Tusculan Disputations 5 ¶24 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 5 ¶24

M. But yet that is more usually the case with the mathematicians than philosophers. For when the geometricians teach anything, if what they have before taught relates to their present subject, they take that for granted which has been already proved, and explain only what they had not written on before. But the philosophers, whatever subject they have in hand, get together everything that relates to it, notwithstanding they may have dilated on it somewhere else. Were not that the case, why should the Stoics say so much on that question—Whether virtue was abundantly sufficient to a happy life?—when it would have been answer enough that they had before taught that nothing was good but what was honorable. For, as this had been proved, the consequence must be that virtue was sufficient to a happy life, and each premise may be made to follow from the admission of the other, so that if it be admitted that virtue is sufficient to secure a happy life, it may also be inferred that nothing is good except what is honorable. They, however, do not proceed in this manner, for they would separate books about what is honorable, and what is the chief good. And when they have demonstrated from the one that virtue has power enough to make life happy, yet they treat this point separately, for everything, and especially a subject of such great consequence, should be supported by arguments and exhortations which belong to that alone. For you should have a care how you imagine philosophy to have uttered anything more noble, or that she has promised anything more fruitful or of greater consequence, for—good Gods!—does she not engage that she will render him who submits to her laws so accomplished as to be always armed against fortune, and to have every assurance within himself of living well and happily—that he shall, in short, be forever happy? But let us see what she will perform. In the meanwhile, I look upon it as a great thing that she has even made such a promise. For Xerxes, who was loaded with all the rewards and gifts of fortune, not satisfied with his armies of horse and foot, nor the multitude of his ships, nor his infinite treasure of gold, offered a reward to anyone who could find out a new pleasure; and yet, when it was discovered, he was not satisfied with it, nor can there ever be an end to lust. I wish we could engage anyone by a reward to produce something the better to establish us in this belief.