Are the virtues living creatures? Some Stoics said yes, and Lucilius wants Seneca’s view. Seneca walks through the argument, then pokes so much fun at it (justice getting cold, bravery getting hungry, a line of poetry with six feet) that he ends up laughing out loud. Then he gets serious. Don’t ask whether bravery is alive; teach me to be brave. Alexander conquered half the world and couldn’t conquer his own anger, because self-command is the greatest command of all. And justice should be its own reward: be just even if no one ever knows.
From Seneca to Lucilius
You want me to write to you with my opinion on a question our school has debated: whether justice, courage, wisdom, and the other virtues are living things. It’s through hair-splitting like this, my dear Lucilius, that we’ve made people think we sharpen our wits on useless things and waste our leisure in unprofitable discussions. Still, I’ll do as you ask and lay out the subject as our school sees it. For my own part, I confess I hold a different belief: I think some things suit only people who strut around in fancy Greek costume. But I’ll explain what views have stirred the ancients, or what views the ancients have stirred up for debate.
The Argument That Virtues Are Alive
Everyone agrees the soul is a living thing, because it makes us living things by itself, and because living beings take their very name from it. But virtue is nothing other than a soul in a certain condition; therefore it’s a living thing. Again, virtue is active, and no action can happen without an impulse. And anything that has an impulse must be a living thing, since nothing but a living thing has impulses.
The reply to this is: “If virtue is a living thing, then virtue itself has virtue.” Of course it has itself! Just as the wise person does everything through virtue, virtue does everything through itself. “In that case,” they say, “all the arts are living things too, and all our thoughts, and everything the mind grasps. So it follows that many thousands of living things live in a person’s tiny heart, and each of us is made up of, or at least contains, many living beings.”
One Soul, Not Many
Are you stuck for an answer? Each of these will be a living thing, but they won’t be many separate living things. Why? I’ll explain, if you’ll bring your sharpness and concentration to what I say. Each living thing must have its own separate substance. But since all the things I mentioned share a single soul, they can be living things without being many. I’m a living thing, and I’m a man, but you can’t say there are two of me for that reason. Why not? Because then they’d have to be two separate existences; one would have to be split from the other to make two. But whenever you have many things in one whole, it falls under a single nature, and so it’s single.
My soul is a living thing, and so am I, but we aren’t two separate persons. Why? Because the soul is part of me. It will count as a separate thing only when it exists by itself. As long as it’s part of something else, it can’t be considered different. Why? Because what’s different must be personal and its own, a whole, complete in itself.
Where I Part Ways
I’ve gone on record as holding a different opinion, because if you adopt this belief, not only will the virtues be living things, but so will their opposite vices, and emotions like anger, fear, grief, and suspicion. In fact, the argument will carry us even further: every opinion and every thought will be a living thing. That’s by no means acceptable, since not everything a person does is the person himself.
“What is justice?” people ask. Justice is a soul holding itself in a certain way. “Then if the soul is a living being, so is justice.” Not at all. Justice is really a state, a kind of power, of the soul. The same soul takes on various forms, and doesn’t become a different kind of living thing every time it acts differently. Nor is what the soul does a living thing.
If justice, courage, and the other virtues are actually alive, do they stop being living things and then start life over again, or are they always living things? But the virtues can’t stop existing. So there must be many, no, countless living things lodging in this one soul.
The Hydra and the Chimera
“No,” comes the answer, “not many, because they’re all attached to the one, as parts and members of a single whole.” Then we’re picturing the soul like a many-headed hydra, each head fighting and destroying on its own. And yet each head isn’t a separate living thing; it’s the head of a living thing, and the hydra itself is one single creature. No one ever believed the Chimera contained a living lion or a living serpent. Those were just parts of the whole Chimera, and parts aren’t living things.
So how can you conclude that justice is a living thing? “Justice,” people reply, “is active and helpful. Whatever acts and helps has an impulse, and whatever has an impulse is a living thing.” True, if the impulse is its own. But in the case of justice it isn’t its own: the impulse comes from the soul.
