by Seneca
in the daylight, but that we have entirely created darkness for
ourselves. We see nothing either to harm us or to do us good. All
our lives we rush around bumping into things, without pausing
on this account or treading more carefully. You see how lunatic
it is to run at something in the dark; yet, goodness me, that’s what
we are doing, so that we have to be summoned back from further
away, and though we don’t know whither we are rushing we still
8 keep on full tilt in our course. Yet daylight can come if we want
it to, but only if a man has acquired this knowledge of things
human and divine; if he has not just let it wash over him but has
become deep-dyed in it; if he has considered over and over again
the same notions, even though he may have grasped them, and
has applied them frequently to himself; if he has asked himself
what things are good and what are bad and what bear one of these
names falsely; if he has asked himself about things honourable and
9 disgraceful, and about providence. Nor is the keenness of the
human intellect restricted within these limits. It can also gaze
beyond the universe, pondering whither it is being borne, when
it arose, to what final end all that rushing mass of matter is
hurtling. From this divine spectacle we have withdrawn our
minds and dragged them to sordid and lowly areas, to be slaves to
greed, to abandon the universe and its limits and its all-powerful
masters, and to explore the earth and see what evils they can dig
10 out of it, not satisfied with what is freely offered. Whatever was
to be of benefit to us god, our parent, put within our reach: he
anticipated our searching for it and gave it unasked. The things
that would harm us he buried deep down. We have nothing to
complain of but ourselves. It is we who have brought to light the
instruments of our destruction against nature’s wishes and when
she was hiding them from view. We have enslaved our souls to
pleasure, indulgence in which is the beginning of all evils; we
have betrayed them to ambition and public opinion, and everything
else which is equally empty and vain.
11 So, what am I urging you to do? Nothing new – it isn’t for
new maladies that we are seeking cures – but this first and foremost,
that you distinguish clearly for yourself the essential and
the superfluous. Essentials you will find everywhere; superfluous
things have to be sought by a constant effort of the whole soul.
12 But there is no reason to overpraise yourself if you have come to
despise golden couches and bejewelled furniture: for what virtue
lies in despising superfluities? You can admire yourself when you
have come to despise essentials. It’s no great achievement if you
can live without regal trappings, and do without boars weighing
a thousand pounds and flamingoes’ tongues, and the other
extravagances of a luxury which is now disgusted with whole
animals and only chooses certain parts from individual ones. I
shall admire you if you come to despise coarse bread, if you can
persuade yourself that, when necessary, grass grows for man as
well as beast, if you have realized that shoots from trees can serve
to fill the belly, which we stuff full of expensive food as though
it could retain what it receives. No, it must be filled without
squeamishness; for how can it matter what it accepts, since
13 it is bound to get rid of all it has accepted? You love to see the
game taken on land and sea laid out in front of you, some all
the more desirable if brought fresh to your table, some if force-fed
and stuffed for so long it scarcely holds the fat it’s overflowing
with – what you love is the sheen that is thus skilfully imparted
to it. Yet, goodness me, when those dishes, so anxiously sought
for and diversely seasoned, have entered the stomach they become
one uniform horrid mess. Do you want to despise the pleasure of
food? Look at what happens to it.
14 I remember Attalus4 winning great admiration from all who
heard him with these words: ‘For a long time I was impressed by
riches. I was fascinated in whatever place their brilliance shone
forth, and I presumed that what lay concealed was similar to
what was displayed. But I happened to witness a ceremonial display of
all the city’s wealth: objects carved in gold and silver and in
materials surpassing the value of gold and silver; choice dyes and
fabrics imported from beyond not only our boundaries but those
of our enemies; matching groups of boys and girls conspicuous
for their adornment and their beauty; and everything else that a
successful imperial power puts on parade when reviewing its
15 resources. “What else,” I said to myself, “does all this do but
kindle men’s greedy passions, already naturally aroused? What is
the point of that parade of wealth? Have we assembled here only
to be taught avarice?” Yet, I do assure you I left that sight with
less capacity for greed than I took to it. I despised riches, not
because they are superfluous but because they are insignificant.
16 You saw in how few hours that procession passed by, though
organized in slow stages? Is that going to fill our whole lives
which could not fill a whole day? This point too occurred to me,
that these riches are as superfluous to the possessors as to the
17 spectators. So, whenever some such sight dazzles my eyes – a
luxurious house, an elegant troop of slaves, a litter carried by
handsome servants – I tell myself: “What are you admiring? What
are you gaping at? It’s only a procession. Those things are for
show, not for possession, and even as they please us they pass
18 away.” Turn instead to real wealth; learn to be content with little
and call out loudly and boldly: we have water, we have barley:
we may vie with Jupiter himself in happiness. We may, I assure
you, even if those were lacking. It is disgraceful to base one’s life
on gold and silver, and equally disgraceful to base it on water and
19 barley. “Then what am I to do if I don’t have them?” You are
asking for the remedy for destitution? Hunger ends hunger. In
any case, what difference does it make if t he things are great or
scanty which enslave you? What does it matter how trifling is the
20 amount that Fortune can deny you? This very water and barley is
under someone else’s control; but the free man is not the one
over whom Fortune has just a small hold, but the one over whom
Fortune has no hold at all. So there you are: you must want
nothing if you wish to challenge Jupiter who himself wants
nothing.’
