On the Happy Life 1–18

If a course charted by reason and the will itself were to bring men to the harbor of philosophy, from which one now passes on into the region and land of the happy life, most cultivated and great Theodorus, I do not know whether it would be rash of me to say that far fewer men would have reached it, although even now, as we see, very few and rare reach it. For since God, or nature, or necessity, or our own will, or some combination of these, or all of them together (the matter is very obscure, but you have already undertaken to shed light on it) has cast us into this world as if at random and haphazardly, as into a stormy sea, how many would recognize where they ought to strive or by what way to return, unless at some time a storm, which fools think adverse, were to drive them, unwilling and resisting, ignorant and wandering, onto the land they most long for?

So among the men whom philosophy can receive I seem to see three kinds, as of sailors. The first is of those who, once the age of reason has taken them up, flee with a slight effort and stroke of the oars from close at hand, and hide themselves in that calm, from which they raise for the rest of their fellow citizens, as far as they can, a most brilliant beacon of some work of theirs, so that, warned by it, the others may strive to reach them. The second, the opposite of the first, is of those who, deceived by the most deceitful face of the sea, have chosen to go out into the deep and dare to wander far from their homeland, and often forget it. If by some means, I know not what and all too hidden, a wind that they think favorable has followed them from the stern, they push on into the depths of misery, elated and rejoicing, because the most deceitful calm of pleasures and honors everywhere flatters them. What else, surely, should be wished for them but some misfortune in the very things by which they are welcomed so gladly, and, if that is too little, a storm raging in full and a wind blowing against them, to bring them, even weeping and groaning, to sure and solid joys? Yet many of this kind, who have not yet wandered too far, are brought back by troubles that are not so grave. These are the men who, when either the lamentable tragedies of their fortunes or the anxious difficulties of empty business, as though they had nothing else to do, have driven them into the books of learned and very wise men, awake in a sense in the harbor itself, from which no promises of that sea, smiling all too falsely, can shut them out. And between these there is a third kind, of those who, either on the very threshold of youth or after being tossed about long and much, still look back to certain signs and remember their sweetest homeland even amid the waves; and either they make for it again on a straight course, deceived in nothing and delayed by nothing, or, more often, straying among the clouds, or watching the setting stars, or caught by some allurements, they put off the time for good sailing, wander longer, and often are even in danger. These too some calamity in their unstable fortunes often drives, like a storm adverse to their efforts, into the life they long for, the life of rest.

But for all these, who are borne in whatever way toward the region of the happy life, there is one huge mountain set right before the harbor, which also creates great narrows for those entering, and it must be feared most intensely and avoided most carefully. For it shines so brightly, it is clothed in that lying light so splendidly, that it not only offers itself as a dwelling to those who are arriving and have not yet entered, and promises to satisfy their desire in place of the happy land itself, but often invites men to itself from the harbor itself, and sometimes holds them, delighted by its very height, from which it pleases them to look down on the rest. Yet these often warn those who are coming not to be deceived by hidden rocks beneath, or to think it easy to climb up to them, and most kindly teach them by what way they may enter without danger, because of the nearness of that land. So while they begrudge them the emptiest glory, they show them the place of safety. For what other mountain does reason mean to be understood, as something to be feared by those approaching or entering philosophy, but the proud pursuit of the emptiest glory, which has nothing full and solid within, so that it lets those who walk over it, puffed up, sink and swallows them as the fragile ground cracks beneath, and, when they have rolled back into darkness, snatches from them the shining home that they had almost seen?

Since this is so, receive, my Theodorus (for it is to you alone that I look for what I desire, and I have always admired you as most fitting), receive, I say, both which of those three kinds of men has given me to you, and where I seem to myself to be, and what kind of help I confidently expect from you. From my nineteenth year, after I had received in the school of rhetoric that book of Cicero which is called Hortensius, I was kindled with such love of philosophy that I immediately thought of devoting myself to it. But I did not lack clouds to confuse my course, and for a long time, I confess, I gazed up at stars sinking into the Ocean, which led me into error. For a certain childish superstition frightened me away from inquiry itself; and when, grown bolder, I dispelled that fog and persuaded myself that I should yield to those who teach rather than to those who command, I fell in with men to whom this light that is seen with the eyes seemed to be among the things to be worshiped as supremely divine. I did not assent, but I thought that they were hiding something great under those wrappings, which they would one day reveal. But when I had shaken them off and escaped, especially after crossing this sea, the Academics for a long time held my helm amid the waves as it struggled against all the winds. Then I came to these lands; here I learned the north star to which I should entrust myself. For I noticed, often in the sermons of our priest and sometimes in your conversations, that when one thinks of God, one must think of nothing bodily at all, nor when one thinks of the soul; for it is the one thing in reality nearest to God. But, I confess, the allure of a wife and of honor held me back from flying swiftly into the lap of philosophy, so that only when I had obtained these would I at last, as has been granted to a very happy few, carry myself with all sails and all oars into that haven and rest there. But when I had read a very few books of Plotinus, of whom I hear you are a most devoted student, and had compared with them, as far as I could, the authority also of those who have handed down the divine mysteries, I was so inflamed that I would have wished to break all those anchors, had not the opinion of certain men held me back. What remained, then, except that, while I lingered over superfluous things, a storm thought adverse should come to my aid? And so such a pain in the chest seized me that, unable to bear the burden of that profession by which I was perhaps sailing toward the Sirens, I threw everything aside and brought my ship, battered and weary though it was, to the rest I longed for.

