SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXVI.
which it deals ;
if the matter is hard and stubborn,
it does not make the virtue worse if ; pleasant and
joyous, it does not make it better. Therefore, virtue
necessarily remains equal. For, in each case, what
is done is done with equal uprightness, with equal
wisdom, and with equal honour. Hence the states of
goodness involved are equal, and it is impossible for a
man to transcend these states of goodness by conducting
himself better, either the one man in his joy,
or the other amid his suffering. And two goods,
neither of which can possibly be better, are equal.
For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either
diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honourable
a ceases to be the only good. If you grant this,
honour has wholly perished. And why
? Let me
tell : it is
you because no act is honourable that is
done by an unwilling agent, that is
compulsory.
Every honourable act is voluntary. Alloy
it with
reluctance, complaints, cowardice, or fear, and it
loses its best characteristic self -approval. That
which is not free cannot be honourable ;
for fear
means slavery.
The honourable is
wholly free from
anxiety and is calm; if it ever objects, laments, or
regards anything as an evil, it becomes subject to
disturbance and begins to flounder about amid great
confusion. For on one side the semblance of right
calls to it,
on the other the suspicion of evil drags
it back. Therefore, when a man is about to do
something honourable, he should not regard any
obstacles as evils, even though he regard them as
inconvenient, but he should will to do the deed, and
do it willingly. For every honourable act is done
without commands or compulsion
it is
unalloyed
;
and contains no admixture of evil.
1 know what you may reply to me at this point :
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