SECTION III

ETHICAL FRAGMENTS

17. We must first know that the good man is not thereby necessarily happy, but that the happy man is necessarily good; for the happy man is he who deserves praise and congratulations; the good man deserves only praise. We praise a man because of his virtue, we congratulate him because of his success. The good man is such because of the goods that proceed from virtue; the happy man is such because of the goods that come from fortune. From the good man you cannot take his virtue; sometimes the happy man loses his good fortune. The power of virtue depends on nobody; that of happiness, on the contrary, is dependent. Long diseases, the loss of our senses cause to fade the flower of our happiness [and luck].

2. God differs from the good man in that God, not only possesses a perfect virtue, purified from all mortal affection, but enjoys a virtue whose power is indefectible, independent, as suits the majesty and magnificence of his works. Man, on the contrary, not only possesses an inferior virtue, because of the mortal constitution of his nature, but even sometimes by the very abundance of his goods, now by the force of habit, by the vice of nature, or from other causes, he is incapable of attaining the perfection of the good.

3. The good man, in my opinion, is he who knows how to act properly in serious circumstances and occasions; he will therefore know how to support good and bad fortune; in a brilliant and glorious condition, he will show himself worthy if it, and if fortune happens to change, he will know how to accept properly his actual fate. In short, the good man is he who, in every occasion, and according to the circumstances, well plays his part, and knows how to fit to it not only himself, but also those who have confidence on him, and are associated with his fortunes.

4. Since amidst the goods, some are desirable for themselves, and not for anything else, and others are desirable for something else, and not for themselves, there must necessarily exist a third kind of goods, which are desirable both for themselves and for other things. Which are the goods naturally desirable for themselves, and not for anything else? Evidently, it is happiness; for it is the end on account of which we seek everything else, while we seek it only for itself, and not in view of anything else.

Secondly, which are the goods chosen for something else, and not for themselves? Evidently those that are useful, and which are the means of procuring the real goods, which thus become the causes of the goods desirable for themselves; for instance, the bodily fatigues, the exercises, the tests which procure health; reading, meditation, the studies which procure virtues, and the quality of honesty. Last, which are those goods which are both desirable for themselves, and for something else? The virtues, and the habitual possession of virtues, the resolutions of the soul, the actions, and in short anything pertaining to the possession of the beautiful. Thus what is to be desired for itself, and not for anything itself, this is the only good. Now what we seek both for itself and for something else is divided into three classes; the one whose object is the soul, the body, and external goods. The first contains the virtues of the soul, the second the advantages of the body; the third, friends, glory, honor and wealth. Likewise with the goods that are desirable only for something else; one part of them procures goods for the soul, the other which regards the body, procures goods for it; the external goods furnish wealth, glory, honor and friendship.

We can prove that it is characteristic of virtue to be desirable for itself, as follows: In fact, if the naturally inferior goods, I mean those of the body, are by us sought for themselves, and if the soul is better than the body, it is evident that we like the goods of the soul for themselves, and not for the results that they might produce.

5. In human life there are three circumstances: prosperity, adversity, and intermediary comfort. Since the good man who possesses virtue and practises it, practises it in these three circumstances, either in adversity, or prosperity, or comfort, since besides in adversity he is unhappy, in prosperity he is happy and in comfort he is not happy; -- it is evident that happiness is nothing else than the use of virtue in prosperity. I speak here of human happiness. Man is not only a soul, he is also a body; the living being is a composite of both; and man also; for if the body is an instrument of the soul, it is as much a part of the man, as the soul. That is why, among the goods, some belong to the man and others belong to his component parts. The good of man is happiness; amidst its integral parts, the soul's goods are prudence, courage, justice temperance; the body's are beauty, health, good disposition of its members and the perfect condition of its senses. The wealth, glory, honor, nobility, naturally superfluous advantages of man, and naturally subordinate to the superior goods.

The inferior goods serve as satellites to the superior goods; friendship, glory, wealth are the satellites of the body and soul; health, strength and sense-perfection are satellites of the soul; prudence, courage, justice, temperance are the satellites of the reason of the soul; reason is the satellite of God; his is omnipotent, the supreme master. It is for these goods the other must exist; toe the army obeys the general, [as] sailors to the pilot, the world to God, the [soul] to reason, the happy life to prudence. For prudence is nothing that the science of the happy [---e], or the science of the goods which belong to [--an] nature.

6. To God belong happiness and the happy life;[--] cannot possess but a grouping of science, virtue and prosperity forming a single body. Call wisdom the science for the Gods and [genius]; prudence, the science of human things, the science of life; for science should be the name of virtues which rest on reasons and demonstrations, and moral virtue, the excellent habit of the irrational part of the soul, which makes you move; the name of certain qualities corresponding to our habits, namely the names of liberals, of just men, and of temperate people; and I call prosperity this affluence of goods which we re[quire] without reason, without reason being their cause. Then since virtue and science depend on us, and prosperity does not depend thereon, since happiness consists in the contemplation and practice of good things, and since contemplation and action when they meet obstacles, lend us a necessary support when they go by an easy road, they bring us distraction and happiness; since after all it is prosperity that gives us these benefits, it is evident that happiness is nothing else than the use of virtue in prosperity.