More Problems
Every living thing stays what it was from its beginning until death. A man is a man until he dies, a horse a horse, a dog a dog. They can’t turn into something else. Now let’s grant that justice, defined as “a soul holding itself in a certain way,” is a living thing. Then courage is alive too, being “a soul holding itself in a certain way.” But which soul? The one we just defined as justice? A soul stays within the first being it belongs to and can’t cross over into another; it has to live out its existence where it began.
Besides, there can’t be one soul for two living things, much less for many. And if justice, courage, self-control, and all the other virtues are living things, how will they share one soul? Either they have separate souls, or they aren’t living things.
Several living things can’t share one body; even our opponents admit this. Now what is the “body” of justice? “The soul,” they admit. And of courage? “The soul as well.” And yet there can’t be one body for two living things. “But the same soul,” they answer, “takes on the form of justice, or courage, or self-control.” That would be possible if courage were absent when justice was present, and self-control absent when courage was present. As things stand, all the virtues exist at once. So how can the separate virtues be living things, if you grant there’s one single soul, which can’t create more than one single living thing?
Again, no living thing is part of another living thing. But justice is part of the soul, so justice isn’t a living thing. I seem to be wasting time on something obvious; a topic like this deserves mockery more than debate.
No Two Leaves Alike
And no two living things are equal. Look at the bodies of all creatures: each has its own color, shape, and size. Among the other reasons to marvel at the genius of the divine Creator is, I think, this: amid all this abundance there’s no repetition. Even things that seem alike turn out, on comparison, to be different. God has made all the countless leaves we see, yet each is stamped with its own pattern. All the many animals: none is the same size as another; there’s always some difference. The Creator set himself the task of making different things unlike and unequal. But all the virtues, by your own argument, are equal. Therefore they aren’t living things.
Every living thing acts by itself, but virtue does nothing by itself; it has to act together with a person. All living things either have reason, like humans and gods, or lack it, like wild animals and cattle. The virtues are certainly rational, and yet they’re neither humans nor gods; therefore they aren’t living things.
Prudence Can’t Take a Walk
Every rational living thing is inactive until it’s stirred by some outside impression. Then the impulse comes, and finally assent confirms the impulse. Let me explain what assent is. Suppose I ought to take a walk: I do walk, but only after giving myself the order and approving my own opinion. Or suppose I ought to sit down: I sit, but only after the same process. This assent isn’t part of virtue. Suppose it’s Prudence: how will Prudence agree to the opinion “I must take a walk”? Nature doesn’t allow it. Prudence looks after the interests of the person who has it, not its own. Prudence can’t walk or sit. So it doesn’t have the power of assent, and it isn’t a rational living thing. But if virtue were a living thing, it would be rational. It isn’t rational; therefore it isn’t a living thing.
Then Dinner Is Alive Too
If virtue is a living thing, and virtue is a good, isn’t every good a living thing? It is; our school says so. Now saving your father’s life is a good; so is giving a wise opinion in the Senate, and so is handing down fair judgments. So the act of saving a father’s life is a living thing, and so is the act of giving wise opinions. We’ve pushed this absurd argument so far that you can’t help laughing out loud: wise silence is a good, and so is a frugal dinner; therefore silence and dinner are living things.
Honestly, I’ll never stop tickling my mind and amusing myself with this lovely nonsense. If justice and courage are living things, they’re surely earthly ones. Now every earthly living thing gets cold, hungry, or thirsty. So Justice is shivering, Courage is hungry, and Kindness is dying for a drink!
And what next? Shouldn’t I ask our honorable opponents what shape these living beings have? A man’s, a horse’s, a wild beast’s? If they’re given a round shape, like a god’s, I’ll ask whether greed, luxury, and madness are equally round, since they’re “living things” too. If they give those a round shape as well, I’ll go so far as to ask whether a modest way of walking is a living thing. By their argument they must admit it, and go on to say that a walk is a living thing, and a round one at that!
