ARKCODEX
The Consolation of Philosophy
Philosophy had held her dignity throughout — her expression composed, her voice measured — and she finished her song in that same steady tone. I had not yet shaken the grief that had taken root in me. I cut her off as she was preparing to say more. "O guide who goes before the true light," I said, "everything your words have poured out until now has stood clear and unshakeable. The divine things you showed me through their own reflection. Your arguments left no room for doubt. I must confess — grief over the wrong done to me had made me forget these truths for a time. But I had not been entirely ignorant of them before. Yet this is the very heart of my sorrow. A good ruler governs all things. And still evil exists at all. And still it goes unpunished. That alone deserves all the wonder we can give it. But there is something worse still. Wickedness reigns and flourishes. Virtue goes unrewarded. Worse than that — it is thrown beneath the feet of criminals and trampled. It pays in suffering for the crimes others commit. That all of this happens in a kingdom governed by a God who knows everything, who can do everything, who wills only good — no one can find words enough to wonder at it. No one can find words enough to grieve." Then she answered. "It would be cause for endless astonishment — a horror surpassing every monster — if things were as you suppose. Imagine a well-ordered household, wisely governed by its master. The cheap vessels honored. The precious ones left to gather filth. But that is not how things stand. The conclusions reached a little while ago hold firm. On the authority of the very ruler whose kingdom we are now discussing, you will come to know this. The good are always powerful. The wicked are always cast down and weak. Vice never goes without punishment. Virtue never goes without reward. Good fortune belongs to the good. Misfortune clings always to the wicked. There is much more of this kind waiting to be shown. Hear it all, and your complaints will fall silent. You will be built on solid ground. You have already seen the shape of true happiness — I showed it to you not long ago. You recognized where it lives. I will now clear everything that still needs clearing from the path. Then I will show you the road that leads you home. I will fasten wings to your mind — wings strong enough to carry it upward. Drive out the confusion. Return safely to your homeland. I will lead you. I will show you the way. I will carry you there myself."
I have wings that are swift and strong enough to lift a mind above the heights of heaven. When a quick mind puts them on, it looks down on the earth with contempt. It rises above the vast expanse of the air. It leaves the clouds behind. It passes through the fiery realm of the upper sky where the ether burns with rapid motion. It climbs beyond the sphere of fire itself. It rises until it reaches the star-filled halls of heaven. There it joins the path of the sun. Or it follows the course of the cold and glittering old man, Saturn, companion to his blazing star. Or wherever the shining night is painted with stars, it traces the circuit of those lights. And when it has had its fill of all of this, it leaves the outermost pole behind. It presses on across the back of the swift ether. It has now won its way to the light that commands all reverence. There the Lord of kings holds his scepter. There he takes the reins of the world in hand. There he guides the winged chariot with a steady hand. He is the radiant judge of all things. If the road brings you back to this place — the place you have forgotten and are even now searching for — you will say: "I remember this. This is my homeland. This is where I was born. This is where I will plant my feet." But if you choose to look back down at the night-bound earth you left behind, you will see those grim tyrants that wretched peoples fear — and you will see them for what they are: exiles.
"Remarkable!" I said. "What great promises you make! I have no doubt you can deliver on them. Just don't leave me waiting." "Then let us begin," she said. "You will come to see that the good always possess power. And you will see that the wicked are stripped of all strength. Each of these truths proves the other. Good and evil are opposites. If good is shown to be powerful, then the weakness of evil follows clearly. And if the fragility of evil is made plain, then the strength of good stands confirmed. But to make our case as solid as possible, I will travel both roads. I will press forward from one direction and then the other, supporting our conclusion from each side. "Everything human beings accomplish rests on two things: will and power. If either one is missing, nothing can be carried out. Without will, a person does not even attempt what he does not want. Without power, will comes to nothing. So if you see someone straining to get what he never manages to get, you cannot doubt that he lacked the strength to obtain what he wanted." "That is obvious," I said. "It cannot be denied in any way." "But when you see someone who has accomplished what he set out to do, will you doubt that he also had the power to do it?" "Not at all." "In whatever a person can do, he is strong. In whatever he cannot, he must be counted weak." "I agree," I said. "Now, do you remember," she said, "what our earlier reasoning established? It showed that every impulse of the human will, however varied its pursuits, is moving toward happiness." "I remember," I said. "That was also demonstrated." "And do you recall that happiness is itself the good? And that in seeking happiness, everyone is therefore seeking the good?" "I don't merely recall it," I said. "It is fixed in my memory." "So all people, good and evil alike, strive toward the good with an undivided desire?" "Yes," I said. "That follows." "But