By Seneca (4B.C.—A.D. 65)
You want to know, do you,
what philosophy has unearthed, what philosophy has achieved? It is not the
gracefulness of dance movements, nor the variety of sounds produced by horn or
flute as they take in breath and transform it, in its passage through or out of
the instrument, into notes. She does not set about constructing arms or walls
or anything of use in war. On the contrary, her voice is for peace, calling all
mankind to live in harmony. And she is not, I insist, the manufacturer of
equipment for everyday essential purposes. Why must you make her responsible
for such insignificant things? In her you see the mistress of the art of life
itself. She has, indeed, authority over other arts, inasmuch as all activities
that provide life with its apparatus must also be the servants of that of which
life itself is the servant. Philosophy, however, takes as her aim the state of
happiness. That is the direction in which she opens routes and guides us. She
shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men's minds
of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to
greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are
left in no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is
bloated. And she imparts a knowledge of the whole of nature, as well as of
herself. She explains what the gods are, and what they are like.
Anacharsis, says Posidonius,
'discovered the potter's wheel, the rotary motion of which shapes earthenware.'
Then, mention of the potter's wheel being found in Homer, he would have us
think that it is the passage in Homer, rather than his story, that is spurious.
I maintain that Anacharsis was not responsible for this invention, and that
even if he was, he discovered it as a philosopher, yes, but not in his capacity
as a philosopher, in the same way as philosophers do plenty of things as men
without doing them in their capacity as philosophers. Suppose, for example, a
philosopher happens to be a very fast runner; in a race he will come first by
virtue of his ability as a runner, not by virtue of his being a philosopher. I
should like to show Posidonius some glass-blower moulding glass by means of his
breath into a whole variety of shapes that could hardly be fashioned by the
most careful hand - discoveries that have occurred in the period since the
disappearance of the wise man. 'Democritus,' he says, 'is reported to be the
discoverer of thearch, the idea of which is to bind a curving line of stones,
set at slightly differing angles from each other, with a keystone.' This I
should say was quite untrue. For there must have been both bridges and gateways
before Democritus' time, and the upper parts of these generally have a curve to
them. And it seems to have escaped your memory, Posidonius, that this same Democritus
discovered a means of softening ivory, and a means of turning a pebble into an
'emerald' by boiling it, a method employed even today for colouring certain
stones that man has discovered and found amenable to the process. These
techniques may indeed have been discovered by a philosopher, but not in his
capacity as a philosopher. For there are plenty of things which he does which
one sees being done just as well if not with greater skill and dexterity by
persons totally lacking in wisdom.
What has the philosopher
investigated? What has the philosopher brought to light? In the first Place,
truth and nature (having, unlike the rest of the animal world, followed nature
with more than just a pair of eyes, things slow to grasp divinity); and
secondly, a rule of life, in which he has brought life into line with things
universal. And he has taught us not just to recognize but to obey the gods, and
to accept all that happens exactly as if it were an order from above. He has
told us not to listen to false opinions, and has weighed and valued everything
against standards which are true. He has condemned pleasures an inseparable
element of which is subsequent regret, has commended the good things which will
always satisfy, and for all to see has made the man who has no need of luck the
luckiest man of all, and the man who is master of himself the master of all.
The philosophy I speak of is
not the one which takes the citizen out of public life and the gods out of the
world we live in, and hands morality over to pleasure, but the philosophy which
thinks nothing good unless it is honourable, which is incapable of being
enticed astray by the rewards of men or fortune, and the very pricelessness of
which lies in the fact that it cannot be bought at any price. And I do not
believe that this philosophy was in existence in that primitive era in which
technical skills were still unknown and useful knowledge was acquired through
actual practical experience, or that it dates from an age that was happy, an
age in which the bounties of nature were freely available for the use of all
without discrimination, before avarice and luxury split human beings up and got
them to abandon partnership for plunder. The men of that era were not
philosophers, even if they acted as philosophers are supposed to act. No other
state of man could cause anyone greater admiration; if God were to allow a man
to fashion the things of this earth and allot its peoples their social customs,
that man would not be satisfied with any other system than the one which
tradition says existed in those people's time, among whom no farmers tilled ploughed
fields; merely to mark the line of boundaries dividing,land between its owners
was a sin; men shared their findings, and the earth herself then gave all
things more freely unsolicited.
