On the Nature of Man 33–38

What, then, is choice? Is it the voluntary, since everything done by choice is also voluntary? But the converse does not hold, as it would if the voluntary and choice were the same; in fact we find the voluntary wider. Every choice is voluntary, but not everything voluntary is by choice. Children and irrational animals act voluntarily, but not by choice. Whatever we do through anger without forethought we do voluntarily, but not by choice. A friend comes upon us suddenly: voluntarily, so that we are pleased, but not by choice. One who unexpectedly finds a treasure comes upon a windfall voluntarily, but not by choice. From all this it follows that the voluntary is not the same as choice. Is choice, then, appetite? Not this either. For appetite is divided into three, desire, anger and wish. That choice is neither anger nor desire is clear from the fact that men share with irrational animals not in choice but in desire and anger. If we share in these but differ in choice, clearly choice is one thing and anger and desire another. The incontinent man shows it too, being conquered by desire and acting according to it, but not according to choice; for in him choice opposes desire. If they were the same, they would not fight. And the continent man, acting by choice, does not act according to desire. That choice is not wish either is clear from this: not everything to which choosing applies does wishing apply to. We say that we wish to be healthy, but no one would say that he chooses to be healthy; and we say we wish to be rich, but not that we choose to be rich. Again, wishing applies even to impossibilities, choosing only to what is in our power. Thus we say, “I wish to become immortal,” but we do not say, “I choose to become immortal.” For wish is of the end, choice of the means to the end, in the same proportion as the object of wish stands to the object of deliberation: the object of wish is the end, the objects of deliberation the means to the end. Again, we choose only what we think can come about through us; but we wish also for what cannot come about through us, such as that some general should win. That choice is neither anger, nor desire, nor wish has been sufficiently shown. That it is not opinion either becomes clear by the same proofs and others. For opinion concerns not only what is in our power but also what is not. Again, we call opinion true and false, but we do not call choice true and false. And opinion is of universals, choice of particulars, for choice concerns things to be done, and these are particulars. Nor is choice deliberation, that is, counsel. Deliberation is inquiry about things to be done by oneself; the object of choice is what has been preferred as a result of deliberation. It is clear, then, that deliberation concerns things still being inquired into, and choice things already decided.

What choice is not, then, has been said; let us say what it is. It is something mixed of counsel, judgment and appetite: neither appetite by itself, nor judgment, nor counsel alone, but what is composed of these. As we say that the living creature is composed of soul and body, and that the living creature is neither body by itself nor soul alone, but both together, so too with choice. That it is a kind of counsel and deliberation with a decision, though not counsel itself, is clear also from the etymology; for what is chosen (προαιρετόν) is what is taken (αἱρετόν) before (πρό) another. And no one prefers anything without having deliberated, nor chooses without having judged. But since we are not eager to put into action everything that seems good to us, what has been preferred as a result of counsel becomes choice and object of choice when it takes appetite to itself. Necessarily, then, choice concerns the same things as counsel. It follows from this that choice is deliberative appetite for things in our power, or appetitive deliberation of things in our power; for when we choose, we aim at what has been preferred as a result of counsel. Since we said that choice concerns the same things as counsel, let us make clear what counsel is concerned with, and about what we deliberate.

Before saying what we deliberate about, it is better to determine how counsel differs from inquiry. For counsel and inquiry are not the same, even if one who deliberates deliberates by inquiring into something; they differ greatly. We inquire whether the sun is larger than the earth, but no one says, “I am deliberating whether the sun is larger than the earth.” Inquiry is the genus of counsel, for it is said of more things: every counsel is a kind of inquiry, but not every inquiry is counsel; this has been shown. “To consider” we use sometimes of deliberating, as “I am considering whether I should sail,” and sometimes of studying, as “I am considering my lessons”; I do not deliberate about my lessons. We are often confused when we hear words without distinguishing them, and take what is not the same as the same. The difference among these having been made plain, it remains to say what we deliberate about.

