If a wise person already has everything good, can another wise person still help him? Seneca says yes, and his answer is a lovely portrait of friendship between good people. They sharpen each other like wrestling partners, cheer each other on like spectators at a race, share discoveries, and give each other honest counsel. As usual, though, Seneca ends by turning away from theory: “What good does this do me? Make me braver, more just, more restrained!”
From Seneca to Lucilius
You wanted to know whether a wise person can help another wise person. We say the wise person is fully endowed with every good and has reached perfection, so the question arises: how can anyone help someone who already possesses the highest good?
Wrestlers and Musicians
Good people help each other, because each gives exercise to the other’s virtues and so keeps wisdom at its proper level. Each needs someone to compare notes and explore questions with. Skilled wrestlers are kept sharp by practice; a musician is roused to action by another musician of equal skill. The wise person, too, needs to keep his virtues in action. Just as he spurs himself on, he’s also spurred on by another wise person.
How can one wise person help another? He can quicken his impulses and point out opportunities for honorable action. He can also develop some of his own ideas and share what he has discovered. For even for the wise person, there will always be something left to discover, something new for his mind to venture toward.
Bad Company, Good Company
Bad people harm bad people. Each drags the other down by stirring up his anger, approving his rudeness, and praising his pleasures. Bad people are at their worst when their faults are thoroughly mixed together and their wickedness has been, so to speak, pooled in a partnership. So, conversely, a good person will help another good person.
“How?” you ask. Because he’ll bring the other joy, he’ll strengthen his confidence, and from seeing their shared peace of mind, both their delight will grow. Besides, they’ll share knowledge of certain facts with each other, because the wise person doesn’t know everything. And even if he did, someone might be able to find and point out shortcuts that spread the whole subject more easily.
Cheering a Runner
The wise person will help the wise person, not, mind you, only through his own strength, but through the strength of the one he helps. The other could, it’s true, develop his own abilities by himself. Still, even someone who is running well is helped by someone cheering him on.
“But the wise person doesn’t really help the wise person; he helps himself. Take away the special powers of the one, and the other will accomplish nothing.” You might as well say, on that basis, that sweetness isn’t in honey, since it’s the person eating it whose tongue and palate are so made that this flavor appeals to him and others don’t. For some people are so affected by illness that honey tastes bitter to them. Both people need to be healthy: the one to be able to help, the other to be able to receive help.
The Heat Argument
They also say: “Once the highest degree of heat has been reached, adding more heat is pointless; and once the highest good has been reached, a helper is pointless. Does a fully stocked farmer ask his neighbors for more supplies? Does a soldier who is fully armed for battle need any more weapons? Very well, neither does the wise person, because he’s fully equipped and fully armed for life.”
My answer is that when something is heated to the highest degree, it needs continued heat to stay at that temperature. And if someone objects that heat sustains itself, I say there are big differences between the things you’re comparing. Heat is a single thing, but helpfulness comes in many forms. Again, heat isn’t helped by adding more heat in order to be hot. But the wise person can’t keep his mind at its standard without the company of friends like himself, with whom he can share his goodness.
The Virtues Are Friends
Besides, there’s a kind of mutual friendship among all the virtues. So whoever loves the virtues of some of his peers, and shows his own virtues to be loved in return, is being helpful. Like things give pleasure, especially when they’re honorable and people know the approval is mutual.
And besides, only a wise person can stir another wise person’s soul intelligently, just as only a human being can stir a human being by reason. So just as reason is needed to stir reason, perfect reason is needed to stir perfect reason.
What Real Help Is
Some say we’re helped even by people who give us the so-called “indifferent” benefits, such as money, influence, security, and all the other valued or necessary aids to living. If we argue that way, the biggest fool would be said to help a wise person. But real helping means stirring the soul in line with Nature, through the excellence of the one who helps and the excellence of the one helped. And this can’t happen without benefit to the helper too. In training someone else’s excellence, a person necessarily trains his own.
But even setting aside the highest goods and what produces them, wise people can still help one another. For simply finding a wise person is, for a wise person, a happy event, since everything good is naturally dear to a good person, and so we feel at home with a good person the way we feel at home with ourselves.
Even the Wise Need Advice
I need to move from this topic to another to prove my point. The question is asked whether the wise person will weigh his own opinions alone, or ask others for advice. He’s forced to ask when he takes on public and household duties, everything, so to speak, that is mortal. He needs outside advice in such matters, just as a doctor, a ship’s pilot, a lawyer, or an advocate does. So the wise will sometimes help the wise, by persuading each other. But even in those matters of great importance, divine importance, as I’ve called them, the wise person can be useful by discussing honorable things together and contributing his thoughts and ideas.
Besides, it’s in keeping with Nature to show affection for our friends and to rejoice in their progress as if it were entirely our own. If we didn’t, even virtue, which grows strong only by exercising our perceptions, wouldn’t stay with us. Virtue advises us to arrange the present well, to think ahead about the future, to deliberate and apply our minds. And someone who brings a friend into his counsel can more easily apply his mind and think his problem through.
So he’ll look for either a perfect wise person or someone who has come close to perfection. And the perfect wise person will help us if he supports our deliberations with ordinary good sense.
