Comprising all his Works Collected under the Title of “Morals” · Translated from the…

BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY · MCMXI

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, By Little, Brown, and Company, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Copyright, 1898, 1905, By Little, Brown, and Company.

Printers S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIFTH. WITH THE TRANSLATORS’ NAMES.

The very idea of eating the carcasses of slain animals is repulsive, 8. Who could have begun the practice, but from the direst necessity? 4. Men must have been driven to the deed of slaying animals for food, because the supply of food from the vegetable world had utterly failed, 4, 5. We have no such necessity, 5. Man is not by nature a carnivorous animal, 7. Our conduct in slaying animals and then preparing them for food is wholly against nature, 8. Animal food is injurious: it clogs and confuses the mind and renders it stupid, 9. It operates unfavorably on character, 9, 10. If we must eat flesh, let it be with sorrow and pity; not tormenting and abusing the poor animal before taking its life, 11. Passing the bounds of nature in our feeding, intemperate appetites and shameful lusts are gratified, 12. Cruelty to mankind is induced, 12. Animals have senses; they have faculties for seeing, hearing, understanding: is it right to extinguish these faculties? 13. Who knows but the bodies of animals may contain the souls of deceased men; of a father, brother, son, or other friend? 14, 15.

1. Antiphon, 17-21. 2. Andocides, 21-23. 3. Lysias, 24-26. 4. Isocrates, 27-33. 5. Isaeus, 33. 6. Aeschines, 34-36. 7. Lycurgus, 36-42. 8. Demosthenes, 43-53. 9. Hyperides, 53-57. 10. Dinarchus, 57, 58. Decrees proposed to the Athenians for statues to be set up to Demosthenes, 58-63.

It is maintained by some, that after a certain time men should not employ themselves in public affairs, 64. The love of honor and zeal for the public good never grows old, 65. It is not well for a man who has never been accustomed to public business to commence such employment late in life, 66. An aged man may usefully conduct public affairs, as we see in the instances of Augustus Caesar, Pericles, and Agesilaus, 67, 68. Simonides and Sophocles, in old age, were good poets, 68. It is unworthy of a man who has served the public many years, toiv descend, in the decline of life, to mean employments, 69, 70. Political life has pleasures very great and honorable, 71. A man should not suffer his glory to wither in old age, 72. Reputation once acquired is easily maintained, and the people readily trust their old and faithful servants, 73. Envy and jealousy do not assail old age, 73, 74. It is not easy to terminate a long and faithful public service, 74. An old man staying at home, and spending his time in small matters is not honored, 75. Old

men, full of experience and of wisdom, are often compelled by their fellow-citizens to conduct difficult negotiations, 76. Old age of itself is not a good reason for quitting the public service, 77, 78. Young men for war, but old men for counsel, 78. The Roman council of state is called the Senate, 79. The regal dignity has cares and toils, but who would advise the king to abdicate? 80. Old men in office may instruct and guide younger statesmen, 81, 82. Old men are often hale and vigorous, and so not disabled for the service of the state, 83. Examples of Phocion, Masinissa, and Cato, 83. Idleness enervates even great men, as Lucullus, while constant employment invigorates, 84. Our country has claims on our services, 85. Yet old age should have becoming employment, 86. An aged man should abstain from small and frivolous matters, 87. Offices of honor and dignity befit old men, 88. They should not eagerly seek office, 88. Old men should not be forward to speak in public, they should speak on grave occasions, 89. On other

occasions, let them yield to younger men, 89, 90. Let them comfort and encourage deserving young men in their failures, 91. To be a statesman is not only to hold office and conduct negotiations, but also to guide, instruct, and assist those who conduct public affairs, when occasion requires, 93, 94. Even men in private stations may do this, and thus serve their country till death, 95, 96.

