Moral Letters to Lucilius

​To the letter which you sent me from your journey, which was as long as the journey itself, I shall reply later. I must withdraw myself and consider what advice to give. For you too, who consult me, thought for a long time whether you should consult me; how much more must I do this, since a longer delay is needed to solve a question than to propose it? Especially since one thing is expedient for you, and another for me. Am I speaking again like an Epicurean?

​But indeed the same thing is expedient for me as for you; or else I am not a friend, unless whatever is done concerning you, which pertains to you, is mine. Friendship creates a partnership of all things between us. There is nothing favorable or adverse for us individually; we live in common. Nor can anyone live happily who looks only to himself, who converts everything to his own utility; you must live for another, if you wish to live for yourself.

​This fellowship, diligently and sacredly observed, which mingles us as human beings with other human beings and judges that there is some common right of the human race, is also of the greatest benefit in cultivating that inner fellowship of friendship of which I was speaking. For he who has many things in common with a human being will have all things in common with a friend.

​This, Lucilius, best of men, I prefer to be taught by those subtle people—what I ought to perform for a friend, what for a human being—rather than in how many ways “friend” is used, and how many things “human being” signifies. Behold, wisdom and folly depart in opposite directions; which do I approach? To which side do you bid me go? For the former, a human being is in place of a friend; for the latter, a friend is not in place of a human being. The former prepares a friend for himself, the latter prepares himself for a friend. You distort my words and dissect my syllables.

​To be sure, unless I construct the most crafty questions and, by a false conclusion, bind fast a lie that springs from the truth, I shall not be able to separate the things to be sought from those to be avoided. I am ashamed; in so serious a matter, we old men are playing games.

”A mouse (mus) is a syllable. But a mouse nibbles cheese; therefore, a syllable nibbles cheese.” Suppose now that I cannot solve that puzzle. What danger threatens me from that ignorance? What inconvenience? Without a doubt, it is to be feared lest sometime I catch syllables in a mousetrap, or lest sometime, if I am too careless, a book should eat the cheese. Unless perchance that other collection is sharper: “A mouse is a syllable. But a syllable does not nibble cheese; therefore, a mouse does not nibble cheese.”

​O childish follies! Is it for this that we have knit our brows? Is it for this that we have let down our beards? Is this what we, sad and pale, teach? Do you wish to know what philosophy promises to the human race? Counsel. Death calls one, poverty burns another, riches torment another—either those of others or their own. That man dreads bad fortune, this one desires to withdraw himself from his own prosperity. Human beings treat this one ill, the gods treat that one.

​Why do you compose those playful things for me? It is no place for jesting; you have been called in as an advocate for the miserable. You promised that you would bring help to the shipwrecked, the captive, the sick, the needy, and to those holding their neck under the poised axe. Whither do you turn aside? What are you doing? This person with whom you are playing is afraid; help, †whatever the trap of those hanging is†. All hands from all sides are stretched out to you, lives lost and about to perish implore some aid, in you are their hope and resources. They ask that you drag them out of so great a tossing, that you show the clear light of truth to those scattered and wandering.

​Tell us what nature made necessary, what superfluous, how easy the laws she set down, how pleasant life is, how uncomplicated for those who follow them, how bitter and tangled for those who have trusted opinion more than nature. I might believe that those playthings of yours are of value to alleviate their evils, if you first teach which part of them they are going to alleviate. What of these things takes away desires? What moderates them? Would that they only did no good! They do harm. I will make this most manifest to you, whenever you wish, that a noble disposition is shattered and weakened when cast into these subtleties.

​I am ashamed to say what weapons they hold out to those who are going to fight against fortune, in what manner they equip them. Is this the way to the highest good? Is philosophy conducted through that “whether or no” of yours, and through exceptions that are disgraceful and infamous even for those sitting on the judge’s panel? For what else do you do, when you knowingly lead into a trap the person whom you question, than make it appear that he has lost his case on a technicality? But just as the praetor restores them, so philosophy restores these people to their original condition.

​Why do you depart from your huge promises, and having spoken grandly—that you will bring it about that the flash of gold no more dazzles my eyes than that of a sword, and that I shall tread underfoot with immense constancy both what everyone hopes for and what everyone fears—descend to the elementary lessons of grammarians? What do you say? “Is this the way to the stars?” For this is what philosophy promises to me, that it will make me equal to God. To this I have been invited, for this I have come; keep your promise.

​Therefore, my Lucilius, as much as you can, draw yourself back from those exceptions and prescriptions of philosophers. Open and simple things become goodness. Even if much of life were remaining, it would have to be spared and distributed so that it might suffice for things necessary; now, what madness is it to learn superfluous things in such a great scarcity of time? Farewell.