History of Western Philosophy

History of Western Philosophy
Question One:
In the extracts Seneca maintains that practising philosophy is necessary for a person to live a good life. Do you agree with him, and why?
Reading:
Primary Sources
These primary source extracts are provided on the following pages:
Seneca 2014, Letter XC extract, Trinity College Foundation Studies, Melbourne.
Seneca 2014, Natural questions extract, Trinity College Foundation Studies, Melbourne.
The following additional primary sources, with useful introductions, have been placed on High Use at both the Baillieu and Leeper libraries:
Seneca 1997, Dialogues and letters, ed. & trans. CDN Costa, Penguin Books, London.
Seneca 2004, Letters from a Stoic, ed. & trans. R Campbell, Penguin Books, London.
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Secondary Sources
Note on page numbers: Where these are indicated, these are the most important sections, but you may also find useful material on other pages, depending on your approach and needs. Where page numbers are not indicated, there are sections throughout the book which may be useful, depending on your approach and needs.
Note on eBooks: where available, eBooks at the Leeper library can be obtained by searching its catalogue. An eBook will remain on your computer or iPad for the duration of the loan period. To print material from an eBook open the eBook via the catalogue. This will take you into a screen entitled ‘EBL’. There is a print icon at the top of the screen. If you click on this, you will be prompted to create a loan. Once this is done, a print screen appears. You will now be able to print pages from the book. Standard copyright restrictions apply.
The following secondary sources have been placed on High Use at both the Baillieu and Leeper libraries:
Brennan, T 2003, ‘Stoic moral psychology’, in B Inwood (ed) The Cambridge companion to the Stoics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 257-294.
Recommended pages: 257-292.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
Brennan, T 2005, The Stoic life: emotions, duties, and fate, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Recommended pages: 35-45, 119-133, 134-153.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
Campbell, R 2004, ‘Introduction’, in Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, ed. & trans. R Campbell, Penguin Books, London, pp. 7-29.
Recommended pages: 14-20.
Costa, CDN 1997, ‘Introduction’, in Seneca, Dialogues and letters, ed. & trans. CDN Costa, Penguin Books, London, pp. ix-xxv.
Recommended pages: xv-xviii, xxiv-xxv.
Cooper, JM & Procope, JF 1995, ‘General introduction’, in Seneca, Moral and political essays, trans. & ed. JM Cooper & JF Procope, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. xi-xxxii.
Recommended pages: xvi-xxvi.
Graver, M 2007, Stoicism and emotion, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Recommended pages: 46-53.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
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Inwood, B 2005, Reading Seneca: Stoic philosophy at Rome, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Recommended pages: 95-131, 209-270, 312-321.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
Irwin, T 2003, ‘Stoic naturalism and its critics’, in B Inwood (ed) The Cambridge companion to the Stoics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 345-364.
Recommended pages: 345-349.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
Nussbaum, M 1994, The therapy of desire: theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Recommended pages: 316-401.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
Reinhardt, T 2008, ‘Introduction’, in Seneca, Dialogues and essays, trans. J. Davie, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford, pp. vi-xxvii.
Recommended pages: x-xxiii
Sellars, J 2006, Stoicism, University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.
Recommended pages: 12-13, 31-54.
The following secondary sources have been placed on High Use only at the Baillieu library:
Sorabji, R 2000, Emotion and peace of mind: from Stoic agitation to Christian temptation, Clarendon, Oxford.
Recommended pages: 55-75, 169-210.
(eBook available at Leeper Library).
Sorensen, V 1984, Seneca: the humanist at the court of Nero, Canongate, Edinburgh.
Recommended pages: 190-202.
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PDF versions of chapters and articles from the following books and journals are available at the Leeper library and can be obtained by searching its catalogue, which is accessible via the Trinity portal on the internet in any location. Please do not print HOI materials in the library: use the Trinity computer labs for printing.
Brennan, T 2003, ‘Stoic moral psychology’, in B Inwood (ed) The Cambridge companion to the stoics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Recommended pages: 257-292.
Brennan, T 2005 The Stoic life: emotions, duties, and fate, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Recommended pages: 134-153.
Campbell, R 2004, ‘Introduction’, in Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, ed. & trans. R Campbell, Penguin Books, London.
Recommended pages: 14-20.
Costa, CDN 1997, ‘Introduction’, in Seneca, Dialogues and letters, ed. & trans. CDN Costa, Penguin Books, London.
Recommended pages: xv-xviii.
Cooper, JM & Procope, JF 1995, ‘General introduction’, in Seneca, Moral and political essays, ed. & trans. JM Cooper & JF Procope, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Recommended pages: xvi-xxvi.
Graver, M 2007, Stoicism and emotion, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Recommended pages: 46-53.
Inwood, B 2005, Reading Seneca: Stoic philosophy at Rome, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Recommended pages: 249-270.
Nussbaum, M 1994, The therapy of desire: theory and practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Recommended pages: 316-358.
