Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Is wisdom then nowhere to be found? No indeed—it dwelt among these very men, though it went unseen by anyone. Some thought that everything could be known: these certainly were not wise; others thought nothing could be known: these too were not wise. The first group erred in giving too much to man, the second in giving too little; on both sides, in both directions, they lacked measure. Where then is wisdom? It lies in neither supposing that you know everything, which belongs to God, nor that you know nothing, which belongs to a beast. For there is a middle ground proper to man, namely knowledge joined and tempered with ignorance. Knowledge in us comes from the soul, which arises from heaven; ignorance from the body, which comes from earth. Hence we have some fellowship both with God and with the animals. Since we are made of these two elements, with one part shining with light and the other shrouded in darkness, so that a share of knowledge and a share of ignorance were each allotted to us. Across this bridge, as it were, one may cross without danger of falling; but all those who have leaned to one side or the other have fallen either to the right or to the left. Let me explain how each side went astray. The Academics, arguing against the natural philosophers from obscure matters, concluded that there is no knowledge at all, and, content with a few examples of things beyond comprehension, embraced ignorance as though they had abolished all knowledge, when they had only abolished it in part. The natural philosophers, on the contrary, drew from things that are plain the argument that everything can be known, and, content with what is evident, upheld knowledge as though they had defended it entirely, when they had defended it only in part. Thus neither side saw clearly nor obscurely; rather, while each, hands locked in struggle, either clung to knowledge alone or tried to wrest it away, neither saw the door set in the middle that would have led them through to wisdom. But Arcesilaus, master of ignorance, wishing to overturn all philosophy in his rivalry with Zeno, the leader of the Stoics, took up—citing Socrates as his authority—the position that nothing at all can be known. In this way he refuted the opinion of the philosophers who had supposed that truth had been dug up and discovered by their own talents. Clearly, because that wisdom had been mortal and, established only a short time before, had already reached its highest growth, so that it was now bound to grow old and perish, the Academy suddenly arose like the old age of philosophy, to finish off what was already fading, and to some extent Arcesilaus rightly saw that it is arrogant, or rather foolish, to think that knowledge of truth can be grasped by guesswork. Yet he cannot refute someone speaking falsely unless he himself already knows what is true. Since Arcesilaus attempted to do this without knowing the truth, he introduced a kind of philosophy we may call in Latin unstable or inconsistent. Suppose knowledge of anything were impossible—even so, one fact would still have to be grasped: total ignorance would erase the very assertion that grasping anything is impossible. Whoever states, as a settled matter, that no one knows anything, is by that very statement claiming to have grasped and understood something—so something, after all, can be grasped. A parallel case, often cited in the schools as self-defeating, runs thus: a man dreamed he should place no trust in dreams. Trusting the dream commits him to distrust; distrusting it commits him to trust. In the same way, if grasping anything were impossible, one thing would still have to be grasped—namely that nothing is grasped; yet once that is grasped, the claim of universal ignorance collapses under its own weight. So the whole position undoes and contradicts itself. But this cunning man wanted to snatch knowledge away from the other philosophers in order to hide it at home for himself—for surely a man who asserts something does not thereby deprive himself of it, even while he deprives others—yet he accomplishes nothing; he only exposes himself and betrays his own theft. It would have shown far greater wisdom and honesty had he carved out one exception, declaring only that the reasons and explanations behind celestial or natural phenomena specifically lie hidden and unknowable, since no one can teach them, and should not even be pursued, given that seeking will not uncover them. Had he inserted this exception, he would have warned the natural philosophers not to inquire into matters that exceed the limits of human thought, he would have freed himself from the odium of the charge against him, and he would certainly have given us something to follow. As it is, however, in drawing us back from following the others, so that we should not wish to know more than we can, he has drawn us back no less from following himself. For who would want to labor so as to know nothing, or take up a teaching of such a kind that even ordinary knowledge is lost along with it? If this is a teaching, it must consist of knowledge; if it is not, who is so foolish as to think it worth learning a thing in which either nothing is learned or even what one already knew is unlearned? Therefore, since neither everything can be known, as the natural philosophers supposed, nor nothing, as the Academics supposed, all their philosophy has been extinguished.