it is certain that the good become good precisely by reaching the good." "Certain." "So the good obtain what they are seeking?" "So it seems." "And if the wicked obtained what they seek, which is the good, they could not remain wicked." "That is so." "Since both pursue the good, but the good obtain it and the wicked do not, can there be any doubt that the good are powerful and the wicked are weak?" "Anyone who doubts it," I said, "has not thought carefully about the nature of things or about the logic of what follows." "Now consider this," she said. "Suppose two people share the same natural goal. One fulfills it through his natural capacity. The other cannot exercise that natural capacity at all. He does not truly reach the goal. He only imitates the one who does reach it. Which of these two would you judge the stronger?" "I think I see where you are going," I said. "But I want to hear it stated more plainly." "Would you deny that walking is the natural movement of human beings?" "No," I said. "And would you doubt that feet are the natural means for doing it?" "Not that either," I said. "So if one man walks on his feet and another, who lacks their natural use, struggles to move on his hands, which of the two can rightly be considered the stronger?" "Go on," I said. "No one could doubt that the one with the natural power to do what the other cannot is the stronger." "Now: the highest good is set before the wicked and the good alike. The good pursue it through the natural means of virtue. The wicked try to reach that same good through craving, which is not the natural means of attaining it. Do you see it any differently?" "No," I said. "What follows is clear. From everything I have granted, the good must be powerful and the wicked must be weak." "You are running ahead of me," she said. "And as doctors like to take as a sign, this shows a nature that is already rallying and pushing back. But since I see you are very quick to understand, I will pile up the arguments thickly. Look at how vast the weakness of corrupt men truly is. They cannot even reach the goal toward which their own natural desire leads and nearly compels them. And what if they were abandoned even by that great and almost unconquerable support of their nature guiding them forward? "Consider the full helplessness that grips the wicked. The prize they are chasing is not something small or trivial. It is the very summit of all things. And yet they fall short of it entirely. They never achieve the one thing they labor at day and night. Here the strength of the good shines out. Just as you would call the most capable walker the man who could reach the point beyond which no path lies open to him, so you must judge the most powerful to be the one who grasps the end of all desire, beyond which nothing further exists. Everything that follows from this lands directly on the wicked. They are shown to be stripped of all strength. "Why do they abandon virtue and chase vice? Is it ignorance of the good? What is weaker than the blindness of ignorance? Or do they know what they ought to pursue? Then appetite hurls them sideways. In that way too the self-indulgent are fragile. They cannot fight down their own vice. Or do they abandon the good knowingly and willingly and turn toward vice? If so, they have not merely lost power. They have ceased to exist altogether. Those who abandon the common end of all that exists also cease to exist alongside it. "This may strike someone as strange — to say that the wicked, who are the greater part of mankind, do not exist. But this is how it stands. I do not deny that the wicked are wicked. What I deny is that they exist in any pure and simple sense. Just as you might call a corpse a dead man but could not simply call it a man, so I can grant that the vicious are wicked but cannot affirm that they truly exist. What holds to its proper order preserves its nature. What falls away from that order also abandons the existence that belonged to its nature. "'But the wicked have power,' you may say." I would not deny it. But their power does not come from strength. It comes from weakness. They have the power to do evil because they could never manage it if they had remained within the working of the good. That power itself makes plain that they can do nothing of substance. For as we gathered a moment ago, evil is nothing. Since the wicked can do only evil, it is clear that the wicked can do nothing." "That is clear," I said. "And so you understand what this power actually amounts to: we established just now that nothing is more powerful than the highest good." "That is so," I said. "And yet the highest good cannot do evil." "No." "Is there anyone who thinks that human beings can do everything?" "No one, unless he is mad." "And yet the wicked can do evil." "Would that they could not," I said. "Since the one who is powerful in good things alone can do all things, and those who are capable of evil cannot do all things, those who can do evil are clearly capable of less. Beyond this, we have shown that all power belongs among the things worth seeking. And we have shown that everything worth seeking is referred to the good as to the summit of its own nature. But the capacity to commit a crime cannot be referred to the good. It is therefore not worth seeking. And yet all genuine power is worth seeking. It is clear then that the capacity of the wicked is not power at all. "From all of this, the power of the good and the weakness of the wicked stand beyond doubt. And Plato's judgment proves true: the wise alone can do what they truly desire. The wicked can act out their appetites, but they cannot fulfill what they truly desire. They do whatever they please, believing that through their pleasures they will reach the good they are longing for. But they never reach it. Wickedness does not lead to happiness."
