(25) Through mental perversity some men do not desire pleasure. In reality, however, pleasure (especially of a physical nature) is the true end of existence and exceeds in every way mental and spiritual enjoyments. Pleasure, furthermore, is limited wholly to the moment; now is the only time. The past cannot be regarded without regret and the future cannot be faced without misgiving; therefore neither is conducive to pleasure. No man should grieve, for grief is the most serious of all diseases. Nature permits man to do anything he desires; he is limited only by his own laws and customs. A philosopher is one free from envy, love, and superstition, and whose days are one long round of pleasure. Indulgence was thus elevated by Aristippus to the chief position among the virtues. He further declared philosophers to differ markedly from other men in that they alone would not change the order of their lives if all the laws of men were abolished. Among prominent philosophers influenced by the Cyrenaic doctrines were Hegesias, Anniceris, Theodorus, and Bion.

(583) intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life. Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he approves of his own life. And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the pleasure which is next? Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honour; who is nearer to himself than the money-maker. Last comes the lover of gain? Very true, he said. Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure—all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls? Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself? I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions. Proceed. Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain? True. And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain? There is. A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either—that is what you mean? Yes. You remember what people say when they are sick? What do they say? That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until

(1) I say that virtue will be found sufficient to the avoidance of infelicity, and vice to the non-attainment of felicity, if we judiciously consider the habits [by which these are produced]. For it is necessary that the bad man should always be miserable; whether he is in affluence, for he employs it badly; or whether he is in penury; just as the blind man, whether he has light, and the most splendid visible object before him, or whether he is in the dark [is always necessarily without sight]. But the good man is not always happy; for felicity does not consist in the possession, but in the use of virtue. For neither does he who has sight always see; for he will not see, if he is without light.

Life, however, is divided into two paths; one of which is more arduous, and in which the patient Ulysses walked; but the other is more free from molestation, and is that in which Nestor proceeded. I say therefore that virtue desires the latter, but is able to proceed in the former of these paths. The nature however of felicity proclaims it to be a desirable and stable life, because it gives perfection to the decision of the soul. Hence the virtuous man who does not obtain such a life as this, is not indeed happy, nor yet entirely miserable. No one therefore will dare to say that the good man should be exempt from disease, and pain, and sorrow. For as we leave certain painful things to the body, so likewise we must permit them to be present with the soul.

The sorrows, however, of fools are most irrational; but those of wise men proceed only as far as reason, which gives limitation to things, permits. Moreover, the boast of apathy dissolves the generosity of virtue, when it opposes itself to things of an indifferent nature, and not to evils such as death, and pain, and poverty. For things which are not evils are easily vanquished. We should therefore exercise ourselves in the mediocrity of the passions, as we shall then equally avoid insensibility, and too much passivity, and shall not speak higher of our nature than we ought.

(27) For the feeling of pleasure is not at all a necessity, but the accompaniment of certain natural needs - hunger, thirst, cold, marriage. If, then, it were possible to drink without it, or take food, or beget children, no other need of it could be shown. For pleasure is neither a function, nor a state, nor any part of us; but has been introduced into life as an auxiliary, as they say salt was to season food. But when it casts off restraint and rules the house, it generates first concupiscence, which is an irrational propension and impulse towards that which gratifies it; and it induced Epicurus to lay down pleasure as the aim of the philosopher. Accordingly he deifies a sound condition of body, and the certain hope respecting it. For what else is luxury than the voluptuous gluttony and the superfluous abundance of those who are abandoned to self-indulgence? Diogenes writes significantly in a tragedy: "Who to the pleasures of effeminate And filthy luxury attached in heart, Wish not to undergo the slightest toil."

(3) Nor does he need cheerfulness of mind; for he does not fall into pain, being persuaded that all things happen well. Nor is he angry; for there is nothing to move him to anger, seeing he ever loves God, and is entirely turned towards Him alone, and therefore hates none of God's creatures. No more does he envy; for nothing is wanting to him, that is requisite to assimilation, in order that he may be excellent and good. Nor does he consequently love any one with this common affection, but loves the Creator in the creatures. Nor, consequently, does he fall into any desire and eagerness; nor does he want, as far as respects his soul, aught appertaining to others, now that he associates through love with the Beloved One, to whom he is allied by free choice, and by the habit which results from training, approaches closer to Him, and is blessed through the abundance of good things.

