Letter 88

[1] You are eager to know what I think about the liberal studies. I respect none of them, I count none among the goods, that ends in money. They are hired skills, useful only so far as they prepare the mind without holding it back. One should linger over them only as long as the mind can do nothing greater; they are our apprenticeship, not our real work. [2] You see why they are called liberal studies: because they are worthy of a free man. But there is only one study that is truly liberal, the one that makes a man free, and that is the study of wisdom, lofty, brave, and great-souled; the rest are petty and childish. Or do you believe there is anything good in pursuits whose teachers you see to be the most disgraceful and depraved of all men? We ought not to be learning such things; we ought already to have learned them. Some have judged that the question to be asked about the liberal studies is whether they make a man good; but these studies neither promise this nor even aim at a knowledge of it. [3] Grammar [the study of language and literature] concerns itself with the care of speech, and, if it wishes to range more widely, with histories, and, to push its boundaries as far as possible, with poems. Which of these paves the way to virtue? The parsing of syllables, the careful study of words, the memorizing of stories, the law and measure of verses, which of these takes away fear, removes desire, bridles lust? [4] Let us pass on to geometry and to music: you will find nothing in them that forbids us to fear, forbids us to desire. And whoever does not know these things knows other things in vain. [...] whether these men teach virtue or not: if they do not teach it, then they do not even transmit it; if they do teach it, they are philosophers. Do you want to know how far they are from having taken their chairs to teach virtue? Look at how dissimilar all their studies are from one another; yet there would be similarity if they taught the same thing. [5] Unless perhaps they persuade you that Homer was a philosopher, while they deny it by the very arguments with which they try to prove it; for now they make him a Stoic, who approves virtue alone and shuns pleasures and does not withdraw from the honorable even at the price of immortality; now an Epicurean, who praises the condition of a city at peace and one that passes its life amid banquets and songs; now a Peripatetic, who introduces three kinds of goods; now an Academic, who says that all things are uncertain. It is clear that none of these doctrines is in him, precisely because all of them are; for these things are at odds with one another. Let us grant them that Homer was a philosopher: surely he became wise before he learned any poems; therefore let us learn the things that made Homer wise. [6] As for my asking which was the elder in age, Homer or Hesiod, that has no more bearing on the matter than to know why Hecuba, though younger than Helen, bore her years so badly. What, I ask, do you think it has to do with the matter to inquire into the ages of Patroclus and Achilles? [7] Do you ask where Ulysses wandered, rather than work to keep us from always wandering? There is no time to hear whether he was tossed between Italy and Sicily or outside the world known to us (for so long a wandering could not have taken place in so narrow a space): the storms of the spirit toss us daily, and our wickedness drives us into all the evils of Ulysses. There is never lacking a beauty to trouble our eyes, nor an enemy; on this side savage monsters that delight in human blood, on that the treacherous flatteries of the ear, on this shipwreck and so many varieties of evils. Teach me this: how I am to love my country, how my wife, how my father, how, even as a shipwrecked man, I am to sail toward these so honorable ends. [8] Why do you inquire whether Penelope was unchaste, whether she deceived her age? Whether she suspected that the man she saw was Ulysses, before she knew it? Teach me what chastity is, and how great a good lies in it, and whether it is placed in the body or in the mind. [9] I pass to the musician. You teach me how high and low notes sound in concord with one another, how harmony arises from strings that give unequal sounds: rather, bring it about that my mind is in concord with itself and that my purposes do not clash. You show me which modes are mournful: show me rather how, amid adversities, I may not utter a mournful cry. [10] The geometer teaches me to measure my great estates rather than teaching me how to measure what is enough for a man; he teaches me to count and lends my fingers to greed rather than teaching me that these calculations have no bearing on the matter, that a man is no happier whose patrimony wearies his accountants, indeed how superfluous are the things he possesses who will be most wretched if he should be forced to compute by himself how much he has. [11] What good does it do me to know how to divide a small field into parts, if I do not know how to divide it with my brother? What good is it to gather up the feet of an acre with precision and to grasp even what has escaped the ten-foot measuring rod, if a violent neighbor makes me wretched by scraping off something of mine? He teaches me how to lose nothing of my boundaries: but I want to learn how to lose them all with a cheerful heart. "I am being driven," he says, "from my father's and grandfather's field." [12] What of it? Before your grandfather, who held that field? Can you make out to whose it was, I will not say what man's, but what people's? You entered it not as owner but as tenant. Whose tenant are you? If things go well for you, the heir's. The jurists deny that public property can be acquired by long possession: this that you hold, that you call your own, is public property, and indeed belongs to the human race. [13] O excellent skill! You know how to measure round shapes, you reduce to a square whatever figure you have received, you state the distances of the stars, there is nothing that does not fall within your measurement: if you are a craftsman, measure the mind of man, say how great it is, say how petty it is. You know what a straight line is: what good does it do you, if you do not know what is straight in life? [14] I come now to the man who boasts of his knowledge of the heavenly bodies: What good will it do to know this? That I should be anxious when Saturn and Mars stand in opposition, or when Mercury makes its evening setting in view of Saturn, rather than learning this, that wherever those bodies are, they are favorable and cannot be changed? [15] A continuous order of the fates drives them, and an inevitable course; through fixed turns they return, and either set in motion or mark the outcomes of all things. But whether they cause whatever happens, what will the knowledge of an unchangeable thing accomplish? Or whether they merely give signs, what does it matter to foresee what you cannot escape? Whether you know these things or do not know them: they will happen. Provision has been made amply and abundantly that I should be safe from snares. [17] "Does not the morrow's hour deceive me? For what comes upon a man unknowing does deceive him." I do not know what will be: I do know what can be. Of this I will beg off nothing, I expect the whole; if anything is remitted, I count it a gain. The hour deceives me if it spares me, but not even then does it deceive me. For just as I know that all things can happen, so I know that they will not in every case happen; and so I expect favorable things, while I am prepared for evils. [18] In this you must bear with me when I do not