Reinhardt, T 2008, ‘Introduction’, in Seneca, Dialogues and essays, trans. J. Davie, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford.
Recommended pages: x-xxiii
Sellars, J 2006, Stoicism, University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.
Recommended pages: 31-54.
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Sorabji, R 2000, Emotion and peace of mind: From Stoic agitation to Christian temptation, Clarendon, Oxford.
Recommended pages: 159-168.
Sorensen, V 1984, Seneca: The humanist at the court of Nero, Canongate, Edinburgh.
Recommended pages: 190-202.
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History of Ideas Essay: COLLUSION and PLAGIARISM
Any academic essay MUST be your own independent work from start to end. Using other people’s ideas, words, or work is cheating and is an academic crime.
Trinity College (and the University of Melbourne) regards cheating very seriously, and any collusion or plagiarism will be severely penalised.
COLLUSION:
You must work independently on your essays. You must not work out your ideas or essay plans with friends. You must write your essay yourself, without substantial help from others. You must not use anyone else’s essay plan, materials, draft, computer disk, or work of any kind, to help you write your essay. This is called “collusion”.
You must not help anybody cheat by providing her/him with an essay plan, materials, draft, computer disk, or work of any kind, to help her/him write her/his essay. This is also collusion.
Be particularly careful not to allow anyone access to your computer, and do not leave essay drafts on the hard disk of any computer used by others, or in any public place. It is your responsibility to take all reasonable steps to ensure that nobody can access or copy your work. If someone copies your essay you will also be penalised.
If two essays are found to be substantially the same in content, organisation and words, the essays of BOTH students will be disregarded and BOTH will be required to sit a special exam.
PLAGIARISM:
Using someone else’s words or ideas without proper acknowledgement is considered an academic crime, and is called “plagiarism”.
If you use the ideas or information from a book or internet site you should express them in your own words and provide a reference. You must not simply rearrange a sentence or substitute synonyms. Using sentences in your essay which are too close to those in the secondary source is considered plagiarism.
If you use words or sentences from a book or internet site, you must always use both quotation marks and a reference. Using someone else’s words without quotation marks is considered plagiarism.
When you use any ideas or information from a book or internet site, whether you use your own words or quote, you must give a reference. Failure to use a reference is plagiarism.
Using words without quotation marks or not referencing is considered plagiarism (stealing) and will be penalised. An essay with substantial plagiarism will automatically fail.
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Introduction and notes by R. Finch (2014)1
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4 BC–AD 65) was a Roman philosopher and politician. He was official counsellor to the Emperor Nero. In AD 65 he was accused of being involved in a plot against the emperor and was forced by him to commit suicide.
Letter XC2 is addressed to Seneca’s friend, Lucilius Junior, who was a high-ranking civil servant in the Roman administration.
The extract from Natural Questions is taken from the preface to Book 1. This work was dedicated to Lucilius Junior and is concerned with events within the physical or natural world.
Extract from Seneca’s Letter XC (c. AD 62-65)3
Adapted for TCFS use from Seneca 2004, Letters from a Stoic, trans. R Campbell, Penguin, London. Some additional material has been taken from Seneca 1917-1925, Moral epistles, trans. R Gummere, Heinemann, London. The section numbers used in this extract follow the standard system of numbering used for Seneca’s texts.
1. Who can doubt, my dear Lucilius4, that life is the gift of the immortal gods, but that living well is the gift of philosophy? A corollary of this would be the certain conclusion that our debt to philosophy is greater than the debt we owe to the gods (by just so much as a good life5 is more of a blessing than, simply, life) had it not been for the fact that philosophy itself was something bestowed by the gods. They have given no one the present of a knowledge of philosophy, but everyone the means of acquiring it. For if they had made philosophy a blessing given to all and sundry, if we were born in a state of moral enlightenment, wisdom would have been deprived of the best thing about her – that she isn’t one of the things which fortune either gives us or doesn’t. As things are, there is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn’t just fall to a person’s lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn’t go to anyone
1 Please read the introduction and footnotes given in this extract carefully, as they are provided to assist your understanding. However, it is not recommended that you directly cite them as a secondary source in your essay. If for any reason you need to do so, follow the format provided in the HOI referencing guide.
2 ‘XC’ is the Roman numeral used to denote the number 90.
3 Refer to this extract in your essay as (Seneca Letter XC ex. 1), changing the section number according to the one you are using. Refer to this extract in your bibliography as: Seneca 2014, Letter XC extract, Trinity College Foundation Studies, Melbourne.
4 See the introduction to this extract for information about Lucilius.
5 When Seneca talks about ‘a good life’ he is not referring to a life which demonstrates the moral quality of goodness. Rather he is talking about a happy and fulfilling life. While many philosophers, such as Plato, have maintained that an individual must be a morally good person if he or she is to live a happy and fulfilling life, these two categories are logically distinct and should not be confused with each other.
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other than oneself to find her. What would you have worth looking up to in philosophy if she were handed out free?