Look at those kings enthroned on high. See how they blaze in shining purple. See how they bristle with the grim machinery of war. They scowl. They rage. They gasp with the frenzy burning inside them. But let someone strip away the proud trappings of all that empty splendor. What lies beneath will shock you. The masters are themselves in chains. Lust churns their hearts with its hungry poison. Stormy anger whips the mind and drives great crashing waves through it. Grief wears its captives down without mercy. Slippery hope stretches them on the rack. So when you see one head bowed under so many tyrants at once. Know this: that man cannot do what he wants. He is crushed beneath masters who will never be just.
Do you see how deep in filth wickedness wallows? Do you see how brightly goodness shines? In this we can see clearly that the good are never without their rewards. And the wicked are never without their punishment. For in any action, the purpose of that action can rightly be seen as its reward. In a foot race, the crown waiting at the finish line is what the runners are running toward. We have shown that beatitude — happiness itself — is the good toward which all things are done. Therefore, the good itself stands as the common reward set before all human action. But this reward cannot be separated from good people. A person who lacks the good has no right to be called good. Therefore, righteous character never abandons its own reward. Let the wicked rage as fiercely as they will. The crown will not fall from the wise person's head. It will not wither. No outside wickedness can strip a noble soul of its proper dignity. If that dignity came from some external source, another person could take it away. Even the one who gave it could take it back. But since each person's own goodness is what confers it, a person will only lose that reward when they cease to be good. Finally, since every reward is sought because it is believed to be good — who would judge that one who possesses the good is without a reward? And what reward? The most beautiful and the greatest of all. Remember the gift I gave you a little while ago as a crowning point. Hold it firmly and reason from it. Since the good itself is happiness, it is clear that all good people become happy by the very fact of being good. But those who are happy are rightly called gods. Therefore, the reward of the good is something no passing day diminishes. No power can reduce it. No wickedness can stain it. The reward is to become gods. Since this is so, no wise person can doubt that the wicked face an equally inescapable punishment. Good and evil stand opposed. Reward and punishment stand opposed. Whatever we see working in favor of the good's reward must be answered, on the opposite side, by the wicked's punishment. Just as goodness itself becomes the reward for the righteous, wickedness itself becomes the torment for the wicked. Now, whoever suffers punishment does not doubt that harm has come upon them. So if the wicked were willing to judge themselves honestly — could they truly see themselves as free from punishment? They have not merely been touched by wickedness. They have been saturated by it. It is the worst evil of all. Look now from the other side. Look at what punishment follows the wicked. You learned a little while ago that everything which exists is one. And that oneness itself is the good. It follows from this that everything which exists also appears to be good. Therefore, whatever falls away from the good begins to cease existing. This means the wicked cease to be what they once were. Yet the remaining shape of a human body still shows that they were once human. Turned to evil, they have lost their human nature. Since goodness alone can raise anyone above the human, wickedness necessarily drags those it casts down from the human condition below what a human being deserves. The result is this. When you see a person transformed by vice, you can no longer reckon them as human. Does one burn with greed — violently seizing what belongs to others? Call them a wolf. Does one rage and snarl, never at rest, forever stirring up quarrels? Compare them to a dog. Does one lurk in shadows, delighting in fraud and theft? Rank them with the foxes. Does one seethe with uncontrolled anger? Believe that they carry the heart of a lion. Does one cower in trembling fear of things that deserve no fear? Count them as the deer. Does one sit sluggish and dull and stupefied? They live the life of an ass. Does one flit about, restless and inconsistent, forever changing pursuits? They are no different from the birds. Is one plunged deep in foul and filthy lusts? They are held fast in the wallowing pleasure of a filthy sow. So it comes to this. The one who has abandoned goodness and ceased to be human cannot cross over into the divine condition. They are turned into a beast.
The east wind drove the ships of Odysseus across the sea. They came to shore on an island where a beautiful goddess lived. She was born of the Sun. She mixed cups of drink for her new guests. Her hand was powerful with herbs. She touched them and transformed them into different shapes. One man was covered by the face of a boar. Another grew into a Libyan lion with teeth and claws. A third was added to the wolves. He tried to weep. He howled instead. Another walked gently like a Bengal tiger on the prowl. Then the god of Arcady took pity on their beleaguered captain. He freed him from the witch's curse. But the rowers had already drunk the evil cups. The pigs had already traded grain for acorns. They had lost their voices. They had lost their bodies. Nothing of their humanity remained. Only the mind stayed clear. It grieved over the horrors it was forced to endure. How weak a hand. How powerless the herbs. They could change limbs. They could not change hearts. The strength of a human being lives within. It is locked inside a hidden fortress. There is a more powerful poison. It drags a man away from himself. It works from the inside. It does not touch the body. It strikes the mind. That is where it does its savage damage.
