; for,
hitherto, owing perhaps to my fault, you do not perceive what it is that I
am seeking. I am attending, said he; and I am waiting to see what answer
you will make to the questions that I ask.

XXVII. I will answer, said I, that I am not inquiring at present what
virtue can effect, but what is said consistently on the subject, and why
the assertions are at variance with one another. How so? said he. Because,
said I, when this pompous assertion is uttered by Zeno, as if he were an
oracle,--"Virtue requires nothing beyond herself to enable a man to live
happily"--why? said he--"Because there is no other good except what is
honourable." I do not ask now whether that is true; I only say that what
he says is admirably consistent. Epicurus will say the same thing--"that
the wise man is always happy;" which, indeed, he is in the habit of
spouting out sometimes. And he says that this wise man, when he is being
torn to pieces with the most exquisite pains, will say, "How pleasant it
is! how I disregard it!" I will not argue with the man as to why there is
so much power in nature; I will only urge that he does not understand what
he ought to say, after he has said that pain is the greatest evil.

Now I will address the same language to you. You say that all the goods
and evils are the same that those men pronounce them to be who have never
even seen a philosopher in a picture, as the saying is--namely, health,
strength, stature, beauty, the soundness of all a man's nails, you call
good--deformity, disease, weakness you call evils. These are all externals;
do not go on any more; but at all events you will reckon these things
among the goods, as the goods of the body which help to compose them,
namely, friends, children, relations, riches, honour, power. Take notice
that I say nothing against this. If those are evils into which a wise man
can fall, then it follows that to be a wise man is not sufficient to
secure a happy life. Indeed, said he, it is very little towards securing a
perfectly happy one, but enough for securing a tolerably happy one.

I have noticed, said he, that you made this distinction a little while
ago, and I know that our friend Antiochus used to speak in this manner.
But what can be less approved of than the idea of a person being happy,
and yet not happy enough? For when anything is enough, then whatever is
added to that is excess: and no one is too happy: and no one is happier
than a happy man. Therefor