Turning next to the second branch of philosophy—the one they themselves label moral philosophy—we find it holds within it the entire rationale for philosophy as a whole; the first branch offers mere intellectual pleasure, whereas this one carries practical value besides. And since in arranging the course of life and shaping conduct the danger of error is greater, a correspondingly greater diligence is required, so that we might grasp the proper manner of living. In the former matter some allowance can be granted, because whether they say something true, they do no good, or whether they rave, they do no harm; but here there is no room for disagreement or error. All must hold one view, and philosophy itself must teach as though with a single mouth, because if any error is made here, the whole of life is overturned. In that first part, though the danger is less, the difficulty is greater, because the obscurity of the subject matter compels people to hold different and varied opinions; here, though the danger is greater, the difficulty is less, because everyday practice and daily experience can teach what is better and truer. Let us see, then, whether the philosophers agree, or what they offer us toward living life more rightly. It is not necessary to go through everything; let us choose one point, and the chief one, on which the whole hinge of wisdom turns. Epicurus judges the highest good to be pleasure of the mind; Aristippus, pleasure of the body; Callipho and Dinomachus joined honor with pleasure. Diodorus placed the highest good in freedom from pain, Hieronymus in not suffering pain, the Peripatetics in the goods of mind, body, and fortune together. For Herillus the highest good is knowledge; for Zeno, it is to live in agreement with nature; for certain Stoics, it is to follow virtue. Aristotle placed the highest good in honor and virtue. These are, roughly, all the opinions of all of them. Faced with such a scattering of views, which one should we trust, which one should we side with? Every one of them carries equal weight. Were we capable of choosing the superior view, philosophy would already be superfluous to us, for we would already possess the wisdom needed to sit in judgment on wise men's opinions. Yet we approach philosophy precisely because wisdom is what we lack and hope to gain—so by what standard could we possibly judge, not yet having taken our first step toward wisdom? This is all the more true given that the Academic is standing right there, tugging at our cloak, warning us to trust no one at all, while offering nothing of his own that we might follow instead.
What then remains, except that, setting aside these quarrelsome and stubborn litigants, we come to the judge—namely the giver of a simple and untroubled wisdom, one able not only to form us and set us on the way, but even to render a verdict on their disputes? Through this wisdom we come to know man's true and highest good. Before I begin to speak of it, all those opinions must be refuted, so that it may appear that none of those men was wise. Since the question concerns the proper function of man, the highest good of the highest of living creatures ought to be established in something that cannot be shared with the other animals. Just as teeth belong to wild beasts, horns to cattle, wings to birds, so something proper to man alone must be assigned to him, without which he would lose the very rationale of his condition. For whatever is given to all creatures for the sake of living or reproducing is indeed a natural good, but it is not the highest good, unless it is something proper to each particular kind. He was therefore not wise who believed the highest good to be pleasure of the mind, since, whether this is understood as tranquility or as joy, it is common to all. As for Aristippus, I do not think he even deserves an answer—a man forever rushing headlong into bodily pleasures and serving nothing but his belly and his lust; no one doubts he was no man at all. He lived in such a way that nothing distinguished him from a beast except one thing: that he could speak. But if speech were granted to a donkey, a pig, or a dog, and you asked them what they meant when they chase after females so madly that they can scarcely be pulled away, neglecting even food and drink, why they violently drive off other males, or, even beaten, do not give up but, though often battered by stronger rivals, only pursue all the more fiercely, why they fear neither rain nor cold, undertake labor, and do not shrink from danger—what else would they answer except that the highest good is bodily pleasure? That they seek this so as to be affected by the sweetest sensations, and that these sensations are worth so much to them that, in pursuit of them, they think no labor, no wounds, not even death itself ought to be refused. Shall we then seek our precepts for living from men who feel exactly what creatures devoid of reason feel? The Cyrenaics say that virtue itself deserves praise only because it produces pleasure. "Yes indeed," says the shameless dog, or that filthy pig wallowing in mud, "for this is why I fight my opponent with all my strength, so that my virtue may bring me pleasure, of which I would necessarily be deprived if I retreated defeated." Shall we then learn wisdom from men whom nothing but their tongue, not their judgment, distinguishes from cattle and beasts? To hold that freedom from pain is the highest good is not properly the view of the Peripatetics or the Stoics, but of philosophers fit for the sickbed. For who does not understand that this was argued by men who were sick and lying in some kind of pain? What could be more absurd than to hold as the highest good something a physician could supply? One must suffer pain, then, in order to enjoy this good—and indeed suffer it severely and often, so that afterward the absence of pain will be all the sweeter. The most wretched man, then, is the one who has never suffered pain, because he lacks this good—whereas we used to think him the happiest, precisely because he was free of misfortune. Not far from this same folly is the man who said that feeling no pain at all is the highest good; for setting aside that every creature naturally shuns pain, no one can promise himself this good, since the most any of us can do toward securing it is merely wish for it. But the highest good cannot make anyone happy unless it always remains within his own power; and this, freedom from pain, is granted to all living creatures not by virtue, not by learning, not by effort, but by nature itself. Those who joined pleasure with honor wanted to escape this common ground, but instead they produced a self-contradictory good, since whoever is devoted to pleasure necessarily lacks honor, and whoever pursues honor lacks pleasure. The good of the Peripatetics is excessively multiple, and, apart from the goods of the mind—about which there is great dispute as to what they even are—it can be seen to be shared with the beasts. For the goods of the body, that is, soundness, freedom from pain, and health, are no less necessary to dumb animals than to man, and perhaps even more so, since man can be helped by medicine and by the care of others, whereas dumb animals cannot. The same holds for what they term the goods of fortune: man requires wealth to keep himself alive, much as animals require pasture and prey to keep themselves fed. In proposing a good lying outside man's own control, they have made the whole of man subject to a power external to himself. Let us listen also to Zeno—for he too sometimes dreams of virtue. 