{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/plotinus-enneads/ennead-1/4-on-true-happiness.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-1",
    "name": "Ennead I — Ethics, Aesthetics, Inner Life"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 4,
    "slug": "4-on-true-happiness",
    "title": "I.4 — On True Happiness",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 6357,
    "text": "## FOURTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FOURTH TRACTATE.\n\nON TRUE HAPPINESS.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Are we to make True Happiness one and the same thing with\nWelfare or Prosperity and therefore within the reach of the other\nliving beings as well as ourselves?\n\nThere is certainly no reason to deny well-being to any of them\nas long as their lot allows them to flourish unhindered after their\nkind.\n\nWhether we make Welfare consist in pleasant conditions\nof life, or\nin the accomplishment of some appropriate task, by either account it\nmay fall to them as to us. For certainly they may at once be\npleasantly placed and engaged about some function that lies in their\nnature: take for an instance such living beings as have the gift of\nmusic; finding themselves well-off in other ways, they sing, too, as\ntheir nature is, and so their day is pleasant to them.\n\nAnd if, even, we set Happiness in some ultimate Term pursued by\ninborn tendency, then on this head, too, we must allow it to animals\nfrom the moment of their attaining this Ultimate: the nature in them\ncomes to a halt, having fulfilled its vital course from a\nbeginning to\nan end.\n\nIt may be a distasteful notion, this bringing-down of\nhappiness so\nlow as to the animal world- making it over, as then we must, even to\nthe vilest of them and not withholding it even from the\nplants, living\nthey too and having a life unfolding to a Term.\n\nBut, to begin with, it is surely unsound to deny that\ngood of life\nto animals only because they do not appear to man to be of great\naccount. And as for plants, we need not necessarily allow to\nthem what\nwe accord to the other forms of life, since they have no feeling. It\nis true people might be found to declare prosperity possible to the\nvery plants: they have life, and life may bring good or evil; the\nplants may thrive or wither, bear or be barren.\n\nNo: if Pleasure be the Term, if here be the good of life, it is\nimpossible to deny the good of life to any order of living things;\nif the Term be inner-peace, equally impossible; impossible, too, if\nthe good of life be to live in accordance with the purpose of nature.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Those that deny the happy life to the plants on the\nground that\nthey lack sensation are really denying it to all living things.\n\nBy sensation can be meant only perception of state, and the\nstate of well-being must be Good in itself quite apart from the\nperception: to be a part of the natural plan is good whether\nknowingly\nor without knowledge: there is good in the appropriate state even\nthough there be no recognition of its fitness or desirable quality-\nfor it must be in itself desirable.\n\nThis Good exists, then; is present: that in which it is present\nhas well-being without more ado: what need then to ask for sensation\ninto the bargain?\n\nPerhaps, however, the theory is that the good of any state\nconsists not in the condition itself but in the knowledge and\nperception of it.\n\nBut at this rate the Good is nothing but the mere sensation, the\nbare activity of the sentient life. And so it will be\npossessed by all\nthat feel, no matter what. Perhaps it will be said that two\nconstituents are needed to make up the Good, that there must be both\nfeeling and a given state felt: but how can it be maintained that\nthe bringing together of two neutrals can produce the Good?\n\nThey will explain, possibly, that the state must be a state of\nGood and that such a condition constitutes well-being on the\ndiscernment of that present good; but then they invite the question\nwhether the well-being comes by discerning the presence of the Good\nthat is there, or whether there must further be the double\nrecognition\nthat the state is agreeable and that the agreeable state constitutes\nthe Good.\n\nIf well-being demands this recognition, it depends no longer\nupon sensation but upon another, a higher faculty; and well-being is\nvested not in a faculty receptive of pleasure but in one competent\nto discern that pleasure is the Good.\n\nThen the cause of the well-being is no longer pleasure but the\nfaculty competent to pronounce as to pleasure's value. Now a judging\nentity is nobler than one that merely accepts a state: it is a\nprinciple of Reason or of Intellection: pleasure is a state: the\nreasonless can never be closer to the Good than reason is. How can\nreason abdicate and declare nearer to good than itself\nsomething lying\nin a contrary order?\n\nNo: those denying the good of life to the vegetable world, and\nthose that make it consist in some precise quality of sensation, are\nin reality seeking a loftier well-being than they are aware of, and\nsetting their highest in a more luminous phase of life.