Complete Works of Plutarch - Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. 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.

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Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819945307
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ESSAYS
and
MISCELLANIES
The Complete Works Volume 3
By Plutarch
PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
THAT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO LIVE PLEASURABLYACCORDING TO THE DOCTRINE OF EPICURUS. PLUTARCH, ZEUXIPPUS, THEON,ARISTODEMUS. Epicurus's great confidant and familiar, Colotes, setforth a book with this title to it, that according to the tenets ofthe other philosophers it is impossible to live. Now what occurredto me then to say against him, in the defence of thosephilosophers, hath been already put into writing by me. But sinceupon breaking up of our lecture several things have happened to bespoken afterwards in the walks in further opposition to his party,I thought it not amiss to recollect them also, if for no otherreason, yet for this one, that those who will needs becontradicting other men may see that they ought not to runcursorily over the discourses and writings of those they woulddisprove, nor by tearing out one word here and another there, or byfalling foul upon particular passages without the books, to imposeupon the ignorant and unlearned.
Now as we were leaving the school to take a walk (asour manner is) in the gymnasium, Zeuxippus began to us: In myopinion, said he, the debate was managed on our side with moresoftness and less freedom than was fitting. I am sure, Heraclideswent away disgusted with us, for handling Epicurus and Aletrodorusmore roughly than they deserved. Yet you may remember, repliedTheon, how you told them that Colotes himself, compared with therhetoric of those two gentlemen, would appear the complaisantestman alive; for when they have raked together the lewdest terms ofignominy the tongue of man ever used, as buffooneries, trollings,arrogancies, whorings, assassinations, whining counterfeits,black-guards, and blockheads, they faintly throw them in the facesof Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Protagoras, Theophrastus,Heraclides, Hipparchus, and which not, even of the best and mostcelebrated authorities. So that, should they pass for very knowingmen upon all other accounts, yet their very calumnies and revilinglanguage would bespeak them at the greatest distance fromphilosophy imaginable. For emulation can never enter that godlikeconsort, nor such fretfulness as wants resolution to conceal itsown resentments. Aristodemus then subjoined: Heraclides, you know,is a great philologist; and that may be the reason why he madeEpicurus those amends for the poetic din (so, that party stylepoetry) and for the fooleries of Homer; or else, it may be, it wasbecause Metrodorus had libelled that poet in so many books. But letus let these gentlemen pass at present, Zeuxippus, and ratherreturn to what was charged upon the philosophers in the beginningof our discourse, that it is impossible to live according to theirtenets. And I see not why we two may not despatch this affairbetwixt us, with the good assistance of Theon; for I find thisgentleman (meaning me) is already tired. Then Theon said tohim,
Our fellows have that garland from us won;
therefore, if you please,
Let's fix another goal, and at that run.
(“Odyssey, ” xxii, 6)
We will even prosecute them at the suit of thephilosophers, in the following form: We'll prove, if we can, thatit is impossible to live a pleasurable life according to theirtenets. Bless me! said I to him, smiling, you seem to me to levelyour foot at the very bellies of the men, and to design to enterthe list with them for their lives, whilst you go about to rob themthus of their pleasure, and they cry out to you,
"Forbear, we're no good boxers, sir;
no, nor good pleaders, nor good senators, nor goodmagistrates either;
“Our proper talent is to eat and drink. ”
(“Odyssey, ” viii, 246, 248)
and to excite such tender and delicate motions inour bodies as may chafe our imaginations to some jolly delight orgayety. " And therefore you seem to me not so much to take off (asI may say) the pleasurable part, as to deprive the men of theirvery lives, while you will not leave them to live pleasurably. Naythen, said Theon, if you approve so highly of this subject, why doyou not set in hand to it? By all means, said I, I am for this, andshall not only hear but answer you too, if you shall insist. But Imust leave it to you to take the lead.
Then, after Theon had spoken something to excusehimself, Aristodemus said: When we had so short and fair a cut toour design, how have you blocked up the way before us, bypreventing us from joining issue with the faction at the very firstupon the single point of propriety! For you must grant, it can beno easy matter to drive men already possessed that pleasure istheir utmost good yet to believe a life of pleasure impossible tobe attained. But now the truth is, that when they failed of livingbecomingly they failed also of living pleasurably; for to livepleasurably without living becomingly is even by themselves allowedinconsistent.
