there is such a thing as a happy life, it is to be gloried in,
spoken of, and commended by the person who enjoys it: for there is nothing
excepting that which can be spoken of, or gloried in; and when that is
once admitted, you know what follows. Now, unless an honourable life is a
happy life, there must of course be something preferable to a happy life:
for that which is honourable, all men will certainly grant to be
preferable to anything else. And thus there will be something better than
a happy life; but what can be more absurd than such an assertion? What!
when they grant vice to be effectual to the rendering life miserable, must
they not admit that there is a corresponding power in virtue to make life
happy? For contraries follow from contraries. And here I ask, what weight
they think there is in the balance of Critolaus, who, having put the goods
of the mind into one scale, and the goods of the body and other external
advantages into the other, thought the goods of the mind outweighed the
others so far, that they would require the whole earth and sea to equalise
the scale.

XVIII. What hinders Critolaus, then, or that gravest of philosophers,
Xenocrates (who raises virtue so high, and who lessens and depreciates
everything else), from not only placing a happy life, but the happiest
possible life, in virtue? and, indeed, if this were not the case, virtue
would be absolutely lost. For whoever is subject to grief, must
necessarily be subject to fear too; for fear is an uneasy apprehension of
future grief: and whoever is subject to fear is liable to dread, timidity,
consternation, cowardice. Therefore, such a person may, some time or
other, be defeated, and not think himself concerned with that precept of
Atreus,--

And let men so conduct themselves in life,
As to be always strangers to defeat.

But such a man, as I have said, will be defeated; and not only defeated,
but made a slave of. But we would have virtue always free, always
invincible; and were it not so, there would be an end of virtue. But if
virtue has in herself all that is necessary for a good life, she is
certainly sufficient for happiness: virtue is certainly sufficient, too,
for our living with courage; if with courage, then with a magnanimous
spirit, and indeed so as never to be under any fear, and thus to be always
invincible.--Hence it follows, that there can be nothing to be repented of,
no wants, no lets or hindrances. Thus all thi