Moral Letters to Lucilius

​I divided yesterday with ill health; she claimed the morning for herself, but yielded the afternoon to me. And so I first tested my mind with reading. Then, when it had accepted this, I dared to command more of it, or rather, to permit it; I wrote something, and indeed more intently than I usually do, while I struggled with a difficult subject and refused to be conquered, until friends intervened to use force on me and restrain me like an unruly patient.

​In place of the pen, conversation succeeded, from which I shall convey to you that part which is in dispute. We have appointed you as arbitrator. You have more business than you think; the case is threefold. Our Stoics say, as you know, that there are two things in the nature of things from which all things are made: cause and matter. Matter lies inert, a thing ready for all things, about to remain inactive if no one moves it. Cause, however, that is, reason, shapes matter and turns it wherever it wishes, and produces various works from it. There must be, therefore, that from which something is made, and then that by which it is made. The latter is the cause, the former is the matter.

​All art is an imitation of nature. Therefore, transfer what I was saying about the universe to these things which are to be made by man. A statue had both matter, which would submit to the craftsman, and a craftsman, who would give form to the matter. Therefore, in the statue, the matter was bronze, the cause was the maker. The condition of all things is the same; they consist of that which is made and that which makes.

​The Stoics hold that there is only one cause, that which makes. Aristotle thinks that cause is spoken of in three ways: “The first,” he says, “cause is the matter itself, without which nothing can be produced; the second is the maker. The third is the form, which is imposed on each work, like a statue”; for Aristotle calls this “eidos.” “A fourth also,” he says, “is added to these, the purpose of the whole work.”

​I will explain what this is. Bronze is the first cause of the statue. For it would never have been made unless there had been that from which it could be cast or drawn out. The second cause is the craftsman. For that bronze could not have been shaped into the appearance of a statue unless skilled hands had been applied. The third cause is the form. For that statue would not be called a “doryphoros” or “diadumenos” unless this appearance had been impressed upon it. The fourth cause is the purpose of making it. For unless this had existed, it would not have been made.

​What is the purpose? That which invited the craftsman, which he followed in making it; this is either money, if he fashioned it to sell, or glory, if he worked for a name, or religion, if he prepared a gift for a temple. Therefore, this also is a cause on account of which it is made; or do you not think that that should be numbered among the causes of a finished work, which, if removed, the work would not have been made?

​To these Plato adds a fifth, the pattern, which he himself calls “idea”; for this is that looking toward which the craftsman produced what he intended. But it is of no importance whether he has the pattern outside, to which he may refer his eyes, or inside, which he himself conceived and placed there. God has these patterns of all things within himself, and has grasped in his mind the numbers and measures of all things that are to be done; he is full of these shapes, which Plato calls “ideas,” immortal, unchangeable, untiring. And so indeed men perish, but humanity itself, after which man is modeled, remains, and while men labor and perish, it suffers nothing.