\n\nPerhaps, then, those are in the right who found happiness not on\nthe bare living or even on sensitive life but on the life of Reason?\n\nBut they must tell us it should be thus restricted and why\nprecisely they make Reason an essential to the happiness in a living\nbeing:\n\n\"When you insist on Reason, is it because Reason is resourceful,\nswift to discern and compass the primal needs of nature; or would\nyou demand it, even though it were powerless in that domain?\"\n\nIf you call it in as a provider, then the reasonless,\nequally with\nthe reasoning, may possess happiness after their kind, as long as,\nwithout any thought of theirs, nature supplies their wants: Reason\nbecomes a servant; there is no longer any worth in it for itself and\nno worth in that consummation of reason which, we hold, is virtue.\n\nIf you say that reason is to be cherished for its own\nsake and not\nas supplying these human needs, you must tell us what other services\nit renders, what is its proper nature and what makes it the perfect\nthing it is.\n\nFor, on this admission, its perfection cannot reside in any such\nplanning and providing: its perfection will be something quite\ndifferent, something of quite another class: Reason cannot be itself\none of those first needs of nature; it cannot even be a\ncause of those\nfirst needs of nature or at all belong to that order: it must be\nnobler than any and all of such things: otherwise it is not easy to\nsee how we can be asked to rate it so highly.\n\nUntil these people light upon some nobler principle than any at\nwhich they still halt, they must be left where they are and\nwhere they\nchoose to be, never understanding what the Good of Life is to those\nthat can make it theirs, never knowing to what kind of beings it is\naccessible.\n\nWhat then is happiness? Let us try basing it upon Life.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Now if we draw no distinction as to kinds of life, everything\nthat lives will be capable of happiness, and those will be\neffectively\nhappy who possess that one common gift of which every living thing\nis by nature receptive. We could not deny it to the irrational\nwhilst allowing it to the rational. If happiness were inherent in\nthe bare being-alive, the common ground in which the cause of\nhappiness could always take root would be simply life.\n\nThose, then, that set happiness not in the mere living but in\nthe reasoning life seem to overlook the fact that they are not\nreally making it depend upon life at all: they admit that this\nreasoning faculty, round which they centre happiness, is a property\n[not the subject of a property]: the subject, to them, must be the\nReasoning-Life since it is in this double term that they find the\nbasis of the happiness: so that they are making it consist\nnot in life\nbut in a particular kind of life- not, of course, a species formally\nopposite but, in terminology, standing as an \"earlier\" to a\n\"later\" in\nthe one Kind.\n\nNow in common use this word \"Life\" embraces many forms\nwhich shade\ndown from primal to secondary and so on, all massed under the common\nterm- life of plant and life of animal- each phase brighter or\ndimmer than its next: and so it evidently must be with the\nGood-of-Life. And if thing is ever the image of thing, so every Good\nmust always be the image of a higher Good.\n\nIf mere Being is insufficient, if happiness demands fulness of\nlife, and exists, therefore, where nothing is lacking of all that\nbelongs to the idea of life, then happiness can exist only in a\nbeing that lives fully.\n\nAnd such a one will possess not merely the good, but the Supreme\nGood if, that is to say, in the realm of existents the Supreme Good\ncan be no other than the authentically living, no other than Life in\nits greatest plenitude, life in which the good is present as\nsomething\nessential not as something brought from without, a life needing no\nforeign substance called in from a foreign realm, to establish it in\ngood.\n\nFor what could be added to the fullest life to make it the best\nlife? If anyone should answer, \"The nature of Good\" [The Good, as a\nDivine Hypostasis], the reply would certainly be near our\nthought, but\nwe are not seeking the Cause but the main constituent.\n\nIt has been said more than once that the perfect life\nand the true\nlife, the essential life, is in the Intellectual Nature beyond this\nsphere, and that all other forms of life are incomplete, are\nphantoms of life, imperfect, not pure, not more truly life than they\nare its contrary: here let it be said succinctly that since\nall living\nthings proceed from the one principle but possess life in different\ndegrees, this principle must be the first life and the most complete.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. If, then, the perfect life is within human reach, the man\nattaining it attains happiness: if not, happiness must be\nmade over to\nthe gods, for the perfect life is for them alone.