2. Philosophy has the single task of discovering the truth about divine and human worlds. The religious conscience, the sense of duty, justice and all the rest of the close-knit, interdependent ‘company of virtues’6, never leave her side. Philosophy has taught men to worship what is divine, to love what is human, telling us that with the gods belongs authority, and among human beings fellowship. That fellowship lasted for a long time intact, before men’s greed broke society up – and impoverished even those she had brought most riches; for people cease to possess everything as soon as they want everything for themselves.
3-4. The first men on this earth, however, and their immediate descendants, followed nature unspoiled; they took a single person as their leader and their law, freely submitting to the decisions of an individual of superior merit. It is nature’s way to subordinate the worse to the better. With dumb animals, indeed, the ones who dominate the group are either the biggest or the fiercest. The bull who leads the herd is not the weakling, but the one whose bulk and brawn has brought it victory over the other males. In a herd of elephants the tallest is the leader. Among human beings the highest merit means the highest position. So they used to choose the ruler for his character. Hence peoples were supremely fortunate when among them a man could never be more powerful than others unless he was a better man than they were. For there is nothing dangerous in a man’s having as much power as he likes if he takes the view that he has the power to do only what it is his duty to do.
5. In that age, then, which people commonly refer to as the Golden Age7, government, so Posidonius8 maintains, was in the hands of the wise. They kept the peace, protected the weaker from the stronger, urged and dissuaded, pointed out what was advantageous and what was not. Their ability to look ahead ensured that their peoples never went short of anything, whilst their bravery averted dangers and their devotedness brought well-being and prosperity to their subjects. To govern was to serve, not to rule. No one used to try out the extent of his power over those to whom he owed that power in the first place. And no one had either reason or inclination to perpetrate injustice, since people governing well were equally well obeyed, and a king could issue no greater threat to disobedient subjects than that of his own abdication.9
6 The virtues are qualities, characteristics, or powers a person must possess if he or she is to live a happy and fulfilling life. In the classical world wisdom, courage, discipline, and justice were considered to be the primary virtues. Some philosophers, such as Plato, considered the virtues to be interdependent as they believed it was not possible to fully possess one of these characteristics without possessing the others.
7 Many Greeks and Romans believed in a Golden Age; a distant time in which people were innocent and happy and society was peaceful and harmonious. This period never actually existed.
8 Posidonius (c.135-c.51 BC) was an influential philosopher who played an important part in developing Stoic thinking. Stoicism stressed the importance of rationality. It originated in Classical Greece and spread throughout the Roman Empire.
9 Abdication is when a monarch (king or queen) gives up or relinquishes their throne and position as ruler. This can either be a voluntary act (in order to pass power on to their son/daughter), or it can be forced upon them.
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6. But with the gradual infiltration of the vices and the resultant transformation of kingships into tyrannies, the need arose for laws, laws which were themselves, to begin with, drafted by the wise. Solon10, who established Athens as a democratic state, was one of the seven men of antiquity celebrated for their wisdom. If the same age had produced Lycurgus11, an eighth name would have been added to that revered number. The laws of Zaleucus12 and Charondas13 are still admired. And it was not in public life or in the chambers of lawyers that these two men learnt the constitutional principles which they were to establish in Sicily (then in its heyday) and throughout the Greek areas of Italy, but in the secret retreat, now hallowed and famous, of Pythagoras.14
7-11. Thus far I agree with Posidonius. But that philosophy discovered the techniques employed in everyday life, that I refuse to admit. I will not claim for philosophy a fame that belongs to technology. ‘It was philosophy,’ says Posidonius, ‘that taught men how to raise buildings at a time when they were widely dispersed and their shelter consisted of huts or burrowed-out cliffs or hollowed tree trunks.’ I for my part cannot believe that philosophy was responsible for the invention of these modern feats of engineering that rise up storey after storey, or the cities of today crowding one against the next, any more than of our fish-tanks, those enclosures designed to save men’s gluttony from having to run the risk of storms and to ensure extravagance safe harbours of her own, however wildly the high seas may be raging, in which to fatten separately the different kinds of fish. Are you really going to tell me that philosophy taught the world to use keys and bolts on doors – which was surely nothing but a signal for greed? Was it philosophy that reared the towering buildings we know today, with all the danger they mean to the people living in them? It was not enough, presumably, for man to avail himself of whatever cover came to hand, to have found a shelter of some kind or other in nature without trouble and without the use of skills. Believe me, that age before there ever existed architects or builders was a happy age. The squaring off of timbers, the accurate cutting
of beams with a saw that travels along a marked out line, all these things came in with extravagance.
The first of men with wedges split their wood.15
10 Solon (c.640-559 BC) was the reformer of the ancient Athenian city-state who, by extending political participation, transformed Athens into a democracy.
11 Lycurgus is a semi-legendary figure from the Greek city-state of Sparta. The Spartans believed he established the laws of their city.
12 Zaleucus was a law maker from the 7th century BC who devised the laws for many of the cities established by the Greeks in Italy and Sicily.