go by the prescribed course; for I am not brought to admit painters into the number of the liberal arts, any more than statue-makers or marble-workers or the other ministers of luxury. Equally I expel from these liberal studies the wrestlers and all that science made up of oil and mud; otherwise I would also admit perfumers and cooks and the others who accommodate their talents to our pleasures. [19] For what, I ask you, is liberal about these fasting vomiters, whose bodies are in fattening and whose minds are in leanness and lethargy? Or do we believe that to be a liberal study for our youth, whom our ancestors trained upright to hurl javelins, to wield the stake, to drive the horse, to handle weapons? They taught their children nothing that had to be learned lying down. But neither these nor those teach or nourish virtue; for what good is it to govern a horse and to temper its course with the bridle, while one is dragged off by the most unbridled passions? What good is it to conquer many in wrestling or with the boxing-glove, while one is conquered by anger? [20] "What then? Do the liberal studies contribute nothing to us?" Much toward other things, nothing toward virtue; for those professedly vulgar arts too, which consist in handiwork, contribute a great deal to the equipment of life, yet have nothing to do with virtue. "Why then do we educate our sons in the liberal studies?" Not because they can give virtue, but because they prepare the mind to receive virtue. Just as that elementary instruction, as the ancients called it, by which children are given their first letters, does not teach the liberal arts but soon prepares the ground for grasping them, so the liberal arts do not bring the mind all the way to virtue but make it ready. [21] Posidonius says there are four kinds of arts: there are the vulgar and sordid, there are the entertaining, there are the boyish, there are the liberal. The vulgar belong to workmen, which consist in handiwork and are occupied with equipping life, in which there is no pretense of grace, none of the honorable. [22] The entertaining are those that aim at the pleasure of the eyes and ears; among these you may count the stage-engineers who devise platforms rising of their own accord and floors silently growing aloft and other unexpected variations, whether by things that cohered suddenly gaping apart, or by things that stood apart coming together of their own accord, or by things that projected gradually sinking into themselves. By these the eyes of the inexpert are struck, marveling at everything sudden because they do not know its causes. [23] Boyish, and having something similar to the liberal arts, are those arts which the Greeks call enkyklioi [the general course of education], but which our people call liberal. Yet only those are liberal, or rather, to speak more truly, free, whose concern is virtue. [24] "Just as," he says, "there is a part of philosophy that is natural, a part that is moral, a part that is rational, so this crowd of liberal arts too claims a place for itself in philosophy. When one comes to questions of nature, one relies on the testimony of geometry; therefore it is a part of that which it assists." [25] Many things assist us and are not for that reason parts of us; indeed, if they were parts, they would not assist us. Food is an aid to the body, yet not a part of it. Geometry renders us some service: it is necessary to philosophy in the way that the smith is necessary to itself, but neither is the smith a part of geometry nor geometry a part of philosophy. [26] Besides, each has its own limits; for the wise man both seeks out and knows the causes of natural things, whose numbers and measures the geometer pursues and computes. By what principle the heavenly bodies hold together, what force, what nature belongs to them, the wise man knows: their courses and recurrences and certain apparent motions by which they descend and rise and sometimes present the appearance of standing still, though it is not permitted to the heavenly bodies to stand still, the mathematician computes. [27] What cause produces images in a mirror the wise man will know: this the geometer can tell you, how far the body ought to be from the image and what shape of mirror returns what images. That the sun is large the philosopher will prove; how large it is the mathematician will tell, who proceeds by a certain practice and exercise. But in order to proceed, he must obtain certain first principles; and an art is not its own master if its foundation is granted on sufferance. [28] Philosophy asks nothing from another; it raises its whole work from its own ground alone: mathematics, so to speak, is built on a surface, it builds on another's land; it accepts first principles, by whose benefit it may reach further conclusions. If it went to the truth by itself, if it could comprehend the nature of the whole world, I would say it contributed much to our minds, which grow by the handling of heavenly things and draw something from on high. The mind is brought to completion by one thing, the unchangeable knowledge of goods and evils; but no other art inquires about goods and evils. Let me go around the several virtues one by one. [29] Courage is the despiser of things to be feared; it looks down upon, challenges, and breaks the terrible things and those that would send our liberty under the yoke: do the liberal studies, then, strengthen this virtue? Good faith is the holiest good of the human heart; it is forced to deceive by no necessity, it is corrupted by no reward: "Burn me," it says, "strike me, kill me: I will not betray, but the more deeply pain seeks out my secrets, the more deeply I will bury them." Can the liberal studies produce such spirits? Temperance commands the pleasures, some it hates and drives off, others it apportions and reduces to a healthy measure, and it never comes to them for their own sake; it knows that the best measure of things desired is not how much you want, but how much you ought to take. [30] Humanity forbids being proud toward one's fellows, forbids being bitter; in words, in deeds, in feelings it shows itself courteous and easy to all; it thinks no one's evil foreign to it, and it loves its own good chiefly for this reason, that it will be of good to someone. Do the liberal studies teach these manners? No more than they teach simplicity, modesty and moderation, no more than frugality and thrift, no more than clemency, which spares another's blood as if its own and knows that man must not be wastefully used by man. [31] "Since you say," he objects, "that one does not arrive at virtue without the liberal studies, how do you deny that they contribute nothing to virtue?" Because one does not arrive at virtue without food either, yet food has nothing to do with virtue; timber contributes nothing to a ship, although a ship is not made except of timber: there is no reason, I say, why you should think anything is made by the aid of that without which it cannot be made. [32] One may indeed even say this, that one can arrive at wisdom without the liberal studies; for although virtue must be learned, yet it is not learned through these. What reason have I to suppose that a man ignorant of letters will not become wise, since wisdom is not in letters? It is things, not words, that wisdom hands down, and perhaps memory is more reliable when it has no support outside itself. [33] Wisdom is a great and spacious thing; it needs empty room; one must learn about things divine and human, about the past and the future, about the perishable and the eternal, about time. About this one subject, see how