So you see in what philosophy I am sailing, as in a harbor. But the harbor itself is wide; and its size, though now less dangerous, does not wholly exclude error. For I do not know at all to which part of the land, which alone is truly happy, I should steer and reach it. For what solid ground have I held, when the question of the soul still wavers and fluctuates for me? Therefore I beseech you, by your virtue, by your kindness, by the bond and fellowship of souls with one another, to stretch out your right hand; that is, to love me and to believe that you in turn are loved and held dear by me. If I obtain this, I shall reach the happy life itself, to which I presume you already cling, with little effort and very easily. And so that you may know what I am doing and in what way I am gathering my friends into this harbor, and from that may understand my mind more fully (for I find no other signs by which to show myself), I have thought it right to address to you, and to dedicate with your own name, the one of my disputations that seems to me to have turned out more religious and more worthy of your title. And most fittingly; for we inquired among ourselves about the happy life, and I see nothing else that ought more to be called a gift of God. I am not frightened by your eloquence; for whatever I love, even if I do not attain it, I cannot fear; still less the loftiness of your fortune. For with you it is truly second, however great it is; for it makes those whom it rules second to itself. But now please attend to what I bring.

The Ides of November was my birthday. After a lunch so light that it hindered none of our wits, I called all of us who lived together, not only that day but every day, to sit together in the baths; for that secluded place had suggested itself as suited to the season. There were (for I am not afraid to make them known meanwhile by name to your singular kindness) first of all our mother, to whose merit I believe I owe everything I live by; Navigius my brother; Trygetius and Licentius, my fellow citizens and pupils; and I wished my cousins Lartidianus and Rusticus not to be absent, although they had not endured even a grammar teacher, and I thought their very common sense necessary for what I was undertaking. There was also with us, the youngest of all in age, but one whose talent, unless love deceives me, promises something great, my son Adeodatus. When they were attentive, I began thus.

“Does it seem clear to you that we are composed of soul and body?” When all agreed, Navigius answered that he did not know. I said to him: “Do you know nothing at all, or is this to be counted among some things you do not know?” “I do not think,” he said, “that I am ignorant of everything.” “Can you tell us something of the things you know?” “I can,” he said. “If it is not a bother,” I said, “bring something forward.” And when he hesitated, I said: “Do you at least know that you are alive?” “I know,” he said. “Then you know that you have life, since no one can live except by life.” “That too,” he said, “I know.” “Do you also know that you have a body?” He agreed. “Then you already know that you consist of body and life.” “I know it for now, but whether these are the only things I am not sure.” “So you do not doubt,” I said, “that these two exist, body and soul, but you are unsure whether there is something else that serves to complete and perfect a man.” “Yes,” he said. “What that may be we shall inquire another time, if we can,” I said. “Now I ask all of you this, since we all admit that a man can exist neither without a body nor without a soul: for the sake of which of these do we seek food?” “For the sake of the body,” said Licentius. But the others hesitated and discussed among themselves in various ways how food could seem necessary for the body, when it is sought for the sake of life and life belongs only to the soul. Then I said: “Does it seem to you that food belongs to that part which we see grow by food and become stronger?” They agreed, except Trygetius. For he said: “Why have I not grown in proportion to my appetite?” “All bodies,” I said, “have their own measure set by nature, beyond which they cannot go. Yet they would be smaller than that measure if nourishment had been lacking to them; we notice this more easily in cattle, and no one doubts that when food is withdrawn the bodies of all living things grow thin.” “Grow thin,” said Licentius, “not grow smaller.” “That is enough for my purpose,” I said. “For the question is whether food belongs to the body. And it does, since when food is taken away the body is reduced to thinness.” All judged that this was so.

