Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Some have defined it thus: “The good is that which excites a desire for itself, or which excites the impulse of a mind tending toward itself.” And to this the same objection is made; for many things excite the impulse of the mind, which are sought to the harm of those who seek them. Those have defined it better who spoke thus: “The good is that which excites the impulse of the mind in accordance with nature toward itself, and is to be sought in this way only when it has begun to be an object of desire.” Now it is also the honorable; for this is what is perfectly to be sought.

​The subject itself warns me to state what difference there is between the good and the honorable. They have something mixed and inseparable between them: there cannot be a good unless some element of the honorable is in it, and the honorable is certainly a good. What, then, is the difference between the two? The honorable is the perfect good, by which the happy life is completed, and by whose touch other things also become goods.

​What I mean is this: there are certain things neither good nor bad, such as military service, an embassy, or the administration of justice. When these have been honorably administered, they begin to be goods, and they pass from a doubtful state into a good. A good comes into being through association with the honorable; the honorable is a good of itself. A good flows from the honorable; the honorable is from itself. What is a good could have been an evil; what is honorable could not have been anything but a good.

​Some have offered this definition: “The good is that which is in accordance with nature.” Attend to what I say: what is good is in accordance with nature; it does not follow immediately that what is in accordance with nature is also a good. Many things indeed agree with nature, but they are so petty that the name of good does not suit them. For they are slight and to be disregarded. There is no minimum good that is to be disregarded; for as long as it is small, it is not a good; when it begins to be a good, it is not small. How is the good recognized? If it is perfectly in accordance with nature.

”You admit,” you say, “that what is good is in accordance with nature; this is its property. You admit also that other things are indeed in accordance with nature, but are not goods. How, then, is the former a good while these are not? How does it arrive at a different property, when that chief characteristic is common to both, namely, to be in accordance with nature?”

​By its very magnitude, of course. Nor is this new, that certain things are changed by growing. He was an infant; he has become a youth, and a different property becomes his. For the former is irrational, the latter rational. Certain things by growth do not merely turn out larger, but different.

”That which becomes larger,” he says, “does not become different. Whether you fill a jar or a cask with wine makes no difference; in both is the property of wine. And a small weight of honey and a large one do not differ in taste.” You are bringing forward different kinds of examples; for in those cases the same quality is present; although they are increased, it remains.

​Some things, when amplified, persist in their own class and in their own property. Other things, after many increases, are finally turned by the ultimate addition, which imprints on them a new condition, different from that in which they were. A single stone makes the arch—that one which wedges the sloping sides and binds them by its intervention. Why does the final addition, even if tiny, do the most? Because it does not increase, but fills.

​Certain things by progress cast off their former shape and pass into a new one. When the mind has extended something for a long time and is exhausted by following its magnitude, it begins to be called “infinite.” It has become something far different from what it was when it seemed large but finite. In the same way, we thought of something as being cut with difficulty; at last, as this difficulty increased, it was found to be “indivisible.” Thus, from that which was moved with difficulty and effort, we proceeded to the “immobile.” By the same reasoning, something was in accordance with nature; its magnitude transferred this into another property and made it a good. Farewell.