'The highest good,' he says, 'is to live in agreement with nature.' We must then live in the manner of beasts. For all the things that ought to be far from man are found precisely in beasts: chasing pleasures, feeling fear, practicing deceit, lurking in wait, killing—and, most tellingly of all, having no knowledge of God whatsoever. What then does this teach me, to live according to nature, when nature itself inclines toward the worse and, through certain gentler enticements, plunges us into vice? Or if he says that beasts have one nature and man another, on the ground that man is born for virtue, there is something to this, yet it still will not serve as a definition of the highest good, since there is no animal that does not live according to its own nature. He who made knowledge the highest good gave man something proper to him, yet men pursue knowledge as a means to something further, never as an end in itself. Who, after all, is satisfied by mere knowing, apart from some gain that knowledge might bring? Arts are learned in order to be practiced, and they are practiced either for the necessities of life, or for pleasure, or for glory. That, then, is not the highest good which is not sought for its own sake. What difference, then, is there between holding knowledge to be the highest good and holding to be the highest good those very things which knowledge itself produces—namely sustenance, glory, pleasure? These are not proper to man, and therefore not the highest goods either, for the desire for pleasure and for sustenance belongs not to man alone but to dumb animals as well. What of the desire for glory? Is it not found even in horses, who exult when victorious and grieve when defeated? So great is their love of praise, so great their concern for victory. Not without reason does the greatest of poets say that one must see for oneself what pain there is for the defeated, what glory in the winning palm. But if the things that knowledge produces are shared with other animals, then knowledge is not the highest good. Besides, there is no small flaw in this definition, in that knowledge is proposed without qualification. For then all who know some skill will begin to seem blessed—indeed, even those who know evil things, so that the man who has learned to prepare poisons would be as blessed as the one who has learned to heal. So I ask toward what object this knowledge is meant to point. Suppose its object is the causation of natural phenomena—what happiness would come to me from learning the Nile's source, or from any of the other things natural philosophers speculate wildly about regarding the sky? What of the fact that concerning such matters there is no knowledge at all, but only opinion, which varies according to each man's wit? It remains, then, that the highest good be knowledge of good and evil. But why did he prefer to call the highest good knowledge rather than wisdom itself, when the meaning and force of both words are the same? Yet no one up to now has said the highest good is wisdom, though that would have been a better way to say it. For knowledge alone is of little use for embracing the good and shunning the evil, unless virtue is added as well. For many philosophers, though they discoursed on good and evil, nevertheless, driven by nature, lived otherwise than they spoke, because they lacked virtue. But virtue joined with knowledge is wisdom. It remains for us to refute also those who held virtue itself to be the highest good—an opinion Marcus Tullius himself held, in which they were quite thoughtless. For virtue itself is not the highest good, but the maker and mother of the highest good, since one cannot arrive at that good without virtue. Both points are easy to grasp. For I ask them whether they think one arrives easily at that splendid good, or only with difficulty and labor. Let them sharpen their wits and defend their error. If one can arrive at it easily and without any labor, then it cannot be the highest good. What reason would there be to torment ourselves, to wear ourselves out laboring day and night, if the object of our search lay so close at hand that anyone could seize it without the slightest mental effort? But if even some common and ordinary good is achieved only through labor, since the nature of good things is set on a steep climb and of evil things on a downward slope, then the highest good must be attained only by the greatest labor. And if that is wholly true, a second virtue would be required just to bring us to the virtue termed the highest good—an absurd and ill-fitting result, virtue reaching itself through nothing but itself. If one cannot arrive at any good except through labor, it is clear that virtue is the means by which one arrives, since the very function and office of virtue lies in undertaking and enduring labors. Therefore the highest good cannot be that through which one must necessarily arrive at something else. But these men, not knowing what virtue produces or toward what it tends, and finding nothing more honorable, stopped short at the very name of virtue, which they said must be sought with no benefit proposed—so that they made for themselves a good that itself stood in need of good. Aristotle did not depart far from them, holding that virtue joined with honor is the highest good—as though any virtue could be dishonorable, or as though, should it possess any baseness, it would cease to be virtue at all. But he saw that it could happen that virtue is judged badly by a perverse opinion, and so he thought that regard must be paid to human esteem—yet whoever does this departs from what is right and good, since it is not within our power for virtue to be honored according to its true merit. For what is honor but a lasting distinction bestowed on someone by the favorable rumor of the people? Suppose, though, that men's mistaken and corrupt judgment produces an unfavorable verdict instead—what becomes of virtue then? Shall we cast virtue aside because fools judge it shameful and base? Since virtue can be oppressed and harassed by ill will, in order for it to be its own proper and lasting good, it ought to need no assistance from outside itself, but should stand and rely on its own strength alone. And so no good is to be hoped for from man on its account, nor any evil to be shunned.