Seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. Richard M. Gummere translation. 3 volumes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961.
If happiness is liberation from care (XLIV. v.1, 191), and the study of wisdom “gives the soul liberty” (LXXVIII. 2. 349)—liberty is enslavement to philosophy—then philosophy aims at joyful wisdom for the happy few. To be truly well-born is to take the philosophers for your ancestors (XLIV. 1. 289). They are the natural aristocrats.
The liberal arts do not “bestow virtues” upon the student, as any glance around a liberal arts college will demonstrate. But they can “prepare the soul for the reception of virtue” (LXXXVIII. 2. 361). To philosophize, one mustn’t only talk but engage facts and perform acts. Philosophy is a praxis, a way of life (CXI. 2. 279); coherent praxis requires not so much adherence to a theory as cultivation of character. Plato and Aristotle “derived more benefit from the character than from the words of Socrates” (VI. 1. 23). “All study of philosophy and all reading should be applied to the study of philosophy and all reading should be applied to the study of living the happy life” (CVIII. 2. 253). Study is part of that life; thinking and acting are reciprocal events. “Philosophy is the study of virtue, by means, however, of virtue itself, but neither can virtue exist without the study of itself” (LXXXIX. 2. 383).
Syllogisms are verbal proofs, but in practice death is the most rigorous proof. Anyone can speak bravely; Socrates showed philosophers how to die bravely. He proved his philosophic ‘being’ by his philosophic ‘doing.’ A good mind must be developed into a good will (XVI. 1. 103). “A matter not of words, but of facts,” philosophy molds the human soul, ordering the philosopher’s whole life, guiding his conduct, harmonizing inner and outer (XVI. 1. 105). Harmony yields stability: “the primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company” (II. 1. 7). “Everywhere means nowhere” (II. 1. 7). The perpetual traveler has many acquaintances but no friends, reads many books instead of a few good ones. (Whispered to Aristotle: ‘Sit down, you Peripatetic.’) Standing where you are requires courage; manliness is not boyishness (IV. 1. 15). It requires one identity, not a man of a thousand faces, each of which reflecting some velleity (CXX. 2. 395).
To harmonize inner and outer, shed external superfluities. Externals are not so much goods as advantages; “the essence of goodness is not in them” (LXXIV. 2. 123). Do not chase after them. “Too rich a soil makes the grain fall flat” (XXXIX. 1. 261). The philosopher can offer good counsel, prudent counsel, because he knows nature and therefore can distinguish the needed from the superfluous (XLVIII. 1. 319). Pace Adam Smith, but natural desires are limited. The unlimited desires you mistake for natural ones spring from false opinion (XVI. 1. 109). “The wise man suits his needs to nature” (XVII. 1. 115).
The Stoic life is a joyous quest, but its joys are (famously) austere. Virtue is “the quality of not needing a single day beyond the present” (CXII. 2. 463), as liberation from burdensome desires means liberation from elaborate long-range plans against imagined future failure and for imagined future goods. The truly long life is the full life, the life full of wisdom (CXIII. 3. 7). “One who daily puts the finishing touches on his life is never in want of time” (CI. 2. 163), and seldom in want of money. Wise foresight does not plan; it prepares. “The soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence” (XVIII. 1. 119). Verum gaudium res severa est (XXIII. 1. 161). Seneca prudently appeals to Lucilius’ Romanness while preparing him for philosophy; a mere boy needs maxims but when he becomes a man “it is time to lean on himself” (XXXIII. 1. 237). Begin to write your own maxims.
Stoic joy usually precludes suicide. Seneca praises those “who approach death without any loathing for life, letting death in, so to speak, and not pulling it toward them” (XXX. 1. 221). Suicide makes sense only when pain takes up all of your life, deposing the legitimate rule of wisdom (XCVIII. 3. 129). “He who dies just because he is in pain is a weakling, a coward; but he who lives merely to brave out his pain, is a fool” (LVIII. 2. 59). The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can” (LXX. 2. 59). He will live and die well, for which activities there is no general rule, only prudence (LXX. 2. 63). The maxims you write are seldom if ever universally generalizable. There is always a counter-maxim; prudence is the umpire.
