1. 1. If reason set our course and our own will carried us to the harbor of philosophy, from which one passes on into the country and the soil of the happy life, then—most cultivated and great Theodorus—I would not venture to say whether fewer men would reach it; though even now, as we see, very few and only the rare come to it. For when into this world, whether God or nature or necessity or our own will or some combination of these or all of them at once (the matter is very obscure, but you have already undertaken to shed light on it) has cast us as if at random, here and there, into a sea full of storms—how few would recognize where they ought to make for, or by what way to return, unless from time to time some tempest, which the foolish take for adverse, drove them, unwilling and resisting, ignorant and astray, onto the land they most longed for?

1. 2. Now of the men whom philosophy can receive I seem to see three kinds, as it were, of seafarers. The first is of those who, once an age capable of reason has taken hold of them, with a slight thrust and pull of the oars flee from close by and hide themselves in that tranquility, from which they raise up the clearest possible sign of some work of theirs for their fellow citizens, that they too, so warned, may try to come to them as best they can. The second kind is the opposite of the first: those who, deceived by the most deceptive face of the sea, have chosen to push out into the middle, dare to wander far from their homeland, and often forget it. If a wind they think favorable follows them from astern—in some all-too-hidden way—they are borne, elated and rejoicing, into the depths of their miseries, because everywhere the most deceptive calm of pleasures and honors flatters them. For such men, surely, what else should be wished than some setback in the very things that receive them so gladly; and, if that is too little, an utterly raging tempest and a contrary wind, to bring them—even weeping and groaning—to sure and solid joys? Yet most of this kind, not having strayed too far, are brought back by certain not-too-grave troubles. These are the men whom either the tearful tragedies of their own fortunes or the anxious difficulties of empty affairs—as if they had nothing else to do—drive into the books of learned and most wise men; and in the harbor itself, as it were, they wake up, so that no promises of that all-too-falsely smiling sea shut them out. There is also among these a third kind: of those who, whether at the very threshold of youth or after being long and much tossed about, still look back to certain signs and remember their sweetest homeland even amid the waves; and either by a straight course, in nothing deceived and delaying nothing, they make for it, or for the most part—wandering astray amid the clouds, or fixing their gaze on the setting stars, or caught by certain allurements—they put off the times of good sailing and wander too long, often even coming into danger. Often, too, some calamity amid their shifting fortunes, like a tempest adverse to their efforts, drives these very men into the life they most longed for, the life of rest.

1. 3. But for all these, who in whatever way are borne toward the country of the happy life, there is one enormous mountain set before the very harbor, which raises great difficulties even for those entering it, a mountain most fearfully to be dreaded and most carefully to be avoided. For it so shines, it is so clothed in that lying light, that it offers itself to be dwelt in not only by those who arrive and have not yet entered, promising to satisfy their will in place of the happy land itself, but it often invites men to itself from the very harbor, and sometimes detains them, delighted by its very height, from which they may take pleasure in looking down on the rest. Yet these often warn those who come, lest they be deceived by hidden reefs beneath, or think it easy to climb up to them; and most kindly they teach by what way one may enter without danger, because of the nearness of that land. So, while they envy them an utterly empty glory, they point out a place of safety. For what other mountain does reason mean us to understand as fearful for those drawing near to philosophy or entering it, but the proud pursuit of the emptiest glory, which has within it nothing so full and solid that, when men puffed up walk over it, the brittle ground gives way beneath and swallows and sucks them down, and—as they are rolled back into the dark—snatches from them the bright house they had almost already seen?