"I admit it," I said. "I see it's fair to say that vicious people keep the outward shape of a human body. But in the quality of their souls they are transformed into beasts. All the same, I would have preferred that those whose savage and criminal minds prey upon the destruction of good people were not permitted to do so." "They are not permitted," she said. "This will be shown in its proper place. But consider this. If even the power they seem to have were taken away, the punishment of wicked people would be greatly reduced. Because it may seem unbelievable to some, yet it is necessarily true that evil people are more wretched when they accomplish what they desire than when they fail to get it. If wanting wicked things is miserable, being able to carry them out is more miserable still. Without that power, the wretched will would remain impotent. Each stage carries its own misery. Those you see willing evil, able to commit it, and then completing it are crushed under a triple weight of ruin." "I agree," I said. "But I desperately hope they are quickly stripped of that power by being denied any opportunity to commit their crimes." "They will be stripped of it," she said. "More quickly than perhaps you would wish, or than they fear they will be. In the brief span of a human life, nothing is so far off that an immortal mind would call the wait long. The great ambitions of the wicked and their towering schemes of crime are often shattered by a sudden and unexpected end. That end sets a limit to their misery. For if wickedness makes people wretched, then the longer someone remains wicked the more wretched they must be. I would judge them the most wretched of all, were it not that death at last puts an end to their evil. If our conclusion about the misery of wickedness is sound, then a misery that is eternal is plainly infinite." "That conclusion is remarkable," I said, "and difficult to accept. But I can see that it follows necessarily from what was already granted." "You are right," she said. "Anyone who finds the conclusion hard to accept must either show that one of the preceding steps is false, or show that the arrangement of the argument does not produce a necessary conclusion. Otherwise, once the premises are granted, there is no ground at all for objecting to what follows. And what I am about to say will seem no less remarkable, yet it follows with equal necessity from the same foundations." "What is that?" I asked. "Wicked people who are punished," she said, "are happier than those who escape all punishment from justice. I am not raising the obvious point that punishment corrects corrupt behavior, or that the fear of retribution leads people back toward what is right, or that it serves as a warning to others to avoid what deserves blame. I am speaking of something else entirely. Unpunished wicked people are more unhappy than punished ones, even setting aside every consideration of correction and example." "What other reason could there be?" I asked. "Have we not agreed," she said, "that good people are happy and wicked people are miserable?" "Yes," I said. "If some good thing is added to a misery," she said, "is that person not better off than one whose misery is pure and unmixed with any good at all?" "So it seems," I said. "And if some additional evil is attached to that same wretched person who lacks all good things, beyond the evils that already make them wretched, must they not be judged far more miserable than one whose suffering is at least lightened by some share in good?" "Of course," I said. "Now it is plain that punishment is just for the wicked to receive, and that escaping punishment is unjust." "Who would deny it?" "Nor will anyone deny," she said, "that everything just is a good, and everything unjust is an evil." "That is clear," I answered. "Therefore the wicked, when they are punished, have something good attached to them. The punishment itself is a good, because it is just. But when they escape punishment, something worse is added to them still. The very impunity you have agreed deserves to be called an evil." "I cannot deny it." "The wicked are therefore far more miserable when granted unjust impunity than when made to suffer just punishment." "These conclusions follow," I said, "from what was established just before. But tell me, do you allow that souls receive any punishment after the body has died?" "Yes, and significant punishment," she said. "Some of it I believe is exercised with the harshness of retribution, and some with the gentleness of purification. But it is not my intention to discuss that now. What I have been doing is this. I wanted you to see that the power of the wicked, which seemed to you utterly intolerable, is in fact no power at all. I wanted those you lamented as unpunished to be seen as never truly free from the consequences of their wickedness. I wanted the freedom to do evil, whose swift ending you prayed for, to be seen as never lasting long, and as more wretched the longer it continues, and most wretched of all if it were eternal. Beyond all this, I wanted it to be clear that the wicked are more miserable when released through unjust impunity than when made to suffer just punishment. From this it follows that those who are thought to be escaping punishment are in truth bearing the heaviest punishment of all." "When I examine your arguments," I said, "I think nothing could be truer. But if I turn back to the judgment of ordinary people, who is there who would find any of this worth hearing, let alone worth believing?" "That is so," she said. "Eyes accustomed to darkness cannot lift themselves toward