392 ///-48 to ///-49
Ch. xxiv What is the So-Called Craft of Living?
- Again, the Stoics say that the goods of the soul are certain crafts,
namely, the virtues. They say that a craft is a complex system of grasps
practiced together, and that the grasps arise in the leading part of the
soul. How, then, there arises in the leading part of the soul which is,
according to them, pneuma, a deposit of grasps and how an aggregate of
so many things becomes a craft, it is not possible to conceive, when each
subsequent impression replaces the one before it, since the pneuma is
fluid and is said to be moved totally with each impression. 189. And it
is perfect nonsense to say that Plato's imaginary construction [of the
soul] (I mean the mixture of the undivided and divided substance, and
of the nature of difference and sameness^47 or numbers), is capable of
receiving the good. Hence, the good cannot be in the soul either. 190.
If, then, the good is not the choosing itself, and if what is worth choosing
for its own sake is not an external object, and if it is neither nor bodily nor
in the soul, as I have argued, there is altogether nothing good by nature.
For the abovementioned reasons, there is nothing bad by nature either.
For things that seem to be bad to some are pursued as good by others,
for example, lewdness, injustice, greed, lack of self-control, and the like.
Hence, if things [which exist] by nature naturally move all men in the
same way, there is nothing by nature bad.
- Similarly, there is nothing by nature indifferent, because of the
disagreement about things indifferent. For example, the Stoics say that
of indifferents some are preferred, some rejected, and some neither pre-
ferred nor rejected. Things preferred are those having sufficient value,
such as health and wealth. Things rejected are those not having sufficient
value such as poverty and sickness. Things neither preferred nor rejected
are such things as extending or bending the finger. 192. Some say that
none of the things indifferent are by nature preferred or rejected, for each
of the things indifferent sometimes appears to be preferred, sometimes
rejected, depending on different circumstances. Indeed, if, they say, the
wealthy are attacked by a tyrant while the poor are left in peace, everyone
would choose to be poor rather than wealthy, so that wealth would become
something rejected. 193. So, since each of the things said to indifferent
is said by some to be good and others bad, and everyone would have
similarly believed the same thing to be indifferent, if it really were
indifferent by nature, there is nothing indifferent by nature.
And so, if someone should say that courage is worth choosing because
- Timaeus 35 ff.
