as to yield flowers, fruit,
or berries, that all may have every perfection that belongs to it,
provided no violence prevents it. 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 wil