noways uneasy, who covet nothing, who are lifted up by no vain joy, are happy: and therefore I grant you that. But as for the other, that is not now in a fit state for discussion; for it has been proved by your former arguments that a wise man is free from every perturbation of mind.
M. Doubtless, then, the dispute is over; for the question appears to have been entirely exhausted.
A. I think, indeed, that that is almost the case.
M. But yet that is more usually the case with the mathematicians than philosophers. For when the geometricians teach anything, if what they have before taught relates to their present subject, they take that for granted which has been already proved, and explain only what they had not written on before. But the philosophers, whatever subject they have in hand, get together everything that relates to it, notwithstanding they may have dilated on it somewhere else. Were not that the case, why should the Stoics say so much on that question, Whether virtue was abundantly sufficient to a happy life? when it would have been answer enough that they had before taught that nothing was good but what was honorable; for, as this had been proved, the consequence must be that virtue was sufficient to a happy life; and each premise may be made to follow from the admission of the other, so that if it be admitted that virtue is sufficient to secure a happy life, it may also be inferred that nothing is good except what is honorable. They, however, do not proceed in this manner; for they would separate books about what is honorable, and what is the chief good; and when they have demonstrated from the one that virtue has power enough to make life happy, yet they treat this point separately; for everything, and especially a subject of such great consequence, should be supported by arguments and exhortations which belong to that alone. For you should have a care how you imagine philosophy to have uttered anything more noble, or that she has promised anything more fruitful or of greater consequence, for, good Gods! doth she not engage that she will render him who submits to her laws so accomplished as to be always armed against fortune, and to have every assurance within himself of living well and happily—that he shall, in short, be forever