13 Charondas was a Greek law maker from the 6th century BC
14 Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher from the 6th century BC who founded a religious community in southern Italy.
15 The quote is taken from the Georgics by Virgil (Virgil Georgics I: 144). Virgil (70-19 BC) was a famous Roman poet.
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12. Yes, for they were not preparing a roof for a future banqueting-hall: and pines or firs were not continually being drawn through streets trembling at their passage on a long
convoy of vehicles to support panelled ceilings heavy with gold. Their huts were held up by a forked pole stood at either end, and with close-packed branches and a sloping pile of leaves a run-off was arranged for even heavy rains. This was the kind of roof under which they lived and yet their lives were free of care. For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold.
13. Another matter on which I disagree with Posidonius is his belief that it was by wise men that tools were originally invented… . It was human ingenuity, not wisdom, which discovered all that. I disagree with him again where he maintains that it was wise men who discovered iron and copper mining (when the earth had been scorched by a forest fire and had melted to produce a flow from surface veins of ore). The person who discovers that sort of thing is the kind of person who makes it his business to be interested in just that sort of thing. Nor, for that matter, do I find it as nice a question as Posidonius does, whether the hammer started to come into general use before the tongs or the other way around. They were both invented by some individual of an alert, perceptive turn of mind, but not one with the qualities of greatness or inspiration. And the same applies to anything else the quest of which involves a bent back and earthward gaze.
14. The wise man then followed a simple way of life – which is hardly surprising when you consider how even in this modern age he seeks to be as little burdened as he possibly can. How, I ask you, can you consistently admire both Daedalus16 and Diogenes?17 Tell me which of these two you would say was a wise man, the one who hit on the saw, or the one who on seeing a boy drinking water from the hollow of his hand, immediately took the cup out of his knapsack and smashed it, telling himself off for his stupidity in having superfluous luggage about him all that time, and curled himself up in a jar18 and went to sleep. And today just tell me which of the following you consider the wiser man: the one who discovers a means of spraying saffron perfumes to a tremendous height from hidden pipes, who fills or empties channels in one sudden rush of water, who constructs a set of interchangeable ceilings for a dining room in such a way as to produce a constant succession of different patterns, with a change of ceiling at each course? Or the one who proves to others and to himself that nature makes no demand on us that is difficult or hard to meet and that we can live without the marble-worker and the engineer, that we can clothe ourselves without importing silks, that we can have the things we need for our ordinary purposes if we will only be content with what the earth has made available on its surface. If they only cared to listen to this man, the human race would realize that cooks are as unnecessary to them as are soldiers.
16 Daedalus is a figure from Greek mythology. According to legend he was a highly skilled craftsman and inventor.
17 Diogenes (c. 400-325 BC) a famous Greek thinker was the founder of Cynic philosophy. He and his followers believed in obtaining self-sufficiency through simplicity and self-discipline.
18 Diogenes chose to live in poverty. Purportedly he slept in either a tub or a jar. Some Greek earthenware jars were extremely large (See p. 239 of Seneca 2004, Letters from a Stoic, trans. R Campbell, Penguin Books, London.)
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14-18. The race of men to whom taking care of the body was a straightforward enough matter were, if not philosophers, something very like it. The things that are essential are
acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort. Follow nature and you will feel no need of craftsmen. It was nature’s desire that we should not be kept occupied thus. She equipped us for everything she requires us to contend with. Some might reply ‘but the naked body can’t stand cold.’ So what? Are the skins of wild beasts and other creatures not capable of giving us more than adequate protection against the cold? Is it not a fact that many peoples make a covering for their bodies out of bark, that feathers are sewn together to serve as clothing, that even today the majority of Scythians19 wear the pelts of fox and mice, which are soft to the touch and impervious to wind? Are you going to tell me too that any people you care to mention never used their hands to weave a basket-work of wattles, smear it all over with common mud and then cover the whole roof with long grass stems and other material growing wild, and went through winter weather, the rains streaming down the slopes of the roof, without any worry? ‘But we need some pretty dense shade to keep off the heat of the sun in summer.’ So what? Have past ages not left us plenty of hiding places that have been carved out by the ravages of time, or whatever other cause one cares to suppose, and have developed into caves? And again, is it not a fact that Syrtian20 tribes take shelter in pits dug in the ground, as do other people who, because of extreme sun temperatures, find nothing less than the baked earth itself sufficiently substantial as a protective covering against the heat? When nature granted all the other animals a simple passage through life, she was not so unfair to man as to make it impossible for him, for him alone, to live without all these skills. Nature demanded nothing hard from us, and nothing needs painful contriving to enable life to be kept going. We were born into a world in which things were ready to our hands; it is we who have made everything difficult to come by through our own disdain for what is easily come by. Shelter and clothing and the means of warming body and food, all the things which nowadays entail tremendous trouble, were there for the taking, free to all, obtainable at little effort. With everything the limit corresponded to the need. It is we, and no one else, who have made those same things costly, spectacular and obtainable only by means of a large number of full-scale techniques.
