.

Those ancients, then, must have been far from clever, to think that life
more desirable, better, and happier. But the Stoics think it only to be
preferred if one has a choice; not because this life is happier, but
because it is better adapted to nature; and they think that all who are
not wise are equally miserable. The Stoics, forsooth, thought this; but it
had entirely escaped the perception of those philosophers who preceded
them, for they thought that men stained with all sorts of parricide and
wickedness were not at all more miserable than those who, though they
lived purely and uprightly, had not yet attained complete wisdom.

And while on this topic, you brought forth those similes which they are in
the habit of employing, which are, in truth, no similes at all. For who is
ignorant that, if many men should choose to emerge from the deep, those
would be nearer breathing who came close to the surface, but still would
not be actually able to breathe any more than those who are at the bottom?
Therefore, on your principles, it is of no avail to make progress and
advancement in virtue, in order to be less utterly miserable before you
have actually arrived at it, since it is of no use in the case of men in
the water. And since puppies who are on the point of opening their eyes,
are just as blind as those that are but this moment born; it is plain also
that Plato, as he had not yet seen wisdom, was as blind in his intellect
as Phalaris.

XXIV. These cases are not alike, Cato. For in these instances, though you
may have made a good deal of progress, still you are in exactly the same
evil from which you wish to be free, till you have entirely escaped. For a
man does not breathe till he has entirely emerged, and puppies are just as
blind till they have opened their eyes, as if they were never going to
open them. I will give you some instances that really are like. One man's
eyes are bad, another is weak in his body; these men are both gradually
relieved by the daily application of remedies. The one gets better every
day, and the other sees better. Now these men resemble all those who study
virtue. They are relieved of their vices; they are relieved of their
errors. Unless, perchance, you think that Tiberius Gracchus, the father,
was not happier than his son, when the one laboured to establish the
republic, and the other to subvert it. And yet he was not a wise man. For
who taught him wisdom? or when? or where? or when