Counsels to a politician, 97. In the administration of public affairs, be guided by reason and judgment, 98. Act not from vain-glory, emulation, or want of other employment, 98, 99. Accommodate yourself to the temper and disposition of the citizens, 99, 100. Having obtained power among the people, endeavor to reform their disposition, 101. Do not give them an opportunity of finding fault with your own life or manners, 102. Beware of little faults, 102, 103. Cultivate the graces of speech, 104, 105. Orators sway the multitude, as in the case of Pericles, 106, 107. What the speech of a statesman should be, 107. How to use satire and invective, 108, 109. Think before you speak, and speak right on, 110. Speak in full, round tones, 110, 111. Two ways of entering on public life, 111. First, with a bold, vigorous hand, like Aratus, Alcibiades, Scipio, Pompey, &c., 112. Secondly, by procuring the assistance of some man of influence and authority, 114. Be careful in the choice of your man, lest your success inspire him with jealousy, 115. Pompey owed his success to Sylla, 115. Avoid

flatterers and favorites, 116. Do not gratify friends in derogation of law and right, 117. Grant favors to friends when consistent with duty and public advantage, 120. Be generous and just towards your enemies, 121, 123. Let patriotism overshadow all private griefs, 122. How to meet invective, 124. Allow others to assist in public affairs, 128. Undertake nothing for which you lack qualification, 128, 129. Keep the helm in your own hand, but carry yourself with moderation; do not forget the limits of your power, 130, 131. As Greecev is under the Roman sway, it is well to remember that fact, and to cultivate the favor of some powerful man at Rome, 132. Yet you should avoid, as much as possible, foreign interference, 133. Let the affairs of every city be settled by its own citizens, 133. When commotions arise, try to compose them, 134. One man’s virtue has often saved a state, 135. Treat colleagues in office with honor and respect, 136. Plutarch relates an incident in his own life, 137. Honor the magistrates, even if you are personally their

superior, 138. If a magistrate should be remiss in duty, do what you can to supply the defect, 139. Yield to the multitude in small things, that you may hinder their misdoings in greater, 140. When the people desire something which would be injurious to the state, use evasion and delay, 141. When about to undertake some difficult affair, secure the assistance of well-qualified persons, rather than of persons like yourself, 142. Divest yourself of the desire for riches, and of a mean, ignoble ambition, 143, 144. Decline not the honors which the people are disposed to bestow, 145, 146. The good-will of the people towards a public servant helps him greatly in the discharge of his duty, 147. If you are rich, and can give largesses to the people, bestow them, but with due care, 148. If you are poor, hesitate not to confess it, and incur no expense you cannot afford, 149, 150. In case of a sedition, try to compose it, 152. Especially try to prevent seditions and commotions, 153. In the present state of Greece, subject to the

will of a Roman proconsul, no good can arise from public commotions, 154.

Field sports, the slaughter of wild and at length of tame animals, prepared the way for men to kill one another, 158. Have brutes a soul? they certainly have sense and imagination, 160. They learn to desire some things and to avoid others, 161. They have expectation, memory, design, hope, fear, desire, and grief, 161. If they have sense, they have understanding, 161. They have what in men is called understanding, 162. Men punish dogs and horses for their faults, as if for the purpose of producing repentance, 162. Beasts are susceptible of pleasure, joy, anger, fear, 163. But are they capable of virtue? 163. They love their offspring, 164. They may have reason, and yet not have it perfectly, or in a high degree, 164. As sight and swiftness exist in different degrees, so may reason and mental force, 165. Animals differ widely in their faculties, as in their habits, 165. Many brute animals excel men in the faculties of sight and hearing, as well as in swiftness and strength; but we may not therefore say that men are blind, &c., 166. There are mad dogs

and horses; what is this but a disturbance of the reason? 167. Mankind are chargeable with great injustice in dealing with beasts as they do, 169. There is a necessary and convenient use of the brute creation, 169, 170. Beyond this, we ought not to go, 170. In the exercise of what so nearly resembles reason, do land animals excel those that live in the water? 172. There is sufficient reason to believe that they do, 173. Observe the habits of bulls, lions, and elephants, 173. Of the ichneumon, of swallows, and spiders, 174. Of bees, crows, geese, and cranes, 175. The contrivances and labors of emmets, 176, 177. The sagacity of the elephant and the fox, 178, 179. The affection of the dog for his master; some striking instances related, 180, 181. Story of a mule at Athens, 182. Another dog story, 182, 183. The elephantvi that carried King Porus, 183. The horse Bucephalus, 183. Where there is one virtue in a brute, there are commonly others, 183, 184. Instances of subtlety and cunning, 184-186. Elephants and lions have a taste for society, 187. Amorous