“What then of the soul?” I said. “Does it have no food of its own? Or does knowledge seem to you to be its food?” “Clearly,” said my mother, “I believe the soul is fed by nothing else than by the understanding of things and knowledge.” When Trygetius showed himself doubtful about this opinion, she said: “Did you not yourself show today from what or where the soul is fed? For after some part of the meal you said that you had noticed what dish we were using only then, because you had been thinking of something or other, though you had not kept your hands and teeth from that part of the food. Where, then, was your mind at the time when it was not attending to what you were eating? From there, believe me, and on such feasts the mind is fed, that is, on its own thoughts and reflections, if through them it can perceive something.” When they murmured doubtfully about this, I said: “Do you not grant that the minds of very learned men are, as it were in their own kind, much fuller and greater than those of the unlearned?” They said that this was clear. “Then we rightly say that the minds of those who have been trained in no disciplines and have drunk in nothing of the liberal arts are hungry and, as it were, starving.” “I think,” said Trygetius, “that their minds too are full, but of vices and worthlessness.” “That very thing, believe me,” I said, “is a kind of barrenness and, as it were, hunger of minds. For just as the body, when food is taken away, is often filled with diseases and scabs, which are defects in it that show its hunger, so their minds too are full of diseases by which they confess their fasting. For the ancients held that worthlessness (nequitia) itself, the mother of all vices, was so called from its being ‘good for nothing’ (nequicquam), that is, from its being nothing. And the virtue opposed to this vice is called frugality (frugalitas). So, as this is named from fruit (frux), that is, from yield, because of a certain fruitfulness of minds, so that, worthlessness, is named from barrenness, that is, from nothing. For everything that flows, that dissolves, that melts and as it were is always perishing, is nothing. That is why we call such men ‘lost’. But something is, if it remains, if it stands firm, if it is always the same, as virtue is. A great and most beautiful part of virtue is what is called temperance and frugality. But if this is too obscure for you to see it yet, you certainly grant this: that if the minds of the unlearned are themselves also full, then, as with bodies, so with minds, two kinds of food are found, one healthy and useful, the other diseased and pestilent.”

“Since this is so, I think that on my birthday, since we agree that there are two things in a man, namely body and soul, I ought to provide a somewhat richer meal not only for our bodies but also for our minds. And what this meal is, I will bring out if you are hungry. For if I try to feed you against your will and with distaste, I shall spend my effort in vain, and prayers should rather be made that you may desire such feasts more than those of the body. This will happen if your minds are healthy; for sick minds, as we see in the diseases of the body itself, refuse and spit out their food.” All said, with their very faces and with one voice, that they wished to take and devour whatever I had prepared.

And beginning again, I said: “We want to be happy.” I had scarcely uttered this when they agreed with one voice. “Does it seem to you,” I said, “that a man is happy who does not have what he wants?” They said no. “What then? Is everyone who has what he wants happy?” Then my mother said: “If he wants good things and has them, he is happy; but if he wants bad things, even if he has them, he is wretched.” Smiling at her and delighted, I said: “Mother, you have plainly taken the very citadel of philosophy. For no doubt you lacked only the words to express yourself as Tullius did just now, whose words on this opinion are these. For in the Hortensius, the book he wrote in praise and defense of philosophy, he says: ‘But look: not philosophers indeed, but people ready to argue, all say that those are happy who live as they themselves wish. That is false; for to want what is not fitting is itself most wretched. Nor is it so wretched not to obtain what you want as to want to obtain what you ought not. For depravity of will brings more evil than fortune brings anyone good.’” At these words she exclaimed in such a way that we quite forgot her sex and thought some great man was sitting with us, while I meanwhile understood, as far as I could, from what source, and how divine, her words flowed. And Licentius said: “But you must tell us what each person ought to want in order to be happy, and what things he should desire.” “Invite me on your birthday,” I said, “when you are so kind; whatever you serve, I will gladly take. On that condition I ask you to dine with me today, and not to demand what perhaps has not been prepared.” When he regretted his modest and respectful reminder, I said: “Then we agree on this: that no one can be happy who does not have what he wants, and that not everyone who has what he wants is happy?” They granted it.