We deliberate, then, about things that are in our power, that can come about through us, and whose outcome is unclear, that is, which can happen this way or otherwise. “In our power” has been said because we deliberate only about things to be done, for these are in our power. We do not deliberate about what is called contemplative philosophy: neither about God, nor about things that happen of necessity (by necessity I mean what always happens in the same way, such as the cycle of the year), nor about things that do not always exist but always happen alike, such as the setting and rising of the sun, nor about things that happen by nature but not always alike, but for the most part, such as a man of sixty going grey or a man of twenty growing a beard; nor about things that happen by nature but now one way and now another without definition, such as rain, drought or hail; nor about things said to happen by chance, which are among the things that seldom happen. For these reasons, then, “in our power” has been said. “Through us” was added because we do not deliberate about all men nor about every matter, but only about what is in our power and comes about through us. We do not deliberate how enemies, or people far removed from us, may be well governed, though that is a subject of deliberation for them. Nor do we deliberate about everything that comes about through us and is in our power; “whose outcome is unclear” must be added. For if it is plain and agreed, we no longer deliberate. Nor is there counsel about works or actions done by knowledge or art, for their principles are fixed, except for a few arts, called conjectural, such as medicine, gymnastics and navigation. We deliberate, then, not only about these but about things in our power and through us, whose outcome is unclear and which can be done this way or otherwise. It has been shown that counsel is not about the end but about the means to the end; for we deliberate not about being rich but how and by what means we may become rich. In short, we deliberate about things equally possible.

We must discuss this too, so that the account may lack nothing in clearness. Powers are so called by which we are able to do something; for of everything we do we have the power; and of what we have no power, we have no actions either. Action depends on power, and power on substance; for action comes from power, and power from substance and in substance. These three, then, as we said, depend on one another: the one able, the power, the possible. The one able is the substance; the power is that from which we have the ability; the possible is what is naturally apt to come about according to the power. Of possible things some are necessary, others contingent. Necessary are those that cannot be prevented, or whose opposite is impossible; contingent is what can be prevented, or whose opposite is also possible. For example, it is necessary that a living man breathe; its opposite, a living man not breathing, is impossible. It is contingent that it rain today; but its opposite, that it not rain today, is also possible. Again, of contingent things, some are said to happen for the most part, some seldom, some equally. For the most part, as a man of sixty going grey; seldom, as a man of sixty not going grey; equally, walking and not walking, and in general doing something and not doing it. About these, then, the equally contingent, alone we deliberate. The equally contingent is what we can do, and its opposite too. For if we could not do both, the thing and its opposite, we would not deliberate; no one deliberates about things agreed or about impossibilities. If we could do only one of the opposites, that one would be agreed and in no way doubtful, and its opposite impossible …

Those who ascribe the cause of everything that happens to the revolution of the stars not only fight against common notions but make all civic life useless. Laws become absurd, law courts superfluous in punishing those who are guilty of nothing, blame and praise unreasonable, prayers too without profit, since all things happen by fate; and providence is banished along with piety; besides, man is found to be merely an instrument of the revolution above, since by it, they say, not only the parts of the body but also the thoughts of the soul are moved to their actions. In general, those who say this abolish, together with what is in our power, the nature of the contingent as well, and so they do nothing else than ruin the universe. The stars themselves are unjust, making some adulterers and others murderers; and still more their Creator, God, bears the blame for them, if he made such things as lay the infliction of evils on us of necessity; so that the absurdity of their view does not stop at civic life but even declares God the cause of the greatest evils.

[Others say that] both what is in our power and fate are preserved: for to each thing that comes into being something is given by fate, as to water cooling, to each plant bearing such and such fruit, to stone moving downward and to fire upward; so too to the living creature it is given to assent and to have impulse; and when nothing external and fated opposes this impulse, then walking is wholly in our power, and we shall certainly walk. Those who say this (they are among the Stoics, Chrysippus and Philopator and many other distinguished men) prove nothing else than that all things happen by fate. For if they say that impulses too are given us by fate, and that they are sometimes hindered by fate and sometimes not, it is clear that all things happen by fate, even those that seem to be in our power. And again we shall use the same arguments against them, showing the absurdity of the opinion. If, as they themselves say, when the same causes are present it is altogether necessary that the same things happen, and it is impossible for them to happen now in one way and now in another, because they have been so allotted from eternity, then the impulse of the living creature too must necessarily, in every way and always, happen in the same way when the same causes are present. And if the impulse too follows of necessity, where then is what is in our power? What is in our power must be free; and it would be free only if, the same circumstances being present, it were in our power sometimes to have impulse and sometimes not. If having impulse follows of necessity, it is clear that the things of impulse too will happen by fate, even though they happen through us and according to our nature, impulse and judgment. For if it were possible for the impulse not to occur, the premise would be false that says that when the same causes are present the same things must follow. So it will be found with irrational and soulless things too. If they place impulse in our power because we have it by nature, what prevents us from saying that burning is in the power of fire, since fire burns by nature? Philopator seems to suggest this in his work On Fate. So what happens through us by fate is not in our power. By the same reasoning, lyres, flutes and other instruments, and all irrational and soulless things, will have something in their power, when certain things act through them. But this is absurd.