many things are asked: first, whether it is anything in itself; then, whether anything exists before time without time; whether it began with the world, or whether, because something existed even before the world, time also existed then. [34] There are innumerable questions about the soul alone: whence it comes, what its nature is, when it begins to exist, how long it exists, whether it passes from one place to another and changes its dwellings, cast into other shapes of animals one after another, or whether it serves no more than once and, once released, wanders through the whole; whether it is corporeal or not; what it will do when it has ceased to do anything through us, how it will use its freedom when it has escaped from this cage; whether it forgets its former existence and begins to know itself from the moment it is led away from the body and withdraws on high. [35] Whatever part of human and divine affairs you grasp, you will be wearied by the vast abundance of things to be inquired into and learned. That these things, so many and so great, may have free lodging, superfluous things must be removed from the mind. Virtue will not give itself into these narrow quarters; a great thing requires ample space. Let everything be expelled, let the whole breast be empty for it. [36] "But the knowledge of many arts gives delight." Let us then keep of them only as much as is necessary. Do you judge that the man is to be blamed who procures superfluous things for use and lays out a display of costly things in his house, but do you not think the man blameworthy who is occupied with the superfluous furniture of letters? To want to know more than is enough is a kind of intemperance. [37] What of the fact that this pursuit of the liberal arts makes men troublesome, wordy, tactless, self-satisfied, and for that very reason not learning the necessary things because they have learned the superfluous? Didymus the grammarian wrote four thousand books: I would pity him if he had merely read so many superfluous ones. In these books it is asked about Homer's homeland, in these about Aeneas's true mother, in these whether Anacreon lived more lustful or more drunken, in these whether Sappho was a public woman, and other things that would have to be unlearned if you knew them. Go now and deny that life is long! [38] But when you come to our own writers too, I will show you many things to be cut back with the axe. At great expense of time, at great annoyance to others' ears, this praise is won: "O what a lettered man!" Let us be content with this more rustic title: "O what a good man!" [39] Is that so? Shall I unroll the annals of all nations and ask who first wrote poems? Shall I compute how much time lies between Orpheus and Homer, when I do not have the calendars? And shall I review the marks of Aristarchus, with which he pricked the verses of others, and wear away my age upon syllables? Shall I stick fast in the dust of geometry? Has that wholesome precept so escaped me: "Spare time"? Shall I know these things? And what shall I not know? [40] Apion the grammarian, who in the time of Gaius Caesar traveled about all of Greece and was adopted into the name of Homer by all the cities, used to say that Homer, having finished both subjects, the Odyssey and the Iliad, added a prologue to his work in which he embraced the Trojan War. He brought forward as proof of this that Homer had deliberately placed in the first verse two letters containing the number of his books. [41] Such things a man ought to know who wants to know many things. Are you not willing to consider how much time bad health takes from you, how much public business, how much private business, how much daily business, how much sleep? Measure your lifetime: it does not hold so much. [42] I am speaking of the liberal studies: how much the philosophers have that is superfluous, how much that departs from use! They too have descended to the distinctions of syllables and the properties of conjunctions and prepositions, and have envied the grammarians, envied the geometers; whatever was superfluous in those men's arts they have transferred into their own. So it has come about that they know how to speak more carefully than to live. [43] Hear how much evil excessive subtlety does and how hostile it is to truth. Protagoras says that one can argue on either side of every question with equal force, and even on this very question, whether every matter is debatable on either side. Nausiphanes says that of the things which seem to exist, none exists any more than it does not exist. [44] Parmenides says that of these things which seem to exist, none exists except the universe. Zeno of Elea threw all problems out of the problem: he says nothing exists. About roughly the same matters revolve the Pyrrhonists and the Megarians and the Eretrians and the Academics, who introduced a new science, that of knowing nothing. [45] Throw all these into that superfluous herd of liberal studies; the former hand me a knowledge that will not profit me, the latter snatch away the hope of all knowledge. It is better to know superfluous things than nothing. The former do not hold out a light by which my gaze may be directed to the truth, the latter gouge out my eyes. If I believe Protagoras, there is nothing in the nature of things except the doubtful; if Nausiphanes, this one thing is certain, that nothing is certain; if Parmenides, there is nothing except the One; if Zeno, not even the One. [46] What then are we? What are those things that surround us, nourish us, sustain us? The whole nature of things is a shadow, either empty or deceptive. I could not easily say which I should be more angry at, those who wished us to know nothing, or those who did not leave us even this, to know nothing. Farewell.

You have been wishing to know my views with regard to liberal studies. My answer is this: I respect no study, and deem no study good, which results in money-making. Such studies are profit-bringing occupations, useful only in so far as they give the mind a preparation and do not engage it permanently. One should linger upon them only so long as the mind can occupy itself with nothing greater; they are our apprenticeship, not our real work. Hence you see why “liberal studies” are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free-born gentleman. But there is only one really liberal study,—that which gives a man his liberty. It is the study of wisdom, and that is lofty, brave, and great-souled. All other studies are puny and puerile. You surely do not believe that there is good in any of the subjects whose teachers are, as you see, men of the most ignoble and base stamp? We ought not to be learning such things; we should have done with learning them. Certain persons have made up their minds that the point at issue with regard to the liberal studies is whether they make men good; but they do not even profess or aim at a knowledge of this particular subject. The scholar busies himself with investigations into language, and if it be his desire to go farther afield, he works on history, or, if he would extend his range to the farthest limits, on poetry. But which of these paves the way to virtue? Pronouncing syllables, investigating words, memorizing plays, or making rules for the scansion of poetry,—what is there in all this that rids one of fear, roots out desire, or bridles the passions? The question is: do such men teach virtue, or not? If they do not teach it, then neither do they transmit it. If they do teach it, they are philosophers. Would you like to know how it happens that they have not taken the chair for the purpose