Theon then said: We may probably resume theconsideration of that in the process of our discourse; in theinterim we will make use of their concessions. Now they supposetheir last good to lie about the belly and such other conveyancesof the body as let in pleasure and not pain; and are of opinion,that all the brave and ingenious inventions that ever have beenwere contrived at first for the pleasure of the belly, or the goodhope of compassing such pleasure, — as the sage Metrodorus informsus. By which, my good friend, it is very plain, they found theirpleasure in a poor, rotten, and unsure thing, and one that isequally perforated for pains, by the very passages they receivetheir pleasures by; or rather indeed, that admits pleasure but by afew, but pain by all its parts. For the whole of pleasure is in amanner in the joints, nerves, feet, and hands; and these are oftthe seats of very grievous and lamentable distempers, as gouts,corroding rheums, gangrenes, and putrid ulcers. And if you apply toyourself the exquisitest of perfumes or gusts, you will find butsome 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 galesof soft wind, move simpering, one towards one extreme of the bodyand another towards another, and then go off in a vapor. Nor arethey of any long durance, but, as so many glancing meteors, theyare no sooner kindled in the body than they are quenched by it. Asto pain, Aeschylus's Philoctetes affords us a sufficienttestimony:—
The cruel viper ne'er will quit my foot;
Her dire envenomed teeth have there ta'en root.
For pain will not troll off as pleasure doth, norimitate it in its pleasing and tickling touches. But as the clovertwists its perplexed and winding roots into the earth, and throughits coarseness abides there a long time; so pain disperses andentangles its hooks and roots in the body, and continues there, notfor a day or a night, but for several seasons of years, if not forsome revolutions of Olympiads, nor scarce ever departs unlessstruck out by other pains, as by stronger nails. For who ever drankso long as those that are in a fever are a-dry? Or who was ever solong eating as those that are besieged suffer hunger? Or where arethere any that are so long solaced with the conversation of friendsas tyrants are racking and tormenting? Now all this is owing to thebaseness of the body and its natural incapacity for a pleasurablelife; for it bears pains better than it doth pleasures, and withrespect to those is firm and hardy, but with respect to these isfeeble and soon palled. To which add, that if we are minded todiscourse on a life of pleasure, these men won't give us leave togo on, but will presently confess themselves that the pleasures ofthe body are but short, or rather indeed but of a moment'scontinuance; if they do not design to banter us or else speak outof vanity, when Metrodorus tells us, We many times spit at thepleasures of the body, and Epicurus saith, A wise man, when he issick, many times laughs in the very extremity of his distemper.
For Ithaca is no fit place
For mettled steeds to run a race.
(“Odyssey, ” iv. 605. )
Neither can the joys of our poor bodies be smoothand equal; but on the contrary they must be coarse and harsh, andimmixed with much that is displeasing and inflamed.
Zeuxippus then said: And do you not think then theytake the right course to begin at the body, where they observepleasure to have its first rise, and thence to pass to the mind asthe more stable and sure part, there to complete and crown thewhole?
They do, by Jove, I said; and if, after removingthither they have indeed found something more consummate thanbefore, a course too as well agreeing with nature as becoming menadorned with both contemplative and civil knowledge. But if afterall this you still hear them cry out, and protest that the mind ofman can receive no satisfaction or tranquillity from anything underHeaven but the pleasures of the body either in possession orexpectance, and that these are its proper and only good, can youforbear thinking they make use of the soul but as a funnel for thebody, while they mellow their pleasure by shifting it from onevessel to another, as they rack wine out of an old and leaky vesselinto a new one and there let it grow old, and then imagine theyhave performed some extraordinary and very fine thing? True indeed,a fresh pipe may both keep and recover wine that hath thus beendrawn off; but the mind, receiving but the remembrance only of pastpleasure, like a kind of scent, retains that and no more. For assoon 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 flatand like a queasy fume: as if a man should lay up and treasure inhis fancy what he either ate or drank yesterday, that he may haverecourse to that when he wants fresh fare. Se