ts that it was preferable to it; he says it was not more to be
sought after, but still to be taken in preference; and that if one had a
choice, one would choose the life of Metellus, and reject that of Regulus.
What then he calls preferable, and worthy to be chosen in preference, I
call happier; and yet I do not attribute more importance to that sort of
life than the Stoics do. For what difference is there between us, except
that I call well-known things by well-known names, and that they seek for
new terms to express the same ideas? And so, as there is always some one
in the senate who wants an interpreter, we, too, must listen to them with
an interpreter. I call that good which is in accordance with nature; and
whatever is contrary to nature I call evil. Nor do I alone use the
definition; you do also, O Chrysippus, in the forum and at home; but in
the school you discard it. What then? Do you think that men in general
ought to speak in one way, and philosophers in another, as to the
importance of which everything is? that learned men should hold one
language, and unlearned ones another? But as learned men are agreed of how
much importance everything is, (if they were men, they would speak in the
usual fashion,) why, as long as they leave the facts alone, they are
welcome to mould the names according to their fancy.

XXX. But I come now to the charge of inconsistency, that you may not
repeat that I am making digressions; which you think exist only in
language, but which I used to consider depended on the subject of which
one was speaking. If it is sufficiently perceived (and here we have most
excellent assistance from the Stoics), that the power of virtue is so
great, that if everything else were put on the opposite side, it would not
be even visible, when all things which they admit at least to be
advantages, and to deserve to be taken, and chosen, and preferred, and
which they define as worthy of being highly estimated; when, I say, I call
these things goods which have so many names given them by the Stoics, some
of which are new, and invented expressly for them, such as _producta_ and
_reducta_, and some of which are merely synonymous; (for what difference
can it make whether you wish for a thing or choose it? that which is
chosen, and on which deliberate choice is exercised, appears to me to be
the better) still, when I have called all these things goods, the question
is merely how great goods I call them; when I say