Against the wise men of the Egyptians, who say that fate through the stars is true but is turned aside by prayers and averting rites (for there are, they say, certain services of these very stars which propitiate them, and certain other powers above them that can turn them, and for this reason prayers, services of the gods and averting rites have been devised), we shall say that they make fate a matter of the contingent and not of the necessary; but the contingent is indefinite, and the indefinite unknowable. By this all divination is abolished, and especially that of the so-called casters of nativities, which they honour above the others as something firm and true. If they say that the effects of the configurations are evident and known to the experts, but that when a configuration does not turn out according to its proper power, a god has prevented it, we shall say that this too is absurd. First, because they place only prayer and the service of the gods in our power, and nothing else. Next, we shall dispute with them how, when all other human actions and choices lie in the relation of the stars, prayer alone is in our power. It is hard to see for what cause this is so, and what that cause is. Then, if there is an art and method of averting rites that prevents the effects of fate, is the method attainable by all men, or by some and not by others? If by all, nothing prevents fate from being entirely overturned, since all have learned the art that prevents its effects. If it is attainable by some and not by others, by which, and who determines this? If fate itself makes some servants of the divine and does not make others, all things will again be found to be by fate; for prayer and service, which alone is in our power, now appears to be no less, but even more, a matter of fate. If not fate but something else is the cause of these, that will rather appear to be fate; for in being able or unable to succeed by prayer the whole power of fate is contained. For those who are able, fate is nothing; for those who are unable, all things are by fate. So it will be found that for some men all things are by fate, for others nothing; and clearly whatever determines this is itself the most sovereign fate; and so again all things will be found to be by fate. Besides, the one who distributes this, whether some spirit or some other fate, is unjust; for he does not distribute to men according to worth the method of serving the gods. Why is this man more worthy than that, when all are instruments of fate and no one does anything by his own choice, or rather no one even deliberates? Among things that happen so, no one is just or unjust, and so no one is worthy or unworthy of favour; but one who distributes unequal things to equals is unjust.

Those who say that the choice of things to be done is in our power, but the outcome of what is chosen depends on fate (they are the wisest of the Greeks), are partly right and partly wrong. They are quite right to place the choice of actions in our power and not in every case their outcomes; but not right to attach these to fate. They will be refuted, first, for making fate incomplete, if it has one thing and not the other; next, for making it a consequence of our decision, since they say the works of fate follow this; and so fate will be found to be moved by us rather than moving us, and man more sovereign than fate, since he shapes it by his choice. They ought rather to say that providence is the cause of the outcome of things; for this is the work of providence rather than of fate. It is proper to providence to distribute to each according to what is advantageous to each; and for this reason the outcome of what is chosen will sometimes come about, according to what is advantageous, and sometimes not. But fate, being an inviolable chain of causes (so the Stoics define it), that is, an unchangeable order and connection, brings about the ends not according to what is advantageous but according to its own movement and necessity. What would they say about the wholly foolish and stupid, who for this reason have no choice? Is their being so present to them by fate or not? If not by fate, they will be outside fate; if by fate, it follows necessarily that choice is not in our power either. For those who put what lacks choice under fate must necessarily put what has choice there too; and so they will run back to the first group, those who say that all things are by fate. The battle of reason and desire in the continent and the incontinent man is superfluous too. For if it has been determined of necessity that one will act and the other will not, what need is there of the strife and contention within him? But it has also been co-fated for him not only to act, but to act in such a way. What else does one who says this say, but that choice too is among the things decreed by fate? For it is choice that fights with desire, winning in the continent, defeated in the incontinent. So the premise they started from is abolished; for choice is no longer in our power.

