EPISTLE LXXXVIII.
such character as this? No; no more than they teach simplicity, moderation and self-restraint, thrift and economy, and that kindliness which spares a neighbour’s life as if it were one’s own and knows that it is not for man to make wasteful use of his fellow-man.
31. “But,” one says, “since you declare that virtue cannot be attained without the ’liberal studies,’ how is it that you deny that they offer any assistance to virtue?”[1] Because you cannot attain virtue without food, either; and yet food has nothing to do with virtue. Wood does not offer assistance to a ship, although a ship cannot be built except of wood. There is no reason, I say, why you should think that anything is made by the assistance of that without which it cannot be made. 32. We might even make the statement that it is possible to attain wisdom without the “liberal studies”; for although virtue is a thing that must be learned, yet it is not learned by means of these studies.
What reason have I, however, for supposing that one who is ignorant of letters will never be a wise man, since wisdom is not to be found in letters? Wisdom communicates facts[2] and not words; and it may be true that the memory is more to be depended upon when it has no support outside itself. 33. Wisdom is a large and spacious thing. It needs plenty of free room. One must learn about things divine and human, the past and the future, the ephemeral and the eternal; and one must learn about Time.[3] See how many questions arise concerning time alone: in the first place, whether it is anything in and by itself; in the second place, whether anything exists prior to time and without time; and again, did time
- ↑ This usage is a not infrequent one in Latin; cf. Petronius, Sat. 42 neminem nihil boni facere oportet; id. ib. 58; Verg. Ecl. v. 25, etc. See Draeger, Hist. Syn. ii. 75, and Roby, ii. 2246 ff.
- ↑ Cf. Epp. xxxi. 6 and lxxxi. 29 aestimare res, de quibus . . . cum rerum natura deliberandum est.
- ↑ The ancient Stoics defined Time as “extension of the world’s motion.” The seasons were said to be “alive” because they depended on material conditions. But the Stoics really acknowledged Time to be immaterial. The same problem of corporeality was discussed with regard to the “good.”
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