the light of clear truth. They are like birds whose sight is sharpened by night and blinded by day. As long as people look at their own desires rather than at the order of things, they mistake the license to do evil, or the escape from punishment, for happiness. But look at what the eternal law ordains. If you have shaped your mind toward better things, you need no judge to award you a prize. You have placed yourself among the excellent. If you have turned your striving toward what is worse, seek no avenger outside yourself. You have thrust yourself down into something lower. It is as if you were to look in turn at muddy ground and then at the sky. With nothing else changing around you, the very act of looking places you now among the filth and now among the stars. Yet ordinary people do not see this. What then? Shall we side with those we have shown to be like beasts? What if a man had lost his sight entirely and had even forgotten he ever had it, and believed himself to lack nothing that belongs to human wholeness? We who can see would not count the blind man among those with vision. And on this point they will not concede what rests on equally firm foundations of reason. That those who commit injustice are more wretched than those who suffer it." "I would like to hear that argument itself," I said. "You would not deny," she said, "that every wicked person deserves punishment?" "By no means." "And it is clear in many ways that the wicked are miserable." "Yes," I said. "Those who deserve punishment, you have no doubt, are wretched?" "Agreed," I said. "If you were sitting as a judge," she said, "upon whom would you think punishment should fall. On the one who committed the injustice or on the one who suffered it?" "I have no doubt," I said. "I would satisfy the one who suffered by making the one who acted feel the pain." "The one who inflicted the injury would therefore seem to you more wretched than the one who received it." "That follows," I said. "From this, then, and from all the other reasons rooted in this same foundation, namely that moral corruption is by its own nature the cause of misery, it is plain that any injustice done to anyone is the misery not of the one who receives it but of the one who commits it." "Yet today," she said, "advocates do the opposite. They try to stir the pity of judges on behalf of those who have suffered something grave and bitter, when in fact a more just compassion is owed to those who committed the wrong. Such people ought to be brought to judgment not by angry and hostile accusers, but by sympathetic and compassionate ones, as the sick are brought to a physician, so that the disease of their guilt might be cut away by the remedy of punishment. Under this arrangement, the work of defenders would either lose all its purpose, or, if it truly wished to serve humanity, it would take on the form of accusation. Even wicked people themselves, if they could catch any glimpse of the virtue they have abandoned, and could see that they would shed the filth of their vices through the suffering of punishment in exchange for gaining goodness back, they would not call that suffering a torment. They would refuse the help of
What pleasure is there in stirring up such great upheaval. In hastening fate by your own hand. Death is already drawing near on its own. It comes swiftly, and holds back its horses for no one. The serpent, the lion, the tiger, the bear, the boar — these creatures hunt men with their teeth. Yet men turn the sword on themselves. Is it because their customs clash and their values divide them. They raise unjust armies and drive savage wars. They choose to die by each other's weapons. That is no worthy justification for such savagery. Do you want to repay each person as they truly deserve. Love the good, as is right. And have mercy on the wicked.
"I see," I said, "what happiness and misery look like when they are grounded in the actual worth of good and evil people. But even within this ordinary run of fortune, I notice something that weighs on me — there is both good and bad mixed into it. No wise man would choose to live as an exile, stripped of wealth, stripped of honor, stripped of reputation. He would rather stand in his own city, rich in resources, respected for his standing, strong in his influence, and flourishing. For wisdom does its work more visibly and more powerfully that way. Its benefits pour outward like a kind of abundance into the lives of those who depend on it. And beyond that — prison, execution, and all the other lawful instruments of punishment were designed for destructive citizens. Those are the people they were made for. So I am deeply troubled by the reversal I see. The punishments meant for crimes are crushing good people. The rewards meant for virtue are being seized by the wicked. I want to hear from you what reason, if any, you can see in this unjust disorder. I would be less astonished if I believed everything was simply thrown together by chance. But a god governs the world — and that is precisely what deepens my bewilderment. He often gives pleasant things to the good and harsh things to the wicked. Then he turns around and gives the good hard suffering and grants the wicked what they desire. If no explanation can be found for this, how does it look any different from blind chance?" "It is no wonder," she said, "that something seems random and disordered when the reason behind its arrangement is not yet understood. But even though you do not know the cause of so great a design — because a good ruler governs this world — do not doubt that everything is being done rightly."