Free to Disagree
Don’t imagine I’m the first in our school to speak from my own judgment rather than from the rulebook. Cleanthes and his student Chrysippus couldn’t even agree on how to define walking. Cleanthes held that it was spirit sent down to the feet from the ruling part of the soul; Chrysippus said it was the ruling part itself. So why shouldn’t everyone, following Chrysippus’s own example, claim his freedom and laugh off all these “living things,” so numerous that the universe itself couldn’t hold them?
Someone might say: “The virtues aren’t many living things, yet they are living things. Just as one person can be both poet and orator, these virtues are living things, but they aren’t many. The soul is the same; it can be just, wise, and brave at once, holding itself in a certain way toward each virtue.” Then the dispute is settled, and we agree. For I’ll grant, for now, that the soul is a living thing, with the right to cast my final vote later. But I deny that the soul’s acts are living beings.
Otherwise every word and every line of verse would be alive. If wise speech is a good, and every good is a living thing, then speech is a living thing. A wise line of poetry is a good; everything alive is a good; so the line of poetry is a living thing. And so “Arms and the man I sing” is a living thing. But they can’t call it round, because it has six feet!
What Melancholy Trifling
“This whole proposition we’re discussing,” you say, “is a confusing tangle.” I split my sides laughing whenever I think that grammatical errors and syllogisms are living things, and, like an artist, I give each one a fitting portrait. Is this what we discuss with furrowed brows and wrinkled foreheads? I can’t even say, with Caelius, “What melancholy trifling!” It’s worse than that; it’s absurd. Why don’t we discuss something useful and healthy for ourselves instead, asking how we can attain the virtues and finding the road that leads there?
Teach Me Courage
Don’t teach me whether courage is a living thing. Prove to me that no living thing is happy without courage, that is, unless it has grown strong enough to face dangers and has overcome all the blows of chance by rehearsing and anticipating their attack. And what is courage? It’s the impregnable fortress for our mortal weakness. When a person has surrounded himself with it, he can hold out free of anxiety through life’s long siege, because he’s using his own strength and his own weapons.
Here I’d quote you a saying of our philosopher Posidonius: “There’s never a time when you should think yourself safe because you’re wielding Fortune’s weapons. Fight with your own! Fortune doesn’t supply arms against herself. So people armed against their enemies are unarmed against Fortune.”
Alexander Couldn’t Conquer Himself
Alexander, it’s true, routed and put to flight the Persians, the Hyrcanians, the Indians, and all the other peoples the East stretches out to the Ocean. But he himself, whenever he killed one friend or lost another, would lie in the dark lamenting, sometimes his crime, sometimes his loss. He, the conqueror of so many kings and nations, was laid low by anger and grief! For he had set out to control everything except his emotions.
Oh, what great mistakes grip people who want to push the borders of their empire across the seas, who think themselves most fortunate when their soldiers occupy many provinces and new territory is added to old! They know little of that kingdom which equals the heavens in greatness! Self-command is the greatest command of all.
Just Without Reward
Let self-command teach me what a sacred thing justice is: justice that always looks to another’s good and seeks nothing for itself except to be put to use. It should have nothing to do with ambition or reputation; it should satisfy itself.
Let each person convince himself of this above all: “I must be just without reward.” And that isn’t enough. Let him also convince himself of this: “May I take pleasure in freely devoting myself to upholding this noblest of virtues.” Let all his thoughts be turned as far as possible from his own interests. You don’t need to look around for the reward of a just act; a just act is itself a greater reward.
Fix deep in your mind what I said a little earlier: it makes no difference how many people know about your integrity. Those who want their virtue advertised aren’t striving for virtue but for fame. Aren’t you willing to be just without being famous for it? In fact, you’ll often have to be just and be disgraced for it at the same time. And then, if you’re wise, let a bad reputation, earned for the right reasons, be a delight.
Farewell.
