Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Just as he who wakes someone seeing a pleasant dream is annoying, for he takes away a pleasure, even if false, yet having the effect of a true one; so your letter did me an injustice. For it called me back, who had been delivered to fitting thought and would have gone, if it had been permitted, further.

​It was pleasing to inquire into the eternity of souls, indeed by Hercules to believe in it. For I was offering myself as easy to the opinions of great men, who promise a most welcome thing rather than prove it. I was giving myself to so great a hope. Already I was a source of disgust to myself, already I was despising the remnants of my broken age, being about to pass into that immense time and into the possession of all age; when suddenly I was awakened by the receipt of your letter, and lost so beautiful a dream. Which I shall seek again, if I dismiss you, and redeem.

​Your first letter denies that I have explained the whole question, in which I was trying to prove that which pleases our school, that renown, which happens after death, is a good. For it says that I have not solved that which is opposed to us: ‘No good,’ they say, ‘consists of distant things. But this consists of distant things.’

​What you ask, my Lucilius, belongs to another part of the same question, and therefore I had postponed not only this, but also other things pertaining to the same. For some logical things, as you know, are mixed with moral ones. Therefore, I treated that direct part pertaining to morals: whether it is foolish and superfluous to send cares beyond our last day, or whether our goods fall with us and there is nothing of him who is no more, or whether from that which we are not going to feel when it exists, some fruit can be perceived or sought before it exists.

​All these things look to morals; therefore they were placed in their proper place. But those things which are said by dialecticians against this opinion had to be separated, and therefore were set aside. Now, because you demand all, I shall pursue all that they say, and then meet individual points.

​Unless I say something beforehand, those things which will be refuted will not be able to be understood. What is it that I wish to say beforehand? That some bodies are continuous, like a human being; some are composite, like a ship, a house, and finally all things whose diverse parts have been forced into one by a joint; some are from distant parts, whose members are still separate, like an army, a people, a senate. For those through whom these bodies are made hold together by law or duty, but are separated by nature and are individuals. What is it that even now I wish to say beforehand?

​We think that no good consists of distant things. For one good must be contained and ruled by one spirit, and there must be one ruling principle of one good. If you ever desire this, it is proved by itself; meanwhile, it had to be laid down as a premise, because our own weapons are being turned against us.

’Do you say,’ he says, ‘that no good is from distant things? But that renown of yours is the favorable opinion of good men. For just as fame is not the talk of one person, nor is infamy the bad opinion of one, so neither is renown having pleased one good man. More distinguished and respectable men must agree on this, so that there may be renown. But this is produced from the judgments of many, that is, of distant persons; therefore it is not a good.’

’Renown,’ he says, ‘is praise rendered by good men to a good man; praise is speech, a voice signifying something; but a voice, even though it may be of good men, is not a good. For not whatever a good man does is a good. For he both applauds and hisses, but no one calls either applause or a hiss a good, even though he admires and praises all his actions, no more than a sneeze or a cough. Therefore renown is not a good.’

’In short, tell us whether it is the good of the praiser or of the praised: if you say it is the good of the praised, you do a thing as ridiculous as if you should assert that it is mine that another is in good health. But to praise those who are worthy is an honorable action; thus it is the good of the praiser, whose action it is, not ours, who are praised. And yet, this was what was being sought.’

​I shall now answer individual points briefly. First, whether there is any good from distant things is still being questioned, and each side has its opinions. Next, does renown require many votes? It can be content even with the judgment of one good man; one good man judges us to be good.