\n\nBut since we hold that happiness is for human beings too, we\nmust consider what this perfect life is. The matter may be stated\nthus:\n\nIt has been shown elsewhere that man, when he commands not\nmerely the life of sensation but also Reason and Authentic\nIntellection, has realised the perfect life.\n\nBut are we to picture this kind of life as something foreign\nimported into his nature?\n\nNo: there exists no single human being that does not either\npotentially or effectively possess this thing which we hold to\nconstitute happiness.\n\nBut are we to think of man as including this form of life, the\nperfect, after the manner of a partial constituent of his entire\nnature?\n\nWe say, rather, that while in some men it is present as a mere\nportion of their total being- in those, namely, that have it\npotentially- there is, too, the man, already in possession of true\nfelicity, who is this perfection realized, who has passed over into\nactual identification with it. All else is now mere clothing\nabout the\nman, not to be called part of him since it lies about him unsought,\nnot his because not appropriated to himself by any act of the will.\n\nTo the man in this state, what is the Good?\n\nHe himself by what he has and is.\n\nAnd the author and principle of what he is and holds is the\nSupreme, which within Itself is the Good but manifests Itself within\nthe human being after this other mode.\n\nThe sign that this state has been achieved is that the man seeks\nnothing else.\n\nWhat indeed could he be seeking? Certainly none of the\nless worthy\nthings; and the Best he carries always within him.\n\nHe that has such a life as this has all he needs in life.\n\nOnce the man is a Sage, the means of happiness, the way to good,\nare within, for nothing is good that lies outside him. Anything he\ndesires further than this he seeks as a necessity, and not\nfor himself\nbut for a subordinate, for the body bound to him, to which since it\nhas life he must minister the needs of life, not needs, however, to\nthe true man of this degree. He knows himself to stand above all\nsuch things, and what he gives to the lower he so gives as to leave\nhis true life undiminished.\n\nAdverse fortune does not shake his felicity: the life so founded\nis stable ever. Suppose death strikes at his household or at his\nfriends; he knows what death is, as the victims, if they are\namong the\nwise, know too. And if death taking from him his familiars and\nintimates does bring grief, it is not to him, not to the\ntrue man, but\nto that in him which stands apart from the Supreme, to that lower\nman in whose distress he takes no part.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. But what of sorrows, illnesses and all else that inhibit the\nnative activity?\n\nWhat of the suspension of consciousness which drugs or\ndisease may\nbring about? Could either welfare or happiness be present under such\nconditions? And this is to say nothing of misery and disgrace, which\nwill certainly be urged against us, with undoubtedly also those\nnever-failing \"Miseries of Priam.\"\n\n\"The Sage,\" we shall be told, \"may bear such afflictions and\neven take them lightly but they could never be his choice, and the\nhappy life must be one that would be chosen. The Sage, that\nis, cannot\nbe thought of as simply a sage soul, no count being taken of the\nbodily-principle in the total of the being: he will, no doubt, take\nall bravely... until the body's appeals come up before him, and\nlongings and loathings penetrate through the body to the inner man.\nAnd since pleasure must be counted in towards the happy life, how\ncan one that, thus, knows the misery of ill-fortune or pain be\nhappy, however sage he be? Such a state, of bliss self-contained, is\nfor the Gods; men, because of the less noble part subjoined in them,\nmust needs seek happiness throughout all their being and not\nmerely in\nsome one part; if the one constituent be troubled, the other,\nanswering to its associate's distress, must perforce suffer\nhindrance in its own activity. There is nothing but to cut away the\nbody or the body's sensitive life and so secure that self-contained\nunity essential to happiness.\"\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. Now if happiness did indeed require freedom from pain,\nsickness, misfortune, disaster, it would be utterly denied to anyone\nconfronted by such trials: but if it lies in the fruition of the\nAuthentic Good, why turn away from this Term and look to means,\nimagining that to be happy a man must need a variety of\nthings none of\nwhich enter into happiness? If, in fact, felicity were made up by\nheaping together all that is at once desirable and necessary we must\nbid for these also. But if the Term must be one and not many; if in\nother words our quest is of a Term and not of Terms; that only can\nbe elected which is ultimate and noblest, that which calls to the\ntenderest longings of the soul.\n\nThe quest and will of the Soul are not pointed directly towards\nfreedom from this sphere: the reason which disciplines away our\nconcern about this life has no fundamental quarrel with\nthings of this\norder; it merely resents their interference; sometimes, even, it\nmust seek them; essentially all the aspiration is not so much away\nfrom evil as towards the Soul's own highest and noblest: this\nattained, all is won and there is rest- and this is the veritably\nwilled state of life.