Seneca - On the True Good (Part II)
"Only consider yourself happy when all your joys are born of reason"
Sundays with Seneca
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Seneca — On the True Good (Part II)
In a letter known today as On the True Good as Attained by Reason (Apologies, no audio for this one), Seneca wrote,
And what is this Good? I shall tell you: it is a free mind, an upright mind, subjecting other things to itself and itself to nothing. So far is infancy from admitting this Good that boyhood has no hope of it, and even young manhood cherishes the hope without justification; even our old age is very fortunate if it has reached this Good after long and concentrated study. If this, then, is the Good, the good is a matter of the understanding.
“But,” comes the retort, “you admitted that there is a certain Good of trees and of grass; then surely there can be a certain Good of a child also.” But the true Good is not found in trees or in unintelligent animals the Good which exists in them is called good only by courtesy. “Then what is it?” you say. Simply that which is in accord with the nature of each. The real Good cannot find a place in unintelligent animals—not by any means; its nature is more blest and is of a higher class. And where there is no place for reason, the Good does not exist.
There are four natures that we should mention here: the tree, animal, man, and God. The last two, having reasoning power, are of the same nature, distinct only by virtue of the immortality of the one and the mortality of the other. Of one of these, then—to wit God—it is Nature that perfects the Good; of the other—to wit man—pains and study do so. All other things are perfect only in their particular nature and not truly perfect since they lack reason.
Indeed, to sum up, that alone is perfect, which is perfect according to nature as a whole, and nature as a whole is possessed of reason. Other things can be perfect according to their kind.
That which cannot contain the happy life cannot contain that which produces the happy life, and the happy life is produced by Goods alone. In unintelligent animals, there is not a trace of the happy life nor of the means whereby the happy life is produced; in unintelligent animals, the Good does not exist.
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