19. Nature suffices for all she asks of us. Luxury has turned her back on nature, daily urging herself on and growing through all the centuries, pressing men’s intelligence into
the development of the vices. First she began to hanker after things that were inessential, and then after things that were injurious, and finally she handed the mind over to the body and commanded it to be the out and out slave of the body’s whim and pleasure. All those trades that give rise to noise or hectic activity in the city are in business for the body, which was once in the position of the slave, having everything issued to it, and is now the master, having everything procured for it. This is the starting point for textile and engineering workshops, for the perfumes used by chefs, the sensual movements of
our dancing teachers, even sensual and unmanly songs. And why? Because the bounds of nature, which set a limit to man’s wants by relieving them only where there is
19 The Scythians were horse-riding nomads. Originally from Iran, they moved into its surrounding territories about 1,000 BC.
20 The Syrtians were a group of people who were located in the northern part of Africa during the classical period.
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necessity for such relief, have been lost sight of; to want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.
20-22. It is incredible, Lucilius, how easily even great men can be carried away from the truth by the sheer pleasure of holding forth on a subject. Look at Posidonius, in my opinion one of those who have contributed most to philosophy, when he wants to give a description of how, in the first place, some threads are twisted and others drawn out from the soft, loose hank of wool, then how the warp has its threads stretched perpendicularly by means of hanging weights, and how the weft… is made compact and close by means of the batten; he declares that philosophers invented the art of the weaver too, forgetting that philosophers had disappeared by the time this comparatively advanced type of weaving … had been evolved. He might have thought differently if he had only had the opportunity of seeing the looms of the present day, the end product of which is clothing which is not going to conceal a thing, clothing which is no help to modesty let alone the body! He then goes on to farmers, and gives an equally eloquent description of how the soil is broken up by the plough for the first time and then gone over again in order that the earth, thus loosened, may allow the roots more room to develop, and continues with the sewing of the seed and the lifting of the weeds to prevent any stray wild plants springing up and ruining the crop. All this, too, he represents as being the work of philosophers, as if agriculturists were not, now as ever, discovering plenty of new methods of increasing the soil’s productivity.
23. Not content with these occupations, he proceeds to demean the philosopher to the bakery; he tells us how by imitating nature he began producing bread. ‘The grain’, he says, ‘is taken into the mouth and crushed by the coming together of teeth; anything that escapes is carried back to the teeth again by the tongue, and the grain is finally mixed with saliva to enable it to pass down the lubricated throat with greater facility; on reaching the stomach, where it is cooked in an even heat, it is finally absorbed into the system. Taking this process as a model, someone or other placed one rough stone on top of another in imitation of the teeth, one set of which remains immobile and awaits the action of the other; the grains are then crushed by the friction of one against the other, and are constantly re-subjected to it until they are reduced by this repeated grinding to a fine powder. He then sprinkled the resulting meal with water, and by going on manipulating it he made it plastic, and shaped it into the form of a loaf. This he first baked in a glowing hot earthenware vessel in hot ashes; later came the gradual discovery of ovens and other devices the heat of which is controllable at will.’ Posidonius was not far off maintaining that the shoemaker’s trade as well was invented by philosophers!
24-25. Now all these things were indeed discovered by the exercise of reason, but not by reason in its perfect form. They were invented by ordinary men, not by philosophers – just as, let me add, were the vessels we cross rivers and seas in, with sails designed to catch the drive of the winds and rudders at the stern to alter the vessel’s course in this or that direction (the idea being taken from the fish, who steers with his tail, one slight movement of it to either side being enough to alter the direction of his darting course). ‘All these things,’ says Posidonius, ‘were invented by our philosopher. They were, however, rather too unimportant for him to handle personally, and so he passed them over
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to the minions among his assistants.’ No, the fact is that this sort of thing was not thought up by anyone other than the people who make them their concern today. We all know very well that some have only appeared within living memory, the use, for example, of windows letting in the full daylight through transparent panes, or bathrooms heated from beneath with pipes set in the walls in order to diffuse the heat and thus maintain an even temperature at the highest as well as the lowest room levels. Need I mention the marble with which our temples and even houses are resplendent? Or the rounded and polished blocks on which we rest whole colonnades and buildings capable of holding large crowds of people? Or the shorthand symbols by means of which even a rapidly delivered speech is taken down and the hand is able to keep up with the quickness of the tongue? These are inventions of the lowest slaves. Philosophy is far above all this; she does not train men’s hands: she is the instructress of men’s minds.
