Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Every age will produce Clodii, but not every age will produce Catones. We are prone to worse things, because neither a leader nor a companion can be lacking, and the thing itself proceeds even without a leader, without a companion. It is not merely a slope toward vices, but a precipice, and what makes most people incurable is that while in all other arts mistakes are a source of shame to the practitioners and offend the one who goes astray, the mistakes of life delight us.

​The pilot does not rejoice in a shipwreck, the doctor does not rejoice in the death of his patient, the orator does not rejoice if the defendant has lost his case through the fault of his advocate; but on the contrary, everyone’s own crime is a pleasure to him. One man rejoices in adultery, to which he was stimulated by the very difficulty of it. Another rejoices in fraud and theft, and the fault does not displease him until the consequence of the fault displeases him. This happens through evil habit.

​Moreover, so that you may know that a sense of the good underlies minds even when they are drawn away into the worst states, and that what is shameful is not ignored but neglected: everyone conceals their sins and, however successfully they turn out, they enjoy the fruit of them but withdraw the sins themselves. But a good conscience wants to come forward and be seen; wickedness fears the very darkness.

​Therefore, I think it was elegantly said by Epicurus: “it can happen to the guilty to remain hidden, but the confidence of remaining hidden cannot,” or if you judge that this meaning can be better explained in this way: “therefore it is of no benefit to sinners to remain hidden, because even if they have the good fortune of remaining hidden, they do not have the confidence of it.” It is so: crimes can be safe, but they cannot be secure.

​I do not judge this to be repugnant to our sect, if it is explained in this way. Why? Because that first and greatest punishment of sinners is to have sinned, and no crime, though fortune adorns it with her gifts, though she protects and vindicates it, is unpunished, since the punishment of crime is in the crime itself. But nevertheless, these second punishments also press upon and follow that first one: to fear always, to tremble, and to distrust security. Why should I free wickedness from this punishment? Why should I not always leave it in suspense?

​Let us dissent from Epicurus in that point where he says that nothing is just by nature and that crimes are to be avoided because the fear of them cannot be avoided; but let us agree in this, that evil deeds are scourged by conscience and that its greatest torment lies in this, that a perpetual anxiety urges and lashes it, because it cannot trust the guarantors of its security. For this very thing is the proof, Epicurus, that we naturally shrink from crime, that there is no one who does not feel fear even in safety. Fortune frees many from punishment, but no one from fear.

​Why is this, except because there is implanted in us an aversion to that thing which nature has condemned? Therefore, confidence of remaining hidden never comes even to those who are hidden, because conscience convicts them and shows them to themselves. But it is characteristic of the guilty to tremble. It would have gone badly with us, since many crimes escape the law, the avenger, and written punishments, unless those natural and heavy punishments paid the penalty in ready money, and in place of suffering the punishment came fear. FAREWELL.