Lectures · Lecture 17

17.1

Again, when an old man asked what would be the best provision for old age, he said: The same as for youth — to live methodically and in accordance with nature. And you would best learn what this is like if you consider that human nature has not come into being for the sake of pleasure. For neither the horse nor the dog nor the ox, which are far less honorable than a human being, has come into being for the sake of pleasure. For a horse would not be thought to attain its own end by eating and drinking and mating without restraint, while doing none of the things that befit a horse. Nor a dog by enjoying, like the horse, all pleasures, while doing none of the things by which dogs are held to be good. Nor indeed any other animal whatsoever, deprived of the work that befits it, but filled with pleasures. Nothing, then, would be said to live in accordance with nature in this way, but rather in whatever way it most displays virtue through the things it does in accordance with its own nature. For the nature of each thing leads each toward its own virtue. So it is likely that a human being too lives in accordance with nature not when he lives in pleasure, but when he lives in virtue. For then it would belong to him to be justly praised, to think highly of himself, and to be hopeful and confident — things which necessarily are followed by good cheer and steadfast joy. And in general the human being is, among earthly beings, the only imitation of God, and has virtues similar to his. For not even among the gods can we suppose anything to be superior to practical wisdom and justice, and further to courage and self-control. Just as, then, God, through the presence of these virtues, is unconquered by pleasure, unconquered by greed, superior to desire, superior to envy and jealousy, and is magnanimous and beneficent and loving toward humankind — for such is the God we conceive — so too the human being, as the imitation of God, must be regarded, when he is in accordance with nature, as being in a similar condition, and, being in this condition, as enviable. And being enviable, he would at once be happy as well; for we envy none other than the happy.

17.2

And indeed it is not impossible for a human being to become such. For we have no other source from which to conceive these virtues than from human nature itself, having met with certain people of this kind, whom, because they were such, men used to call divine and godlike. If, then, someone should happen, while he was still young, to have taken care over a right education, and should have learned in no deficient way all that belongs to the noble branches of learning, and should have trained himself sufficiently in what can be trained, such a man in old age, making use of the resources present within him, would live in accordance with nature; and he would bear without distress the loss of the pleasures of youth, and would be without distress at the present weakness of his body; nor would he be discontented either at being despised by those near him or at being neglected by his household and friends, inasmuch as against all these things he holds within his own mind a fine remedy: the education he possesses. But if someone should have shared in education more deficiently, yet should display eagerness toward the better things and be able to be persuaded by what is well said, such a man would do well to seek to hear words of counsel from those who have made it their work to know what things are harmful to human beings and what beneficial, and in what manner one might escape the former and acquire the latter, and how one might gently receive, when they come upon him, the things which are not in fact evils but only seem to be. And by hearing these things and being persuaded by them (since to hear without being persuaded is most unprofitable) he would pass through his old age well, and among other things he would be rid of the fear of death, which most of all disturbs and oppresses the old, as though they had forgotten that death is owed by every mortal.

17.3

And the very thing that makes life most wretched for the old is just this: the fear of death — as indeed the orator Isocrates too admitted. For they say that when someone asked him how he was getting on, he replied that he fared as one might expect of a man who was ninety years old and considered death to be the worst of evils. And yet, how could such a man have had any share of education, or of knowledge of things truly good or evil, when he supposed that to be an evil which follows of necessity upon the best life? For if the best life is that of the good man, then the end even of this life is death. But, as I was saying, if someone should secure this in old age — to await death without fear and with confidence — he would have provided himself with no small resource toward living without distress and in accordance with nature. And he would gain this by associating with those who are philosophers not merely in name but in truth, provided that he is also willing to be persuaded by them. I therefore say that the best provision for old age is the one I mentioned at the beginning of the discourse: to live in accordance with nature, doing and thinking what one ought. For in this way the old man would be both most cheerful and most praiseworthy, and, possessing these things, he would live in good fortune and in honor. But if anyone supposes that wealth is the greatest consolation for the old, and that it enables them to live without distress, he supposes wrongly. For wealth is able to provide people with the pleasures that come from food and drink and sex and other such things, but it could in no way provide either good cheer or freedom from distress to the one who possesses it. Witnesses to this are the many wealthy people who are distressed and downhearted and consider themselves wretched. For this reason wealth would not be a fine relief for old age either.