Prudence and reason generally should ally with the spiritedly irrational part of the soul instead of the appetitively irrational part (XCII. 2. 451). In this Seneca concurs with Plato’s Socrates. Seneca goes further, perhaps for ‘Roman’ rhetorical purposes, associating the good with the honorable, not the useful. He finds Aristotelians too lax in their taming of the emotions (CXVI. 3. 333); like Nietzsche’s democrats, they call moderation what is only mediocrity. To fuse goodness and honor is to take a sterner view; this is what it means to be a citizen-soldier of the universe. Seneca’s apparently apolitical thought is really cosmopolitical (not ‘cosmopolitan’ in the modern, watery, United-Nations sense). The Stoics tend toward natural law rather than natural right, although in Seneca, at least, prudence still rules over explicit regulations.
Contra Machiavelli, “no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defenses” (LXXIV. 2. 127). Machiavelli equates nature with Fortuna. Seneca does not. Knowing nature, including our own nature, means knowing what is truly good and bad for us; the conquest of Fortuna is futile and unnecessary. Reason tames desires and calms fears—passions which react to Fortuna’s gifts and blows, not nature’s. Seneca is no less materialistic than Machiavelli. Unlike Machiavelli, however, he despises the body (see LXV) because the finest matter, the matter composing the soul, rules finally but not immediately. This is what Seneca means by ‘Providence.’ Unlike Machiavelli, Seneca formulates a materialism that can account for the life of the mind, the philosophic life.
Materialism also makes it possible for the Stoic to equal ‘God,’ who is also material. The Stoic can have the “true and never-swerving judgment” of ‘God’ (LXXII. 2. 23, 27). Stoic reason resembles Platonic technē. Stoic reason differs from Machiavellian artfulness even as its ‘God’ differs from the Biblical God: Neither Stoic reason nor the Stoic ‘God’ is creative. Nor is he providential. Equality with ‘God’ does not mean control over events (as in Machiavelli) but unperturbed self-sufficiency (XLVIII. 1. 321). Of religious souls Seneca asks: “How long shall we go on making demands upon the gods, as if we were still unable to support ourselves” (LX. 1. 123)? This is the Greek philosophers’ autarchia, translated to Rome. He who requires external good will want to control Fortuna (or nature misdefined as Fortuna) and thus either pray or prey, petition the Creator-God like a Christian or imitate Him like a Machiavellian.
The self-sufficient Stoic can say, after losing children, wife, and country, I have lost nothing (IX. 1. 53). (In contrast, Machiavelli’s Lady of Forli shouts, “I can have more children!”) Stoic self-sufficiency does not require isolation (as does Machiavelli of his prince), although it can tolerate isolation. The philosopher can do without friends, without desiring to do without them (IX. 1. 45). Human nature is social. Friendship rests on the beauty of the soul of the friend, not his utility. Friends are useful to each other only in the noble sense of “giv[ing] practice to the other’s virtues and thus maintain[ing] wisdom at the proper level” (CIX. 2. 255). Philosophic friends may engage in dialogue, oral or written. These letters are written dialogues in two ways. They are addressed to a friend, responding to his letters. They also contain seeming contradictions. In an oral dialogue (or an artful, Platonic dialogue or play) the contradictions are supplied by the dialogic partners. In a monologic work (here we never see even one letter by Lucilius) the author himself must supply the contradictions, rich complexities for the reader to work through, testing his ability to philosophize.
Human sociality does not extend to politics, where contradiction leads to violence and repression, even oppression. Political friends are undesirable. Regimes change; your friends disappear, replace by their enemies—now yours (XIV. 1. 89). More profoundly, wisdom cannot rule, simply. If Wisdom could rub out all our faults “she would be mistress of the universe” (XI. 1. 63). She can’t; she isn’t. Fortuna—randomness, stupidity—has her day. Indeed, many days. A philosopher will settle or second-best; the rule of those who preserve the public peace, the tranquillitas ordinis that will remain Augustine’s best hope for the City of Man. Philosophers particularly esteem such rulers. The more valuable the cargo, the more gratitude the sailor feels towards Neptune, who allows safe passage; the philosophic cargo is the richest treasure (LXXIII).
In peace or in civil strife, the philosopher aims for inconspicuousness. “The mere name of philosophy, however quietly pursued, is an object of sufficient scorn; and what would happen if we should begin to separate ourselves from the custom of our fellow men” (V. 1. 21)? They would attempt to rule the philosopher. Imperara sibi maximum imperium est (CXII. 2. 294). If your own soul is a king, not a tyrant, it needs no other kings, except for the very modest sake of preserving from tyranny the body the soul inhabits.
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