1. 4. Since this is so, hear me, my Theodorus—for it is to you alone that I look for what I desire, and you it is whom I ever admire as most fit. Hear, I say, both which of those three kinds of men gave me to you, and in what place I seem to myself to be, and what kind of help I confidently expect from you. From my nineteenth year, after I received in the school of rhetoric that book of Cicero called the Hortensius, I was so kindled with love of philosophy that I planned to give myself to it at once. But I did not lack the fogs by which my course was thrown into confusion; and for a long time, I confess, I gazed up at stars sinking into the ocean, by which I was led astray. For a certain childish superstition frightened me away from the very search; and once, grown more upright, I had dispelled that darkness and persuaded myself to believe those who teach rather than those who command, I fell among men to whom this light that the eyes perceive seemed to be among the highest of divine things to be worshipped. I did not assent, but I supposed they were concealing something great in those wrappings, which they would one day uncover. But when I had shaken them off and escaped, especially after crossing this sea, the Academics for a long time held my rudder amid the waves, fighting against every wind. Then I came to these lands; here I learned the north star to which I should entrust myself. For I noticed, both often in our priest's sermons and sometimes in your conversations, that when one thinks of God, nothing bodily at all is to be thought of, nor when one thinks of the soul: for the soul is the one thing in reality nearest to God. But—I confess—the allurements of a wife and of honor held me back from flying swiftly into the bosom of philosophy; so that only when I had obtained these would I at last, as has been granted to a fortunate few, sweep myself with full sails and all oars into that bay and there find rest. After reading a very few books of Plotinus, of whom I have heard you are a most eager student, and comparing them as far as I could with the authority also of those who handed down the divine mysteries, I was so set ablaze that I would have broken all those anchors, had not the opinion of certain men checked me. What then remained but that, while I lingered over superfluous things, the tempest that is thought adverse should come to my aid? And so so great a pain seized my chest that, unable to bear the burden of that profession by which I was perhaps sailing toward the Sirens, I cast everything aside and brought my battered and weary ship to the longed-for tranquility.

1. 5. So you see in what philosophy, as in a harbor, I am sailing. But this harbor too lies wide open, and its very greatness, though now less dangerous, still does not wholly shut out error. For to which part of that land—which alone, of course, is the happy one—I should bring myself and reach it, I am wholly ignorant. For what solid thing have I grasped, when the question of the soul still wavers and tosses for me? Therefore I beg you, by your virtue, by your humanity, by the bond and exchange between souls, to stretch out your right hand. And this means: that you love me, and that you believe yourself loved and held dear by me in return. If I obtain this, with little effort I shall most easily come to the happy life itself, to which I presume you already cling. But that you may know what I am doing, and in what way I am gathering my dear ones to that harbor, and from this may fully understand my mind (for I find no other signs by which to show myself), I have thought I should write down for you—and dedicate under your name—that one of my discussions which seems to me to have turned out the more religious and the more worthy of your title. And most fittingly so; for we inquired among ourselves about the happy life, and I see nothing else that is more to be called a gift of God. Your eloquence does not frighten me; for whatever I love, even if I do not attain it, I cannot fear. Still less the loftiness of your fortune; for in you, great though it be, it truly takes second place—for it makes its own masters take second place as well. But now attend, I pray, to what I shall bring forward.

1. 6. On the Ides of November was my birthday. After a meal so light that nothing of our wits would be hindered by it, I called all who that day—indeed every day—dined together with me, to sit down in the baths; for that secluded place happened to suit the occasion. There were present—for I am not afraid to make them known by name, for the time being, to your singular kindness—first of all our mother, to whose merit I believe I owe everything by which I live; my brother Navigius; Trygetius and Licentius, my fellow citizens and pupils; nor did I wish my cousins Lastidianus and Rusticus to be absent, although they had never undergone even a grammarian's training, for I judged their very common sense necessary for the matter I was attempting. There was with us also the youngest of all in age, but whose talent, if love does not deceive me, promises something great—my son Adeodatus. With them attentive, I began as follows.

