good fortune except in a wise man? What sort of a philosophy, then, is that which speaks in the ordinary manner in the forum, but in a peculiar style of its own in books? especially when, as they intimate themselves in all they say, no innovations are made by them in the facts,—none of the things themselves are changed, but they remain exactly the same, though in another manner. For what difference does it make whether you call riches, and power, and health goods, or only things preferred, as long as the man who calls them goods attributes no more to them than you do who call them things preferred? Therefore, Panætius—a noble and dignified man, worthy of the intimacy which he enjoyed with Scipio and Lælius—when he was writing to Quintus Tubero on the subject of bearing pain, never once asserted, what ought to have been his main argument, if it could have been proved, that pain was not an evil; but he explained what it was, and what its character was, and what amount of disagreeableness there was in it, and what was the proper method of enduring it; and (for he, too, was a Stoic) all that preposterous language of the school appears to me to be condemned by these sentiments of his.
X. But, however, to come, O Cato, more closely to what you have been saying, let us treat this question more narrowly, and compare what you have just said with those assertions which I prefer to yours. Now, those arguments which you employ in common with the ancients, we may make use of as admitted. But let us, if you please, confine our discussion to those which are disputed. I do please, said he: I am very glad to have the question argued with more subtlety, and, as you call it, more closely; for what you have hitherto advanced are mere popular assertions, but from you I expect something more elegant. From me? said I. However, I will try; and, if I cannot find arguments enough, I will not be above having recourse to those which you call popular.
But let me first lay down this position, that we are so recommended to ourselves by nature, and that we have this principal desire implanted in us by nature, that our first wish is to preserve ourselves. This is agreed. It follows, that we must take notice what we are, that so we may preserve ourselves in that character of which we ought to be. We are, therefore, men: we consist of mind and body,—which are
