The Project Gutenberg eBook of Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies
Title: Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies
Author: Plutarch
Release date: February 1, 2002 [eBook #3052]
Most recently updated: February 7, 2013
Language: English
Credits: Produced by John Hamm, Barb Grow, Bill Burn, Chris Hall,
Chris Brennen, and David Widger
ESSAYS
and
MISCELLANIES
The Complete Works Volume 3
By Plutarch
CONTENTS
THAT A PHILOSOPHER OUGHT CHIEFLY TO CONVERSE WITH GREAT MEN.
SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH PHILOSOPHERS WERE DELIGHTED
CHAPTER II. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PRINCIPLE AND AN ELEMENT?
CHAPTER III. WHAT ARE PRINCIPLES?
CHAPTER IV. HOW WAS THIS WORLD COMPOSED IN THAT ORDER AND AFTER THAT MANNER IT IS?
CHAPTER V. WHETHER THE UNIVERSE IS ONE SINGLE THING.
CHAPTER VI. WHENCE DID MEN OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE OF A DEITY?
CHAPTER VIII. OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED GENIUSES AND HEROES
CHAPTER XIII. OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARE LEAST IN NATURE.
CHAPTER XVI. OF THE DIVISION OF BODIES.
CHAPTER XVII. HOW BODIES ARE MIXED AND CONTEMPERATED ONE WITH ANOTHER.
CHAPTER XXII. OF THE SUBSTANCE AND NATURE OF TIME.
CHAPTER XXIV. OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION.
CHAPTER XXVI. OF THE NATURE OF NECESSITY.
CHAPTER XXVII. OF DESTINY OR FATE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. OF THE NATURE OF FATE.
CHAPTER II. OF THE FIGURE OF THE WORLD.
CHAPTER III. WHETHER THE WORLD BE AN ANIMAL.
CHAPTER IV. WHETHER THE WORLD IS ETERNAL AND INCORRUPTIBLE.
CHAPTER V. WHENCE DOES THE WORLD RECEIVE ITS NUTRIMENT?
CHAPTER VI. FROM WHAT ELEMENT GOD DID BEGIN TO RAISE THE FABRIC OF THE WORLD.
CHAPTER VII. IN WHAT FORM AND ORDER THE WORLD WAS COMPOSED.
CHAPTER VIII. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE WORLD'S INCLINATION.
CHAPTER IX. OF THAT THING WHICH IS BEYOND THE WORLD, AND WHETHER IT BE A VACUUM OR NOT.
CHAPTER X. WHAT PARTS OF THE WORLD ARE ON THE RIGHT HAND, AND WHAT ON THE LEFT.
CHAPTER XI. OF HEAVEN, WHAT IS ITS NATURE AND ESSENCE.
CHAPTER XII. INTO HOW MANY CIRCLES IS THE HEAVEN DISTINGUISHED; OR, OF THE DIVISION OF HEAVEN.
CHAPTER XIII. WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF THE STARS, AND HOW THEY ARE COMPOSED.
CHAPTER XIV. OF WHAT FIGURE THE STARS ARE.
CHAPTER XV. OF THE ORDER AND PLACE OF THE STARS.
CHAPTER XVI. OF THE MOTION AND CIRCULATION OF THE STARS.
CHAPTER XVII. WHENCE DO THE STARS RECEIVE THEIR LIGHT?
CHAPTER XVIII. WHAT ARE THOSE STARS WHICH ARE CALLED THE DIOSCURI, THE TWINS, OR CASTOR AND POLLUX?
CHAPTER XIX. HOW STARS PROGNOSTICATE, AND WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF WINTER AND SUMMER.
CHAPTER XX. OF THE ESSENCE OF THE SUN.
CHAPTER XXI. OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SUN.
CHAPTER XXII. WHAT IS THE FIGURE OR SHAPE OF THE SUN.
CHAPTER XXIII. OF THE TURNING AND RETURNING OF THE STARS, OR THE SUMMER AND WINTER SOLSTICE.
CHAPTER XXIV. OF THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.
CHAPTER XXV. OF THE ESSENCE OF THE MOON.
CHAPTER XXVI. OF THE SIZE OF THE MOON.
CHAPTER XXVII. OF THE FIGURE OF THE MOON.
CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM WHENCE IS IT THAT THE MOON RECEIVES HER LIGHT?
CHAPTER XXIX. OF THE ECLIPSE OF THE MOON.
CHAPTER XXXI. HOW FAR THE MOON IS REMOVED FROM THE SUN.