Attalus has told us this; nature has told all men this. If you are willing to meditate on it constantly, you will be on the way to being happy, not just seeming happy, and seeming so not to others but to yourself.
from NATURAL QUESTIONS
1 PRAEF. 1–10
[Seneca urges Lucilius to enjoy the inspiration and benefits of philosophical study]
1 Lucilius, 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 licence. It has not
restricted itself to the visible, assuming that there is something
greater and more beautiful which nature has put beyond our
2 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.
3 If I had not been admitted to these studies it would not have
been worth while 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
on a sick man? Fearing death, for which alone we are born?
You can have this inestimable boon: life is not worth the agitation
5 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
6 invalid. There is a big difference between vigorous strength and
just lack of ill-health.
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 only to recover it even more shamefully, nor ambition, which will raise you to a worthy status only through unworthy means. So far you have achieved nothing; and though you have escaped many evils, you have not yet escaped yourself.
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.
7 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
8 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 the sea, barren or parched or frozen – it
then says to itself: ‘Is this that pinprick which is divided by fire
9 and sword among so many nations? How ridiculous are the boundaries of mortal men! Let our empire restrain the Dacians beyond
the Ister, and confine the Thracians by Mount Haemus; let the
Danube separate Sarmatian and Roman interests, and the Rhine
put a limit to Germany; let the Pyrenees raise their slopes between
the Gauls and the Spains; and let a barren waste of sand lie
between Egypt and Ethiopia. If you gave ants a human intellect,
10 would they not also 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.”1 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?’
4A . 2 . 4–6
[The Cataracts of the Nile]
4 The Cataracts receive the Nile, a region famous for its remarkable
5 spectacle. There it surges through rocks which are steep and
jagged in many places, and unleashes its forces. It is broken by
opposing rocks, and struggling through narrows, everywhere it
either conquers or is conquered as it surges forward. There for
the first time its waters are stirred up, which had been flowing
undisturbed along a smooth channel, and in a violent torrent it
leaps forward through narrow passages. Even its appearance
changes: up to that point it flows along muddy and murky; but
after it has lashed against the rocks and sharp boulders, it foams
and takes its colour not from its own properties but from its
violent treatment in that locality. Finally it struggles through the
obstructions in its way, and then, suddenly losing its support, falls
down an enormous depth with a tremendous crash that echoes
through the surrounding regions. The people settled there by the
Persians1 could not endure this noise, as their ears were deafened
by the constant uproar, and for that reason they transferred their
abode to a quieter spot.
6 One of the strange stories I have heard about the river is the
incredible daring of its inhabitants. They embark on small boats,
two to a boat, and one rows while the other bails out water. Then
they are violently tossed about in the raging rapids and backlashing
waves of the Nile. At length they reach the narrowest channels,
through which they escape the rocky gorge; and, swept along by
the whole force of the river, they control the rushing boat by
hand and plunge head downward to the great terror of the
onlookers. You would believe sorrowfully that by now they were
drowned and overwhelmed by such a mass of water, when far
from the place where they fell they shoot out as from a catapult,
still sailing, and the subsiding wave does not submerge them but
carries them on to smooth waters.
6 . 1 . 4–7
[T
he terrors of earthquakes]
4 We must find consolation for anxious people and relieve them of
their great fear. For what can seem safe enough to anyone if the
world itself is shaken and its most substantial parts collapse? If the
one thing in the cosmos which is immovable, and fixed so as to
support everything that rests on it, starts to sway, and if the earth
loses its characteristic feature of stability, where will our fears
eventually subside? What shelter will living creatures find? Where
will they take refuge in their dismay if the source of their fear is
5 drawn from the depths below them? Everyone feels panic when
buildings creak and threaten to fall. Then everybody rushes out
headlong, abandoning his home and trusting himself to the outdoors.
What hiding place can we look to, what assistance, if the
earth itself is causing the ruin, if that which protects and sustains
us, on which our cities are built, which some have claimed to
6 be the foundation of the universe, gives way and totters? What
consolation – I do not say help – can you have when fear has lost
its way of escape? What, I say, is sufficiently protected? What is
strong enough to defend others and oneself? I will keep off an
enemy from a wall, and fortifications on a precipitous height will
obstruct even large armies by making an approach difficult. A
harbour protects us from a storm. Roofs ward off the violent
force of storm clouds and incessant rainfall. Fire does not chase
people who flee from it. Underground houses and deeply dug
caves can protect against threatening thunderstorms and skies.
That fire from the heavens does not penetrate the earth, but is
deflected by any small obstruction on the ground. During a plague
we can go and live elsewhere. There is no disaster without some
7 means of escape. Thunderbolts have never burned up whole
peoples. A season of plague has emptied cities, not carried them
off. But the disaster of an earthquake stretches far and wide; it is
unavoidable, voracious, and deadly to everyone. For it not only
devours homes, families and individual cities: it submerges whole
nations and regions. Sometimes it covers them in ruins, sometimes
