Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/277

 us whether we are well or sick; whether we are free from pain or tormented by it; whether we are able or unable to endure cold and hunger? You will live, says Aristo, magnificently and excellently, doing whatever seems good to you. You will never be vexed, you will never desire anything, you will never fear anything. What will Zeno say? He says that all these ideas are monstrous, and that it is totally impossible for any one to live on these principles; but that there is some extravagant, some immense difference between what is honourable and what is base; that between other things, indeed, there is no difference at all. He will also say—(listen to what follows, and do not laugh, if you can help it)—all those intermediate things, between which there is no difference, are nevertheless such that some of them are to be chosen, others rejected, and others utterly disregarded; that is to say, that you may wish for some, wish to avoid others, and be totally indifferent about others. But you said just now, O Zeno, that there was no difference whatever between these things. And now I say the same, he replies; and that there is no difference whatever as respects virtues and vices. Well, I should like to know who did not know that?

XXVI. However, let us hear a little more. Those things, says he, which you have mentioned, to be well, to be rich, to be free from pain, I do not call goods; but I will call them in Greek προηγμένα (which you may translate by the Latin producta, though I prefer præposita or præcipua, for they are more easily comprehended and more applicable terms). And again, the contraries, want, sickness, and pain, I do not call evils, though I have no objection to styling them (if you wish) things to be rejected. And, therefore, I do not say that I seek for them first, but that I choose them; not that I wish for them, but that I accept them. And so, too, I do not say that I flee from the contraries; but that I, as it were, keep aloof from them. What says Aristotle and the rest of the disciples of Plato? Why, that they call everything good which is according to nature; and that whatever is contrary to nature they call evil.

Do you not see, then, that your master Zeno agrees with Aristo in words, but differs from him as to facts; but that he agrees with Aristotle and those other philosophers as to facts, but differs from them only in words? Why, then, when we