What race of men could be
luckier? Share and share alike they enjoyed nature. She saw to each and every
man's requirements for survival like a parent. What it all amounted to was
undisturbed possession of resources owned by the community. I can surely call
that race of men one of unparalleled riches, it being impossible to find a
single pauper in it.
Into this ideal state of
things burst avarice, avarice which in seeking to put aside some article or
other and appropriate it to its own use, only succeeded in making everything
somebody else's property and reducing its possessions to a fraction of its
previously unlimited wealth. Avarice brought in poverty, by coveting a lot of
possessions losing all that it had. This is why although it may endeavour to
make good its losses, may acquire estate after estate by buying out or forcing
out its neighbours, enlarge country properties to the dimensions of whole provinces,
speak of 'owning some property' when it can go on a long tour overseas without
once stepping off its own land, there is no extension of our boundaries that
can bring us back to our starting point. When we have done everything within
our power, we shall possess a great deal: but we once possessed the world.
The earth herself, untilled,
was more productive, her yields being more than ample for the needs of peoples
who did not raid each other. With any of nature's products, men found as much
pleasure in showing others what they had discovered as they did in discovering
it. No one could outdo or be outdone by any other. All was equally divided
among people living in complete harmony. The stronger had not yet started
laying hands on the weaker; the avaricious person had not yet started hiding
things away, to be hoarded for his own private use, so shutting the next man
off from actual necessities of life; each cared as much about the other as
about himself. Weapons were unused; hands still unstained with human blood had
directed their hostility exclusively against wild beasts.
Protected from the sun in
some thick wood, living in some very ordinary shelter under a covering of
leaves preserving them from the rigours of winter or the rain, those people
passed tranquil nights with never a sigh. We in our crimson luxury toss and turn
with worry, stabbed by needling cares. What soft sleep the hard earth gave
those people! They had no carved or panelled ceilings hanging over them. They
lay out in the open, with the stars slipping past above them and the firmament
silently conveying onward that mighty work of creation as it was carried
headlong below the horizon in the magnificent pageant of the night sky. And
they had clear views by day as well as by night of this loveliest of mansions,
enjoying the pleasure of watching constellations fidling away from the zenith
and others rising again from out of sight beneath the horizon. Surely it was a
joy to roam the earth with marvels scattered so widely around one. You now, by
contrast, go pale at every noise your houses make, and if there is a creaking
sound you run away along your frescoed passages in alarm. Those people had no
mansions on the scale of towns. Fresh air and the untrammelled breezes of the
open spaces, the unoppressive shade of a tree or rock, springs of crystal
clarity, streams which chose their own course, streams unsullied by the work of
man, by pipes or any other interference with their natural channels, meadows
whose beauty owed nothing to man's art, that was the environment around their
dwelling places in the countryside, dwelling places given a simple countryman's
finish. This was a home in conformity with nature, a home in which one enjoyed
living, and which occasioned neither fear of it nor fears for it, whereas
nowadays our own homes count for a large part of our feeling of insecurity.
But however wonderful and guileless the life they led, they were not wise men; this is a title that has come to be reserved for the highest of all achievements. All the same, I should be the last to deny that they were men of exalted spirit, only one step removed, so to speak, from the gods. There can be no doubt that before this earth was worn out it produced a better type of offspring. But though they all possessed a character more robust than that of today, and one with a greater aptitude for hard work, it is equally true that their personalities fell short of genuine perfection. For nature does not give a man virtue: the process of becoming a good man is an art. Certainly they did not go in search of gold or silver or the various crystalline stones to be found in die nethermost dregs of the earth. They were still merciful even to dumb animals. Man was far and away from killing man, not out of fear or provocation, but simply for entertainment. They had yet to wear embroidered clothing, and had yet to have gold woven into robes, or even mine it. But the fact remains that their innocence was due to ignorance and nothing else. And there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, choosing not to do what is wrong and, on the other, not knowing how to do it in the first place. They lacked the cardinal virtues of justice, moral insight, selfcontrol and courage. There were corresponding qualities, in each case not unlike these, that had a place in their primitive lives; but virtue only comes to a character which has been thoroughly schooled and trained and brought to a pitch of perfection by unremitting practice. We are born for it but not with it. And even in the best of people, until you cultivate it there is only the material for virtue, not virtue itself.