\n\nThere can be no such thing as \"willing\" the acquirement of\nnecessaries, if Will is to be taken in its strict sense, and not\nmisapplied to the mere recognition of need.\n\nIt is certain that we shrink from the unpleasant, and such\nshrinking is assuredly not what we should have willed; to have no\noccasion for any such shrinking would be much nearer to our\ntaste; but\nthe things we seek tell the story as soon as they are ours. For\ninstance, health and freedom from pain; which of these has any great\ncharm? As long as we possess them, we set no store upon them.\n\nAnything which, present, has no charm and adds nothing to\nhappiness, which when lacking is desired because of the\npresence of an\nannoying opposite, may reasonably be called a necessity but not a\nGood.\n\nSuch things can never make part of our final object: our\nTerm must\nbe such that though these pleasanter conditions be absent and their\ncontraries present, it shall remain, still, intact.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Then why are these conditions sought and their contraries\nrepelled by the man established in happiness?\n\nHere is our answer:\n\nThese more pleasant conditions cannot, it is true, add any\nparticle towards the Sage's felicity: but they do serve towards the\nintegrity of his being, while the presence of the contraries tends\nagainst his Being or complicates the Term: it is not that\nthe Sage can\nbe so easily deprived of the Term achieved but simply that he that\nholds the highest good desires to have that alone, not something\nelse at the same time, something which, though it cannot banish the\nGood by its incoming, does yet take place by its side.\n\nIn any case if the man that has attained felicity meets some\nturn of fortune that he would not have chosen, there is not the\nslightest lessening of his happiness for that. If there were, his\nfelicity would be veering or falling from day to day; the death of a\nchild would bring him down, or the loss of some trivial possession.\nNo: a thousand mischances and disappointments may befall him\nand leave\nhim still in the tranquil possession of the Term.\n\nBut, they cry, great disasters, not the petty daily chances!\n\nWhat human thing, then, is great, so as not to be despised by\none who has mounted above all we know here, and is bound now\nno longer\nto anything below?\n\nIf the Sage thinks all fortunate events, however momentous, to\nbe no great matter- kingdom and the rule over cities and peoples,\ncolonisations and the founding of states, even though all be his own\nhandiwork- how can he take any great account of the vacillations of\npower or the ruin of his fatherland? Certainly if he thought any\nsuch event a great disaster, or any disaster at all, he must be of a\nvery strange way of thinking. One that sets great store by wood and\nstones, or... Zeus... by mortality among mortals cannot yet be the\nSage, whose estimate of death, we hold, must be that it is\nbetter than\nlife in the body.\n\nBut suppose that he himself is offered a victim in sacrifice?\n\nCan he think it an evil to die beside the altars?\n\nBut if he go unburied?\n\nWheresoever it lie, under earth or over earth, his body will\nalways rot.\n\nBut if he has been hidden away, not with costly ceremony\nbut in an\nunnamed grave, not counted worthy of a towering monument?\n\nThe littleness of it!\n\nBut if he falls into his enemies' hands, into prison?\n\nThere is always the way towards escape, if none towards\nwell-being.\n\nBut if his nearest be taken from him, his sons and daughters\ndragged away to captivity?\n\nWhat then, we ask, if he had died without witnessing the wrong?\nCould he have quitted the world in the calm conviction that\nnothing of\nall this could happen? He must be very shallow. Can he fail to see\nthat it is possible for such calamities to overtake his\nhousehold, and\ndoes he cease to be a happy man for the knowledge of what may occur?\nIn the knowledge of the possibility he may be at ease; so, too, when\nthe evil has come about.\n\nHe would reflect that the nature of this All is such as brings\nthese things to pass and man must bow the head.\n\nBesides in many cases captivity will certainly prove an\nadvantage;\nand those that suffer have their freedom in their hands: if\nthey stay,\neither there is reason in their staying, and then they have no real\ngrievance, or they stay against reason, when they should\nnot, and then\nthey have themselves to blame. Clearly the absurdities of his\nneighbours, however near, cannot plunge the Sage into evil: his\nstate cannot hang upon the fortunes good or bad of any other men.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. As for violent personal sufferings, he will carry them off as\nwell as he can; if they overpass his endurance they will carry him\noff.\n\nAnd so in all his pain he asks no pity: there is always the\nradiance in the inner soul of the man, untroubled like the light in\na lantern when fierce gusts beat about it in a wild turmoil of wind\nand tempest.