2. 7. "Does it seem clear to you that we are composed of soul and body?" When all agreed, Navigius answered that he did not know. To him I said, "Do you know nothing at all, or is this to be counted among the things you do not know?" "I do not think," he said, "that I am ignorant of everything." "Can you tell us something of the things you do know?" "I can," he said. "If it is not troublesome," I said, "bring something forward." And when he hesitated, "Do you at least know," I said, "that you are alive?" "I know it," he said. "Then you know that you have life, since no one can live except by life." "This too," he said, "I know." "Do you also know that you have a body?" He agreed. "Then you already know that you are made up of body and life." "I know it for the moment; but whether these alone exist, I am uncertain." "Then you do not doubt," I said, "that these two exist, body and soul; but you are uncertain whether there is something else that serves to complete and perfect a human being." "Just so," he said. "What this might be we shall inquire another time, if we can," I said. "Now I ask this of all of you: since we all admit that a human being can exist neither without a body nor without a soul, on account of which of these do we seek food?" "On account of the body," said Licentius. But the others hesitated, and discussed among themselves in various ways how food could be thought necessary for the body, when it was sought for the sake of life, and life belonged to nothing but the soul. Then I said, "Does it seem to you that food belongs to that part which we see grow and become stronger by food?" They agreed, except Trygetius. For he said, "Why have I not grown in proportion to my appetite?" "All bodies," I said, "have their measure set by nature, beyond which they cannot proceed; yet they would be smaller than that measure if food had failed them—as we observe more easily in cattle. And no one doubts that, when food is withheld, the bodies of all living things grow thin." "Grow thin," said Licentius, "not grow smaller." "That is enough for me," I said, "for what I want. For the question is whether food belongs to the body. And it does belong to it, since when it is withdrawn the body is reduced to thinness." All judged it to be so.

2. 8. "What of the soul, then?" I said. "Has it no food of its own? Or does knowledge seem to you to be its nourishment?" "Plainly," said my mother; "I believe the soul is nourished by nothing else than the understanding of things and knowledge." When Trygetius showed himself in doubt about this opinion, she said, "Did you not yourself teach today from what, or where, the soul is fed? For after a part of the meal you said you had noticed what little dish we were using, because you had been thinking of something else, I know not what; and yet you had not kept your hand and bites from the food itself. Where, then, was your mind, when at that time you, while eating, were not attending to it? From there, believe me, and on such feasts the mind is fed—that is, on its cares and its thoughts, if through them it can perceive something." When they murmured in doubt about this, I said, "Do you not grant that the minds of the most learned men are, as it were, fuller and greater in their own kind than those of the unlearned?" They said it was clear. "Rightly, then, do we say that the minds of those who have been trained in no disciplines and have drawn in nothing of the good arts are empty and, as it were, famished." "I think their minds too are full," said Trygetius, "but of vices and wickedness." "That very thing," I said, "believe me, is a kind of barrenness and, as it were, hunger of minds. For just as the body, when food is withdrawn, is for the most part filled with diseases and scurvy, which point to a living hunger in it, so too the minds of such people are full of diseases by which they confess their own fastings. For the ancients meant that wickedness (nequitia) itself, the mother of all vices, was so called from its being worth nothing (nequidquam)—that is, from its being nothing. The virtue contrary to this vice is named frugality (frugalitas). So as the latter is named from frux, that is, from fruit, on account of a certain fruitfulness of minds, so the former, wickedness, is named from barrenness, that is, from nothing: for everything that flows away, that dissolves, that melts and, as it were, is forever perishing, is nothing. That is why we call such men lost (perditos) as well. But there is something, if it abides, if it stands firm, if it is always such as it is—as virtue is. A great and most beautiful part of virtue is what is called temperance and frugality. But if this is too obscure for you to see it yet, you certainly grant this: that even if the minds of the unlearned are themselves also full, then, just as there are two kinds of nourishment for bodies, so there are two for minds—one healthful and useful, the other diseased and destructive."

2. 9. "Since this is so, I judge that on my birthday, since we agree that there are two things in a human being—that is, body and soul—I ought to set out a somewhat richer meal not for our bodies alone but for our souls as well. And what this meal is, I will bring forward, if you are hungry. For if I try to feed you unwilling and disdainful, I shall spend my labor in vain; and rather should our prayers be that you desire such feasts in preference to those of the body. This will come about if your minds are healthy: for the sick, as we see in diseases of the body itself, refuse and spit out their food." All said, by their very look and with one consenting voice, that they now wished to take and devour whatever I had prepared.