propensities of some brutes towards mankind; singular instances given, 188. Starlings, magpies, and parrots learn to talk, 188, 189. Swans and nightingales sing, 189. Story of a magpie at Rome imitating the music of trumpets exactly, 190. Wonderful docility of a dog, 191. Men have learned of the spider to weave; of the swallow to build; and have acquired from other animals skill in medicine, 191, 192. Some oxen have learned to count, 193. Soothsaying and divination is by means of birds, 194. What now can be said of the sagacity and intelligence of fishes and other water-animals? living in the sea, and remote from our observation, they are but little known to us, 195. Crocodiles come when called, 196. Fish are not easily caught, a proof of great cunning and wariness, 197, 198. Fish stand by and defend each other in danger, 199. Sagacity of the dolphin and the cuttle-fish, 200. Subtlety of the fish in taking their own prey, the torpedo, polypus, and others, 201, 202. Sagacity of the tunny, 203, 204. Mutual affection of the crocodile and

the trochilus, 206. Sagacity of fish in depositing their spawn, 207, 208. Care of the tortoise and crocodile for their young, 209, 210. Intelligence and conjugal affection of the halcyon, 211, 212. Story of a dolphin which served as a guide to messengers of Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, 213, 214. The dolphin, a solitary instance among the brutes of disinterested love for man, 214. Stories of affectionate dolphins, 215, 216.

A satire on the boasted wisdom, fortitude, magnanimity, and temperance of man, in the form of a dialogue between Ulysses in the island of Circe, and Gryllus, whom she had changed into a swine, and who now prefers his swinish condition to a return to the human form; Ulysses asks Circe for permission to restore his companions to the human shape, 218. Circe will grant the request if the men themselves desire it, 219. Gryllus, one of them, is brought forward to answer in behalf of the entire company, 219. He refuses, and gives his reasons, 220, et seq. He says that by making him and his companions beasts, Circe has done them a great favor, 220. Beasts have more fortitude than men; they fight in fair, open combat, without trick or artifice; they are no cowards, they never cry for mercy, 222. Beasts are courageous and daring, even the females; while the courage of men is artificial, and women are timid, 223, 224. Beasts are more temperate and chaste than men; they indulge their appetites only in a natural way, and at the proper season,

225, 226, 228. Beasts do not value silver or gold, 227. They have no adventitious desires, 227. Their senses are more accurate, 227. Men are incontinent: they indulge unnatural and excessive appetites; are never satisfied, 229, 230. Beasts are satisfied with one kind of food, and this procured without difficulty; they have nature for their teacher, and could teach men many useful lessons, 231, 232.

In abstruse speculations, if we fail of satisfaction in one direction, we must inquire in another, 234. A face or form is seen in the moon; how is this to be explained? 234.[Pg vii] The appearance of a form in the moon is not the result of any acuteness or dulness of our vision, 234, 235. The appearance in question some think may be a reflection of the ocean from the moon’s disc, 236. This opinion refuted, 236, 237. Some think the moon to be a compound of air and fire, a disturbance of which causes the appearance in question, 238. This notion disproved, 238, 239, 242. That the earth is a larger body than the moon, is shown by eclipses of the moon, 241. The moon must be a solid body, though much lighter than the earth, 241, 242. The spherical form of the earth, the antipodes, and all motion tending towards the earth’s centre, are pronounced absurdities, 243, 244. The moon is not far from the earth, and feels its influence, though not of the same substance, 245, 246. Computation of the respective distances of the sun and moon from the earth, 246.

The spherical form of the earth again denied, 247. If the earth is in the middle, of what is it the middle? not of the universe, surely, 247. Relations of bodies above and beneath, 248. We are not, in our philosophy, to reduce every thing to the place to which it naturally belongs, 249, 250. All things do not follow their natural course, 250. In the human body the heaviest parts are not placed lowermost, 251. So it may be in the structure of the world, 252. The moon, though placed in high heaven, may be a heavy body, 253. It is not therefore composed of fire and air, 253. But has the moon the nature of earth? 254. Does the moon reflect the light of the sun? 255. Reasons why this is probable, 256. When the moon appears only half-enlightened, ought not the light reflected to come at right angles? and is it so? 256-258. Aspect of the moon when gibbous or crescent, 258. Only solid bodies reflect light; the moon therefore must be a solid body, 259, 260. That the moon is a solid body is farther proved by eclipses of the sun, 260-262. Size of the moon; as large as Peloponnesus, 261. Its