7. Man's relations with prosperity resemble a healthy and vigorous human body; he also can stand heat and cold, raise a great burden, and easily bear many other miseries.

8. Since happiness is the use of virtue in prosperity, let us speak of virtue and prosperity, the latter first. Some goods, such as virtue, are not subject to excess; for excess is impossible in virtue, for one can never be too decent a man; indeed, virtue's measure is duty, and is the habit of duty in practical life. Prosperity is subject to excess and lack, which excesses produce certain evils, disturbing man from his usual mood, so as to oppose him to virtue; this is not only the case with prosperity, but other more numerous causes also produce this effect. You need not be surprised at seeing in the hall certain impudent artists, who neglect true art, misleading the ignorant by a false picture; but do you suppose that this race does not exist as regards virtue? On the contrary, the greater and more beautiful virtue is, the more do people feign to adorn themselves with it. There are indeed many things which dishonor the appearance of virtue; first are the deceivers who simulate it, others are the natural passions which accompany it, and sometimes twist the dispositions of the soul into a contrary direction; others are the bad habits which the body has rooted in us, or have been ingrained in us by youth, age, prosperity, adversity, or a thousand other circumstances. Wherefore we must not at all be surprised at entirely wrong judgments, because the true nature of our soul has has been falsified within us. Just as we see an artist who is excellent make errors in works we are examining; or the general, the pilot or the painter and the like may make errors without our detracting from their talent, so we must not call unworthy him who has had a moment of weakness, nor among the worthy a man who has done no more than a single action; but in respect to the evil, we must consider chance, and for the good, of error, and to make an equitable and just judgment, and not regard a single circumstance, or a single period of time, but the whole life.

Just as the body suffers from both excess and lack, but as nevertheless the excess and so-called superfluities naturally produce the greatest diseases, so the soul suffers of both prosperity and adversity when they arrive at wrong times, and yet the greatest evils come from so-called absolute prosperity that is absolute because like wine it intoxicates the reason of the worthy.

9. That is why it is not adversity but prosperity which is the hardest to stand properly. All men, when they are in adversity, at least greater part of them, seem moderate and modest; and in good fortune, ambitious, vain and proud. For adversity is apt to moderate the soul, and concentrate it; while on the contrary prosperity excites it and puffs it up; that is why the wretches are docile to advice, and prudent in conduct, while the happy are bold and venturesome.

10. There is therefore a measure and limit of prosperity; the one that the worthy man should desire to have as auxiliary in the accomplishment or his actions; just as there is a measure in the size of the ship, and in the length of the tiller; which permits the experienced pilot to traverse an immense extent of sea, and to carry through a great voyage.

The result of excess of prosperity, even among worthy people, is that the soul loses leadership, to prosperity; just as too bright, a light dazzles the eyes, so too great a prosperity dazzles the reason of the soul. Enough about prosperity.

18. I insist that virtue is sufficient to preclude unhappiness, that badness precludes happiness, if we know how properly to judge of the genuine condition of the soul in these two conditions; for the evil is necessarily always unhappy, whether in abundance, -- which he it does not know how properly to judge use, -- or in poverty; just as a blind man is always, whether he is in brilliant light or in darkness. But the worthy man is not always happy; for happiness does not consist in the possession of virtue, but its use; just as a man who sees does not see all the time; he will not see without light.

Life is as it were divided into two roads; the rougher one, followed by patient Ulysses, and the more agreeable one followed by Nestor; I mean that virtue desires the one, but can also follow the other. But nature cries aloud that happiness is life desirable in itself, whose state is assured, because one can realize one's purposes in it, so that if life is traversed by things one has not desired, one is not happy, without however being absolutely unhappy. Therefore be not so bold as to insist that the worthy man is exempt from, sickness, and suffering; dare not to say that he does not know pain; for if the body is allowed some causes of pain, the soul should also be allowed some. The griefs of the insane lack reason and measure while those of the wise are contained within the measure which reason gives to everything; but this so advertised insensibility enervates the character of generosity of virtue, when it stands trials, great sorrows, when it is exposed to death, suffering and poverty; for it is easy to support small sorrows. You must therefore practice the "metriopathy," or sorrow-standardization; so as to avoid the insensibility just as much as the over-sensibility to pain, and not in words to boast about our strength above the measure of our human nature.

19. We might define philosophy as the desire of knowing and understanding things in themselves, joined with practical virtue, inspired and realized by the love of science.