26-27. You want to know, do you, what philosophy has unearthed, what philosophy has achieved? It is not the gracefulness of dance movements, nor the variety of sounds produced by horn or flute as they take in breath and transform it, in its passage through or out of the instrument, into notes. She does not set about constructing arms or walls or anything of use in war. On the contrary, her voice is for peace, calling all mankind to live in harmony. And she is not, I insist, the manufacturer of equipment for everyday essential purposes. Why must you make her responsible for such insignificant things? In her you see the mistress of the art of life itself. She has, indeed, authority over other arts, inasmuch as all activities that provide life with its apparatus must also be the servants of that of which life itself is the servant. Philosophy, however, takes as her aim the state of happiness. That is the direction in which she opens routes and guides us. She shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men’s minds of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are left in no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is bloated. And she imparts a knowledge of the whole of nature, as well as of herself. She explains what the gods are, and what they are like; what are the lower gods, the household deities, and the protecting spirits; what are the souls which have been endowed with lasting life and have been admitted to the second class of divinities21, where is their abode and what are their activities, powers, and will.
28-29. Such are wisdom’s rites of initiation, by means of which is unlocked, not a village shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods – the universe itself, whose true apparitions and true aspects she offers to the gaze of our minds. For the vision of our eyes is too dull for sights so great. Then she goes back to the beginnings of things, to the eternal Reason which was imparted to the whole, and to the force which permanently exists in all the seeds of things, giving them the power to fashion each thing according to its kind. Then wisdom begins to inquire about the soul, from where it comes, where it dwells, how long
21 The Romans believed that certain souls, like the souls of particular ancestors, could become minor gods. For instance, a common belief was that the souls of an ancestor might reside in the family home and protect it.
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it stays, into how many divisions it falls.22 Finally, she has turned her attention from the corporeal to the incorporeal, and has closely examined truth and the marks whereby truth is known, inquiring next how that which is equivocal can be distinguished from the truth, whether in life or in language; for in both are elements of the false mingled with the true.
30. It is my opinion that the wise man has not withdrawn himself, as Posidonius thinks, from those arts which we were discussing, but that he never took them up at all. For he would have judged that nothing was worth discovering that he would not afterwards judge to be worth using always. He would not take up things which would have to be laid aside.
31-32. ‘Anacharsis,’23 says Posidonius, ‘discovered the potter’s wheel, the rotary motion of which shapes earthenware.’… I maintain that Anacharsis was not responsible for this invention, and even if he was, he discovered it as a philosopher, yes, but not in his capacity as a philosopher, in the same way as philosophers do plenty of things as men without doing them in their capacity as philosophers. Suppose, for example, a philosopher happens to be a very fast runner; in a race he will come first by virtue of his ability as a runner, not by virtue of his being a philosopher… ‘Democritus,’24 he says, ‘is reported to be the discoverer of the arch, the idea of which is to bind a curving line of stones, set at slightly differing angles from each other, with a keystone.’ This I should say was quite untrue. For there must have been both bridges and gateways before Democritus’ time, and the upper parts of these generally have a curve to them. And it seems to have escaped your memory, Posidonius, that this same Democritus discovered a means of softening ivory, and a means of turning a pebble into an ‘emerald’ by boiling it, a method employed even today for colouring certain stones that man has discovered and found amenable to the process. These techniques may indeed have been discovered by a philosopher, but not in his capacity as a philosopher. For there are plenty of things which he does which one sees being done just as well if not with greater skill and dexterity by persons totally lacking in wisdom.
33-34. What has the philosopher investigated? What has the philosopher brought to light? In the first place, truth and nature (having, unlike the rest of the animal world, followed nature with more than just a pair of eyes, things slow to grasp divinity); and secondly, a rule of life, in which he has brought life into line with things universal. And he has taught us not just to recognise but to obey the gods, and to accept all that happens exactly as if it were an order from above. He has told us not to listen to false opinions, and has weighed and valued everything against standards which are true. He has condemned pleasures an inseparable element of which is subsequent regret, has commended the good things which will always satisfy, and for all to see has made the man who has no need of luck the luckiest man of all, and the man who is master of himself the master of all.
22 Some thinkers divided the soul into different parts. Plato, for instance, said the soul consisted of three parts: Reason, Desire, and the Spirited or Self-Regarding element.
23 Anacharsis was a philosopher from the 6th century BC who advocated living a simple life.
24 Democritus (c. 460-c. 370 BC) was a Greek philosopher who expounded the theory that matter is made up of atoms.
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35-36. The philosophy I speak of is not the one25 which takes the citizen out of public life and the gods out of the world we live in, and hands morality over to pleasure, but the philosophy which thinks nothing good unless it is honourable, which is incapable of being enticed astray by the rewards of men or fortune, and the very pricelessness of which lies in the fact that it cannot be bought at any price. And I do not believe that this philosophy was in existence in that primitive era in which technical skills were still unknown and useful knowledge was acquired through actual practical experience, or that it dates from an age that was happy, an age in which the bounties of nature were freely available for the use of all without discrimination, before avarice and luxury split human beings up and got them to abandon partnership for plunder. The men of that era were not philosophers, even if they acted as philosophers are supposed to act.26 No other state of man could cause anyone greater admiration; if God were to allow a man to fashion the things of this earth and allot its peoples their social customs, that man would not be satisfied with any other system than the one which tradition says existed in those people’s time… .
