I will answer, said I, that I am not inquiring at present what virtue can effect, but what is said consistently on the subject, and why the assertions are at variance with one another. How so? said he. Because, said I, when this pompous assertion is uttered by Zeno, as if he were an oracle,—"Virtue requires nothing beyond herself to enable a man to live happily"—why? said he—"Because there is no other good except what is honourable." I do not ask now whether that is true; I only say that what he says is admirably consistent. Epicurus will say the same thing—"that the wise man is always happy;" which, indeed, he is in the habit of spouting out sometimes. And he says that this wise man, when he is being torn to pieces with the most exquisite pains, will say, "How pleasant it is! how I disregard it!" I will not argue with the man as to why there is so much power in nature; I will only urge that he does not understand what he ought to say, after he has said that pain is the greatest evil.
Now I will address the same language to you. You say that all the goods and evils are the same that those men pronounce them to be who have never even seen a philosopher in a picture, as the saying is—namely, health, strength, stature, beauty, the soundness of all a man's nails, you call good—deformity, disease, weakness you call evils. These are all externals; do not go on any more; but at all events you will reckon these things among the goods, as the goods of the body which help to compose them, namely, friends, children, relations, riches, honour, power. Take notice that I say nothing against this. If those are evils into which a wise man can fall, then it follows that to be a wise man is not sufficient to secure a happy life. Indeed, said he, it is verylittle towards securing a perfectly happy one, but enough for securing a tolerably happy one.
I have noticed, said he, that you made this distinction a little while ago, and I know that our friend Antiochus used to speak in this manner. But what can be less approved of than the idea of a person being happy, and yet not happy enough? For when anything is enough, then whatever is added to that is excess: and no one is too happy: and no one is happier than a happy man. Therefore, said he, was not Quintus Metellus, who saw three of his sons consuls, one of whom was also censor and celebrated a triumph, and a fourth prætor; and who left them all in safety behind him, and who saw his three daughters married, having been himself consul, censor and augur, and having celebrated a triumph; was he not, I say, in your opinion, (supposing him to have been a wise man,) happier than Regulus, who being in the power of the enemy, was put to death by sleeplessness and hunger, though he may have been equally wise?