Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from the writings and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
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On the Value of Advice
In a letter known today as On the Value of Advice, Seneca wrote,
Just as the student of javelin-throwing keeps aiming at a fixed target and thus trains the hand to give direction to the missile, and when, by instruction and practice, he has gained the desired ability, he can then employ it against any target he wishes (having learned to strike not any random object, but precisely the object at which he has aimed)—he who has equipped himself for the whole of life does not need to be advised concerning each separate item, because he is now trained to meet his problem as a whole; for he knows not merely how he should live with his wife or his son, but how he should live aright. In this knowledge, there is also included the proper way of living with a wife and children.
Cleanthes holds that this department of wisdom is indeed useful, but that it is a feeble thing unless it is derived from general principles—that is, unless it is based upon a knowledge of the actual dogmas of philosophy and its main headings. This subject is, therefore, twofold, leading to two separate lines of inquiry: first, Is it useful or useless? and second, can it of itself produce a good man?—in other words, Is it unnecessary, or does it render all other departments unnecessary?
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