Lectures · Lecture 6

6.1

He continually urged those who were with him toward training, intensely so, using arguments of some such kind as these. Virtue, he said, is a science that is not only theoretical but also practical, just as medicine and music are. Therefore, just as the physician and the musician must each not only have grasped the principles of his own art but also have trained himself to act in accordance with those principles, so too the one who is to be a good man must not only thoroughly learn all the lessons that lead to virtue but also train himself in accordance with them, with dedication and love of labor. For how could anyone at once become self-controlled if he only knew that one must not be overcome by pleasures, yet remained untrained in resisting pleasures? How could anyone become just, having learned that one must love equality, but not having practiced avoiding grasping for more? How could we acquire courage, having understood that the things which seem terrible to most people are not to be feared, yet not having practiced being fearless in the face of them? How could we become wise, having recognized what things are truly good and bad, but not having trained ourselves to despise the things that merely seem good? Therefore training must in every case follow upon the learning of the lessons appropriate to each virtue, if indeed the learning itself is to be of any benefit to us. And the one who claims to pursue philosophy must train himself all the more than one who aspires to medicine, or to some similar art, insofar as philosophy is greater and harder to master than any other pursuit. For those who aspire to the other arts are not previously corrupted in their souls, nor have they learned things contrary to what they are about to learn; whereas those who undertake philosophy, having first come to be in great corruption and filled with vice, pursue virtue in such a condition that they need all the more training on that account.

6.2

How, then, and in what manner should these people train? Since it happens that a human being is neither soul alone nor body alone, but something composite made from these two, the one who trains must attend to both — more to the better part, as is fitting, that is, to the soul; but also to the other, if indeed no part of the human being is to be left deficient. For the body of the one who pursues philosophy must also be well prepared for the works of the body, since often the virtues make use of it as a necessary instrument for the actions of life. Of training, then, one kind would rightly be proper to the soul alone, while another is common to both the soul and the body. Now training common to both will come about when we accustom ourselves to cold and heat, to thirst and hunger, to plainness of food and hardness of bed, to abstinence from pleasant things and endurance of laborious ones. For through these and things like them the body is strengthened and becomes resistant to hardship, sturdy, and useful for every task; and the soul too is strengthened, being trained through the endurance of laborious things toward courage, and through abstinence from pleasant things toward self-control. And the training proper to the soul is, first, to keep at hand the demonstrations concerning the things that seem good — that they are not good — and those concerning the things that seem bad — that they are not bad — and to become accustomed to recognizing the things that are truly good and to distinguishing them from those that are not truly good. Then, to practice neither fleeing anything that seems bad nor pursuing anything that seems good, but to turn away by every device from the things that are truly bad, and to pursue by every means the things that are truly good.

6.3

In summary, then, it has been more or less stated what each mode of training is like. Nevertheless, I shall try to say in detail how each thing should be done, no longer separating or distinguishing the exercises common to the soul and the body from those proper to the soul, but going through the exercises of each part in a mixed fashion. Now, since we happen to have heard and accepted these things — all of us, at least, who have shared in the philosopher's teaching — that neither hardship nor death nor poverty is in any way an evil, nor anything else free from vice, and that, again, wealth, life, and pleasure are not good, nor anything else that has no share in virtue; yet, even having accepted these things, on account of the corruption that has taken hold of us straight from childhood, and the wicked habituation produced by that corruption, when hardship approaches us we consider that an evil is approaching, and when pleasure comes to us we consider that a good is arriving, and we shudder at death as the ultimate calamity, while we welcome life as the greatest of goods; and when we give away money we grieve as though we were being harmed, but when we receive it we rejoice as though we were being benefited; and in like manner, in a great many other matters as well, we deal with things not in accordance with the correct judgments, but rather follow our base habit. Since, then, I say that this is how these matters stand, the one who trains must seek to master himself, so as not to delight in pleasure, nor to shrink from hardship; not to love living, nor to fear death; and, in the case of money, not to prefer receiving over giving.