ily, nor relaxed by extravagant mirth--such a
man is that identical wise man whom we are inquiring for: he is the
happy man, to whom nothing in this life seems intolerable enough to
depress him; nothing exquisite enough to transport him unduly. For what
is there in this life that can appear great to him who has acquainted
himself with eternity and the utmost extent of the universe? For what
is there in human knowledge, or the short span of this life, that can
appear great to a wise man? whose mind is always so upon its guard that
nothing can befall him which is unforeseen, nothing which is
unexpected, nothing, in short, which is new. Such a man takes so exact
a survey on all sides of him, that he always knows the proper place and
spot to live in free from all the troubles and annoyances of life, and
encounters every accident that fortune can bring upon him with a
becoming calmness. Whoever conducts himself in this manner will be free
from grief, and from every other perturbation; and a mind free from
these feelings renders men completely happy; whereas a mind disordered
and drawn off from right and unerring reason loses at once, not only
its resolution, but its health.--Therefore the thoughts and
declarations of the Peripatetics are soft and effeminate, for they say
that the mind must necessarily be agitated, but at the same time they
lay down certain bounds beyond which that agitation is not to proceed.
And do you set bounds to vice? or is it no vice to disobey reason? Does
not reason sufficiently declare that there is no real good which you
should desire too ardently, or the possession of which you should allow
to transport you? and that there is no evil that should be able to
overwhelm you, or the suspicion of which should distract you? and that
all these things assume too melancholy or too cheerful an appearance
through our own error? But if fools find this error lessened by time,
so that, though the cause remains the same, they are not affected, in
the same manner, after some time, as they were at first, why, surely a
wise man ought not to be influenced at all by it. But what are those
degrees by which we are to limit it? Let us fix these degrees in grief,
a difficult subject, and one much canvassed.--Fannius writes that P.
Rutilius took it much to heart that his brother was refused the
consulship; but he seems to have been too much affected by this
disappointment, for it was the occasion of his death: he ought,
the