If someone does not know that the stars of Arcturus Glide close to the highest point of the sky, Or why slow Bootes drives his wagon across the heavens And plunges his late flames beneath the sea, While his rising comes so swiftly, They will be astonished by the laws of the high sky. Let the full moon's horns grow pale, Stained by the markers of dark night. Let Phoebe, her bright face now clouded, uncover The stars she had hidden before. A shared mistake unsettles whole peoples. They beat the air with endless drumming. No one marvels that the west wind Pounds the shore with roaring waves. No one marvels that the hard mass of snow Is melted by the burning heat of the sun. In those cases the causes are plain to see. In the others they are hidden. They trouble the heart. Everything that rare ages bring forth, Everything sudden, bewilders the restless crowd. Let the cloudy error of ignorance give way. Then these things will cease to seem wonderful.
'So it is,' I said. 'But it is your gift to uncover the causes of hidden things. It is your gift to unfold reasons veiled in darkness. I ask you therefore to explain what you have concluded on this matter. This mystery above all others is what disturbs me most.' She smiled for a moment. 'You are calling me,' she said, 'to the greatest of all questions men have asked. It is a subject so vast that no amount of work could ever fully satisfy it. Cut down one doubt and countless others grow back in its place. They rise like the heads of the hydra. There would be no end to it without a mind fierce enough to burn them away. This is the field where questions arise about the simplicity of Providence. About the chain of Fate. About sudden chance. About divine foreknowledge and predestination. About the freedom of the will. You can weigh for yourself what a burden that is. But knowing these things is part of your cure. We are pressed on all sides by the narrow limits of time. Still, we will attempt to taste something of it. If the pleasures of song delight you, you must set that pleasure aside for now. I am weaving these arguments together in their proper order.' 'As you wish,' I said. Then she began again, as if from a new starting point. 'Everything that is generated. Every nature that changes. Everything that moves in any way at all. These receive their causes, their order, and their forms from the stillness of the divine mind. That mind stands established in the citadel of its own simplicity. From there it has ordained a complex manner of governing all things. When that manner is seen within the pure clarity of divine intelligence itself, it is called Providence. When it is referred to the things it moves and arranges, it was called by the ancients Fate. That these two are distinct will become clear at once to anyone who grasps the force of each. Providence is the divine reason itself. It is established in the highest ruler of all things. It is the reason that disposes all things. Fate is the disposition that inheres in moving things. Through it Providence binds each thing to its proper order. Providence embraces all things together, however different, however infinite they may be. Fate distributes each single thing into motion. It distributes them by place, by form, by time. The unfolding of this temporal order, gathered into the sight of the divine mind, is Providence. That same gathering, arranged and unfolded through time, is called Fate. Though they are distinct, one depends upon the other. The order of Fate proceeds from the simplicity of Providence. A craftsman conceives the form of what he will make within his mind. He then sets the work in motion. What he saw simply and all at once, he leads out through a sequence of steps in time. So too God disposes in Providence, singularly and stably, what is to be done. Through Fate he administers those same dispositions in multiple and temporal ways. Whether Fate is carried out by certain divine spirits who serve Providence. By soul. By all of nature in its service. By the motions of the heavenly stars. By angelic power. By the varied skill of demons. By some of these. Or by all of them. In every case this much is clear. Providence is the unmovable and simple form by which all things are governed. Fate is the noble chain and temporal order of those things which divine simplicity has disposed to be governed. It follows from this that everything subject to Fate is also subject to Providence. Fate itself is subject to Providence as well. But certain things placed under Providence stand above the series of Fate. These are the things nearest to the first divinity. Fixed in stability, they surpass the order of Fate's movement. Consider spheres turning around a common axis. The innermost approaches the simplicity of that centre. It becomes itself a kind of axis around which the outer spheres revolve. The outermost moves in the widest arc. The further it departs from the undivided point at the centre, the greater the spaces through which it unfolds. Whatever joins and binds itself to that centre is drawn into simplicity. It ceases to spread and disperse. By the same reasoning, whatever departs further from the first mind is more entangled in the bonds of Fate. Whatever draws nearer to that axle of all things is more free from Fate. If it cleaves to the stability of the highest mind, it is beyond all motion. It surpasses even the necessity of Fate. Therefore, as reasoning is to intellect. As what is generated is to what simply is. As time is to eternity. As the circle is to its centre. So is the moving series of Fate to the stable simplicity of Providence. That series moves the heavens and the stars. It balances the elements against one another. It transforms them through mutual exchange. It renews all things that are born and die through the like progressions of seeds and offspring. It binds the actions and fortunes of men in an unbreakable chain of causes. Since it proceeds from the unchanging source of Providence, it is itself necessarily unchanging. Things are governed best when the simplicity dwelling in the