Moral Letters to Lucilius

​How then can the nature of those seem perfected, who do not have the use of perfected time? For time consists of three parts: past, present, and future. To animals, only that which is most significant within its course is given, the present. Memory of the past is rare and is never recalled except by the encounter with present things.

​Therefore, the good of a perfected nature cannot exist in an imperfect nature, or if such a nature has this, planted things have it too. Nor do I deny that mute animals have great and excited impulses toward those things that seem according to nature, but they are inordinate and troubled. However, the good is never inordinate or troubled. ”What then?” you say, “do mute animals move in a troubled and disordered way?” I would say that they moved in a troubled and disordered way if their nature admitted of order; as it is, they move according to their own nature. For that is troubled which can at some time also be untroubled; that is anxious which can be secure. Vice belongs to no one except him to whom virtue can belong; to mute animals, such movement is according to their own nature.

​But not to hold you long, there will be some good in a mute animal, some virtue, something perfected, but neither good absolutely, nor virtue, nor perfected. For these fall to the lot of rational beings alone, to whom it is given to know why, to what extent, and how. Thus, the good is in nothing except that in which reason is.

​You ask where that dispute of yours now points, and how it will profit your mind? I say: it both exercises it and sharpens it, and at any rate keeps it occupied with an honorable activity when it is about to do something. Moreover, it is also useful in that it delays those rushing toward what is depraved. But I also say this: in no way can I profit you more than if I show you your good, if I separate you from mute animals, if I place you with God.

​Why, I say, do you nourish and exercise the strength of your body? Nature has granted greater strength to beasts of burden and wild beasts. Why do you cultivate your beauty? When you have done all, you are surpassed in beauty by mute animals. Why do you comb your hair with immense diligence? Whether you let it flow in the manner of the Parthians, or tie it in the German fashion, or scatter it as the Scythians are accustomed to do, a thicker mane will toss on any horse, and a more beautiful one will bristle on the neck of lions. When you have prepared yourself for speed, you will not be equal to a little hare. Will you not, leaving behind those things in which you must be surpassed while you strive in what belongs to another, return to your own good?

​What is this? A mind, of course, corrected and pure, an imitator of God, raising itself above human things, placing nothing of its own outside of itself. You are a rational animal. What then is the good in you? Perfected reason. Do you call this forth to its own end, so that it can grow as much as possible? Then judge yourself to be happy, when all joy shall rise for you from it, when, having seen those things which men snatch, wish for, and guard, you find nothing—I do not say that you prefer, but even that you want.

​I will give you a brief rule by which to measure yourself, by which you may already feel that you are perfected: you will then have your own, when you understand that the happy are most unhappy. FAREWELL.