches they reject and contemn them, as indifferent and of no use to virtue for the acquiring felicity.

Now, forasmuch as all men esteem the sovereign good to be joyous, desirable, happy, of the greatest dignity, self-sufficient, and wanting nothing; compare their good, and see how it agrees with this common conception. Does the stretching out a finger prudently produce this joy?

Is a prudent torture a thing desirable? Is he happy, who with reason breaks his neck? Is that of the greatest dignity, which reason often chooses to let go for that which is not good? Is that perfect and self-sufficient, by enjoying which, if they possess not too indifferent things, they neither can nor will endure to live? There is also another tenet of the Stoics, by which custom is still more injured, taking and plucking from her genuine notions, which are as her legitimate children, and supposing other b.a.s.t.a.r.dly, wild, and illegitimate ones in their room, and necessitating her to nourish and cherish the one instead of the other; and that too in those principles which concern things good and bad, desirable and avoidable, proper and strange, the energy of which ought to be more clearly distinguished than that of hot and cold, black and white. For the imaginations of these things are brought in by the senses from without; but those have their original bred from the good things which we have within us. But these men entering with their logic upon the topic of felicity, as on the sophism called Pseudomenos, or that named Kyrieuon, have removed no ambiguities, but brought in very many.

Indeed, of two good things, of which the one is the end and the other belongs to the end, none is ignorant that the end is the greater and perfecter good. Chrysippus also acknowledges this difference, as is manifest from his Third Book of Good Things. For he dissents from those who make science the end, and sets it down.... In his Treatise of Justice, however, he does not think that justice can be preserved, if any one makes pleasure to be the end; but allows it may, if pleasure is not said to be the end, but simply a good. Nor do I think that you need now to hear me repeat his words, since his Third Book of Justice is everywhere to be had. When, therefore, O my friend, they elsewhere say that no one good is greater or less than another, and that what is not the end is equal to the end, they contradict not only the common conceptions, but even their own words. Again, if of two evils, the one when it is present renders us worse, and the other hurts us but renders us not worse, it is against reason not to say that the evil which by its presence renders us worse is greater than that which hurts us but renders us not worse. Now Chrysippus indeed confesses, that there are some fears and sorrows and errors which hurt us, but render us not worse. Read his First Book of Justice against Plato; for in respect of other things, it is worth the while to note the babbling of the man in that place, expounding indifferently all matters and doctrines, as well proper to his own sect as foreign to it.

It is likewise against common sense when he says that there may be two ends or scopes proposed of life, and that all the things we do are not to be referred to one; and yet this is more against common sense, to say that there is an end, and yet that every action is to be referred to another. Nevertheless they must of necessity endure one of these. For if those things which are first according to Nature are not eligible for themselves, but the choice and taking of them agreeably to reason is, and if every one therefore does all his actions for the acquiring the first things according to Nature, then all things which are done must have their reference to this, that the princ.i.p.al things according to Nature may be obtained. But they think that they who aim and aspire to get these things do not have the things themselves as the end, but that to which they must make reference, namely, the choice and not the things. For the end indeed is to choose and receive these things prudently. But the things themselves and the enjoying of them are not the end, but the material ground, having its value only from the choice.

For it is my opinion that they both use and write this very expression, to show the difference.

LAMPRIAS. You have exactly related both what they say and in what manner they deliver it.

DIADUMENUS. But observe how it fares with them, as with those that endeavor to leap over their own shadow; for they do not leave behind, but always carry along with them in their speech some absurdity most remote from common sense. For as, if any one should say that he who shoots does all he can, not that he may hit the mark, but that he may do all he can, such a one would rightly be esteemed to speak enigmatically and prodigiously; so these doting dreamers, who contend that the obtaining of natural things is not the end of aiming after natural things, but the taking and choosing them is, and that the desire and endeavor after health is not in every one terminated in the enjoyment of health, but on the contrary, the enjoyment of health is referred to the desire and endeavor after it, and that certain walkings and contentions of speech and suffering incisions and taking of medicines, so they are done by reason, are the end of health, and not health of them, they, I say, trifle like to those who say, Let us sup, that we may offer sacrifice, that we may bathe. But this rather changes order and custom, and all things which these men say carry with them the total subversion and confusion of affairs. Thus, we do not desire to take a walk in fit time that we may digest our meat; but we digest our meat that we may take a walk in fit time. Has Nature also made health for the sake of h.e.l.lebore, instead of producing h.e.l.lebore for the sake of health?

