(purpose) of our Being,[1] which wrote on the Nature of Things, which wrote about the Canon (rule of truth), which led you to wear a beard, which wrote when it was dying that it was spending the last and a happy day?[2] Was this the flesh or the will? Then do you admit that you possess any thing superior to this (the will)? and are you not mad? are you in fact so blind and deaf?
What then? does any man despise the other faculties? I hope not. Does any man say that there is no use or excellence in the speaking faculty?[3] I hope not. That would be foolish, impious, ungrateful towards God. But a man renders to each thing its due value. For there is some use even in an ass, but not so much as in an ox: there is also use in a dog, but not so much as in a slave: there is also some use in a slave, but not so much as in citizens: there is also some use in citizens, but not so much as in magistrates. Not indeed because some things are superior, must we undervalue the use which other things have. There is a certain value in the power of speaking, but it is not so great as the power of the will. When then I speak thus, let no man think that I ask you to neglect the power of speaking, for neither do I ask you to neglect the eyes, nor the ears nor the hands nor the feet, nor clothing nor shoes. But if you ask me what then is the most excellent of all things, what must I say? I cannot say the power of speaking, but the power of the will, when it is right (open). For it is this which uses the other (the power of speaking), and all the other faculties both small and great. For when this faculty of the will is set right, a man who is not good becomes good:
- ↑ This appears to be the book which Cicero (Tuscul. iii. 18) entitles on the 'supreme good' (de summo bono), which, as Cicero says, contains all the doctrine of Epicurus. The book on the Canon or Rule is mentioned by Velleius in Cicero de Nat. Deorum i. c. 16, as 'that celestial volume of Epicurus on the Rule and Judgment.' See also De Fin. i. 19.
- ↑ This is said in a letter written by Epicurus, when he was dying in great pain (Diog. Laert. x. 22); Cicer) (De Fin. ii. c. 30) quotes this letter.
- ↑ The MSS. have προαιρετικῆς δυνάμεως. Lord Shaftesbury suggested φραστικῆς and Salmasius also. Schweig. has put φραστικῆς in the text, and he has done right.