CHAPTER XXXII. OF THE YEAR, AND HOW MANY CIRCULATIONS MAKE UP THE GREAT YEAR OF EVERY PLANET.
CHAPTER I. OF THE GALAXY, OR THE MILKY WAY.
CHAPTER II. OF COMETS AND SHOOTING FIRES, AND THOSE WHICH RESEMBLE BEAMS.
CHAPTER IV. OF CLOUDS, RAIN, SNOW, AND HAIL.
CHAPTER VI. OF METEORS WHICH RESEMBLE RODS, OR OF RODS.
CHAPTER VIII. OF WINTER AND SUMMER.
CHAPTER IX. OF THE EARTH, WHAT IS ITS NATURE AND MAGNITUDE.
CHAPTER X. OF THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.
CHAPTER XI. OF THE SITE AND POSITION OF THE EARTH.
CHAPTER XII. OF THE INCLINATION OF THE EARTH.
CHAPTER XIII. OF THE MOTION OF THE EARTH.
CHAPTER XIV. INTO HOW MANY ZONES IS THE EARTH DIVIDED?
CHAPTER XVI. OF THE SEA, AND HOW IT IS COMPOSED, AND HOW IT BECOMES TO THE TASTE BITTER.
CHAPTER XVII. OF TIDES, OR OF THE EBBING AND FLOWING OF THE SEA.
CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE AUREA, OR A CIRCLE ABOUT A STAR.
CHAPTER I. OF THE OVERFLOWING OF THE NILE.
CHAPTER III. WHETHER THE SOUL BE A BODY, AND WHAT IS THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF IT.
CHAPTER IV. OF THE PARTS OF THE SOUL.
CHAPTER V. WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL PART OF THE SOUL, AND IN WHAT PART OF THE BODY IT RESIDES.
CHAPTER VI. OF THE MOTION OF THE SOUL.
CHAPTER VII. OF THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY.
CHAPTER VIII. OF THE SENSES, AND OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE OBJECTS OF THE SENSES,
CHAPTER IX. WHETHER WHAT APPEARS TO OUR SENSES AND IMAGINATIONS BE TRUE OR NOT.
CHAPTER X. HOW MANY SENSES ARE THERE?
CHAPTER XIII. OF OUR SIGHT, AND BY WHAT MEANS WE SEE.
CHAPTER XIV. OF THOSE IMAGES WHICH ARE PRESENTED TO OUR EYES IN MIRRORS.
CHAPTER XV. WHETHER DARKNESS CAN BE VISIBLE TO US.
CHAPTER XX. WHETHER THE VOICE IS INCORPOREAL. WHAT IS IT THAT THE GIVES ECHO?
CHAPTER XXII. OF RESPIRATION OR BREATHING.
CHAPTER II. WHENCE DREAMS DO ARISE.
CHAPTER III. OF THE NATURE OF GENERATIVE SEED.
CHAPTER IV. WHETHER THE SPERM BE A BODY.
CHAPTER V. WHETHER WOMEN DO GIVE A SPERMATIC EMISSION AS MEN DO.
CHAPTER VI. HOW IT IS THAT CONCEPTIONS ARE MADE.
CHAPTER VII. AFTER WHAT MANNER MALES AND FEMALES ARE GENERATED.
CHAPTER VIII. BY WHAT MEANS IT IS THAT MONSTROUS BIRTHS ARE EFFECTED.
CHAPTER X. WHENCE IT IS THAT ONE BIRTH GIVES TWO OR THREE CHILDREN.
CHAPTER XI. WHENCE IT IS THAT CHILDREN REPRESENT THEIR PARENTS AND PROGENITORS.
CHAPTER XIII. WHENCE ARISETH BARRENNESS IN WOMEN, AND IMPOTENCY IN MEN?
CHAPTER XIV. HOW IT ARISES THAT MULES ARE BARREN.
CHAPTER XV. WHETHER THE INFANT IN THE MOTHER'S WOMB BE AN ANIMAL.
CHAPTER XVI. HOW EMBRYOS ARE NOURISHED, OR HOW THE INFANT IN THE BELLY RECEIVES ITS ALIMENT.
CHAPTER XVII. WHAT PART OF THE BODY IS FIRST FORMED IN THE WOMB.
CHAPTER XVIII. WHENCE IS IT THAT INFANTS BORN IN THE SEVENTH MONTH ARE BORN ALIVE.
CHAPTER XXI. WHAT TIME IS REQUIRED TO SHAPE THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN THE WOMB.