The beginning of philosophy is the science of nature; the middle, practical life; and the end, science itself. It is fortunate to have been well born, to have received a good education, to have been accustomed to obey a just rule and to have habits conformable to nature. One must also have been exercised in virtue, and have been educated by wise parents, governors and masters. It is fine to impose the role of duty on one's self, to have no need of constraint, to be docile to those who give us good advice about life, and science. For a fortunate disposition of nature, and a good education are often more powerful than lessons to bring us to the good; its only lack would be the efficacious light of reason, which science gives us. Two rival directions of life contend for mastery; practical and philosophical life. By far the most perfect life unites them both, and in each different path adapts itself to circumstances. We are born for rational activity; which we call practical. Practical reason leads us to politics; the theoretical reason, to the contemplation of the universality of things. Mind itself, which is universal, embraces the two powers necessary to happiness, which we define as the activity of virtue in prosperity; it is not exclusively either a practical life which would exclude science, nor a speculative life which would exclude the practical. Perfect reason inclines towards these two omnipotent principles, for which man is born; the principle of society and science; for if these opposite principles seem mutually to interfere in their development, the political principles turning us away from politics, and the speculative principles turning us from speculation, to persuade us to live at rest, nevertheless nature, uniting the ends of these two movements, shows them fused; for virtues are not contradictory and antipathetic mutually; than the harmony of virtues no harmony is more consonant. If, from his youth, man has subjected himself to the principles of virtues, and to the divine law of the world harmony, he will lead an easy life; and if, by his own inclination, he inclines towards evil, and has the luck of meeting better guides, he will, by rectifying his course, arrive at happiness, like passengers favored by chance, finishing a fortunate sea-passage, thanks to the pilot; and the fortunate passage of life is happiness. But if by himself he cannot know his real interests, if he does not have the luck of meeting prudent directors, what benefit would it be if he did have immense treasures ? For the fool, even if he had for himself all the other elements of luck, is eternal unhappy.

And since, in everything, you must first consider the end, -- for that is what is done by the pilots ever meditating over the harbor wither they are to land the ship, and the drivers who keep their eye on the goal of their trip, the archers and slingers who consider their objective, for it is the objective towards which all their efforts must tend, -- virtue must necessarily undertake an objective, which should become the art of living; and that is the name I give it in both directions it can take. For practical life, this objective is improvement; for the philosophical life, the perfect good; which, in their human affairs the sages call happiness. Those who are in misery are not capable of judging of happiness according to exact ideas; and those who do not see it, clearly, would not know how to choose it. Those who consider that pleasure is the sovereign good are punished therefore by foolishness, those who above all seek the absence of pain, also receive their punishment, and, to resume all, to define life-happiness as the enjoyment of the body, or in an unreflective state of soul is to expose himself to all the whirlwinds of the tempest. Those who suppress moral beauty by avoiding all discussion, all reflection about the matter, and seeking pleasure, absence of pain, simple and primitive physical enjoyments, the irreflective inclinations of body and soul, are not more fortunate; for they commit a double fault, by reducing the good of the soul and its superior functions to the level of that of the body, and in raising the good of the body to the high level due to the good of the soul. By an exact discernment of these goods, we should outline its proper part for the divine element, and for nature. They themselves do not, observe this relation of dignity from the better to the worse. But we do so, when we say that if the body is the organ of the soul, reason is the guide of the entire soul, the mistress of the body, this tent of the soul and that all the other physical advantages should serve only as instruments to the intellectual activity, if you wish it to be perfect in power, duration and wealth.

20. These are the most important conditions to become a sage: first, you must have received from fate a mind endowed with facility to understand, memory, and industry; you must then from youth up exercise your intelligence by the practice of argumentation, by mathematical studies, and the exact sciences. Then you must study healthful philosophy, after which you may undertake the knowledge of the Gods, of laws, and of human life. For there are two means of arriving at this state known as wisdom. The first is to acquire the habit of work that, is intellectual, and the taste for knowledge; the other is to seek to see many things, to undertake business frequently, and to know them either directly at first hand, or indirectly. For he who from youth up has exercised reason by dialectic reasonings, mathematical studies, and exact sciences; is not yet ready for wisdom, any more than he who has neglected these labors, and has only listened to others, and has plunged himself in business. The one has become blind; when the business is to judge particular facts; the other, when he is to judge of general deductions. Just as in calculations you obtain the total by combining the parts, so also, in business practice, reason can vaguely sketch the general formula; but experience alone can enable us to grasp the details and individual facts.

21. Age is in the same relation to youth. Youth makes men energetic, age makes them prudent; never by imprudence does it let a thought escape; it reflects on what it has done; it considers maturely what it ought to do, in order that this comparison of the future with the present, and the present with the future lead it to good conduct. To the past, it applies memory, to the present, sensation, and to the future, foresight; for our memory has always as object the past, foresight the future, and sensation the present. He therefore who wishes to lead an honest and beautiful life must not only have senses and memory, but foresight.