Breaking It Down: A Modern Take on Letter 113
Most of Letter 113 is Seneca having fun at his own school’s expense. Some Stoics argued that virtues were literally living creatures, and Seneca shows where that leads: to hungry justice, thirsty kindness, and a six-footed line of Virgil. You don’t need to follow every step of the logic to enjoy the joke. The payoff comes at the end, where Seneca drops the puzzle and gives us some of his best lines on courage, self-control, and doing right without applause.
1. Hair-splitting gives philosophy a bad name
Seneca admits that debates like this make people think philosophers “waste our leisure in unprofitable discussions.” He answers the question anyway, but with an eye roll we can all relate to.
2. You’re more than your actions
“Not everything a person does is the person himself.” It’s a helpful reminder: a mistake you made, or a mood you’re in, isn’t the whole of who you are.
3. Virtue is a state of the soul
Justice isn’t a separate creature living inside you; it’s a soul holding itself in a certain way. Virtues are ways of being, which means they can be practiced and strengthened like posture.
4. No two leaves alike
“Amid all this abundance there’s no repetition.” In the middle of a technical argument, Seneca stops to marvel that no two leaves or animals are the same. It’s a lovely reminder that every person, too, is one of a kind.
5. It’s okay to laugh at bad ideas
“Wise silence is a good, and so is a frugal dinner; therefore silence and dinner are living things.” Seneca shows that following an argument to its absurd conclusion is a fair way to test it, and that humor can be a philosopher’s tool.
6. Think for yourself
Seneca notes that even Cleanthes and Chrysippus disagreed, and claims the same freedom. Belonging to a school of thought doesn’t mean surrendering your judgment.
7. Study what helps you live
“Why don’t we discuss something useful and healthy for ourselves instead, asking how we can attain the virtues?” It’s the same refrain as Letters 106 through 111: the point of learning is becoming better.
8. Courage is your fortress
Courage is “the impregnable fortress for our mortal weakness.” We can’t avoid life’s siege, but we can build walls inside ourselves by rehearsing hardship before it comes.
9. Fight with your own weapons
Posidonius warns that Fortune’s weapons, money, power, connections, won’t protect you against Fortune itself. Only inner strength is truly yours.
10. Conquering the world isn’t conquering yourself
Alexander defeated empires but lay in the dark weeping over the friends he’d killed in rage. “He had set out to control everything except his emotions.” No outward success makes up for inner chaos.
11. Self-command is the greatest command
“Self-command is the greatest command of all.” Leaders, parents, clinicians: before we try to manage anything else, we have to manage ourselves.
12. Be just without reward
“I must be just without reward.” Justice that waits for thanks isn’t really justice. Doing right is its own payment.
13. Don’t advertise your virtue
“Those who want their virtue advertised aren’t striving for virtue but for fame.” In a world of public good deeds and performative kindness, this line stings in a healthy way.
14. Sometimes doing right costs you
Seneca warns that you’ll often have to be just and be disgraced for it at the same time. Anyone who has blown a whistle or stood up for an unpopular person knows this. A bad reputation earned for the right reasons can be worn with pride.
Key Takeaways from Letter 113
- Beware hair-splitting. It makes wisdom look useless.
- You’re more than your acts. One deed doesn’t define you.
- Virtue is a way of being. Practice it like posture.
- Everything is unique. No two leaves, or people, are alike.
- Humor tests ideas. Follow bad arguments to their absurd end.
- Think for yourself. Even great teachers disagreed.
- Study what helps. Ask how to become better, not clever.
- Build the fortress of courage. Rehearse hardship in advance.
- Use your own weapons. Fortune’s tools won’t protect you from Fortune.
- Conquer yourself first. Alexander couldn’t, despite conquering the world.
- Self-command is supreme. Manage yourself before anything else.
- Be just without reward. Right action pays for itself.
- Don’t advertise virtue. Seeking praise means seeking fame, not goodness.
- Accept the cost of integrity. Sometimes doing right brings disgrace.
“Self-command is the greatest command of all.”
— Seneca, Letter 113
Keep Seneca With You
If this letter spoke to you
Pierre Hadot on how Marcus Aurelius actually practiced Stoicism.
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Next up: Letter 114 — On Style as a Mirror of Character
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