\n\nBut what if he be put beyond himself? What if pain grow\nso intense\nand so torture him that the agony all but kills? Well, when he is\nput to torture he will plan what is to be done: he retains\nhis freedom\nof action.\n\nBesides we must remember that the Sage sees things very\ndifferently from the average man; neither ordinary experiences nor\npains and sorrows, whether touching himself or others, pierce to the\ninner hold. To allow them any such passage would be a weakness in\nour soul.\n\nAnd it is a sign of weakness, too, if we should think it gain\nnot to hear of miseries, gain to die before they come: this is not\nconcern for others' welfare but for our own peace of mind.\nHere we see\nour imperfection: we must not indulge it, we must put it from us and\ncease to tremble over what perhaps may be.\n\nAnyone that says that it is in human nature to grieve over\nmisfortune to our household must learn that this is not so with all,\nand that, precisely, it is virtue's use to raise the general level\nof nature towards the better and finer, above the mass of\nmen. And the\nfiner is to set at nought what terrifies the common mind.\n\nWe cannot be indolent: this is an arena for the powerful\ncombatant\nholding his ground against the blows of fortune, and knowing that,\nsore though they be to some natures, they are little to his, nothing\ndreadful, nursery terrors.\n\nSo, the Sage would have desired misfortune?\n\nIt is precisely to meet the undesired when it appears that he\nhas the virtue which gives him, to confront it, his passionless and\nunshakeable soul.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. But when he is out of himself, reason quenched by sickness or\nby magic arts?\n\nIf it be allowed that in this state, resting as it were in a\nslumber, he remains a Sage, why should he not equally remain\nhappy? No\none rules him out of felicity in the hours of sleep; no one counts\nup that time and so denies that he has been happy all his life.\n\nIf they say that, failing consciousness, he is no longer\nthe Sage,\nthen they are no longer reasoning about the Sage: but we do suppose\na Sage, and are enquiring whether, as long as he is the\nSage, he is in\nthe state of felicity.\n\n\"Well, a Sage let him remain,\" they say, \"still, having no\nsensation and not expressing his virtue in act, how can he be happy?\"\n\nBut a man unconscious of his health may be, none the less,\nhealthy: a man may not be aware of his personal attraction, but he\nremains handsome none the less: if he has no sense of his wisdom,\nshall he be any the less wise?\n\nIt may perhaps be urged that sensation and consciousness are\nessential to wisdom and that happiness is only wisdom brought to act.\n\nNow, this argument might have weight if prudence, wisdom, were\nsomething fetched in from outside: but this is not so: wisdom is, in\nits essential nature, an Authentic-Existence, or rather is The\nAuthentic-Existent- and this Existent does not perish in one asleep\nor, to take the particular case presented to us, in the man\nout of his\nmind: the Act of this Existent is continuous within him; and is a\nsleepless activity: the Sage, therefore, even unconscious, is still\nthe Sage in Act.\n\nThis activity is screened not from the man entire but merely\nfrom one part of him: we have here a parallel to what happens in the\nactivity of the physical or vegetative life in us which is not made\nknown by the sensitive faculty to the rest of the man: if\nour physical\nlife really constituted the \"We,\" its Act would be our Act: but, in\nthe fact, this physical life is not the \"We\"; the \"We\" is\nthe activity\nof the Intellectual-Principle so that when the Intellective is in\nAct we are in Act.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. Perhaps the reason this continuous activity remains\nunperceived is that it has no touch whatever with things of sense.\nNo doubt action upon material things, or action dictated by\nthem, must\nproceed through the sensitive faculty which exists for that use: but\nwhy should there not be an immediate activity of the\nIntellectual-Principle and of the soul that attends it, the soul\nthat antedates sensation or any perception? For, if Intellection and\nAuthentic-Existence are identical, this \"Earlier-than-perception\"\nmust\nbe a thing having Act.\n\nLet us explain the conditions under which we become conscious of\nthis Intellective-Act.\n\nWhen the Intellect is in upward orientation that [lower part of\nit] which contains [or, corresponds to] the life of the Soul, is, so\nto speak, flung down again and becomes like the reflection resting\non the smooth and shining surface of a mirror; in this illustration,\nwhen the mirror is in place the image appears but, though the mirror\nbe absent or out of gear, all that would have acted and produced an\nimage still exists; so in the case of the Soul; when there\nis peace in\nthat within us which is capable of reflecting the images of the\nRational and Intellectual-Principles these images appear. Then, side\nby side with the primal knowledge of the activity of the Rational\nand the Intellectual-Principles, we have also as it were a\nsense-perception of their operation.