of teaching virtue? See how unlike their subjects are; and yet their subjects would resemble each other if they taught the same thing. It may be, perhaps, that they make you believe that Homer was a philosopher, although they disprove this by the very arguments through which they seek to prove it. For sometimes they make of him a Stoic, who approves nothing but virtue, avoids pleasures, and refuses to relinquish honour even at the price of immortality; sometimes they make him an Epicurean, praising the condition of a state in repose, which passes its days in feasting and song; sometimes a Peripatetic, classifying goodness in three ways; sometimes an Academic, holding that all things are uncertain. It is clear, however, that no one of these doctrines is to be fathered upon Homer, just because they are all there; for they are irreconcilable with one another. We may admit to these men, indeed, that Homer was a philosopher; yet surely he became a wise man before he had any knowledge of poetry. So let us learn the particular things that made Homer wise. It is no more to the point, of course, for me to investigate whether Homer or Hesiod was the older poet, than to know why Hecuba, although younger than Helen, showed her years so lamentably. What, in your opinion, I say, would be the point in trying to determine the respective ages of Achilles and Patroclus? Do you raise the question, “Through what regions did Ulysses stray?” instead of trying to prevent ourselves from going astray at all times? We have no leisure to hear lectures on the question whether he was sea-tost between Italy and Sicily, or outside our known world (indeed, so long a wandering could not possibly have taken place within its narrow bounds); we ourselves encounter storms of the spirit, which toss us daily, and our depravity drives us into all the ills which troubled Ulysses. For us there is never lacking the beauty to tempt our eyes, or the enemy to assail us; on this side are savage monsters that delight in human blood, on that side the treacherous allurements of the ear, and yonder is shipwreck and all the varied category of misfortunes. Show me rather, by the example of Ulysses, how I am to love my country, my wife, my father, and how, even after suffering shipwreck, I am to sail toward these ends, honourable as they are. Why try to discover whether Penelope was a pattern of purity, or whether she had the laugh on her contemporaries? Or whether she suspected that the man in her presence was Ulysses, before she knew it was he? Teach me rather what purity is, and how great a good we have in it, and whether it is situated in the body or in the soul. Now I will transfer my attention to the musician. You, sir, are teaching me how the treble and the bass are in accord with one another, and how, though the strings produce different notes, the result is a harmony; rather bring my soul into harmony with itself, and let not my purposes be out of tune. You are showing me what the doleful keys are; show me rather how, in the midst of adversity, I may keep from uttering a doleful note. The mathematician teaches me how to lay out the dimensions of my estates; but I should rather be taught how to lay out what is enough for a man to own. He teaches me to count, and adapts my fingers to avarice; but I should prefer him to teach me that there is no point in such calculations, and that one is none the happier for tiring out the book-keepers with his possessions—or rather, how useless property is to any man who would find it the greatest misfortune if he should be required to reckon out, by his own wits, the amount of his holdings. What good is there for me in knowing how to parcel out a piece of land, if I know not how to share it with my brother? What good is there in working out to a nicety the dimensions of an acre, and in detecting the error if a piece has so much as escaped my measuring-rod, if I am embittered when an ill-tempered neighbour merely scrapes off a bit of my land? The mathematician teaches me how I may lose none of my boundaries; I, however, seek to learn how to lose them all with a light heart. “But,” comes the reply, “I am being driven from the farm which my father and grandfather owned!” Well? Who owned the land before your grandfather? Can you explain what people (I will not say what person) held it originally? You did not enter upon it as a master, but merely as a tenant. And whose tenant are you? If your claim is successful, you are tenant of the heir. The lawyers say that public property cannot be acquired privately by possession; what you hold and call your own is public property—indeed, it belongs to mankind at large. O what marvellous skill! You know how to measure the circle; you find the square of any shape which is set before you; you compute the distances between the stars; there is nothing which does not come within the scope of your calculations. But if you are a real master of your profession, measure me the mind of man! Tell me how great it is, or how puny! You know what a straight line is; but how does it benefit you if you do not know what is straight in this life of ours? I come next to the person who boasts his knowledge of the heavenly bodies, who knows Whither the chilling star of Saturn hides, And through what orbit Mercury doth stray. Of what benefit will it be to know this? That I shall be disturbed because Saturn and Mars are in opposition, or when Mercury sets at eventide in plain view of Saturn, rather than learn that those stars, wherever they are, are propitious, and that they are not subject to change? They are driven along by an unending round of destiny, on a course from which they cannot swerve. They return at stated seasons; they either set in motion, or mark the intervals of the whole world’s work. But if they are responsible for whatever happens, how will it help you to know the secrets of the immutable? Or if they merely give indications, what good is there in foreseeing what you cannot escape? Whether you know these things or not, they will take place. Behold the fleeting sun, The stars that follow in his train, and thou Shalt never find the morrow play thee false, Or be misled by nights without a cloud. It has, however, been sufficiently and fully ordained that I shall be safe from anything that may mislead me. “What,” you say, “does the ’morrow never play me false’? Whatever happens without my knowledge plays me false.” I, for my part, do not know what is to be, but I do know what may come to be. I shall have no misgivings in this matter; I await the future in its entirety; and if there is any abatement in its severity, I make the most of it. If the morrow treats me kindly, it is a sort of deception; but it does not deceive me even at that. For just as I know that all things can happen, so I know, too, that they will not happen in every case. I am ready for favourable events in every case, but I am prepared for evil. In this discussion you must bear with me if I do not follow the regular course. For I do not consent to admit painting into the list of liberal arts, any more than sculpture, marble-working, and other helps toward luxury. I also debar from the liberal studies wrestling and all knowledge that is compounded of oil and mud; otherwise, I should be compelled to admit perfumers also, and cooks, and all others who lend their wits to the service of our pleasures. For what “liberal” element is there in these ravenous takers of emetics, whose bodies are fed to fatness while their minds are thin and dull? Or do we really believe that the training which they give is “liberal” for the young men of Rome, who used to be