f it be admitted that
virtue is sufficient to secure a happy life, it may also be inferred
that nothing is good except what is honorable. They, however, do not
proceed in this manner; for they would separate books about what is
honorable, and what is the chief good; and when they have demonstrated
from the one that virtue has power enough to make life happy, yet they
treat this point separately; for everything, and especially a subject
of such great consequence, should be supported by arguments and
exhortations which belong to that alone. For you should have a care how
you imagine philosophy to have uttered anything more noble, or that she
has promised anything more fruitful or of greater consequence, for,
good Gods! doth she not engage that she will render him who submits to
her laws so accomplished as to be always armed against fortune, and to
have every assurance within himself of living well and happily--that he
shall, in short, be forever happy? But let us see what she will
perform? In the mean while, I look upon it as a great thing that she
has even made such a promise. For Xerxes, who was loaded with all the
rewards and gifts of fortune, not satisfied with his armies of horse
and foot, nor the multitude of his ships, nor his infinite treasure of
gold, offered a reward to any one who could find out a new pleasure;
and yet, when it was discovered, he was not satisfied with it; nor can
there ever be an end to lust. I wish we could engage any one by a
reward to produce something the better to establish us in this belief.

VIII. _A._ I wish that, indeed, myself; but I want a little
information. For I allow that in what you have stated the one
proposition is the consequence of the other; that as, if what is
honorable be the only good, it must follow that a happy life is the
effect of virtue: so that if a happy life consists in virtue, nothing
can be good but virtue. But your friend Brutus, on the authority of
Aristo and Antiochus, does not see this; for he thinks the case would
be the same even if there were anything good besides virtue.

_M._ What, then? do you imagine that I am going to argue against
Brutus?

_A._ You may do what you please; for it is not for me to prescribe what
you shall do.

_M._ How these things agree together shall be examined somewhere else;
for I frequently discussed that point with Antiochus, and lately with
Aristo, when, during the period of my command as general, I was lodging
with him