ver we call either honorable or base, and could
declare of us that we were employed about words, and uttering mere
empty sounds; and that nothing is to be regarded by us but as it is
perceived to be smooth or rough by the body? What! shall such a man as
this, as I said, whose understanding is little superior to the beasts',
be at liberty to forget himself; and not only to despise fortune, when
the whole of his good and evil is in the power of fortune, but to say
that he is happy in the most racking torture, when he had actually
declared pain to be not only the greatest evil, but the only one? Nor
did he take any trouble to provide himself with those remedies which
might have enabled him to bear pain, such as firmness of mind, a shame
of doing anything base, exercise, and the habit of patience, precepts
of courage, and a manly hardiness; but he says that he supports himself
on the single recollection of past pleasures, as if any one, when the
weather was so hot as that he was scarcely able to bear it, should
comfort himself by recollecting that he was once in my country,
Arpinum, where he was surrounded on every side by cooling streams. For
I do not apprehend how past pleasures can allay present evils. But when
he says that a wise man is always happy who would have no right to say
so if he were consistent with himself, what may they not do who allow
nothing to be desirable, nothing to be looked on as good but what is
honorable? Let, then, the Peripatetics and Old Academics follow my
example, and at length leave off muttering to themselves; and openly
and with a clear voice let them be bold to say that a happy life may
not be inconsistent with the agonies of Phalaris's bull.

XXVII. But to dismiss the subtleties of the Stoics, which I am sensible
I have employed more than was necessary, let us admit of three kinds of
goods; and let them really be kinds of goods, provided no regard is had
to the body and to external circumstances, as entitled to the
appellation of good in any other sense than because we are obliged to
use them: but let those other divine goods spread themselves far in
every direction, and reach the very heavens. Why, then, may I not call
him happy, nay, the happiest of men, who has attained them? Shall a
wise man be afraid of pain? which is, indeed, the greatest enemy to our
opinion. For I am persuaded that we are prepared and fortified
sufficiently, by the disputations of the foregoing days, against our
o