he cannot find anything in the life of debauched men which deserves
blame. You then, who regulate everything by the standard of pleasure,
cannot either defend or maintain virtue. For he does not deserve to be
accounted a virtuous or a just man who abstains from injustice in order to
avoid suffering evil. You know the line, I suppose--

He's not a pious man whom fear constrains
To acts of piety ... a man--

And nothing can be more true. For a man is not just while he is in a state
of alarm. And certainly when he ceases to be in fear, he will not be just.
But he will not be afraid if he is able to conceal his actions, or if he
is able, by means of his great riches and power, to support what he has
done. And he will certainly prefer being regarded as a good man, though he
is not one, to being a good man and not being thought one. And so, beyond
all question, instead of genuine and active justice, you give us only an
effigy of justice, and you teach us, as it were, to disregard our own
unvarying conscience, and to go hunting after the fleeting vagabond
opinions of others.

And the same may be said of the other virtues also; the foundation of all
which you place in pleasure, which is like building on water. For what are
we to say? Can we call that same Torquatus a brave man? For I am
delighted, though I cannot, as you say, bribe you; I am delighted with
your family and with your name. And, in truth, I have before my eyes Aulus
Torquatus,(37) a most excellent man, and one greatly attached to me; and
both of you must certainly be aware how great and how eminent his zeal in
my behalf was in those times which are well known to every one. And that
conduct of his would not have been delightful to me, who wish both to be,
and to be considered, grateful, if I did not see clearly that he was
friendly to me for my own sake, not for his own; unless, indeed, you say,
it was for his own sake, because it is for the interest of every one to
act rightly. If you say that, we have gained our point. For what we are
aiming at, what we are contending for, is, that duty itself is the reward
of duty. But that master of yours will not admit this, and requires
pleasure to result from every action as a sort of wages.

However, I return to him. If it was for the sake of pleasure that
Torquatus, when challenged, fought with the Gaul on the Anio, and out of
his spoils took his chain and earned his surname, or if it was for any
other reaso