ALL this equipment the Sage has ordained for the sake of wisdom; so he that seeks to still sorrow must get him wisdom. We deem that there are two verities, the Veiled Truth and the Transcendent Reality. The Reality is beyond the range of the understanding; the understanding is called Veiled Truth.... Thus there is never either cessation or existence; the universe neither comes to be nor halts in being. Life's courses, if thou considerest them, are like dreams and as the plantain's branches; in reality there is no distinction between those that are at rest and those that are not at rest. Since then the forms of being are empty, what can be gained, and what lost? who can be honoured or despised, and by whom? Whence should come joy or sorrow? What is sweet, what bitter? What is desire, and where shall this desire in verity be sought? If thou considerest the world of living things, who shall die therein? who shall be born, who is born? who is a kinsman and who a friend, and to whom? Would that my fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void! They are angered and delighted by their matters of strife and rejoicing; with grief and labour, with despair, with rending and stabbing one another, they wearily pass their days in sin as they seek their own pleasure; they die and fall into hells of long and bitter anguish; they return again and again to happy births after births and grow wonted to joy.... In life are oceans of sorrow, fierce and boundless beyond compare, a scant measure of power, a brief term of years; our years are spent in vain strivings for existence and health, in hunger, faintness, and labour, in sleep, in vexation, in fruitless commerce with fools, and discernment is hard to win; how shall we come to restrain the spirit from its wont of wandering? There, too, the Spirit of Desire is labouring to cast us into deep hells; there evil paths abound, and unbelief can scarce be overcome; it is hard to win j, a brief return, exceeding hard for the Enlightened « to arise to us; the torrent of passion can scarce be stayed. Alas, how sorrow follows on sorrow! Alas, how lamentable is the estate of them that are borne down in the floods of affliction, and in their sore distress see not how sad their plight is, like one who should again and again come forth from the waters of his bath and cast himself into fire, and so in their sore trouble deem themselves to be in happy estate! As thus they live in sport that knows not of age and dissolution, dire afflictions will come upon them, with Death in their forefront. Then when will the day come when I may bring peace to them that are tortured in the fire of sorrow by my ministrations of sweetness born from the rain-clouds of my righteousness, and when I may reverently declare to the souls who imagine a real world that all is void, and righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the Veiled Truth?

(15) "Besides, the pleasures of music, beauty, rich food, and power, do not require to be studied before they can be appreciated by the mind; nor does the body need the example of others before it can enjoy them. We need no teacher to tell us what to like or dislike, to follow or to avoid. Such knowledge is instinctive in man. The world may condemn this view, but which of us is free from the taint?" "The wise man," answered Complacency, "acts for the common weal, in pursuit of which he does not overstep due limits. Wherefore, if there is a sufficiency, he does not strive for more. He has no use for more, and accordingly does not seek it. But if there is not a sufficiency, then he seeks for more. He strives in all directions, yet does not account it greed. If there is a surplus, he declines it. Even though he refused the whole empire, he would not account it honesty. To him, honesty and greed are not conditions into which we are forced by outward circumstances, but characteristics innate in the individual. He may wield the power of the Son of Heaven, but will not employ it for the degradation of others. He may own the whole empire, yet will not use his wealth to take advantage of his fellows. But a calculation of the troubles and the anxieties inseparable therefrom, cause him to reject these as injurious to his nature, not from a desire for reputation. "When Yao and Shun occupied the throne, there was peace. They did not try to be beneficent rulers. They did not inflict injury by doing good. "Shan Chüan and Hsü Yu both declined the proffered throne. Theirs was no empty refusal. They would not cause injury to themselves.

(16) "In all these cases, each individual adopted the profitable course in preference to the injurious course. And the world calls them virtuous, whereby they acquire a reputation at which they never aimed." "It is necessary," argued Discontent, "to cling to reputation. If all pleasures are to be denied to the body and one's energies to be concentrated upon health with a view to the prolongation of life, such life would be itself nothing more than the prolonged illness of a confirmed invalid." "Happiness," said Complacency, "is to be found in contentment. Too much is always a curse, most of all in wealth. "The ears of the wealthy man ring with sounds of sweet music. His palate is cloyed with rich meats and wine. In the pursuit of pleasure, business is forgotten. This is confusion. "He eats and drinks to excess, until his breathing is that of one carrying a heavy load up a hill. This is misery. "He covets money to surround himself with comforts. He covets power to vanquish rivals. But his quiet hours are darkened by diabetes and dropsy. This is disease. "Even when, in his desire for wealth, he has piled up an enormous fortune, he still goes on and cannot desist. This is shame. "Having no use for the money he has collected, he still hugs it to him and cannot bear to part with it. His heart is inflamed, and he ever seeks to add more to the pile. This is unhappiness.

