But the force of Nature itself may be more easily
discovered in animals, as she has bestowed sense on them. For some
animals she has taught to swim, and designed to be inhabitants of the
water; others she has enabled to fly, and has willed that they should
enjoy the boundless air; some others she has made to creep, others to
walk. Again, of these very animals, some are solitary, some gregarious,
some wild, others tame, some hidden and buried beneath the earth, and
every one of these maintains the law of nature, confining itself to
what was bestowed on it, and unable to change its manner of life. And
as every animal has from nature something that distinguishes it, which
every one maintains and never quits; so man has something far more
excellent, though everything is said to be excellent by comparison. But
the human mind, being derived from the divine reason, can be compared
with nothing but with the Deity itself, if I may be allowed the
expression. This, then, if it is improved, and when its perception is
so preserved as not to be blinded by errors, becomes a perfect
understanding, that is to say, absolute reason, which is the very same
as virtue. And if everything is happy which wants nothing, and is
complete and perfect in its kind, and that is the peculiar lot of
virtue, certainly all who are possessed of virtue are happy. And in
this I agree with Brutus, and also with Aristotle, Xenocrates,
Speusippus, Polemon.

XIV. To me such are the only men who appear completely happy; for what
can he want to a complete happy life who relies on his own good
qualities, or how can he be happy who does not rely on them? But he who
makes a threefold division of goods must necessarily be diffident, for
how can he depend on having a sound body, or that his fortune shall
continue? But no one can be happy without an immovable, fixed, and
permanent good. What, then, is this opinion of theirs? So that I think
that saying of the Spartan may be applied to them, who, on some
merchant's boasting before him that he had despatched ships to every
maritime coast, replied that a fortune which depended on ropes was not
very desirable. Can there be any doubt that whatever may be lost cannot
be properly classed in the number of those things which complete a
happy life? for of all that constitutes a happy life, nothing will
admit of withering, or growing old, or wearing out, or decaying; for
whoever is apprehensive of any loss of these things cannot