EPISTLE LXXXIX.
plays, as well as by the epitaph that is carved on the tomb of Dossennus:[1]
Pause, stranger, and read the wisdom of Dossennus.
8. Certain of our school, however, although philosophy meant to them “the study of virtue,” and though virtue was the object sought and philosophy the seeker, have maintained nevertheless that the two cannot be sundered. For philosophy cannot exist without virtue, nor virtue without philosophy. Philosophy is the study of virtue, by means, however, of virtue itself; but neither can virtue exist without the study of itself, nor can the study of virtue exist without virtue itself. For it is not like trying to hit a target at long range, where the shooter and the object to be shot at are in different places. Nor, as roads which lead into a city, are the approaches to virtue situated outside virtue herself; the path by which one reaches virtue leads by way of virtue herself; philosophy and virtue cling closely together.
9. The greatest authors, and the greatest number of authors, have maintained that there are three divisions of philosophy—moral, natural, and rational.[2] The first keeps the soul in order; the second investigates the universe; the third works out the essential meanings of words, their combinations, and the proofs which keep falsehood from creeping in and displacing truth. But there have also been those who divided philosophy on the one hand into fewer divisions, on the other hand into more. 10. Certain of the Peripatetic school have added a fourth division, “civil philosophy,” because it calls for a special sphere of activity and is interested in
- ↑ It is doubtful whether this was the name of a real person, or a mere “Joe Miller” type from the Fabula Atellana. The character in Horace, Ep. ii. 1. 173, is certainly the latter; and the testimony of Pliny (N. H. xiv. 15), who quotes a line from a play called Acharistio, is not reliable.
- ↑ i.e., logic.
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