Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/204

 by the God, if he is not surpassed by him because of his eternity? For what good has the God, except the highest degree of pleasure, and that, too, everlasting! What, then, is the good of speaking so pompously, if one does not speak consistently? Happiness of life is placed in pleasure of body, (I will add of mind also, if you please, as long as that pleasure of the mind is derived from the pleasure of the body.) What? who can secure this pleasure to a wise man in perpetuity? For the circumstances by which pleasures are generated are not in the power of a wise man; for happiness does not consist in wisdom itself, but in those things which wisdom provides for the production of pleasure. And all these circumstances are external; and what is external is liable to accident. And thus fortune is made the mistress of happiness in life,—Fortune, which, Epicurus says, has but little to do with a wise man.

XXVIII. But you will say, Come, these things are trifles. Nature by herself enriches the wise man; and, indeed, Epicurus has taught us that the riches of nature are such as can be acquired. This is well said, and I do not object to it; but still these same assertions are inconsistent with one another. For Epicurus denies there is less pleasure derived from the poorest food, from the most despised kinds of meat and drink, than from feasting on the most delicious dishes. Now if he were to assert that it makes no difference as to the happiness of life what food a man ate, I would grant it, I would even praise him for saying so; for he would be speaking the truth; and I know that Socrates, who ranked pleasure as nothing at all, said the same thing, namely, that hunger was the best seasoning for meat, and thirst for drink. But I do not comprehend how a man who refers everything to pleasure, lives like Gallonius, and yet talks like that great man Frugi Piso; nor, indeed, do I believe that what he says is his real opinion. He has said that natural riches can be acquired, because nature is contented with a little. Certainly, unless you estimate pleasure at a great value. No less pleasure, says he, is derived from the most ordinary things than from the most valuable. Now to say this, is not only not to have a heart, but not to have even a palate. For they who despise pleasure itself, may be allowed to say that they do not prefer a sturgeon to a herring. But the man who places his chief