\n\nWhen, on the contrary, the mirror within is shattered\nthrough some\ndisturbance of the harmony of the body, Reason and the\nIntellectual-Principle act unpictured: Intellection is unattended by\nimagination.\n\nIn sum we may safely gather that while the\nIntellective-Act may be\nattended by the Imaging Principle, it is not to be\nconfounded with it.\n\nAnd even in our conscious life we can point to many noble\nactivities, of mind and of hand alike, which at the time in no way\ncompel our consciousness. A reader will often be quite unconscious\nwhen he is most intent: in a feat of courage there can be no sense\neither of the brave action or of the fact that all that is done\nconforms to the rules of courage. And so in cases beyond number.\n\nSo that it would even seem that consciousness tends to blunt the\nactivities upon which it is exercised, and that in the\ndegree in which\nthese pass unobserved they are purer and have more effect, more\nvitality, and that, consequently, the Sage arrived at this state has\nthe truer fulness of life, life not spilled out in sensation but\ngathered closely within itself.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. We shall perhaps be told that in such a state the man is no\nlonger alive: we answer that these people show themselves equally\nunable to understand his inner life and his happiness.\n\nIf this does not satisfy them, we must ask them to keep in mind\na living Sage and, under these terms, to enquire whether the\nman is in\nhappiness: they must not whittle away his life and then ask\nwhether he\nhas the happy life; they must not take away man and then look for\nthe happiness of a man: once they allow that the Sage lives within,\nthey must not seek him among the outer activities, still less look\nto the outer world for the object of his desires. To consider the\nouter world to be a field to his desire, to fancy the Sage desiring\nany good external, would be to deny Substantial-Existence to\nhappiness; for the Sage would like to see all men prosperous and no\nevil befalling anyone; but though it prove otherwise, he is still\ncontent.\n\nIf it be admitted that such a desire would be against reason,\nsince evil cannot cease to be, there is no escape from agreeing with\nus that the Sage's will is set always and only inward.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. The pleasure demanded for the life cannot be in the\nenjoyments\nof the licentious or in any gratifications of the body- there is no\nplace for these, and they stifle happiness- nor in any violent\nemotions- what could so move the Sage?- it can be only such pleasure\nas there must be where Good is, pleasure that does not rise from\nmovement and is not a thing of process, for all that is good is\nimmediately present to the Sage and the Sage is present to himself:\nhis pleasure, his contentment, stands, immovable.\n\nThus he is ever cheerful, the order of his life ever untroubled:\nhis state is fixedly happy and nothing whatever of all that is known\nas evil can set it awry- given only that he is and remains a Sage.\n\nIf anyone seeks for some other kind of pleasure in the\nlife of the\nSage, it is not the life of the Sage he is looking for.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. The characteristic activities are not hindered by\nouter events\nbut merely adapt themselves, remaining always fine, and perhaps all\nthe finer for dealing with the actual. When he has to handle\nparticular cases and things, he may not be able to put his\nvision into\nact without searching and thinking, but the one greatest principle\nis ever present to him, like a part of his being- most of\nall present,\nshould he be even a victim in the much-talked-of Bull of Phalaris.\nNo doubt, despite all that has been said, it is idle to pretend that\nthis is an agreeable lodging; but what cries in the Bull is the\nthing that feels the torture; in the Sage there is something else as\nwell, The Self-Gathered which, as long as it holds itself by main\nforce within itself, can never be robbed of the vision of the\nAll-Good.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. For man, and especially the Sage, is not the Couplement of\nsoul and body: the proof is that man can be disengaged from the body\nand disdain its nominal goods.\n\nIt would be absurd to think that happiness begins and ends with\nthe living-body: happiness is the possession of the good of life: it\nis centred therefore in Soul, is an Act of the Soul- and not of all\nthe Soul at that: for it certainly is not characteristic of the\nvegetative soul, the soul of growth; that would at once connect it\nwith the body.\n\nA powerful frame, a healthy constitution, even a happy balance\nof temperament, these surely do not make felicity; in the excess of\nthese advantages there is, even, the danger that the man be crushed\ndown and forced more and more within their power. There must\nbe a sort\nof counter-pressure in the other direction, towards the noblest: the\nbody must be lessened, reduced, that the veritable man may\nshow forth,\nthe man behind the appearances.