divine mind presses down an unwavering order of causes. That order holds in check things that are mutable and would otherwise drift at random. It holds them by its own unchangeableness. And so, though you are unable to perceive this order and all things seem confused and disordered to you, nevertheless a proper governing purpose directs all things toward the good. Nothing is done for the sake of evil. Not even by the wicked themselves. They seek the good. But a twisted error turns them away from it. This has been shown in the fullest measure. Far less, then, does the order proceeding from the axle of the highest good ever swerve from its own beginning. But you will ask: what confusion could be more unjust than this? Good men meet now with adversity, now with prosperity. The wicked too receive now what they desire, now what they hate. Do men truly live with such soundness of mind that those they judge to be good or wicked must necessarily be what they are judged to be? No. Men's judgments clash on this very point. Those whom some think worthy of reward, others think worthy of punishment. But grant that someone could distinguish the good from the wicked. Could he then look into that inward balance of the soul, as a physician looks into the body? It is no less a mystery to the ignorant why sweet things suit some healthy bodies and bitter things suit others. Why some sick people are helped by mild remedies and others by sharp ones. The physician who knows the measure and constitution of health and disease does not wonder at this at all. What else is the health of the soul but virtue? What else is its sickness but vice? Who else preserves the good and drives away evil from souls but God, their ruler and physician? He looks down from the high watchtower of Providence. He knows what suits each one. He applies what he knows to be fitting. This is the moment when that remarkable wonder of the fatal order comes into view. What is done by one who knows leaves those who do not know dumbfounded. Let me touch briefly on a few things human reason can reach of the divine depth. The man you believe to be most just and most devoted to equity appears different to a Providence that knows all things. Our friend Lucan reminds us that the conquering cause pleased the gods, but the conquered cause pleased Cato. Whatever you see happen here beyond expectation is right order in the nature of things. It is only in your opinion that it appears as disordered confusion. But suppose a man of such good character that divine and human judgment alike agree about him. Yet he is weak in the strength of his soul. If adversity befalls him, he may perhaps abandon the innocence through which he could not hold onto fortune. Wise Providence spares such a man. It does not allow one whom hardship could make worse to endure a struggle that does not suit him. There is another man perfect in every virtue, holy and nearest to God. Providence judges it a wrong that any adversity should touch him at all. It does not even allow his body to be afflicted by disease. As one greater than even I have said: the heavens built the body of a holy man. It also happens often that the governance of highest things is entrusted to good men, so that overflowing wickedness may be beaten back. To others Providence distributes a mixture, according to the quality of their souls. Some it pricks with trouble, lest they grow soft in long prosperity. Others it drives through hardships, so that the virtues of their souls may be strengthened by the practice and exercise of endurance. Some fear beyond reason what they are able to bear. Others scorn beyond reason what they are not able to bear. Providence leads these into experience of themselves through sorrows. Some have purchased a name worthy of reverence in this age at the price of a glorious death. Some, unbroken by torments, have shown others by their example that virtue cannot be conquered by evil. There is no doubt that all these things happen rightly and in order, and for the good of those to whom they come. As for what happens to the wicked, the fact that they sometimes meet with sorrow and sometimes with what they desire
If you wish to see the laws of the high thundering God with a clear and skillful mind, look up at the heights of the sky above. There the stars keep their ancient peace through a just and faithful order. The sun in its blazing fire does not crowd out the cold path of the moon. The Bear, turning its swift course at the very top of the world, never watches the other stars sink into the western sea and longs to quench its own flames in the ocean. Evening comes at its appointed hour and announces the coming shadows. The morning star returns and brings back the nourishing day. This back-and-forth love sustains the eternal cycles. Discord and war are banished from the star-filled heavens. This same harmony holds the elements in equal measure. The wet yields to the dry in turn. Cold and fire make their peace. Fire rises upward, light and reaching. Heavy earth sinks down under its own weight. For the same reasons the flowering year breathes out its fragrance in the warmth of spring. The scorching summer dries the grain. Autumn returns heavy with fruit. Winter pours down its soaking rain. This balance feeds and brings forth everything that breathes and lives upon the earth. That same power sweeps it all away. It buries in final death what it first raised into being. Meanwhile the high Creator sits apart. He holds the reins and steers all things. He is king and lord. He is source and origin. He is law and the wise judge of what is right. He drives into motion what stirs and moves. He pulls back and stills what wanders. For if he did not call straight paths back again and bend them into their returning circles, all that the stable order now holds together would break apart from its source and fall to ruin. This is the love that all things share. All good things long to be held by that final end. For they cannot last any other way. They must turn back in love toward the source that gave them being.
