Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Next, he whose cataract has been cured does not only immediately recover his own sight, but can also restore it to others; one freed from malice also frees others. There is no need of exhortation, nor even of advice, so that the eye may understand the properties of colors; it will distinguish white from black even with no one advising. On the contrary, the mind requires many precepts in order to see what must be done in life; although the physician also not only cures but also advises those sick in their eyes.

’There is no reason,’ he says, ‘why you should immediately commit a weak sight to an intense light; proceed first from darkness to shady places, then dare more and gradually accustom yourself to endure clear light. There is no reason why you should study after food, no reason why you should overwork full and swollen eyes; avoid the blast and the force of cold meeting your face’; and other things of this kind, which benefit no less than medicines. Medicine adds advice to remedies.

’Error,’ he says, ‘is the cause of sinning. Precepts do not take this away from us, nor do they vanquish false opinions about goods and evils.’ I admit that precepts by themselves are not effective for overturning a depraved conviction of the mind; but they do not therefore fail to benefit, even when added to other things. First, they renew the memory; second, those things which seemed rather confused in the whole, when divided into parts, are considered more diligently. Otherwise, in that way you might as well say that consolations and exhortations are superfluous; yet they are not superfluous, therefore neither are admonitions.

’It is foolish,’ he says, ‘to prescribe to a sick person what he ought to do as if he were healthy, since health must be restored, without which precepts are void.’ What of the fact that the sick and the healthy have certain things in common, about which they must be admonished? Such as not to desire food greedily, and to avoid fatigue. The poor and the rich have certain common precepts.

’Cure,’ he says, ‘avarice, and you will have nothing to admonish either the poor or the rich, if the desire of both has subsided.’ What of the fact that it is one thing not to desire money, and another to know how to use money? The avaricious do not know its limit, and even the non-avaricious do not know its use. ‘Remove errors,’ he says; ‘precepts are superfluous.’ This is false. For suppose avarice is relaxed, suppose luxury is restrained, bridles are cast upon rashness, and a spur is applied to laziness; even when vices are removed, we must learn what we ought to do and how.

’Admonitions applied to grave vices,’ he says, ‘will accomplish nothing.’ Not even medicine conquers incurable diseases, yet it is applied to some as a remedy, to others as a relief. Not even the very power of universal philosophy, though it summon all its forces for this purpose, will extract a hard and old plague from minds. But it does not therefore cure nothing, because it does not cure all.

’What does it profit,’ he says, ‘to show what is obvious?’ Very much; for sometimes we know and do not attend. Admonition does not teach, but directs attention, but arouses, but retains memory and does not allow it to slip away. We pass over many things placed before our eyes. Admonishing is a kind of exhorting. Often the mind ignores even obvious things; therefore, the knowledge of most well-known things must be pressed upon it. That saying of Calvus against Vatinius ought to be repeated in this place: ‘You know that bribery was committed, and everyone knows that you know this.’

​You know that friendships ought to be sacredly cultivated, but you do not do it. You know that he is wicked who demands chastity from his wife, while being himself a corrupter of others’ wives; you know that just as she ought to have nothing to do with an adulterer, so you ought to have nothing to do with a mistress, and you do not do it. Therefore, you must be reminded constantly; for those things ought not to be stored away, but ready at hand. Whatever things are wholesome ought to be often discussed, often turned over, so that they may not only be known to us, but also ready. Add now that obvious things also are accustomed to become more obvious.