CHAPTER XXII. OF WHAT ELEMENTS EACH OF THE MEMBERS OF US MEN IS COMPOSED.
CHAPTER XXIII. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF SLEEP AND DEATH?
CHAPTER XXIV. WHEN AND FROM WHENCE THE PERFECTION OF A MAN COMMENCES.
CHAPTER XXV. WHETHER SLEEP OR DEATH APPERTAINS TO THE SOUL OR BODY.
CHAPTER XXVI. HOW PLANTS INCREASE.
CHAPTER XXVII. OF NUTRITION AND GROWTH.
CHAPTER XXVIII. WHENCE IT IS THAT IN ANIMALS THERE ARE APPETITES AND PLEASURES.
CHAPTER XXX. OF HEALTH, SICKNESS, AND OLD AGE.
ABSTRACT OF A DISCOURSE SHOWING THAT THE STOICS SPEAK GREATER IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.
COMMON CONCEPTIONS AGAINST THE STOICS.
AGAINST COLOTES, THE DISCIPLE AND FAVORITE OF EPICURUS.
THE BANQUET OF THE SEVEN WISE MEN.
ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWEEN ARISTOPHANE AND MENANDER
PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
Doctrine Of Epicurus
That A Philosopher Ought Chiefly To Converse With Great Men
Sentiments Concerning Nature, With Which Philosophers Were
Delighted
Abstract Of A Discourse Showing That The Stoics Speak Greater
Improbabilities Than The Poets
Symposiacs
Common Conceptions Against The Stoics
Contradictions Of The Stoics
The Eating Of Flesh
Concerning Fate
Against Colotes, The Disciple And Favorite Of Epicurus
Platonic Questions
LITERARY ESSAYS
The Banquet Of The Seven Wise Men
How A Young Man Ought To Hear Poems
Abstract Of A Comparison Between Aristophanes And Menander
The Malice Of Herodotus
PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
THAT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO LIVE PLEASURABLY ACCORDING TO THE DOCTRINE OF EPICURUS. PLUTARCH, ZEUXIPPUS, THEON, ARISTODEMUS.
Epicurus's great confidant and familiar, Colotes, set forth a book with this title to it, that according to the tenets of the other philosophers it is impossible to live. Now what occurred to me then to say against him, in the defence of those philosophers, hath been already put into writing by me. But since upon breaking up of our lecture several things have happened to be spoken afterwards in the walks in further opposition to his party, I thought it not amiss to recollect them also, if for no other reason, yet for this one, that those who will needs be contradicting other men may see that they ought not to run cursorily over the discourses and writings of those they would disprove, nor by tearing out one word here and another there, or by falling foul upon particular passages without the books, to impose upon the ignorant and unlearned.
Now as we were leaving the school to take a walk (as our manner is) in the gymnasium, Zeuxippus began to us: In my opinion, said he, the debate was managed on our side with more softness and less freedom than was fitting. I am sure, Heraclides went away disgusted with us, for handling Epicurus and Aletrodorus more roughly than they deserved. Yet you may remember, replied Theon, how you told them that Colotes himself, compared with the rhetoric of those two gentlemen, would appear the complaisantest man alive; for when they have raked together the lewdest terms of ignominy the tongue of man ever used, as buffooneries, trollings, arrogancies, whorings, assassinations, whining counterfeits, black-guards, and blockheads, they faintly throw them in the faces of Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Protagoras, Theophrastus, Heraclides, Hipparchus, and which not, even of the best and most celebrated authorities. So that, should they pass for very knowing men upon all other accounts, yet their very calumnies and reviling language would bespeak them at the greatest distance from philosophy imaginable. For emulation can never enter that godlike consort, nor such fretfulness as wants resolution to conceal its own resentments. Aristodemus then subjoined: Heraclides, you know, is a great philologist; and that may be the reason why he made Epicurus those amends for the poetic din (so, that party style poetry) and for the fooleries of Homer; or else, it may be, it was because Metrodorus had libelled that poet in so many books. But let us let these gentlemen pass at present, Zeuxippus, and rather return to what was charged upon the philosophers in the beginning of our discourse, that it is impossible to live according to their tenets. And I see not why we two may not despatch this affair betwixt us, with the good assistance of Theon; for I find this gentleman (meaning me) is already tired. Then Theon said to him,
therefore, if you please,
("Odyssey," xxii, 6)
We will even prosecute them at the suit of the philosophers, in the following form: We'll prove, if we can, that it is impossible to live a pleasurable life according to their tenets. Bless me! said I to him, smiling, you seem to me to level your foot at the very bellies of the men, and to design to enter the list with them for their lives, whilst you go about to rob them thus of their pleasure, and they cry out to you,
no, nor good pleaders, nor good senators, nor good magistrates either;
("Odyssey," viii, 246, 248)
and to excite such tender and delicate motions in our bodies as may chafe our imaginations to some jolly delight or gayety." And therefore you seem to me not so much to take off (as I may say) the pleasurable part, as to deprive the men of their very lives, while you will not leave them to live pleasurably. Nay then, said Theon, if you approve so highly of this subject, why do you not set in hand to it? By all means, said I, I am for this, and shall not only hear but answer you too, if you shall insist. But I must leave it to you to take the lead.