We See Others More Clearly
They say people see further in other people’s affairs than in their own. In those blinded by self-love, a flaw of character causes this, along with fear, which in moments of danger takes away a clear view of what’s useful. It’s when a person is more at ease and free of fear that he begins to be wise. Still, there are certain matters where even wise people see the facts more clearly in others’ cases than in their own.
Moreover, together with his fellow sage, the wise person will prove true that sweetest and most honorable proverb: “always wanting the same things and always refusing the same things.” It will be a noble outcome when they pull the load “with an equal yoke.”
Make Me Braver Now
I’ve answered your request, even though it belongs under the subjects I’m including in my books on moral philosophy. Remember what I often tell you: there’s nothing in topics like these for us except mental exercise. I keep coming back to this thought: “What good does this do me? Make me braver now, more just, more restrained! I don’t yet have the chance to use my training, because I still need the doctor.
“Why are you asking me to learn useless things? You promised great things. Test me; watch me! You assured me I’d be unafraid with swords flashing around me, with the point of the blade grazing my throat. You assured me I’d be calm with fires blazing around me, or if a sudden whirlwind snatched up my ship and carried it across the sea. Now give me a course of treatment that will help me despise pleasure and glory. Afterward you can teach me to work out complicated problems, to settle doubtful points, to see through what is unclear. Teach me now what I need to know!”
Farewell.
Breaking It Down: A Modern Take on Letter 109
Letter 109 starts with a philosopher’s puzzle: if the ideal wise person lacks nothing, what could a friend add? Seneca’s answer is really about why we all need good people in our lives. Even the best of us need practice partners, encouragement, fresh ideas, honest advice, and someone to share joy with. And, characteristically, he ends by asking what any of this does for us right now.
1. Good people sharpen each other
“Good people help each other.” Like wrestlers who train together or musicians who push each other, we grow best around people of good character who keep our virtues in practice.
2. There’s always more to learn
“Even for the wise person, there will always be something left to discover.” No one ever finishes learning. The best clinicians, teachers, and thinkers stay curious all their lives.
3. Bad company compounds faults
Bad people pool their wickedness in a partnership, encouraging each other’s anger and excess. The people we spend time with either multiply our faults or help us outgrow them.
4. Encouragement matters
“Even someone who is running well is helped by someone cheering him on.” Never assume capable people don’t need encouragement. A word of support can carry someone through a hard stretch.
5. Both sides must be ready
Honey tastes bitter to a sick person. Seneca’s point: help works best when the person receiving it is open to it. Sometimes the first step in helping is helping someone become ready to be helped.
6. Even the best need company
“The wise person can’t keep his mind at its standard without the company of friends like himself, with whom he can share his goodness.” Excellence isolated tends to fade. Community keeps it alive.
7. Mutual respect is a joy
“Like things give pleasure, especially when they’re honorable and people know the approval is mutual.” Few things feel better than being respected by someone you respect.
8. Helping others trains your own virtue
“In training someone else’s excellence, a person necessarily trains his own.” Every preceptor knows this: teaching a student makes you a better clinician. Mentoring is never a one-way gift.
9. Finding a good person is a gift
“Simply finding a wise person is, for a wise person, a happy event.” Meeting someone of real goodness feels like coming home. Treasure those people when you find them.
10. Everyone needs advisers
Even the wise need outside counsel in practical matters, like a doctor or a pilot. “Someone who brings a friend into his counsel can more easily apply his mind and think his problem through.” Asking for advice isn’t weakness; it’s wisdom.
11. Rejoice in your friends’ progress
“It’s in keeping with Nature to show affection for our friends and to rejoice in their progress as if it were entirely our own.” Celebrating others’ success without envy is one of the clearest signs of a good heart.
12. We see others’ situations more clearly
Self-love and fear cloud our judgment about our own lives. That’s why a trusted friend’s perspective is so valuable: they can see what we can’t.
13. Wanting the same things
Real friendship means “always wanting the same things and always refusing the same things.” Shared values, not shared interests, are what make friendships last.
14. Make me braver now
“What good does this do me? Make me braver now, more just, more restrained!” Seneca’s closing demand is one every learner should make: before the clever puzzles, teach me what I need to live well.
Key Takeaways from Letter 109
- Find practice partners in virtue. Good people sharpen each other.
- Stay curious. There’s always more to discover.
- Choose company carefully. Bad company pools our faults.
- Cheer people on. Even good runners need encouragement.
- Help works when people are ready. Both sides must be healthy.
- Excellence needs community. Even the wise need friends.
- Enjoy mutual respect. Shared honor is a real pleasure.
- Mentoring trains you too. Teaching others improves us.
- Treasure good people. Finding one is a gift.
- Ask for advice. Even experts need counsel.
- Celebrate your friends. Rejoice in their progress as your own.
- Let friends see for you. Others can see what fear hides from us.
- Share values. Want and refuse the same things.
- Ask for what you need. Courage, justice, and restraint come first.
“Even someone who is running well is helped by someone cheering him on.”
— Seneca, Letter 109
Keep Seneca With You
If this letter spoke to you
Marcus Aurelius’s private notebook, in Gregory Hays’s readable translation.
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Next up: Letter 110 — On True and False Riches
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