'Do you see now what follows from everything we have said?' 'What?' I asked. 'That all fortune,' she said, 'is entirely good.' 'How can that be?' I asked. 'Consider this,' she said. 'All fortune, whether pleasant or harsh, comes either to reward or to test the good. Or it comes to punish or to correct the wicked. Every fortune is therefore either just or useful. That means every fortune is good.' 'That is certainly true,' I said. 'And it holds firm when set against what you taught me just now about providence and fate. But let us count it among those conclusions you called surprising a little while ago.' 'Why?' she asked. 'Because ordinary people say it all the time — and say it often — that some people's fortune is bad.' 'Shall we then,' she said, 'come down for a moment to the way common people speak? That way we will not seem to have drifted too far from how ordinary human beings think.' 'Very well,' I said. 'Would you agree that what does good is itself good?' 'Yes,' I said. 'And does fortune that tests us or corrects us do good?' 'I would have to say so,' I said. 'Then it is good?' 'Of course.' 'But that is the fortune of those who stand firm in virtue and fight against adversity. Or it belongs to those who are turning away from vice and setting their feet on the path of virtue.' 'I cannot deny it,' I said. 'What about the pleasant fortune given as a reward to the good — surely ordinary people do not call that bad?' 'Not at all. They consider it exactly as good as it appears.' 'And what of the fortune that is harsh and punishes the wicked with just consequence — does the common man call that good?' 'On the contrary,' I said. 'He judges it the most wretched thing that can be imagined.' 'Be careful, then, that by following popular opinion we have not reached a conclusion that is far more surprising than anything before it.' 'What do you mean?' I asked. 'From what has already been granted,' she said, 'it follows that all fortune — whatever form it takes — is good for those who possess virtue, who are growing in it, or who are striving toward it. For those who remain in wickedness, every fortune is the worst possible.' 'That is true,' I said, 'even though no one would dare to say it openly.' 'This is why,' she said, 'a wise man ought never to be troubled when he is thrown into a contest with fortune. Just as a brave soldier should not resent the noise when battle breaks out. For in difficulty itself each finds his material — one the chance to extend his glory. The other the chance to deepen his wisdom. This is the very reason virtue is called virtue: because it relies on its own strength and is not overcome by adversity. You who are advancing in virtue have not come to melt into pleasure and wither in comfort. You are waging a fierce war against all fortune. Let neither the harsh crush you nor the pleasant corrupt you. Seize the middle ground with firm strength. Whatever falls short of it or pushes beyond it earns only contempt for happiness. It does not earn the reward of effort. It lies in your own hands what kind of fortune you choose to make your own. For every fortune that merely seems harsh is either testing you, or correcting you, or punishing you.'
War consumed twenty years of Agamemnon's life. He came as an avenger. He came to pay back in ruins what Troy had stolen from his brother's bed. But before he could sail his fleet toward home, he had to buy the winds with blood. He stripped away his role as father. He stood grim-faced at the altar. The priest drew the knife across his wretched daughter's throat. Odysseus wept for his lost companions. The savage Polyphemus had crushed them down into his enormous gut while sprawled across the floor of his vast cave. Yet even blinded and raging, the Cyclops paid for his joy with tears of pain. Hard labors made Hercules great. He broke the proud Centaurs. He tore the spoils from the savage lion. He nailed the Stymphalian birds with arrows that never missed. He snatched the golden apples from the watching serpent. His hand grew heavy with that shining metal. He dragged Cerberus up on a triple chain. He is said to have thrown his last great victory as meat to a merciless master's savage horses. The Hydra burned and died in its own venom. The river Achelous turned away in shame. His broken face sank beneath his own banks. Hercules drove Antaeus into the Libyan sand. Cacus fed Evander's hunger for revenge. The boar marked those shoulders with his foaming tusks. Those shoulders were destined to bear the weight of the world pressing down on them. His final labor was to lift the sky on a neck that did not bend. That neck had earned the sky as its reward. Go now. Go where the high road of a great example leads. Why do you hang back and show only your retreating shoulders? The earth, once conquered, gives you the stars.