2. 10. And I, beginning again, said, "Do we wish to be happy?" Scarcely had I poured this out when they ran together, consenting with one voice. "Does it seem to you," I said, "that one is happy who does not have what he wants?" They said no. "What then? Is everyone who has what he wants happy?" Then my mother said, "If he wants good things and has them, he is happy; but if he wants bad things, then however much he has them, he is wretched." Smiling at her and delighted, I said, "You have grasped, mother, the very citadel of philosophy. For doubtless words failed you, so that you could not open yourself out as Cicero just now did, whose words on this opinion are these. For in the Hortensius, the book he wrote in praise and defense of philosophy, he says: But look—men not indeed philosophers, yet ready enough to argue, all say that those are happy who live as they themselves wish. This is false: for to wish what is not fitting, that is itself the most wretched thing. Nor is it so wretched not to attain what you wish as it is to wish to attain what you ought not. For a wrongness of the will brings more evil to anyone than fortune brings of good." At these words she so cried out that, utterly forgetting her sex, we believed some great man was sitting with us—while I, for my part, understood as far as I could from what source, and from how divine a spring, those words of hers flowed. And Licentius said, "But you must tell us what, in order that each may be happy, he ought to want, and of what things he ought to have desire." "Invite me," I said, "on your birthday, when you see fit; whatever you set before me I will gladly take. On this condition I ask that you feast today at my table, and not demand what perhaps is not prepared." When he repented of his modest and bashful reminder, I said, "Then this is agreed among us: that no one can be happy who does not have what he wants, and that not everyone who has what he wants is happy?" They granted it.

2. 11. "What of this?" I said. "Do you grant that everyone who is not happy is wretched?" They did not doubt it. "Then everyone," I said, "who does not have what he wants is wretched." It pleased them all. "What, then, ought a person to procure for himself in order to be happy?" I said. "For perhaps this too will be supplied to our banquet, so that Licentius's eagerness is not neglected: for he must procure, I think, that which he has whenever he wants it." They said it was clear. "That thing, then," I said, "ought to be ever abiding, neither hanging on fortune nor subject to any chances. For whatever is mortal and perishable cannot be had by us when we want and as long as we want." All agreed. But Trygetius said, "There are many fortunate people who possess in abundance and lavishly those very things that are fragile and subject to chance, yet pleasant for this life, and none of the things they want is lacking to them." To him I said, "Does the one who is afraid seem to you to be happy?" "He does not," he said. "Then if anyone can lose what he loves, can he not fear?" "He cannot," he said. "But those chance things can be lost. So the one who loves and possesses them cannot in any way be happy." Nothing opposed this. At this point my mother said, "Even if he is sure that he will not lose all those things, still he will not be able to be satisfied with such things. Therefore he is wretched also on this account, that he is always in want." To her I said, "What if, abounding and overflowing with all these things, he sets himself a limit to his desiring, and content with them enjoys them becomingly and pleasantly—does he not then seem to you happy?" "Then he is happy not by those things," she said, "but by the moderation of his own mind." "Excellent," I said; "no other answer was due either to this question or from you. So we in no way doubt that, if anyone resolves to be happy, he ought to procure for himself that which always abides and cannot be snatched away by any raging of fortune." "This," said Trygetius, "we agreed to a while ago." "Does God," I said, "seem to you eternal and ever-abiding?" "This indeed," said Licentius, "is so certain that it needs no questioning"; and all the rest sang the same in devout piety. "Then," I said, "whoever has God is happy."

2. 12. When they received this gladly and most willingly, I said, "Then I think we now have nothing left to inquire into, except which person has God; for he surely will be happy. About this I ask what seems to you." Here Licentius said, "He has God who lives well." Trygetius said, "He has God who does what God wills to be done." Into his opinion Lastidianus came over. But that boy, the youngest of all, said, "He has God who does not have an unclean spirit" (See Matt 5:8). My mother approved of all these, but most of all this last. Navigius was silent. When I asked him what he thought, he answered that he liked that last view. Nor did it seem right to neglect to ask Rusticus what his opinion was on so great a matter; he seemed to me to be kept silent not so much by deliberation as by bashfulness. He agreed with Trygetius.