“What about this?” I said. “Do you grant that everyone who is not happy is wretched?” They did not doubt it. “So everyone,” I said, “who does not have what he wants is wretched.” All approved. “What, then, should a man acquire for himself in order to be happy?” I said. “For perhaps this too will be served at our banquet, so that Licentius's appetite is not neglected. For he should acquire, I think, what he has whenever he wants it.” They said this was clear. “So it must be something,” I said, “that always remains, that does not hang on fortune and is not subject to any chances. For whatever is mortal and perishable cannot be had by us when we want and for as long as we want.” All agreed. But Trygetius said: “There are many fortunate people who possess abundantly and generously these very things, fragile and subject to chance, yet pleasant for this life, and who lack nothing of what they want.” I said to him: “Does a man who is afraid seem to you to be happy?” “He does not,” he said. “Then if a man can lose what he loves, can he not be afraid?” “He cannot,” he said. “But those things of fortune can be lost. So whoever loves and possesses them cannot in any way be happy.” He made no objection. At this point my mother said: “Even if he were sure that he would not lose any of them, he still could not be satisfied with such things. So he is wretched in this too, that he is always in need.” I said to her: “What if, abounding and overflowing with all these things, he set a limit to his desire and, content with them, enjoyed them in a seemly and pleasant way: does he not seem to you happy?” “Then he is happy,” she said, “not by those things, but by the moderation of his own mind.” “Excellent,” I said; “no other answer should have been given to this question, and none other by you. So we have no doubt at all that, if anyone resolves to be happy, he must acquire for himself what always remains and cannot be snatched away by any raging fortune.” “We agreed on that long ago,” said Trygetius. “Does God seem to you,” I said, “to be eternal and always remaining?” “That,” said Licentius, “is so certain that it needs no question”; and all the rest joined in with pious devotion. “Then whoever has God,” I said, “is happy.”

When they accepted this joyfully and most willingly, I said: “Then I think we now have nothing to seek except which man has God; for he will surely be happy. I ask what you think about this.” Here Licentius said: “He has God who lives well.” Trygetius said: “He has God who does what God wills to be done.” Lartidianus came over to his opinion. But that boy, the youngest of all, said: “He has God who does not have an unclean spirit.” My mother approved of all of them, but of this one most of all. Navigius was silent. When I asked him what he thought, he answered that he liked the last answer. Nor did it seem right to neglect to ask Rusticus what his opinion was on so great a matter; he seemed to me to keep silent, held back not so much by deliberation as by shyness. He agreed with Trygetius.

Then I said: “I hold everyone's opinions on a matter that is truly great, beyond which nothing ought to be sought and nothing can be found, provided we investigate it, as we have begun, very calmly and very sincerely. But because this is long for today, and minds too have a kind of excess at their feasts if they rush at them beyond measure and greedily (for in that way they digest badly, so to speak, and from this the health of minds is to be feared for no less than from hunger itself), this question will be better received by us tomorrow, when we are hungry, if you agree. For now I want you to savor gladly something that has suddenly come to my mind, as your server, to bring in; and it is, unless I am mistaken, like the things usually served last, made and seasoned with a sort of scholastic honey.” On hearing this, all stretched toward it as toward a dish being brought in, and pressed me to hurry and say what it was. “What do you think,” I said, “but that the whole business we had undertaken with the Academics is finished?” At that name the three to whom the matter was known roused themselves more eagerly, and, as if stretching out their hands, as happens, they helped the server bringing it in with whatever words they could, showing that they would hear nothing more pleasant.

Then I set out the matter thus: “If it is clear,” I said, “that he is not happy who does not have what he wants (as reason showed a little while ago), and no one seeks what he does not want to find, and they are always seeking the truth (so they want to find it, and therefore want to have the finding of truth), but they do not find it, it follows that they do not have what they want, and from that it follows also that they are not happy. But no one is wise unless he is happy. Therefore the Academic is not wise.” At this they suddenly cried out, as if snatching the whole dish. But Licentius, noticing more attentively and cautiously, feared to assent and added: “I snatched it with you, since I cried out, moved by that conclusion. But I will let nothing of it into my insides, and I will keep my portion for Alypius; for he will either lick it up together with me or warn me why I should not touch it.” “Navigius,” I said, “with his bad spleen, ought to fear sweets more.” At this he smiled and said: “Plainly such things will cure me. For somehow this twisted and pointed thing you have set out is, as someone says of Hymettian honey, sharply sweet, and does not bloat the insides at all. So, though my palate is somewhat stung, I swallow it all into my marrow as gladly as I can. For I do not see how that conclusion can be refuted.” “It cannot be in any way,” said Trygetius. “So I am glad that I took up hostilities against them long ago. For, driven by some nature, I know not what, or, to speak more truly, by God, even without knowing how they were to be refuted, I nevertheless strongly opposed them.”

