ong a life, which was of no
use to them, but allowing only so short a span to men, to whom length of
days would have been of the greatest use; for if the life of man could
have been lengthened, it would have been able to provide itself with all
kinds of learning, and with arts in the greatest perfection. He lamented,
therefore, that he was dying just when he had begun to discover these.
What? does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge
himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things
which he must learn over and over again? and yet, though these men are
sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than
which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because no
opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this
knowledge. What shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man to
grieve? amongst whom we may reckon Q. Maximus, when he buried his son that
had been consul, and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few days of one
another. Of the same opinion was M. Cato, who lost his son just after he
had been elected praetor, and many others, whose names I have collected in
my book on Consolation. Now what made these men so easy, but their
persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming in a man?
Therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an opinion that it is
right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an opinion that it was
discreditable; from which we may infer that grief is owing more to opinion
than nature.

XXIX. It may be said, on the other side, Who is so mad as to grieve of his
own accord? Pain proceeds from nature; which you must submit to, say they,
agreeably to what even your own Crantor teaches, for it presses and gains
upon you unavoidably, and cannot possibly be resisted. So that the very
same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had before comforted Telamon on the death
of Ajax, on hearing of the death of his own son is broken-hearted. On this
alteration of his mind we have these lines:--

Show me the man so well by wisdom taught
That what he charges to another's fault,
When like affliction doth himself betide,
True to his own wise counsel will abide.(96)

Now when they urge these things, their endeavour is to prove that nature
is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people allow that
we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires. What madness is
it the