taught by our ancestors to stand straight and hurl a spear, to wield a pike, to guide a horse, and to handle weapons? Our ancestors used to teach their children nothing that could be learned while lying down. But neither the new system nor the old teaches or nourishes virtue. For what good does it do us to guide a horse and control his speed with the curb, and then find that our own passions, utterly uncurbed, bolt with us? Or to beat many opponents in wrestling or boxing, and then to find that we ourselves are beaten by anger? “What then,” you say, “do the liberal studies contribute nothing to our welfare?” Very much in other respects, but nothing at all as regards virtue. For even these arts of which I have spoken, though admittedly of a low grade—depending as they do upon handiwork—contribute greatly toward the equipment of life, but nevertheless have nothing to do with virtue. And if you inquire, “Why, then, do we educate our children in the liberal studies?” it is not because they can bestow virtue, but because they prepare the soul for the reception of virtue. Just as that “primary course,” as the ancients called it, in grammar, which gave boys their elementary training, does not teach them the liberal arts, but prepares the ground for their early acquisition of these arts, so the liberal arts do not conduct the soul all the way to virtue, but merely set it going in that direction. Posidonius divides the arts into four classes: first we have those which are common and low, then those which serve for amusement, then those which refer to the education of boys, and, finally, the liberal arts. The common sort belong to workmen and are mere hand-work; they are concerned with equipping life; there is in them no pretence to beauty or honour. The arts of amusement are those which aim to please the eye and the ear. To this class you may assign the stage-machinists, who invent scaffolding that goes aloft of its own accord, or floors that rise silently into the air, and many other surprising devices, as when objects that fit together then fall apart, or objects which are separate then join together automatically, or objects which stand erect then gradually collapse. The eye of the inexperienced is struck with amazement by these things; for such persons marvel at everything that takes place without warning, because they do not know the causes. The arts which belong to the education of boys, and are somewhat similar to the liberal arts, are those which the Greeks call the “cycle of studies,” but which we Romans call the “liberal.” However, those alone are really liberal—or rather, to give them a truer name, “free”—whose concern is virtue. “But,” one will say, “just as there is a part of philosophy which has to do with nature, and a part which has to do with ethics, and a part which has to do with reasoning, so this group of liberal arts also claims for itself a place in philosophy. When one approaches questions that deal with nature, a decision is reached by means of a word from the mathematician. Therefore mathematics is a department of that branch which it aids.” But many things aid us and yet are not parts of ourselves. Nay, if they were, they would not aid us. Food is an aid to the body, but is not a part of it. We get some help from the service which mathematics renders; and mathematics is as indispensable to philosophy as the carpenter is to the mathematician. But carpentering is not a part of mathematics, nor is mathematics a part of philosophy. Moreover, each has its own limits; for the wise man investigates and learns the causes of natural phenomena, while the mathematician follows up and computes their numbers and their measurements. The wise man knows the laws by which the heavenly bodies persist, what powers belong to them, and what attributes; the astronomer merely notes their comings and goings, the rules which govern their settings and their risings, and the occasional periods during which they seem to stand still, although as a matter of fact no heavenly body can stand still. The wise man will know what causes the reflection in a mirror; but, the mathematician can merely tell you how far the body should be from the reflection, and what shape of mirror will produce a given reflection. The philosopher will demonstrate that the sun is a large body, while the astronomer will compute just how large, progressing in knowledge by his method of trial and experiment; but in order to progress, he must summon to his aid certain principles. No art, however, is sufficient unto itself, if the foundation upon which it rests depends upon mere favour. Now philosophy asks no favours from any other source; it builds everything on its own soil; but the science of numbers is, so to speak, a structure built on another man’s land—it builds on alien soil. It accepts first principles, and by their favour arrives at further conclusions. If it could march unassisted to the truth, if it were able to understand the nature of the universe, I should say that it would offer much assistance to our minds; for the mind grows by contact with things heavenly, and draws into itself something from on high. There is but one thing that brings the soul to perfection—the unalterable knowledge of good and evil. But there is no other art which investigates good and evil. I should like to pass in review the several virtues. Bravery is a scorner of things which inspire fear; it looks down upon, challenges, and crushes the powers of terror and all that would drive our freedom under the yoke. But do “liberal studies” strengthen this virtue? Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart; it is forced into betrayal by no constraint, and it is bribed by no rewards. Loyalty cries: “Burn me, slay me, kill me! I shall not betray my trust; and the more urgently torture shall seek to find my secret, the deeper in my heart will I bury it!” Can the “liberal arts” produce such a spirit within us? Temperance controls our desires; some it hates and routs, others it regulates and restores to a healthy measure, nor does it ever approach our desires for their own sake. Temperance knows that the best measure of the appetites is not what you want to take, but what you ought to take. Kindliness forbids you to be over-bearing towards your associates, and it forbids you to be grasping. In words and in deeds and in feelings it shows itself gentle and courteous to all men. It counts no evil as another’s solely. And the reason why it loves its own good is chiefly because it will some day be the good of another. Do “liberal studies” teach a man 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. “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?” 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. 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 and not words; and it may be true that the memory is more to be depended upon when it has no support outside itself. 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. 