proportionate size in relation to the earth, 261. Further arguments from eclipses, 263-265. Objections answered, 266-268. The moon is not a star, or a burning body, 266. Its nature is like that of the earth, 268. This need not impugn her divinity, 268. There may be cavities and other inequalities on the surface of the moon, and these may be immensely large, so as to be seen by us, 269. The shadow of Mount Athos falls on Lemnos, the shadow being immensely larger than the mountain, 270. An objection from this answered, 270-273. Is the moon inhabited? is it fit for the abode of animated beings? 274, 275. Answer, (1.) If it be not, it does not prove that the moon was made in vain, 276. (2.) The moon may be inhabited: we can see no reasons to the contrary, 277-279. Objections considered, 277, 278. That the moon is inhabited is not more incredible than that the ocean should be inhabited, 280. A description of the isle Ogygia, in the Western Ocean, the abode of Saturn; its inhabitants; the phenomena and customs of the place, 281-283. Man is compounded of three parts: the body, the soul, and

the understanding, 286. The understanding is from the sun, the soul from the moon, that is from Proserpine, 286. Every soul, dismissed from the body, wanders for a time between the earth and the moon, 286. When they reach the moon, they behold its greatness and beauty, 288. The moon described as it appears to them, 289. The Elysian fields are there, 289. If any of the dwellers there commit a fault, they are thrust down to earth again, 289. After a long time, they come back to the moon, 291. This about the moon may be taken for what one pleases, 292.

Fate is either (1) an energy, a law, an act, 293; or (2) a substance, the soul of the world, 294. Though comprehending infinite, it is itself finite, for law is in its nature finite, 294, 295. Every thing moves in a circle; all beings and all actions that now exist will come around again: we shall again do what we are now doing, and in the same manner, 295. Fate, the Divine Law, the Law of Nature, determines all things, 296. It determines both conditionally and universally, 297. What relation has Fate to Divine Providence? what to fortune? what to human ability? what to contingent events? 298. As the civil law comprehends and relates to many things which are not lawful, so it is with Fate, 298. The words possible and contingent defined; also power, necessity, &c., 299, 300. Of causes: some are causes per se, others are causes by accident, 301. Fortune is a cause by accident, 302. Fortune is not the same thing as Chance, though Chance comprehends Fortune, 303. Fortune relates to men only; Chance includes things animate and inanimate, 303. Of Divine Providence: (1) the will

of the Supreme Deity; (2) the will of the subordinate deities; (3) the will of the Daemons, 304. Of the Providence of the Supreme God, 305. Of the Providence of the inferior gods, 306. Of the Providence of the Daemons, 307, 308.

Is cold the mere privation of heat? 309. This is denied, for cold seems to act on fluids and on solids: like heat or other actual substances, it has a productive power, 310. Further, a mere privation is not capable of degrees; but cold exists in different degrees, 310. A privation is nothing; cold is something, 311. A privation is not the object of any of our senses; but cold can be felt, 311. Privation is something single and simple; substances have differences, continually varying; and thus it is with cold, therefore cold must be a substance, 312. Cold acts as a substance; it resists heat, and overcomes it or is vanquished by it, 312. As there are four elements, of which all things are composed, so there should be four qualities, heat and cold, drought and moisture, 313. What sort of substance is cold? 314. The air, when it becomes dark, becomes also cold, 315. The freezing of water is caused by cold air, 316. Great rivers and lakes are not frozen to the bottom, because the air does not reach so far; the power of cold is therefore as many

think, from the air, 317; but this is doubtful, 318. Water makes things black; air makes them white, 318. Oil is transparent because so much air is in it, 318. It does not easily freeze, 319. Cold things are always heavy, 319. Fire and water are opposites, 320. In winter, heat is driven inward by cold, 321. It is driven downward from the surfaces of great rivers, 321. Several considerations show that water, and not air, is the cause of cold, 322. Water is cold of itself, being the opposite of fire, 323. Opinion of Chrysippus combated, 324. The earth, because it is dark, might be considered the cause of cold, 324, 325. But many hot things are dark, 326. Cold makes things hard, heavy, rigid, and capable of resistance: the earth is therefore the source of cold, 326, 327. Several considerations which seem to prove that heat exists in every thing except[Pg ix] the earth, and that cold proceeds as a substance from the earth; which, and the whole subject, in conclusion, is left in doubt, to be decided as the reader pleases. 327-330.