Letter 102
To Pylaemenes
I ask your friendship and protection for my dear Sosenas, born and brought up in learning, who is not meeting with the rewards from fortune which should follow learning. He throws the blame on his city's unfortunate condition, and some line of reasoning is persuading him that it is possible to change one's fortune with one's domicile. He is going to the Imperial city, persuaded as he is that where a king is, there Fortune is also, and will perchance discover him. Accomplish for him whatever he desires, if it is in your power, for you are worthy to have power, and to assist to good fortune those that are in need. If Sosenas has any need of your friends, you will introduce him to them yourself.
Letter 103
To Pylaemenes
No, my dear Pylaemenes, I call to witness the God who presides over
our friendship, I never dreamt of ridiculing your love of your country. Have I not also a
city and a home? You did not understand the meaning of my letter, and you impute to me a
fault of which I am innocent. You love Heraclea. You are eager to be of some use to your
native town, and I approve of this. What I meant to say to you was, that you ought to put
philosophy before your avocations at the bar. You seem to me to think that you can serve
your native city more eminently as a pleader of cases than as a philosopher. This being
the case, in order to explain your persistence in this idea, you alleged your love of
country. I took the liberty of scoffing, not at this patriotism of yours, but as the
reason that you gave for your preference. You are very much mistaken if you think that in
attaching yourself to the bar, you are going to do any good at all to this city you love.
If I were to say that philosophy is a sufficient force in itself to lift up cities, Cyrene
would refute me, for she has fallen lower than any of the cities of Pontus. But what I do
not fear to assert is, that philosophy more than rhetoric, more in fact than any art of
science you like to name, for she is the very queen of all, philosophy, I say, makes the
man who possesses her of the highest usefulness to individuals, families, and states. No
doubt she cannot by herself make men prosperous, for the fact is, my dear Pylaemenes, of
our pursuits those which are beautiful have a certain power in perfecting of the soul's
preparation, and by those alone is it possible for the soul to profit; but it is on
fortune and on outside circumstances that the rise and decline of cities ultimately
depend. To-day they are prosperous, to-morrow they will be miserable, because the mortal
lot in which they participate has so willed it.
We grant you that you love your city. So do I. You cultivate rhetoric.
All I wish is that you attach yourself not to the rhetoric of the bar, but to the right
and noble rhetoric that even Plato himself, in my opinion, does not try to prohibit. For
my own part I honour philosophy, and I honour it more than any other human possession. But
what good can you or I do cities by our work, unless lives adequate to our aims could be
dedicated to it? For every work we must have suitable material; we must have tools for the
man who can use them, and it is only fortune which will ever give us all this. But if you
really think that fortune will favour you through the art of rhetoric alone, and will
suffice to bring you to a position of authority or the highest public office, that of
prefect, why, in case of failure, should you blame philosophy for your ill fortune? And
again, if the chances of success and failure are the same in philosophy and in rhetoric (I
mean neither greater nor less), why not choose meantime that one which is better in
itself? You yourself admit that philosophy is in itself worth more than rhetoric, but you
say that since you desire to be useful to your city, it is the less worthy of the two
sciences that has become the more necessary to you. As things now are, one may hope for
the best, but the philosopher will have all the gods for his enemies, and they will draw
fortune away from him, so that he will not be left even in the enjoyment of his hopes. For
my part I never before now heard it said that misfortune is the divine lot of revered
philosophy. No doubt it is very rare for power and wisdom to be found in the same man, but
sometimes God unites them both. It follows then perforce from the argument that the same
man is philosopher and patriot, nor does he despair of fortune, but rather looks forward
to the best, by reason of his own intrinsic merit.
For in this one point especially, as the old saying has it, do the
virtuous surpass the evil, I mean in their fair hopes. How then shall we admit that they
will have the lesser reward? But so we must, if we adopt the argument which has brought
you such a degree of error, that you say you must needs remain in your profession for the
sake of the city.
Suffer me now to turn this defence of my mocking humour into an
accusation, for although you used to be convinced of the truth of that which as a matter
of fact was not true, I am persuaded that you think so no longer.
You see that I am in danger of becoming embroiled with the sacred
Cyrene, and all by your fault, through you, though you are the dearest of my friends. For
if you persuade the cities that rhetoric alone can rid them of their present misfortunes,
and that they will get real help only from those who come to the aid of people engaged in
lawsuits over their contracts, in that case they will hate those of us who are busied with
anything else rather than lawsuits. Now there is but one statement I have to make to you
and to all the cities, in the name of philosophy. That is, if circumstances with the aid
of fortune call philosophy to take part in the administration, then no other science, not
even all the sciences together, will be able to govern public affairs so well as this very
philosophy. None will be so able to harmonize jarring elements, to make improvements, and
to benefit the interests of the citizens. But as long as fate does not tend in this
direction, it is wiser to mind one's own business, and not to govern badly nor behave
oneself unseemly in the attempt to jostle for the magistracy of such and such a town,
unless it is absolutely necessary. 'The Gods themselves,' it is said, 'do not fight with
necessity.'
For our part, we are following a much higher aim, for when the
intellect is not occupied with things here below, it is occupied with God. There are two
parts in philosophy, contemplation and action. Wisdom presides over the one, and prudence
over the other. But prudence needs to be seconded by fortune, whereas wisdom is an end in
itself, and nothing can prevent its being freely exercised.