240 //-102 to //-103
But the man we refer to is lofty and superior, magnanimous, truly brave,
looks down on all merely human concerns; the man, I say, whom we
wish to produce, whom we are looking for, should certainly have faith
in himself and his life, both past and future, and should think well of
himself, believing that nothing bad can happen to a wise man. And from
this one can again prove the same old point, that only the honourable is
good, i.e., that to live happily is to live honourably, i.e., virtuously.
- I am not unaware that there is a variety of views held by philoso-
phers, by which I mean those who place the highest good, which I call
the goal, in the mind. Even though some of them have gone wrong, still
I prefer them, whatever their views, who locate the highest good in the
mind and virtue, to those three who have separated the highest good
from virtue by placing either pleasure or freedom from pain or the
primary natural things among the highest goods; I even prefer them to
the other three who thought that virtue would be deficient without some
addition and so added to it one or other of the three things mentioned
above. 31. But those who think that the highest good is to live with
knowledge and who claim that things are absolutely indifferent and that
this was why the wise man would be happy, because he did not prefer
one thing to any other in even the slightest degree-they are particularly
absurd; so too are those who, as certain Academics are said to have held,
believe that the highest good and greatest duty of the wise man is to
resist his presentations and steadfastly to withhold his assent. Normally
one gives a full answer to each of these views separately. But there is no
need to prolong what is perfectly clear; and what is more obvious than
that the very prudence which we are seeking and praising would be
utterly destroyed if there were no grounds for choosing between those
which are contrary to nature and those which are according to nature?
When we eliminate, therefore, those views I have mentioned and those
which are similar to them, all that is left is [the view] that the highest
good is to live by making use of a knowledge of what happens naturally,
selecting what is according to nature and rejecting what is contrary to
nature, i.e., to live consistently and in agreement with nature. - When in the other crafts something is said to be craftsmanlike,
one must suppose that what is meant is something which is, in a way,
posterior and consequent, which they [the Greeks] call epigennematikon
[supervenient]; but when we say that something is done wisely we mean
that it is from the outset thoroughly right. For whatever is undertaken
by a wise man must immediately be complete in all its parts; for it is in
this that we find what we call that which is worth choosing. For just as
it is a [moral] mistake to betray one's country, to attack one's parents,
to rob temples (and these are [moral] mistakes because of the outcome