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 begin along with the universe, or, because there was something even before the universe began, did time also exist then? There are countless questions concerning the soul alone: whence it comes, what is its nature, when it begins to exist, and how long it exists; whether it passes from one place to another and changes its habitation, being transferred successively from one animal shape to another, or whether it is a slave but once, roaming the universe after it is set free; whether it is corporeal or not; what will become of it when it ceases to use us as its medium; how it will employ its freedom when it has escaped from this present prison; whether it will forget all its past, and at that moment begin to know itself when, released from the body, it has withdrawn to the skies. Thus, whatever phase of things human and divine you have apprehended, you will be wearied by the vast number of things to be answered and things to be learned. And in order that these manifold and mighty subjects may have free entertainment in your soul, you must remove therefrom all superfluous things. Virtue will not surrender herself to these narrow bounds of ours; a great subject needs wide space in which to move. Let all other things be driven out, and let the breast be emptied to receive virtue. “But it is a pleasure to be acquainted with many arts.” Therefore let us keep only as much of them as is essential. Do you regard that man as blameworthy who puts superfluous things on the same footing with useful things, and in his house makes a lavish display of costly objects, but do not deem him blameworthy who has allowed himself to become engrossed with the useless furniture of learning? This desire to know more than is sufficient is a sort of intemperance. Why? Because this unseemly pursuit of the liberal arts makes men troublesome, wordy, tactless, self-satisfied bores, who fail to learn the essentials just because they have learned the non-essentials. Didymus the scholar wrote four thousand books. I should feel pity for him if he had only read the same number of superfluous volumes. In these books he investigates Homer’s birthplace, who was really the mother of Aeneas, whether Anacreon was more of a rake or more of a drunkard, whether Sappho was a bad lot, and other problems the answers to which, if found, were forthwith to be forgotten. Come now, do not tell me that life is long! Nay, when you come to consider our own countrymen also, I can show you many works which ought to be cut down with the axe. It is at the cost of a vast outlay of time and of vast discomfort to the ears of others that we win such praise as this: “What a learned man you are!” Let us be content with this recommendation, less citified though it be: “What a good man you are!” Do I mean this? Well, would you have me unroll the annals of the world’s history and try to find out who first wrote poetry? Or, in the absence of written records, shall I make an estimate of the number of years which lie between Orpheus and Homer? Or shall I make a study of the absurd writings of Aristarchus, wherein he branded the text of other men’s verses, and wear my life away upon syllables? Shall I then wallow in the geometrician’s dust? Have I so far forgotten that useful saw “Save your time”? Must I know these things? And what may I choose not to know? Apion, the scholar, who drew crowds to his lectures all over Greece in the days of Gaius Caesar and was acclaimed a Homerid by every state, used to maintain that Homer, when he had finished his two poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, added a preliminary poem to his work, wherein he embraced the whole Trojan war. The argument which Apion adduced to prove this statement was that Homer had purposely inserted in the opening line two letters which contained a key to the number of his books. A man who wishes to know many things must know such things as these, and must take no thought of all the time which one loses by ill-health, public duties, private duties, daily duties, and sleep. Apply the measure to the years of your life; they have no room for all these things. I have been speaking so far of liberal studies; but think how much superfluous and unpractical matter the philosophers contain! Of their own accord they also have descended to establishing nice divisions of syllables, to determining the true meaning of conjunctions and prepositions; they have been envious of the scholars, envious of the mathematicians. They have taken over into their own art all the superfluities of these other arts; the result is that they know more about careful speaking than about careful living. Let me tell you what evils are due to over-nice exactness, and what an enemy it is of truth! Protagoras declares that one can take either side on any question and debate it with equal success—even on this very question, whether every subject can be debated from either point of view. Nausiphanes holds that in things which seem to exist, there is no difference between existence and non-existence. Parmenides maintains that nothing exists of all this which seems to exist, except the universe alone. Zeno of Elea removed all the difficulties by removing one; for he declares that nothing exists. The Pyrrhonean, Megarian, Eretrian, and Academic schools are all engaged in practically the same task; they have introduced a new knowledge, non-knowledge. You may sweep all these theories in with the superfluous troops of “liberal” studies; the one class of men give me a knowledge that will be of no use to me, the other class do away with any hope of attaining knowledge. It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. One set of philosophers offers no light by which I may direct my gaze toward the truth; the other digs out my very eyes and leaves me blind. If I cleave to Protagoras, there is nothing in the scheme of nature that is not doubtful; if I hold with Nausiphanes, I am sure only of this—that everything is unsure; if with Parmenides, there is nothing except the One; if with Zeno, there is not even the One. What are we, then? What becomes of all these things that surround us, support us, sustain us? The whole universe is then a vain or deceptive shadow. I cannot readily say whether I am more vexed at those who would have it that we know nothing, or with those who would not leave us even this privilege. Farewell.

[1] De liberalibus studiis quid sentiam scire desideras: nullum suspicio, nullum in bonis numero quod ad aes exit. Meritoria artificia sunt, hactenus utilia si praeparant ingenium, non detinent. Tamdiu enim istis inmorandum est quamdiu nihil animus agere maius potest; rudimenta sunt nostra, non opera. [2] Quare liberalia studia dicta sint vides: quia homine libero digna sunt. Ceterum unum studium vere liberale est quod liberum facit, hoc est sapientiae, sublime, forte, magnanimum: cetera pusilla et puerilia sunt. An tu quicquam in istis esse credis boni quorum professores turpissimos omnium ac flagitiosissimos cernis? Non discere debemus ista, sed didicisse. Quidam illud de liberalibus studiis quaerendum iudicaverunt, an virum bonum facerent: ne promittunt quidem nec huius rei scientiam adfectant. [3] Grammatice circa curam sermonis versatur et, si latius evagari vult, circa historias, iam ut longissime fines suos proferat, circa carmina. Quid horum ad virtutem viam sternit? Syllabarum enarratio et verborum diligentia et fabularum memoria et versuum lex ac modificatio -- quid ex his metum demit, cupiditatem eximit, libidinem frenat? [4] Ad geometriam transeamus et ad musicen: nihil apud illas invenies quod vetet timere, vetet cupere. Quae quisquis ignorat, alia frustra scit. * * * utrum doceant isti virtutem an non: si non docent, ne tradunt quidem; si docent, philosophi sunt. Vis scire quam non ad docendam virtutem consederint? aspice quam dissimilia inter se omnium studia sint: atqui similitudo esset idem docentium. [5] Nisi forte tibi Homerum philosophum fuisse persuadent, cum his ipsis quibus colligunt negent; nam modo Stoicum illum faciunt, virtutem solam probantem et voluptates refugientem et ab honesto ne inmortalitatis quidem pretio recedentem, modo Epicureum, laudantem statum quietae civitatis et inter convivia cantusque vitam exigentis, modo