37. What race of men could be luckier? Share and share alike they enjoyed nature. She saw to each and every man’s requirements for survival like a parent. What it all amounted to was undisturbed possession of resources owned by the community. I can surely call that race of men one of unparalleled riches, it being impossible to find a single pauper in it.
38-39. Into this ideal state of things burst avarice, avarice which in seeking to put aside some article or other and appropriate it to its own use, only succeeded in making everything somebody else’s property and reducing its possessions to a fraction of its previously unlimited wealth. Avarice brought in poverty, by coveting a lot of possessions [and therefore] losing all that it had. That is why although it may endeavour to make good its losses, may acquire estate after estate by buying out or forcing out its neighbours, enlarge country properties to the dimensions of whole provinces, speak of ‘owning some property’ when it can go on a long tour overseas without once stepping off its own land, there is no extension of our boundaries that can bring us back to our starting point. When we have done everything within our power, we shall possess a great deal: but we once possessed the world.
40. The earth herself, untilled, was more productive, her yields being more than ample for the needs of peoples who did not raid each other. With any of nature’s products, men found as much pleasure in showing others what they had discovered as they did in discovering it. No one could outdo or be outdone by any other. All was equally divided among people living in complete harmony. The stronger had not yet started laying hands on the weaker; the avaricious person had not yet started hiding things away, to be hoarded for his own private use, so shutting the next man off from actual necessities of life; each cared as much about the other as about himself. Weapons were unused; hands
25The philosophy to which Seneca is referring is Epicureanism. Founded by Epicurus (341-270 BC), followers of this philosophy believed that individuals should minimize their pain and maximize their pleasure.
26 Seneca is suggesting that philosophers are supposed to act in accordance with nature
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still unstained with human blood had directed their hostility exclusively against wild beasts.
41-42. Protected from the sun in some thick wood, living in some very ordinary shelter under a covering of leaves preserving them from the rigours of winter or the rain, those people passed tranquil nights with never a sigh. We in our crimson luxury toss and turn with worry, stabbed by needling cares. What soft sleep the hard earth gave these people! They had no carved or panelled ceilings hanging over them. They lay out in the open, with the stars slipping past above them and the firmament silently conveying onward that mighty work of creation as it was carried headlong below the horizon in the magnificent pageant of the night sky. And they had clear views by day as well as by night of this loveliest of mansions, enjoying the pleasure of watching constellations falling away from the zenith and others rising again from out of sight beneath the horizon. Surely it was a joy to roam the earth with marvels scattered so widely around one. You now, by contrast, go pale at every noise your houses make, and if there is a creaking sound you run away along your frescoed passages in alarm. Those people had no mansions on the scale of towns. Fresh air and the free breezes of the open spaces, the unoppressive shade of a tree or rock, springs of crystal clarity, streams which chose their own course, streams unsullied by the work of man, by pipes or any other interference with their natural channels, meadows whose beauty owed nothing to man’s art, that was the environment around their dwelling places in the countryside, dwelling places given a simple countryman’s finish. This was a home in conformity with nature, a home in which one enjoyed living, and which occasioned neither fear of it nor fears for it, whereas nowadays our own homes count for a large part of our feeling of insecurity.
43. But however wonderful and guileless the life they led, they were not wise men; this is a title that has come to be reserved for the highest of all achievements. All the same, I should be the last to deny that they were men of exalted spirit, only one step removed, so to speak, from the gods. There can be no doubt that before this earth was worn out it produced a better type of offspring. But though they all possessed a character more
robust than that of today, and one with a greater aptitude for hard work, it is equally true that their personalities fell short of genuine perfection. For nature does not give a man
virtue: the process of becoming a good man is an art. Certainly they did not go in search of gold or silver or the various crystalline stones to be found in the nethermost dregs of the earth. They were still merciful even to dumb animals. Man was far and away from killing man, not out of fear or provocation, but simply for entertainment.27 They had yet to wear embroidered clothing, and had yet to have gold woven into robes, or even mine it. But the fact remains that their innocence was due to ignorance and nothing else. And there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, choosing not to do what is wrong and, on the other, not knowing how to do it in the first place. They lacked the cardinal virtues of justice, moral insight, self-control and courage.28 There were corresponding
27 In Roman gladiatorial contests crowds were entertained by watching opponents fight to the death.
28 See footnote 6.
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qualities, in each case not unlike these, that had a place in their primitive lives; but virtue only comes to a character which has been thoroughly schooled and trained and brought to
a pitch of perfection by unremitting practice. We are born for it, but not with it. And even in the best of people, until you cultivate it there is only the material for virtue, not virtue itself.
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Extract from Seneca’s Natural questions (c. AD 65) 29
Adapted for TCFS use from Seneca 1997, Dialogues and letters, ed. and trans. CDN Costa, Penguin Books, London. The section numbers used in this extract follow the standard system of numbering used for Seneca’s texts.