\n\nLet the earth-bound man be handsome and powerful and rich, and\nso apt to this world that he may rule the entire human race: still\nthere can be no envying him, the fool of such lures. Perhaps such\nsplendours could not, from the beginning even, have gathered to the\nSage; but if it should happen so, he of his own action will lower\nhis state, if he has any care for his true life; the tyranny of the\nbody he will work down or wear away by inattention to its claims;\nthe rulership he will lay aside. While he will safeguard his bodily\nhealth, he will not wish to be wholly untried in sickness, still\nless never to feel pain: if such troubles should not come to him of\nthemselves, he will wish to know them, during youth at least: in old\nage, it is true, he will desire neither pains nor pleasures to\nhamper him; he will desire nothing of this world, pleasant\nor painful;\nhis one desire will be to know nothing of the body. If he should\nmeet with pain he will pit against it the powers he holds to meet\nit; but pleasure and health and ease of life will not mean any\nincrease of happiness to him nor will their contraries destroy or\nlessen it.\n\nWhen in the one subject, a positive can add nothing, how can the\nnegative take away?\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. But suppose two wise men, one of them possessing all that is\nsupposed to be naturally welcome, while the other meets only with\nthe very reverse: do we assert that they have an equal happiness?\n\nWe do, if they are equally wise.\n\nWhat though the one be favoured in body and in all else that\ndoes not help towards wisdom, still less towards virtue, towards the\nvision of the noblest, towards being the highest, what does all that\namount to? The man commanding all such practical advantages cannot\nflatter himself that he is more truly happy than the man\nwithout them:\nthe utmost profusion of such boons would not help even to make a\nflute-player.\n\nWe discuss the happy man after our own feebleness; we count\nalarming and grave what his felicity takes lightly: he would be\nneither wise nor in the state of happiness if he had not quitted all\ntrifling with such things and become as it were another being,\nhaving confidence in his own nature, faith that evil can never touch\nhim. In such a spirit he can be fearless through and through; where\nthere is dread, there is not perfect virtue; the man is some\nsort of a\nhalf-thing.\n\nAs for any involuntary fear rising in him and taking the\njudgement\nby surprise, while his thoughts perhaps are elsewhere, the Sage will\nattack it and drive it out; he will, so to speak, calm the refractory\nchild within him, whether by reason or by menace, but\nwithout passion,\nas an infant might feel itself rebuked by a glance of severity.\n\nThis does not make the Sage unfriendly or harsh: it is to\nhimself and in his own great concern that he is the Sage: giving\nfreely to his intimates of all he has to give, he will be the best\nof friends by his very union with the Intellectual-Principle.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. Those that refuse to place the Sage aloft in the\nIntellectual Realm but drag him down to the accidental, dreading\naccident for him, have substituted for the Sage we have in mind\nanother person altogether; they offer us a tolerable sort of man and\nthey assign to him a life of mingled good and ill, a case, after\nall, not easy to conceive. But admitting the possibility of such a\nmixed state, it could not be deserved to be called a life of\nhappiness; it misses the Great, both in the dignity of Wisdom and in\nthe integrity of Good. The life of true happiness is not a thing of\nmixture. And Plato rightly taught that he who is to be wise and to\npossess happiness draws his good from the Supreme, fixing his gaze\non That, becoming like to That, living by That.\n\nHe can care for no other Term than That: all else he will attend\nto only as he might change his residence, not in expectation of any\nincrease to his settled felicity, but simply in a reasonable\nattention\nto the differing conditions surrounding him as he lives here\nor there.\n\nHe will give to the body all that he sees to be useful and\npossible, but he himself remains a member of another order, not\nprevented from abandoning the body, necessarily leaving it\nat nature's\nhour, he himself always the master to decide in its regard.\n\nThus some part of his life considers exclusively the Soul's\nsatisfaction; the rest is not immediately for the Term's sake and\nnot for his own sake, but for the thing bound up with him, the thing\nwhich he tends and bears with as the musician cares for his lyre, as\nlong as it can serve him: when the lyre fails him, he will change\nit, or will give up lyre and lyring, as having another craft now,\none that needs no lyre, and then he will let it rest\nunregarded at his\nside while he sings on without an instrument. But it was not\nidly that\nthe instrument was given him in the beginning: he has found it\nuseful until now, many a time.",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}