Then, after Theon had spoken something to excuse himself, Aristodemus said: When we had so short and fair a cut to our design, how have you blocked up the way before us, by preventing us from joining issue with the faction at the very first upon the single point of propriety! For you must grant, it can be no easy matter to drive men already possessed that pleasure is their utmost good yet to believe a life of pleasure impossible to be attained. But now the truth is, that when they failed of living becomingly they failed also of living pleasurably; for to live pleasurably without living becomingly is even by themselves allowed inconsistent.
Theon then said: We may probably resume the consideration of that in the process of our discourse; in the interim we will make use of their concessions. Now they suppose their last good to lie about the belly and such other conveyances of the body as let in pleasure and not pain; and are of opinion, that all the brave and ingenious inventions that ever have been were contrived at first for the pleasure of the belly, or the good hope of compassing such pleasure,—as the sage Metrodorus informs us. By which, my good friend, it is very plain, they found their pleasure in a poor, rotten, and unsure thing, and one that is equally perforated for pains, by the very passages they receive their pleasures by; or rather indeed, that admits pleasure but by a few, but pain by all its parts. For the whole of pleasure is in a manner in the joints, nerves, feet, and hands; and these are oft the seats of very grievous and lamentable distempers, as gouts, corroding rheums, gangrenes, and putrid ulcers. And if you apply to yourself the exquisitest of perfumes or gusts, you will find but some one small part of your body is finely and delicately touched, while the rest are many times filled with anguish and complaints. Besides, there is no part of us proof against fire, sword, teeth, or scourges, or insensible of dolors and aches; yea, heats, colds, and fevers sink into all our parts alike. But pleasures, like gales of soft wind, move simpering, one towards one extreme of the body and another towards another, and then go off in a vapor. Nor are they of any long durance, but, as so many glancing meteors, they are no sooner kindled in the body than they are quenched by it. As to pain, Aeschylus's Philoctetes affords us a sufficient testimony:—
Her dire envenomed teeth have there ta'en root.
For pain will not troll off as pleasure doth, nor imitate it in its pleasing and tickling touches. But as the clover twists its perplexed and winding roots into the earth, and through its coarseness abides there a long time; so pain disperses and entangles its hooks and roots in the body, and continues there, not for a day or a night, but for several seasons of years, if not for some revolutions of Olympiads, nor scarce ever departs unless struck out by other pains, as by stronger nails. For who ever drank so long as those that are in a fever are a-dry? Or who was ever so long eating as those that are besieged suffer hunger? Or where are there any that are so long solaced with the conversation of friends as tyrants are racking and tormenting? Now all this is owing to the baseness of the body and its natural incapacity for a pleasurable life; for it bears pains better than it doth pleasures, and with respect to those is firm and hardy, but with respect to these is feeble and soon palled. To which add, that if we are minded to discourse on a life of pleasure, these men won't give us leave to go on, but will presently confess themselves that the pleasures of the body are but short, or rather indeed but of a moment's continuance; if they do not design to banter us or else speak out of vanity, when Metrodorus tells us, We many times spit at the pleasures of the body, and Epicurus saith, A wise man, when he is sick, many times laughs in the very extremity of his distemper.
For mettled steeds to run a race.
("Odyssey," iv. 605.)
Neither can the joys of our poor bodies be smooth and equal; but on the contrary they must be coarse and harsh, and immixed with much that is displeasing and inflamed.
Zeuxippus then said: And do you not think then they take the right course to begin at the body, where they observe pleasure to have its first rise, and thence to pass to the mind as the more stable and sure part, there to complete and crown the whole?