Peripateticum, tria bonorum genera inducentem, modo Academicum, omnia incerta dicentem. Apparet nihil horum esse in illo, quia omnia sunt; ista enim inter se dissident. Demus illis Homerum philosophum fuisse: nempe sapiens factus est antequam carmina ulla cognosceret; ergo illa discamus quae Homerum fecere sapientem. [6] Hoc quidem me quaerere, uter maioraetate fuerit, Homerus an Hesiodus, non magis ad rem pertinet quam scire, cum minor Hecuba fuerit quam Helena, quare tam male tulerit aetatem. Quid, inquam, annos Patrocli et Achillis inquirere ad rem existimas pertinere? [7] Quaeris Ulixes ubi erraverit potius quam efficias ne nos semper erremus? Non vacat audire utrum inter Italiam et Siciliam iactatus sit an extra notum nobis orbem (neque enim potuit in tam angusto error esse tam longus): tempestates nos animi cotidie iactant et nequitia in omnia Ulixis mala inpellit. Non deest forma quae sollicitet oculos, non hostis; hinc monstra effera et humano cruore gaudentia, hinc insidiosa blandimenta aurium, hinc naufragia et tot varietates malorum. Hoc me doce, quomodo patriam amem, quomodo uxorem, quomodo patrem, quomodo ad haec tam honesta vel naufragus navigem. [8] Quid inquiris an Penelopa inpudica fuerit, an verba saeculo suo dederit? an Ulixem illum esse quem videbat, antequam sciret, suspicata sit? Doce me quid sit pudicitia et quantum in ea bonum, in corpore an in animo posita sit. [9] Ad musicum transeo. Doces me quomodo inter se acutae ac graves consonent, quomodo nervorum disparem reddentium sonum fiat concordia: fac potius quomodo animus secum meus consonet nec consilia mea discrepent. Monstras mihi qui sint modi flebiles: monstra potius quomodo inter adversa non emittam flebilem vocem. [10] Metiri me geometres docet latifundia potius quam doceat quomodo metiar quantum homini satis sit; numerare docet me et avaritiae commodat digitos potius quam doceat nihil ad rem pertinere istas conputationes, non esse feliciorem cuius patrimonium tabularios lassat, immo quam supervacua possideat qui infelicissimus futurus est si quantum habeat per se conputare cogetur. [11] Quid mihi prodest scire agellum in partes dividere, si nescio cum fratre dividere? Quid prodest colligere subtiliter pedes iugeri et conprendere etiam si quid decempedam effugit, si tristem me facit vicinus inpotens et aliquid ex meo abradens? Docet quomodo nihil perdam ex finibus meis: at ego discere volo quomodo totos hilaris amittam. 'Paterno agro et avito' inquit 'expellor.' [12] Quid? ante avum tuum quis istum agrum tenuit? cuius, non dico hominis, sed populi fuerit potes expedire? Non dominus isto, sed colonus intrasti. Cuius colonus es? si bene tecum agitur, heredis. Negant iurisconsulti quicquam usu capi publicum: hoc quod tenes, quod tuum dicis, publicum est et quidem generis humani. [13] O egregiam artem! scis rotunda metiri, in quadratum redigis quamcumque acceperis formam, intervalla siderum dicis, nihil est quod in mensuram tuam non cadat: si artifex es, metire hominis animum, dic quam magnus sit, dic quam pusillus sit. Scis quae recta sit linea: quid tibi prodest, si quid in vita rectum sit ignoras? [14] Venio nunc ad illum qui caelestium notitia gloriatur: Hoc scire quid proderit? ut sollicitus sim cum Saturnus et Mars ex contrario stabunt aut cum Mercurius vespertinum faciet occasum vidente Saturno, potius quam hoc discam, ubicumque sunt ista, propitia esse nec posse mutari? [15] Agit illa continuus ordo fatorum et inevitabilis cursus; per statas vices remeant et effectus rerum omnium aut movent aut notant. Sed sive quidquid evenit faciunt, quid inmutabilis rei notitia proficiet? sive significant, quid refert providere quod effugere non possis? Scias ista, nescias: fient. Satis abundeque provisum est ut ab insidiis tutus essem. [17] 'Numquid me crastina non fallit hora? fallit enim quod nescienti evenit.' Ego quid futurum sit nescio: quid fieri possit scio. Ex hoc nihil deprecabor, totum expecto: si quid remittitur, boni consulo. Fallit me hora si parcit, sed ne sic quidem fallit. Nam quemadmodum scio omnia accidere posse, sic scio et non utique casura; itaque secunda expecto, malis paratus sum. [18] In illo feras me necesse est non per praescriptum euntem; non enim adducor ut in numerum liberalium artium pictores recipiam, non magis quam statuarios aut marmorarios aut ceteros luxuriae ministros. Aeque luctatores et totam oleo ac luto constantem scientiam expello ex his studiis liberalibus; aut et unguentarios recipiam et cocos et ceteros voluptatibus nostris ingenia accommodantes sua. [19] Quid enim, oro te, liberale habent isti ieiuni vomitores, quorum corpora in sagina, animi in macie et veterno sunt? An liberale studium istuc esse iuventuti nostrae credimus, quam maiores nostri rectam exercuerunt hastilia iacere, sudem torquere, equum agitare, arma tractare? Nihil liberos suos docebant quod discendum esset iacentibus. Sed nec hae nec illae docent aluntve virtutem; quid enim prodest equum regere et cursum eius freno temperare, adfectibus effrenatissimis abstrahi? quid prodest multos vincere luctatione vel caestu, ab iracundia vinci? [20] 'Quid ergo? nihil nobis liberalia conferunt studia?' Ad alia multum, ad virtutem nihil; nam et hae viles ex professo artes quae manu constant ad instrumenta vitae plurimum conferunt, tamen ad virtutem non pertinent. 'Quare ergo liberalibus studiis filios erudimus?' Non quia virtutem dare possunt, sed quia animum ad accipiendam virtutem praeparant. Quemadmodum prima illa, ut antiqui vocabant, litteratura, per quam pueris elementa traduntur, non docet liberales artes sed mox percipiendis locum parat, sic liberales artes non perducunt animum ad virtutem sed expediunt. [21] Quattuor ait esse artium Posidonius genera: sunt vulgares et sordidae, sunt ludicrae, sunt pueriles, sunt liberales. Vulgares opificum, quae manu constant et ad instruendam vitam occupatae sunt, in quibus nulla decoris, nulla honesti simulatio est. [22] Ludicrae sunt quae ad voluptatem oculorum atque aurium tendunt; his adnumeres licet machinatores qui pegmata per se surgentia excogitant et tabulata tacite in sublime crescentia et alias ex inopinato varietates, aut dehiscentibus quae cohaerebant aut his quae distabant sua sponte coeuntibus aut his quae eminebant paulatim in se residentibus. His inperitorum feriuntur oculi, omnia subita quia causas non novere mirantium. [23] Pueriles sunt et aliquid habentes liberalibus simile hae artes quas egkuklious Graeci, nostri autem liberales vocant. Solae autem liberales sunt, immo, ut dicam verius, liberae, quibus curae virtus est. [24] 'Quemadmodum' inquit 'est aliqua pars philosophiae naturalis, est aliqua moralis, est aliqua rationalis, sic et haec quoque liberalium artium turba locum sibi in philosophia vindicat. Cum ventum est ad naturales quaestiones, geometriae testimonio statur; ergo eius quam adiuvat pars est.' [25] Multa adiuvant nos nec ideo partes nostri sunt; immo si partes essent, non adiuvarent. Cibus adiutorium corporis nec tamen pars est. Aliquod nobis praestat geometria ministerium: sic philosophiae necessaria est quomodo ipsi faber, sed nec hic geometriae pars est nec illa philosophiae. [26] Praeterea utraque fines suos habet; sapiens enim causas naturalium et quaerit et novit, quorum numeros mensurasque geometres persequitur et supputat. Qua ratione constent caelestia, quae illis sit vis quaeve natura sapiens scit: cursus et recursus et quasdam obversationes per quas descendunt et adlevantur ac speciem interdum stantium praebent, cum caelestibus stare non liceat, colligit mathematicus. [27] Quae causa in speculo imagines exprimat sciet sapiens: illud tibi geometres potest dicere, quantum abesse