Here Licentius said: “I am not yet deserting them.” “Then,” said Trygetius, “you disagree with us?” “Do you,” he said, “disagree with Alypius?” I said to him: “I do not doubt that, if Alypius were here, he would yield to this little argument. For he could not think so absurdly that either a man would seem to him happy who did not have so great a good of the mind, which he most ardently wished to have; or that they do not want to find the truth; or that one who is not happy is wise. For from these three, as from honey, meal, and nuts, the thing you are afraid to taste has been made.” “Would he yield to this so shabby allurement of boys, deserting the great abundance of the Academics, whose flood will either overwhelm this little something or drag it away?” “As if,” I said, “we were looking for something long, especially against Alypius; for he himself argues sufficiently from your own body that these small things are not moderately strong and useful. But you, who have chosen to hang on the authority of an absent man, which of these do you not accept? That he is not happy who does not have what he wants? Or do you deny that they want to have found the truth that they seek so intensely? Or does anyone seem to you wise who is not happy?” “He certainly is happy,” he said, smiling as though irritated, “who does not have what he wants.” When I ordered this to be written down, he cried out: “I did not say it.” And when I again nodded for it to be written: “I did say it,” he said. And I had once instructed that not a word should be uttered except to be recorded. So I kept the young man tossed between shame and firmness.

But while with these words we were jokingly urging him to eat his portion, I noticed that the others, ignorant of the whole matter and wanting to know what was going on so pleasantly among us alone, were looking at us without laughing. They seemed to me exactly like those (as often happens) who, dining among very greedy and grasping guests, either keep themselves from snatching out of dignity or are frightened off by shame. And since I had invited them, and you have taught me to play the part of a great man, and, to explain it all, of a true man, as host even at those feasts, that inequality and unevenness of our table disturbed me. I smiled at my mother. And she, quite freely, as if ordering what they lacked to be brought from her own pantry, said: “Now tell us, and explain, who these Academics are and what they mean.” When I had explained it to her briefly and clearly, so that none of them went away ignorant, she said: “These men are epileptics” (the word by which those whom the falling sickness throws down are commonly called among us); and at the same time she got up to go. And at this point we all broke off and departed glad and laughing.

The next day, when after lunch again, but somewhat later than the day before, we had sat down in the same place: “You have come late to the banquet,” I said. “I think this happened to you not from indigestion but from confidence in the small number of dishes, because it did not seem necessary to start so early on what you thought you would soon finish eating. For one could not believe that much was left over when little had been found on the day itself and its festival. Perhaps rightly. But what has been prepared for you I too, like you, do not know. For there is another who never ceases to provide all feasts to all, and above all such feasts as these; but we often cease from eating through weakness, or fullness, or business. Yesterday, unless I am mistaken, we piously and firmly agreed among ourselves that he, remaining in men, makes them happy. For when reason had shown that he is happy who has God, and none of you had resisted this opinion, it was asked what you thought it is to have God. On this, if I remember rightly, three opinions were given. Some held that he has God who does what God wills; others said that he has God who lives well; and to the rest God seemed to be in those in whom there is not what is called an unclean spirit.

“But perhaps you all meant one and the same thing in different words. For if we consider the first two, both everyone who lives well does what God wills, and everyone who does what God wills lives well; and to live well is nothing other than to do what pleases God, unless you think otherwise.” They agreed. “But that third answer must be considered a little more carefully, because in the rite of the most chaste sacred mysteries, as far as I understand, an unclean spirit is usually spoken of in two ways: either the one that invades the soul from outside, disturbs the senses, and brings a kind of madness on men, and those charged with casting it out are said to lay on hands or to exorcize, that is, to drive it out by adjuring it by divine things; or, in another way, every unclean soul whatever is called an unclean spirit, which is nothing other than a soul defiled by vices and errors. So I ask you, boy, who perhaps gave that opinion from a somewhat calmer and purer spirit: who seems to you not to have an unclean spirit? Is it the one who does not have a demon, by which men are usually made mad, or the one who has already cleansed his soul of all vices and sins?” “He seems to me,” he said, “not to have an unclean spirit who lives chastely.” “But whom do you call chaste?” I said. “The one who does not sin at all, or only the one who refrains from unlawful intercourse?” “How,” he said, “can a man be chaste if, abstaining only from unlawful intercourse, he does not stop being defiled by other sins? He is truly chaste who attends to God and holds himself to him alone.” When I had had the boy's words written down just as they were spoken, I said: “Then such a man must live well, and whoever lives well is necessarily such, unless you think otherwise.” He granted it with the others. “So here,” I said, “one opinion has been stated.”