They do, by Jove, I said; and if, after removing thither they have indeed found something more consummate than before, a course too as well agreeing with nature as becoming men adorned with both contemplative and civil knowledge. But if after all this you still hear them cry out, and protest that the mind of man can receive no satisfaction or tranquillity from anything under Heaven but the pleasures of the body either in possession or expectance, and that these are its proper and only good, can you forbear thinking they make use of the soul but as a funnel for the body, while they mellow their pleasure by shifting it from one vessel to another, as they rack wine out of an old and leaky vessel into a new one and there let it grow old, and then imagine they have performed some extraordinary and very fine thing? True indeed, a fresh pipe may both keep and recover wine that hath thus been drawn off; but the mind, receiving but the remembrance only of past pleasure, like a kind of scent, retains that and no more. For as soon as it hath given one hiss in the body, it immediately expires, and that little of it that stays behind in the memory is but flat and like a queasy fume: as if a man should lay up and treasure in his fancy what he either ate or drank yesterday, that he may have recourse to that when he wants fresh fare. See now how much more temperate the Cyrenaics are, who, though they have drunk out of the same bottle with Epicurus, yet will not allow men so much as to practise their amours by candlelight, but only under the covert of the dark, for fear seeing should fasten too quick an impression of the images of such actions upon the fancy and thereby too frequently inflame the desire. But these gentlemen account it the highest accomplishment of a philosopher to have a clear and retentive memory of all the various figures, passions, and touches of past pleasure. We will not now say, they present us with nothing worthy the name of philosophy, while they leave the refuse of pleasure in their wise man's mind, as if it could be a lodging for bodies; but that it is impossible such things as these should make a man live pleasurably, I think is abundantly manifest from hence.
For it will not perhaps seem strange if I assert, that the memory of pleasure past brings no pleasure with it if it appeared but little in the very enjoyment, or to men of such abstinence as to account it for their benefit to retire from its first approaches; when even the most amazed and sensual admirers of corporeal delights remain no longer in their gaudy and pleasant humor than their pleasure lasts them. What remains is but an empty shadow and dream of that pleasure that hath now taken wing and is fled from them, and that serves but for fuel to foment their untamed desires. Like as in those that dream they are a-dry or in love, their unaccomplished pleasures and enjoyments do but excite the inclination to a greater keenness. Nor indeed can the remembrance of past enjoyments afford them any real contentment at all, but must serve only, with the help of a quick desire, to raise up very much of outrage and stinging pain out of the remains of a feeble and befooling pleasure. Neither doth it befit men of continence and sobriety to exercise their thoughts about such poor things, or to do what one twitted Carneades with, to reckon, as out of a diurnal, how oft they have lain with Hedia or Leontion, or where they last drank Thasian wine, or at what twentieth-day feast they had a costly supper. For such transport and captivatedness of the mind to its own remembrances as this is would show a detestable and bestial restlessness and raving towards the present and hoped-for acts of pleasure. And therefore I cannot but look upon the sense of these inconveniences as the true cause of their retiring at last to a freedom from pain and a firm state of body; as if living pleasurably could lie in bare imagining this either past or future to some persons. True indeed it is, "that a sound state of body and a good assurance of its continuing must needs afford a most transcending and solid satisfaction to all men capable of reasoning."
But yet look first what work they make, while they course this same thing—whether it be pleasure, exemption from pain, or good health—up and down, first from the body to the mind, and then back again from the mind to the body, being compelled to return it to its first origin, lest it should run out and so give them the slip. Thus they place the pleasure of the body (as Epicurus says) upon the complacent joy in the mind, and yet conclude again with the good hopes that complacent joy hath in bodily pleasure. Indeed what wonder is it if, when the foundation shakes, the superstructure totter? Or that there should be no sure hope nor unshaken joy in a matter that suffers so great concussion and changes as continually attend a body exposed to so many violences and strokes from without, and having within it the origins of such evils as human reason cannot avert? For if it could, no understanding man would ever fall under stranguries, gripes, consumptions, or dropsies; with some of which Epicurus himself did conflict and Polyaenus with others, while others of them were the deaths of Neocles and Agathobulus. And this we mention not to disparage them, knowing very well that Pherecydes and Heraclitus, both very excellent persons, labored under very uncouth and calamitous distempers. We only beg of them, if they will own their own diseases and not by noisy rants and popular harangues incur the imputation of false bravery, either not to take the health of the whole body for the ground of their content, or else not to say that men under the extremities of dolors and diseases can yet rally and be pleasant. For a sound and hale constitution of body is indeed a thing that often happens, but a firm and steadfast assurance of its continuance can never befall an intelligent mind. But as at sea (according to Aeschylus)