debeat corpus ab imagine et qualis forma speculi quales imagines reddat. Magnum esse solem philosophus probabit, quantus sit mathematicus, qui usu quodam et exercitatione procedit. Sed ut procedat, inpetranda illi quaedam principia sunt; non est autem ars sui iuris cui precarium fundamentum est. [28] Philosophia nil ab alio petit, totum opus a solo excitat: mathematice, ut ita dicam, superficiaria est, in alieno aedificat; accipit prima, quorum beneficio ad ulteriora perveniat. Si per se iret ad verum, si totius mundi naturam posset conprendere, dicerem multum conlaturam mentibus nostris, quae tractatu caelestium crescunt trahuntque aliquid ex alto. Una re consummatur animus, scientia bonorum ac malorum inmutabili; nihil autem ulla ars alia de bonis ac malis quaerit. Singulas lubet circumire virtutes. [29] Fortitudo contemptrix timendorum est; terribilia et sub iugum libertatem nostram mittentia despicit, provocat, frangit: numquid ergo hanc liberalia studia corroborant? Fides sanctissimum humani pectoris bonum est, nulla necessitate ad fallendum cogitur, nullo corrumpitur praemio: 'ure', inquit 'caede, occide: non prodam, sed quo magis secreta quaeret dolor, hoc illa altius condam'. Numquid liberalia studia hos animos facere possunt? Temperantia voluptatibus imperat, alias odit atque abigit, alias dispensat et ad sanum modum redigit nec umquam ad illas propter ipsas venit; scit optimum esse modum cupitorum non quantum velis, sed quantum debeas sumere. [30] Humanitas vetat superbum esse adversus socios, vetat amarum; verbis, rebus, adfectibus comem se facilemque omnibus praestat; nullum alienum malum putat, bonum autem suum ideo maxime quod alicui bono futurum est amat. Numquid liberalia studia hos mores praecipiunt? non magis quam simplicitatem, quam modestiam ac moderationem, non magis quam frugalitatem ac parsimoniam, non magis quam clementiam, quae alieno sanguini tamquam suo parcit et scit homini non esse homine prodige utendum. [31] 'Cum dicatis' inquit 'sine liberalibus studiis ad virtutem non perveniri, quemadmodum negatis illa nihil conferre virtuti?' Quia nec sine cibo ad virtutem pervenitur, cibus tamen ad virtutem non pertinet; ligna navi nihil conferunt, quamvis non fiat navis nisi ex lignis: non est, inquam, cur aliquid putes eius adiutorio fieri sine quo non potest fieri. [32] Potest quidem etiam illud dici, sine liberalibus studiis veniri ad sapientiam posse; quamvis enim virtus discenda sit, tamen non per haec discitur. Quid est autem quare existimem non futurum sapientem eum qui litteras nescit, cum sapientia non sit in litteris? Res tradit, non verba, et nescio an certior memoria sit quae nullum extra se subsidium habet. [33] Magna et spatiosa res est sapientia; vacuo illi loco opus est; de divinis humanisque discendum est, de praeteritis de futuris, de caducis de aeternis, de tempore. De quo uno vide quam multa quaerantur: primum an per se sit aliquid; deinde an aliquid ante tempus sit sine tempore; cum mundo coeperit an etiam ante mundum quia fuerit aliquid, fuerit et tempus. [34] Innumerabiles quaestiones sunt de animo tantum: unde sit, qualis sit, quando esse incipiat, quamdiu sit, aliunde alio transeat et domicilia mutet in alias animalium formas aliasque coniectus, an non amplius quam semel serviat et emissus vagetur in toto; utrum corpus sit an non sit; quid sit facturus cum per nos aliquid facere desierit, quomodo libertate sua usurus cum ex hac effugerit cavea; an obliviscatur priorum et illinc nosse se incipiat unde corpori abductus in sublime secessit. [35] Quamcumque partem rerum humanarum divinarumque conprenderis, ingenti copia quaerendorum ac discendorum fatigaberis. Haec tam multa, tam magna ut habere possint liberum hospitium, supervacua ex animo tollenda sunt. Non dabit se in has angustias virtus; laxum spatium res magna desiderat. Expellantur omnia, totum pectus illi vacet. [36] 'At enim delectat artium notitia multarum.' Tantum itaque ex illis retineamus quantum necessarium est. An tu existimas reprendendum qui supervacua usibus comparat et pretiosarum rerum pompam in domo explicat, non putas eum qui occupatus est in supervacua litterarum supellectile? Plus scire velle quam sit satis intemperantiae genus est. [37] Quid quod ista liberalium artium consectatio molestos, verbosos, intempestivos, sibi placentes facit et ideo non discentes necessaria quia supervacua didicerunt? Quattuor milia librorum Didymus grammaticus scripsit: misererer si tam multa supervacua legisset. In his libris de patria Homeri quaeritur, in his de Aeneae matre vera, in his libidinosior Anacreon an ebriosior vixerit, in his an Sappho publica fuerit, et alia quae erant dediscenda si scires. I nunc et longam esse vitam nega! [38] Sed ad nostros quoque cum perveneris, ostendam multa securibus recidenda. Magno inpendio temporum, magna alienarum aurium molestia laudatio haec constat: 'o hominem litteratum!' Simus hoc titulo rusticiore contenti: 'o virum bonum!' [39] Itane est? annales evolvam omnium gentium et quis primus carmina scripserit quaeram? quantum temporis inter Orphea intersit et Homerum, cum fastos non habeam, conputabo? et Aristarchi notas quibus aliena carmina conpunxit recognoscam, et aetatem in syllabis conteram? Itane in geometriae pulvere haerebo? adeo mihi praeceptum illud salutare excidit: 'tempori parce'? Haec sciam? et quid ignorem? [40] Apion grammaticus, qui sub C. Caesare tota circulatus est Graecia et in nomen Homeri ab omnibus civitatibus adoptatus, aiebat Homerum utraque materia consummata, et Odyssia et Iliade, principium adiecisse operi suo quo bellum Troianum conplexus est. Huius rei argumentum adferebat quod duas litteras in primo versu posuisset ex industria librorum suorum numerum continentes. [41] Talia sciat oportet qui multa vult scire. Non vis cogitare quantum temporis tibi auferat mala valetudo, quantum occupatio publica, quantum occupatio privata, quantum occupatio cotidiana, quantum somnus? Metire aetatem tuam: tam multa non capit. [42] De liberalibus studiis loquor: philosophi quantum habent supervacui, quantum ab usu recedentis! Ipsi quoque ad syllabarum distinctiones et coniunctionum ac praepositionum proprietates descenderunt et invidere grammaticis, invidere geometris; quidquid in illorum artibus supervacuum erat transtulere in suam. Sic effectum est ut diligentius loqui scirent quam vivere. [43] Audi quantum mali faciat nimia subtilitas et quam infesta veritati sit. Protagoras ait de omni re in utramque partem disputari posse ex aequo et de hac ipsa, an omnis res in utramque partem disputabilis sit. Nausiphanes ait ex his quae videntur esse nihil magis esse quam non esse. [44] Parmenides ait ex his quae videntur nihil esse ~universo~. Zenon Eleates omnia negotia de negotio deiecit: ait nihil esse. Circa eadem fere Pyrrhonei versantur et Megarici et Eretrici et Academici, qui novam induxerunt scientiam, nihil scire. [45] Haec omnia in illum supervacuum studiorum liberalium gregem coice; illi mihi non profuturam scientiam tradunt, hi spem omnis scientiae eripiunt. Satius est supervacua scire quam nihil. Illi non praeferunt lumen per quod acies derigatur ad verum, hi oculos mihi effodiunt. Si Protagorae credo, nihil in rerum natura est nisi dubium; si Nausiphani, hoc unum certum est, nihil esse certi; si Parmenidi, nihil est praeter unum; si Zenoni, ne unum quidem. [46] Quid ergo nos sumus? quid ista quae nos circumstant, alunt, sustinent? Tota rerum natura umbra est aut inanis aut fallax. Non facile dixerim utris magis irascar, illis qui nos nihil scire voluerunt, an illis qui ne hoc quidem nobis reliquerunt, nihil scire. Vale. Seneca the YoungerThe Latin Library The Classics Page