(581) any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them? There can be no doubt of that, he replied. Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless—how shall we know who speaks truly? I cannot myself tell, he said. Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said. Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain? The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted—or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted—the sweetness of learning and knowing truth. Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience?

(2) Such is the Tao of the universe, such is the virtue of the Sage. Wherefore it has been said, "In tranquillity, in stillness, in the unconditioned, in inaction, we find the levels of the universe, the very constitution of Tao." Wherefore it has been said, "The Sage is a negative quantity, and is consequently in a state of passivity. Being passive he is in a state of repose. And where passivity and repose are, there sorrow and anxiety do not enter, and foul influences do not collect. And thus his virtue is complete and his spirituality unimpaired." Wherefore it has been said, "The birth of the Sage is the will of God; his death is but a modification of existence. In repose, he shares the passivity of the Yin; in action, the energy of the Yang. He will have nothing to do with happiness, and so has nothing to do with misfortune. He must be influenced ere he will respond. He must be urged ere he will move. He must be compelled ere he will arise. Ignoring the future and the past, he resigns himself to the laws of God. "And therefore no calamity comes upon him, nothing injures him, no man is against him, no spirit punishes him. He floats through life to rest in death. He has no anxieties; he makes no plans. His honour does not make him illustrious. His good faith reflects no credit upon himself. His sleep is dreamless, his awaking without pain. His spirituality is pure, and his soul vigorous. Thus unconditioned and in repose, he is a partaker of the virtue of God."

(1) [This chapter is supplementary to chapter vi.] Is perfect happiness to be found on earth, or not? Are there those who can enjoy life, or not? If so, what do they do, what do they affect, what do they avoid, what do they rest in, accept, reject, like, and dislike? What the world esteems comprises wealth, rank, old age, and goodness of heart. What it enjoys comprises comfort, rich food, fine clothes, beauty, and music. What it does not esteem comprises poverty, want of position, early death, and evil behaviour. What it does not enjoy comprises lack of comfort for the body, lack of rich food for the palate, lack of fine clothes for the back, lack of beauty for the eye, and lack of music for the ear. If men do not get these, they are greatly miserable. Yet from the point of view of our physical frame, this is folly. Wealthy people who toil and moil, putting together more money than they can possibly use,—from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this going beyond the mark? Officials of rank who turn night into day in their endeavours to compass the best ends;—from the point of view of our physical frame, is not this a divergence? Man is born to sorrow, and what misery is theirs whose old age with dulled faculties only means prolonged sorrow! From the point of view of our physical frame, this is going far astray. Patriots are in the world's opinion admittedly good. Yet their goodness does not enable them to enjoy life;

(2) and so I know not whether theirs is veritable goodness or not. If the former, it does not enable them to enjoy life; if the latter, it at any rate enables them to cause others to enjoy theirs. It has been said, "If your loyal counsels are not attended to, depart quietly without resistance." Thus, when Tzŭ Hsü resisted, his physical frame perished; yet had he not resisted, he would not have made his name. Is there then really such a thing as this goodness, or not? As to what the world does and the way in which people are happy now, I know not whether such happiness be real happiness or not. The happiness of ordinary persons seems to me to consist in slavishly following the majority, as if they could not help it. Yet they all say they are happy. But I cannot say that this is happiness or that it is not happiness. Is there then, after all, such a thing as happiness? I make true pleasure to consist in inaction, which the world regards as great pain. Thus it has been said, "Perfect happiness is the absence of happiness; perfect renown is the absence of renown." Now in this sublunary world of ours it is impossible to assign positive and negative absolutely. Nevertheless, in inaction they can be so assigned. Perfect happiness and preservation of life are to be sought for only in inaction.

(28) And what follows, expressed indeed in foul language, but in a manner worthy of the voluptuaries. Wherefore the divine law appears to me necessarily to menace with fear, that, by caution and attention, the philosopher may acquire and retain absence of anxiety, continuing without fall and without sin in all things. For peace and freedom are not otherwise won, than by ceaseless and unyielding struggles with our lusts. For these stout and Olympic antagonists are keener than wasps, so to speak; and Pleasure especially, not by day only, but by night, is in dreams with witchcraft ensnaringly plotting and biting. How, then, can the Greeks any more be right in running down the law, when they themselves teach that Pleasure is the slave of fear? Socrates accordingly bids "people guard against enticements to eat when they are not hungry, and to drink when not thirsty, and the glances and kisses of the fair, as fitted to inject a deadlier poison than that of scorpions and spiders." And Antisthenes chose rather "to be demented than delighted." And the Theban Crates says: "Master these, exulting in the disposition of the soul, Vanquished neither by gold nor by languishing love, Nor are they any longer attendants to the wanton."

