ckness, it is not doubtful to which of them
nature herself will conduct us: but, nevertheless, that the power of
honourableness is so great, and that it is so far better than, and
superior to, everything else, that it can never be moved by any
punishments or by any bribes from that which it has decided to be right;
and that everything which appears hard, difficult, or unfortunate, can be
dissipated by those virtues with which we have been adorned by nature; not
because they are trivial or contemptible--or else where would be the merit
of the virtues?--but that we might infer from such an event, that it was
not in them that the main question of living happily or unhappily
depended.

In short, the things which Zeno has called estimable, and worth choosing,
and suitable to nature, they call goods; but they call that a happy life
which consists of those things which I have mentioned, or, if not of all,
at least of the greatest number of them, and of the most important. But
Zeno calls that the only good which has some peculiar beauty of its own to
make it desirable; and he calls that life alone happy which is passed with
virtue.

XXII. If we are to discuss the reality of the case, then there cannot
possibly, Cato, be any disagreement between you and me: for there is
nothing on which you and I have different opinions; let us only compare
the real circumstances, after changing the names. Nor, indeed, did he fail
to see this; but he was delighted with the magnificence and splendour of
the language: and if he really felt what he said, and what his words
intimate, then what would be the difference between him and Pyrrho or
Aristo? But if he did not approve of them, then what was his object in
differing in language with those men with whom he agreed in reality?

What would you do if these Platonic philosophers, and those, too, who were
their pupils, were to come to life again, and address you thus:--"As, O
Marcus Cato, we heard that you were a man exceedingly devoted to
philosophy, a most just citizen, an excellent judge, and a most
conscientious witness, we marvelled what the reason was why you preferred
the Stoics to us; for they, on the subject of good and evil things,
entertain those opinions which Zeno learnt from Polemo; and use those
names which, when they are first heard, excite wonder, but when they are
explained, move only ridicule. But if you approved those doctrines so
much, why did you not maintain them in their own