wants.The pleasures of wife and children may be most honourable; but nature makes it all too plain that some have found torment in their children.
How bitter is any such kind of suffering, I need not tell you now, for you have never known it, nor have any such anxiety now.Yet in this matter I would hold with my philosopher Euripides,l that he who has no children is happy in his misfortune.
'All pleasures have this way: those who enjoy them they drive on with stings.Pleasure, like the winged bee, scatters its honey sweet, then flies away, and with a clinging sting it strikes the hearts it touches.
'There is then no doubt that these roads to happiness are no roads, and they cannot lead any man to any end whither they profess to take him.I would shew you shortly with 72:1 -- Referring to lines in the Andromache (419-420), where Euripides says: 'The man who complains that he has no children suffers less than he who has them, and is blest in his misfortune.' Page 73what great evils they are bound up.Would you heap up money? You will need to tear it from its owner.Would you seem brilliant by the glory of great honours? You must kneel before their dispenser, and in your desire to surpass other men in honour, you must debase yourself by setting aside all pride.Do you long for power? You will be subject to the wiles of all over whom you have power, you will be at the mercy of many dangers.You seek fame? You will be drawn to and fro among rough paths, and lose all freedom from care.Would you spend a life of pleasure? Who would not despise and cast off such servitude to so vile and brittle a thing as your body?
How petty are all the aims of those who put before themselves the pleasures of the body, how uncertain is the possession of such? In bodily size will you ever surpass the elephant? In strength will you ever lead the bull, or in speed the tiger? Look upon the expanse of heaven, the strength with which it stands, the rapidity with which it moves, and cease for a while to wonder at base things.This heaven is not more wonderful for those things than for the design which guides it.How sweeping is the brightness of outward form, how swift its movement, yet more fleeting than the passing of the flowers of spring.But if, as Aristotle says, many could use the eyes of lynxes to see through that which meets the eye, then if they saw into the organs within, would not that body, Page 74though it had the most fair outside of Alcibiades, 1 seem most vile within? Wherefore it is not your own nature, but the weakness of the eyes of them that see you, which makes you seem beautiful.But consider how in excess you desire the pleasures of the body, when you know that howsoever you admire it, it can be reduced to nothing by a three-days'
fever.To put all these points then in a word: these things cannot grant the good which they promise; they are not made perfect by the union of all good things in them; they do not lead to happiness as a path thither;they do not make men blessed.2
'Ah! how wretched are they whom ignorance leads astray by her crooked path! Ye seek not gold upon green trees, nor gather precious stones from vines, nor set your nets on mountain tops to catch the fishes for your feast, nor hunt the Umbrian sea in search of goats.Man knows the depths of the sea themselves, hidden though they be beneath its waves;he knows which water best yields him pearls, and which the scarlet dye.
But in their blindness men are content, and know not where lies hid the good which they desire.They sink in earthly things, and there they seek that which has soared 74:1 -- Alcibiades was the most handsome and brilliantly fascinating of all the public men of Athens in her most brilliant period.
74:2 -- Compare Philosophy's first words about the highest good, p.58.Page 751
'So far,' she continued,' we have been content to set forth the form of false happiness.If you clearly understand that, my next duty is to shew what is true happiness.'
'I do see,' said I,' that wealth cannot satisfy, that power comes not to kingdoms, nor veneration to high offices; that true renown cannot accompany ambition, nor true enjoyment wait upon the pleasures of the body.'
'Have you grasped the reasons why it is so? ' she asked.
'I seem to look at them as through a narrow chink, but I would learn more clearly from you.'
'The reason is to hand,' said she; 'human error takes that which is simple and by nature impossible to divide, tries to divide it, and turns its truth and perfection into falsity and imperfection.Tell me, do you think that anything which lacks nothing, can be without power?
'
'Of course not.'
'You are right; for if anything has any weakness in any part, it must lack the help of something else.'
'That is so,' I said.Page 76
'Then perfect satisfaction and power have the same nature?
'
'Yes, it seems so.'
'And do you think such a thing contemptible, or the opposite, worthy of all veneration? '
'There can be no doubt that it is worthy.'
'Then let us add veneration to that satisfaction and power, and so consider these three as one.'
'Yes, we must add it if we wish to proclaim the truth.'
'Do you then think that this whole is dull and of no reputation, or renowned with all glory? For consider it thus: we have granted that it lacks nothing, that it has all power and is worthy of all veneration;it must not therefore lack the glory which it cannot supply for itself, and thereby seem to be in any direction contemptible.'
'No,' I said,' I must allow that it has glory too.'
'Therefore we must rank this glory equally with the other three.'
'Yes, we must.'
'Then that which lacks nothing from outside itself, which is all-powerful by its own might, which has renown and veneration, must surely be allowed to be most happy too?'
'I cannot imagine from what quarter unhappiness would creep into such a thing, wherefore we must grant that it is full of happiness if the other qualities remain existent.'
'Then it follows further, that though perfect Page 771
'They cannot.'