For what is wanting to bring them to the highest degree of speaking paradoxes, but the saying of such things? What difference is there between him who says that health was made for the sake of medicines and not medicines for the sake of health, and him who makes the choice of medicines and their composition and use more desirable than health itself?--or rather who esteems health not at all desirable, but placing the end in the negotiation about these things, prefers desire to enjoyment, and not enjoyment to desire? For to desire, forsooth (they affirm), is joined the proceeding wisely and discreetly. It is true indeed, we will say, if respect be had to the end, that is, the enjoyment and possession of the things it pursues; but otherwise, it is wholly void of reason, if it does all things for the obtaining of that the enjoyment of which is neither honorable nor happy.

Now, since we are fallen upon this discourse, anything may rather be said to agree with common sense, than that those who have neither received nor have any conception of good do nevertheless desire and pursue it. For you see how Chrysippus drives Ariston into this difficulty, that he should understand an indifference in things inclining neither to good nor to bad, before either good or bad is itself understood; for so indifference will appear to have subsisted even before itself, if the understanding of it cannot be perceived unless good be first understood, while the good is nothing else than this very indifference. Understand now and consider this indifference which the Stoa refutes and calls consent, whence and in what manner it gives us the knowledge of good. For if without good the indifference to that which is not good cannot be understood, much less does the knowing of good things give any intelligence of itself to those who had not before some notion of the good. But as there can be no knowledge of the art of things wholesome and unwholesome in those who have not first some knowledge of the things themselves; so they cannot conceive any notion of the science of good and evil who have not some fore-knowledge of good and evil.

LAMPRIAS. What then is good? DIADUMENUS. Nothing but prudence. LAMPRIAS.

And what is prudence? DIADUMENUS. Nothing but the science of good.

LAMPRIAS. There is much then of "Jupiter's Corinth" (that is, much begging the question) admitted into their reasoning. For I would have you let alone the saying about the turning of the pestle, lest you should seem to mock them; although an accident like to that has insinuated itself into their discourse. For it seems that, to the understanding of good, one has need to understand prudence, and to seek for prudence in the understanding of good, being forced always to pursue the one by the other, and thus failing of both; since to the understanding of each we have need of that which cannot be known without the other be first understood.

DIADUMENUS. But there is yet another way, by which you may perceive not only the perversion but the eversion of their discourse, and the reduction of it entirely to nothing. They hold the essence of good to be the reasonable election of things according to Nature. Now the election is not reasonable which is not directed to some end, as has been said before. What, then, is this end? Nothing else, say they, but to reason rightly in the election of things according to Nature. First, then, the conception of good is lost and gone. For to reason rightly in election is an operation proceeding from an habit of right reasoning, and therefore being constrained to get this from the end; and the end not without this, we fail of understanding either of them. Besides, which is more, this reasonable election ought strictly to be a choice of things good and useful, and cooperating to the end; for how can it be reasonable to choose things which are neither convenient nor honorable nor at all eligible? For be it, as they say, a reasonable election of things having a fitness for the causing felicity; see then to what a beautiful and solemn conclusion their discourse brings them. For the end is (it seems), according to them, to reason rightly in the choice of things which are useful in causing us to reason rightly.

LAMPRIAS. When I hear these words, my friend, what is laid down seems to me strangely extravagant; and I farther want to know how this happens.

DIADUMENUS. You must then be more attentive; for it is not for every one to understand this riddle. Hear therefore and answer. Is not the end, according to them, to reason rightly in the election of things according to Nature?

LAMPRIAS. So they say.

DIADUMENUS. And are these things according to Nature chosen as good, or as having some fitness or preferences... either for this end or for something else?

LAMPRIAS. I think not for anything else but for this end.