(5) And the felicity, indeed, and life of God are most excellent; but the felicity of man consists of science, and virtue, and in the third place of prosperity corporalized. But I mean by science, the wisdom pertaining to things divine and demoniacal; and by prudence, the wisdom pertaining to human concerns, and the affairs of life. For it is requisite to call the virtues which employ reasonings and demonstrations, sciences. But it is fit to denominate virtue ethical, and the best habit of the irrational part of the soul, according to which we are said to possess certain qualities pertaining to manners; viz. by which we are called liberal, just, and temperate. But it is requisite to call prosperity, the preter-rational presence of goods, [or a supply of goods without the assistance of reason,] and which is not effected on account of it.

Since therefore virtue and science are in our power, but prosperity is not; and since also felicity consists in the contemplation and performance of things [truly] beautiful; but contemplations and actions, when they are not prosperous, are attended with ministrant offices and necessity, but when they proceed in the right path, produce delight and felicity; and these things are effected in prosperity;—this being the case, it is evident that felicity is nothing else than the use of virtue in prosperity . Hence the good man is disposed with respect to prosperity, in the same manner as he who has an excellent and robust body. For such a one is able to endure heat and cold, to raise a great burden, and to sustain easily many other molestations.

(6) "Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, find no place in that man's breast; for to him all creation is One. And all things being thus united in One, his body and limbs are but as dust of the earth, and life and death, beginning and end, are but as night and day, and cannot destroy his peace. How much less such trifles as gain or loss, misfortune or good fortune? "He rejects rank as so much mud. For he knows that if a man is of honourable rank, the honour is in himself, and cannot be lost by change of condition, nor exhausted by countless modifications of existence. Who then can grieve his heart? Those who practise Tao understand the secret of this."

(582) Yes, very great. Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom? Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one? Far better. And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience? Certainly. Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher? What faculty? Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest. Yes. And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument? Certainly. If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy? Assuredly. Or if honour or victory or courage, in that case the judgment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest? Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges— The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the

(586) Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle. Their pleasures are mixed with pains—how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth. Something of that sort must inevitably happen. And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain

(586) honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense? Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also. Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him? Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural. And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? Exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own? True. And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure? Yes. And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly. And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the

(1) In the first place, it is requisite to know this, that the good man is not immediately happy from necessity; but that this is the case with the man who is both happy and good. For the happy man obtains both praise and the predication of blessedness; but the good man far as he is good obtains praise alone. The praise also arises from virtue; but the predication of blessedness from good fortune. And the worthy man, indeed, becomes such from the goods which he possesses; but the happy man is sometimes deprived of his felicity. For the power of virtue is perfectly free, but that of felicity is subject to restraint. For long-continued diseases of the body, and deprivations of the senses, cause the florishing condition of felicity to waste away.

God, however, differs from a good man in this, that God indeed not only possesses virtue genuine and purified from every mortal passion, but his power also is unwearied and unrestrained, as being adapted to the most venerable and magnificent production of eternal works. Man indeed, by the mortal condition of his nature, not only enjoys this power and this virtue in a less degree; but sometimes through the want of symmetry in the goods which he possesses, or through powerful custom, or a depraved nature, or through many other causes, he is unable to possess in the extreme a good which is perfectly true.

(2) "The true Sage is free from all embarrassments. All things are to him as One. Yet he knows not that this is so. It is simply nature. In the midst of action he remains the same. He makes God his guide, and men make him theirs. He grieves that wisdom carries one but a short distance, and at times comes altogether to a deadlock. "To a beauty, mankind is the mirror in which she sees herself. If no one tells her she is beautiful, she does not know that she is so. But whether she knows it or whether she does not know it, whether she hears it or whether she does not hear it, her joy will never cease, neither will mankind ever cease to take pleasure therein. It is nature. "The love of a Sage for his fellows likewise finds expression among mankind. Were he not told so, he would not know that he loved his fellows. But whether he knows it or whether he does not know it, whether he hears it or whether he does not hear it, his love for his fellows is without end, and mankind cease not to repose therein. "The old country, the old home, gladden a wanderer's eyes. Nay, though nine-tenths of it be a howling wilderness, still his eye will be glad. How much more to see sight and hear hearing, from a lofty dais suspended in their very midst!" Jen Hsiang Shih reached the centre and attained.