1-2. Lucilius30, best of men, it seems to me that there is the same amount of difference between philosophy and the other studies as there is within philosophy itself, between that branch which deals with mankind and that which deals with the gods. The latter is bolder and more elevated, and has allowed itself more license. It has not restricted itself to the visible, assuming that there is something greater and more beautiful which nature has put beyond our vision. In a word, between the two areas of philosophy there is as much difference as between god and man. The one teaches us what must be done on earth, the other what is done in the heavens. The one dispels our mistakes, and affords us a light by which to distinguish the uncertainties of life. The other passes far above this fog in which we are floundering and, drawing us forth from darkness, leads us to where there is light shining.
3. I myself am grateful to nature, both when I view it in the aspect which is open to everyone, and when I have entered into its mysteries: when I learn what is the material substance of the universe; who is its author or guardian; what god is; whether he is entirely wrapped up in himself or sometimes has regard for us as well; whether he creates something daily or has created it only once; whether he is part of the world or he is the world; whether he can make a decision today and modify in some respect the law of fate, or whether to have done things that need to be changed is a diminution of his grandeur and a confession of his error.
4-5. If I had not been admitted to these studies it would not have been worthwhile being born. For what would there be to cause me delight in being numbered among the living? Eating and drinking? Stuffing this diseased and feeble body, which would die if it were not continuously filled, and spending my life in attendance of a sick man? Fearing death, for which alone we are born? You can have this inestimable benefit: life is not worth the agitation and the sweat. What a pitiful thing is man unless he rises above human concerns! As long as we are battling with our passions what greatness can we achieve? Even if we get the better of them we are only defeating monsters. What reason have we to admire ourselves because we are only different from the worst? I cannot see why a man should feel satisfied because he is healthier than an invalid. There is a big difference between vigorous strength and just lack of ill health.
6. You have avoided the faults of the soul. You don’t have a deceitful air; your speech is not adapted to someone else’s wishes; your heart is not veiled; you do not suffer from greed, which denies to itself what it has taken from everyone else, nor extravagance, which wastes money shamefully, nor ambition, which will raise you to a worthy status
29 Refer to this extract in your essay as (Seneca Nat. quest. ex. 1-2), changing the section number according to the one you are using. Refer to this extract in your bibliography as: Seneca 2014 Natural questions extract, Trinity College Foundation Studies, Melbourne.
30 See the introduction to this extract for information about Lucilius.
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only through unworthy means. So far you have achieved nothing; and though you have escaped many evils, you have not yet escaped yourself.
7. That particular virtue which we aspire to is magnificent, not because to be free from evil is in itself a blessing, but because it releases the mind, prepares it for the perception of heavenly things, and makes it worthy to associate with god.
8-10. The mind enjoys the complete and perfect benefit of its human destiny only when it has spurned every evil, seeking the heights and entering the secret heart of nature. As it then wanders among the very stars it takes pleasure in laughing at the fancy floors of rich men’s homes, and the whole earth with the gold it contains. I do not mean just the gold which has already been mined and used for minting money, but that too which the earth still keeps hidden for the greed of generations to come. The mind cannot despise colonnades, ceilings panelled with gleaming ivory, clipped shrubbery, and streams diverted towards mansions, until it travels over the whole world, and looking down upon the earth from on high – an earth cramped and mostly covered by sea and, even where it emerges from sea, barren or parched or frozen – it then says to itself: ‘Is this that pinprick which is divided by fire and sword among so many nations? How ridiculous are the boundaries of mortal men! Let our empire restrain the Dacians31 beyond the Ister32, and confine the Thracians33 by Mount Haemus34; let the Danube separate Sarmatian35 and Roman interests, and the Rhine put a limit to Germany; let the Pyrénées36 raise their slopes between Gaul37 and Spain38; and let a barren waste of sand lie between Egypt and Ethiopia. If you gave ants a human intellect, would they also not divide a single piece of ground into many provinces? Since you have elevated yourself to truly great conceptions, whenever you see armies advancing with standards raised and cavalry (as if doing something impressive) now scouting far afield, now deployed on the flanks, you will enjoy quoting: “A dark battle-line moves over the plains.”39 That which you see is merely a bustling of ants toiling on their narrow ground. What is the difference between the ants and ourselves, apart from the measure of a tiny body?’
31 In the Classical era the Dacians were a people who inhabited an area that roughly corresponds to modern Romania.
32 The Ister is the river that we now refer to as the Danube.
33 In the Classical era the Thracians were a people who inhabited an area that roughly corresponds to the eastern Balkans
34 Mount Haemus is now known as the Balkan Mountains.
35 In Roman times the Sarmatians were a people who resided in southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans.
36 The Pyrénées are a group of mountains between France and Spain.
37 In Roman times Gaul was an area approximating modern France.
38 In Roman times Spain was an area approximating modern Spain and Portugal.
39 The quote is taken from the Aeneid by Virgil (Virgil Aeneid IV.404). See footnote 15.
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