Stoic Paradoxes (Paradoxa Stoicorum) by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Philosophy, Stoicism, Historical
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PARADOX V: THAT THE WISE MAN ALONE IS FREE, AND THAT EVERY FOOL IS A SLAVE.

Here let a general be celebrated, or let him be honored with that title, or let him be thought worthy of it. But how or over what free man will he exercise control who can not command his own passions? Let him in the first place bridle his lusts, let him despise pleasures, let him subdue anger, let him get the better of avarice, let him expunge the other stains on his character, and then when he himself is no longer in subjection to disgrace and degradation, the most savage tyrants, let him then, I say, begin to command others. But while he is subservient to these, not only is he not to be regarded as a general, but he is by no means to be considered as even a free man. This is nobly laid down by the most learned men, whose authority I should not make use of were I now addressing myself to an assembly of rustics. But as I speak to the wisest men, to whom these things are not new, why should I falsely pretend that all the application I have bestowed upon, this study has been lost? It has been said, then, by the most learned men, that none but the wise man is free. For what is liberty? The power of living as you please. Who, then, is he who lives as he pleases, but the man surely who follows righteousness, who rejoices in fulfilling his duty, and whose path of life has been well considered and preconcerted; the man who obeys the laws of his country, not out of dread, but pays them respect and reverence, because he thinks that course the most salutary; who neither does nor thinks any thing otherwise than cheerfully and freely; the man, all whose designs and all the actions he performs arise from and are terminated in his proper self; the man who is swayed by nothing so much as by his own inclination and judgment; the man who is master of fortune herself, whoso influence is said to be sovereign, agreeably to what the sage poet says, "the fortune of every man is molded by his character." To the wise man alone it happens, that he does nothing against his will, nothing with pain, nothing by coercion. It would, it is true, require a large discourse to prove that this is so, but it is a briefly stated and admitted principle, that no man but he who is thus constituted can be free. All wicked men therefore are slaves, and this is not so surprising and incredible in fact as it is in words. For they are not slaves in the sense those bondmen are who are the properties of their masters by purchase, or by any law of the state; but if obedience to a disordered, abject mind, destitute of self-control be slavery (and such it is), who can

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