Plato speaks of fate in two ways: one in substance, the other in activity. In substance, it is the soul of the universe; in activity, a divine law that cannot be transgressed, because of a cause that cannot be escaped. He calls this the ordinance of Adrasteia. This law, he says, was given by the first and highest God to the soul of the universe for the ordering of all things, and by it what comes to be is carried out. This fate in activity he also says is according to providence; for fate is contained in providence: everything that is by fate also happens according to providence, but not everything according to providence is by fate. The divine law itself, which he says is at once providence and fate, contains all things in itself, some by hypothesis and some from hypothesis. It contains the leading causes, as certain principles, by hypothesis, namely those that are in our power, assents, judgments and impulses; and what necessarily follows these, from hypothesis. The choice of things to be done that is in our power is by hypothesis; and when what is in our power is laid down, the things of fate follow from them as from a hypothesis. For example, it lies in our power to sail; this is by hypothesis. When our sailing is laid down, what follows from this hypothesis follows: being shipwrecked or not. Therefore he calls “from hypothesis” what attends and follows the hypotheses in our power, that is, the principles and actions; so that the leading things, in our power, are by hypothesis, and the things that follow are from hypothesis and not in our power but of necessity. For what is by fate has not been determined from eternity, but follows upon what is in our power going before. With this agrees also the saying, “The blame is the chooser's; God is blameless,” and that virtue has no master, and that there is divination. His whole argument tends to this, that choices and some of the actions done by choice are in our power, but what follows them, and the ends, depend on fate of necessity. But this was shown earlier not to be right. In so far as he calls fate God's ordinance and will, and puts fate under providence, he differs little from the divine oracles, which say that providence alone governs all things; but he differs greatly in saying that the ends follow of necessity upon what is in our power. For we say that the things of providence are brought about not by necessity but contingently. If by necessity, first, a large part of prayer is cut away; for on his account prayer will concern only the beginnings of actions, so that we may choose the better; after the choice, prayer is vain, since what follows comes on of necessity in any case. But we hold that prayer avails most of all in these very things. For it is a matter of providence whether the one who sails is shipwrecked or not, but neither of these of necessity, rather contingently. For God is not under necessity, nor is it right to say that his will is a slave to necessity, for he is the Creator even of necessity. He imposed necessity on the stars, so that they always move in the same way; he bounded the sea; and he set a necessary limit to universal and general things, which they may call fate if they wish, since it always and in every way happens so of necessity, as that all things in succession perish in coming to be; there is no argument about this, for we do not dispute with them about names. But he himself not only stands outside all necessity but is its lord and maker. For being authority and a nature with authority, he does nothing by necessity of nature or by ordinance of law; all things are contingent for him, even the necessary ones. To show this, he once stopped the course of the sun and the moon, which are carried by necessity and are always the same, to show that nothing happens to him by necessity, but all things by authority and contingently. He made such a day only once, as Scripture noted, only to show this and not to dissolve the ordinance he had laid down from the beginning for the necessary course of the stars. So too he keeps some men alive, such as Elijah and Enoch, though they are mortal and subject to corruption, so that through all these things we may perceive his authority and his will, which is under no compulsion.

The Stoics say that when the planets return to the same sign, in longitude and latitude, where each was at the beginning when the world was first formed, at fixed periods of time they bring about a conflagration and destruction of all things, and again the world is restored anew to the same state; and as the stars move again in the same way, everything that happened in the former period is brought about without variation. For there will again be Socrates and Plato and each man, with the same friends and fellow citizens; they will suffer the same things, meet the same people, and handle the same affairs; and every city, village and field will be restored likewise. The restoration of the universe happens not once but many times, or rather to infinity, and the same things are restored without end. The gods, who are not subject to destruction, having followed one period, know from it everything that will be in the following periods; for there will be nothing strange compared with what happened before, but all things alike and unchanged down to the least. And some say that because of this restoration the Christians imagine the resurrection, greatly mistaken; for the words of Christ teach that the resurrection will happen once, and not by periods.