PARADOXES. ADDRESSED TO MARCUS BRUTUS. I HAVE often observed, O Brutus, that your uncl when he delivered his opinion in the senate, was tomed to handle important points of philosophy, sistent with popular and forensic usage; but that speaking, he managed them so that even these seer the people worthy of approbation; which was so the greater excellency in him, than either in you or because we are more conversant in that philosophy has produced a copiousness of expression, and in those things are propounded which do not widely from the popular opinion. But Cato, in my opi complete Stoic, both holds those notions which cer do not approve themselves to the common people belongs to that sect which aims at no embellishment does not spin out an argument. He therefore suc in what he has purposed, by certain pithy and, as it stimulating questions. There is, however, nothing credible that it may not be made plausible by eloqu nothing so rough and uncultivated that it may not, i tory, become brilliant and polished. As I have been accustomed to think thus, I have a bolder attempt than he himself did of whom speaking. For Cato is accustomed to treat stoica addition of the ornaments of eloquence. But I have, for amusement, digested into common-places those topics which the Stoics scarcely prove in their retirement and in their schools. Such topics are termed, even by themselves, paradoxes, because they are remarkable, and contrary to the opinion of all men. I have been desirous of trying whether they might not come into publicity, that is before the forum, and be so expressed as to be approved; or whether learned expressions were one thing, and a popular mode of address another. I undertook this with the more pleasure, because these very paradoxes, as they are termed, appear to me to be the most Socratic, and by far the most true. Accept therefore this little work, composed during these shorter nights, since that work of my longer watchings appeared in your name. You will have here a specimen of the manner I have been accustomed to adopt when I accommodate those things which in the schools are termed theses to our oratorical manner of speaking. I do not, however, expect that you will look upon yourself as indebted to me for this performance which is not such as to be placed, like the Minerva of Phidias, in a citadel, but still such as may appear to have issued from the same studio. PARADOX I. THAT VIRTUE IS THE ONLY GOOD. I AM apprehensive that this position may seem to some among you to have been derived from the schools of the Stoics,1 and not from my own sentiments. Yet I will 1 The ethical doctrines of the Stoics have attracted most attention, as exhibited in the lives of distinguished Greeks and Romans. To live according to nature was the basis of their ethical system; but by this it was not meant that a man should follow his own particular nature; he must make his life conformable to the nature of the whole of things. This principle is the foundation of all morality; and it follows that morality is connected with tell you my real opinion, and that too more briefly than so important a matter requires to be discussed. By Hercules, I never was one who reckoned among good and desirable things, treasures, magnificent mansions, interest, power, or those pleasures to which mankind are most chiefly addicted. For I have observed, that those to whom these things abounded, still desired them most: for the thirst of cupidity is never filled or satiated. They are tormented not only with the lust of increasing, but with the fear of losing what they have. I own that I often look in vain for the good sense of our ancestors, those most continent men, who affixed the appellation of good to those weak, fleeting, circumstances of wealth, when in truth and fact their sentiments were the very reverse.1 Can any bad man enjoy a good thing? Or, is it possible for a man not to be good, when he lives in the very abundance of good things? And yet we see all those things so distributed that wicked men possess them, and that they are inauspicious to the good. Now let any man indulge his raillery, if he please; but right reason will ever have more weight with me than the opinion of the multiphilosophy. To know what is our relation to the whole of things, is to know what we ought to be and to do. This fundamental principle of the Stoics is indisputable, but its application is not always easy, nor did they all agree in their exposition of it. Some things were good, some bad, and some indifferent; the only good things were virtue, wisdom, justice, temperance, and the like. The truly wise man possesses all knowledge; he is perfect and sufficient in himself; he despises all that subjects to its power the rest of mankind; he feels pain, but he is not conquered by it. But the morality of the Stoics, at least in the latter periods, though it rested on a basis apparently so sound, permitted the wise man to do nearly every thing that he liked. Such a system, it has been well observed, might do for the imagi-, nary wise man of the Stoics; but it was not a system whose general adoption was compatible with the existence of any actual society. 1 "I can not call riches better than the baggage of virtue; the Roman word is better, 'impedimenta;' for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue, it can not be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory; of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit."-Lord Bacon, Essay 34. tude. Nor shall I ever account a man, when he has lost his stock of cattle, or furniture, to have lost his good things. Nor shall I seldom speak in praise of Bias, who if I mistake not, is reckoned among the seven wise men. For when the enemy took possession of Priene, his native country, and when the rest so managed their flight as to carry off with them their effects, on his being recommended by a certain person to do the same, "Why," answered he, "I do so, for I carry with me all my possessions." He did not so much as esteem those playthings. of fortune, which we even term our blessings, to be his Own. 1 But some one will ask, What then is a real good? Whatever is done uprightly, honestly, and virtuously, is. truly said to be done well; and whatever is upright, hon-est, and agreeable to virtue, that alone, as I think, is a good thing. But these matters, when they are more loosely dis-cussed, appear somewhat obscure; but those things which seemed to be discussed with more subtlety than is necessary in words, may be illustrated by the lives and actions of the greatest of men. I ask then of you, whether the men who left to us this empire, founded upon so noble a system, seem ever to have thought of gratifying avarice by money; delight by delicacy; luxury by magnificence; or pleasure by feasting? Set before your eyes any one 1 Ovid expresses the same idea in the following passage: "Et genus et proavos et quæ non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco." 2 Horace develops the same thought. In commending decision of character, he writes: Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules Enisus arces attigit igneas: Quos inter Augustus recumbens Hac te merentem, Bacche pater, tuæ Vexere tigres indocili jugum Collo trahentes: hac Quirinus Martis equis Acheronta fugit.--Carm. lib. ib. carm. 33 of our monarchs. Shall I begin with Romulus? Or, after the state was free, with those who liberated it? By what steps then did Romulus ascend to heaven? By those which these people term good things? Or by his exploits and his virtues? What! are we to imagine, that the wooden or earthen dishes of Numa Pompilius were less acceptable to the immortal gods, than the embossed plate of others? I pass over our other kings, for all of them, excepting Tarquin the Proud, were equally excellent. Should any one ask, What did Brutus perform when he delivered his country? Or, as to those who were the participators of that design, what was their aim, and the object of their pursuit? Lives there the man who can regard as their object, riches, pleasure, or any thing else than acting the part of a great and gallant man? What motive impelled Caius Mucius, without the least hope of preservation, to attempt the death of Porsenna? What impulse kept Cocles to the bridge, singly opposed to the whole force of the enemy? What power devoted the elder and the younger Decius, and impelled them against armed battalions of enemies? What was the object of the continence of Caius Fabricius, or of the frugality of life of Manius Curius? What were the motives of those two thunderbolts of the Punic war, Publius and Cneius Scipio, when they proposed with their own bodies to intercept the progress of the Carthaginians? What did the elder, what did the younger Africanus propose? What were the views of Cato, who lived between the times of both? What shall I say of innumerable other instances; for we abound in examples drawn from our own history; can we think that they proposed any other object in life but what seemed glorious and noble? Now let the deriders of this sentiment and principle |