2. 13. Then I said, "I hold the opinions of all on a matter that is indeed great, and beyond which nothing more ought to be sought, nor can be found, provided only we investigate it, as we have begun, most serenely and most sincerely. But because this would take long today, and minds too have in their feasts a certain greediness, if beyond measure and voraciously they rush at them (for so they digest them badly somehow, whence there is no less to be feared for the health of minds than from that very hunger), this question will, better, receive us tomorrow, hungry, if it seems good. For now I only want you to relish that which has just been suggested to my mind as something to be brought in for you; and it is, unless I am mistaken, of the sort usually set out last, like something made and seasoned with scholastic honey." On hearing this, all stretched themselves out, as it were, toward a raised dish, and forced me to hurry to say what it was. "What," I said, "do you suppose, but that with the Academics the whole business we had undertaken is finished?" When they heard that name, those three to whom the matter was known sat up more eagerly; and, with hands stretched out as it were, as happens, they helped the servant who was bringing it in, showing by what words they could that they would hear nothing more delightful.

2. 14. Then I put the matter thus. "If it is clear that one is not happy who does not have what he wants—which reason demonstrated a little earlier—and no one seeks what he does not want to find, and they"—the Academics—"always seek the truth: then they want to find it; therefore they want to have the finding of the truth. But they do not find it: it follows that they do not have what they want; and from that it also follows that they are not happy. But no one is wise unless he is happy: therefore the Academic is not wise." At this they suddenly cried out, as if seizing the whole thing. But Licentius, attending more carefully and cautiously, was afraid to assent, and added, "I did indeed seize it along with you, since I cried out, moved by that conclusion. But I will admit nothing of this into my insides, and I will keep my portion for Alypius: for either he will lap it up together with me, or he will warn me why it should not be touched." "Sweet things," I said, "Navigius ought rather to fear, with his bad spleen." At this Navigius, smiling, said, "Plainly, such things will cure me. For somehow this twisted and barbed thing you have set down—made, as the saying goes, of Hymettian honey—is sharply sweet, and inflates the insides not at all. So the whole of it too, though my palate is somewhat stung, I draw, as best I can, most gladly into my very marrow. For I do not see how that conclusion can be refuted." "It cannot be in any way at all," said Trygetius. "And so I am glad that I long ago took up hostilities with them. For by some impelling nature, or—to say it more truly—by God, even without knowing how they were to be refuted, I was nonetheless too much opposed to them."

2. 15. Here Licentius said, "I do not yet desert them." "Then," said Trygetius, "you disagree with us?" "Surely," said he, "do you not disagree with Alypius?" To him I said, "I do not doubt that, if Alypius were present, he would yield to this little argument. For he could not think so absurdly as either to hold that one is happy who does not have so great a good of the mind, which he most ardently wanted to have; or that they do not want to find the truth; or that one who is not happy is wise: for of these three—like honey, meal, and kernels—is made that thing you are afraid to taste. Would he yield to this so small allurement of boys, deserting the great abundance of the Academics, by whose flood this brief something-or-other would either be overwhelmed or dragged off?" "As if," I said, "we were seeking something long, especially against Alypius: for that these small things are strong and useful he argues well enough for himself from your own body. But you, who have chosen to depend on the authority of one who is absent—which of these do you not approve? That one is not happy who does not have what he wants? Or do you deny that they want to have the truth found, which they vehemently search out? Or does anyone seem to you wise and not happy?" "He is altogether happy," he said, "who does not have what he wants"—smiling as if in vexation. When I ordered this to be written down, "I did not say it," he said, crying out. When I likewise nodded for it to be written, "I did say it," he said. And I had once instructed that he should utter no word except the letters of the alphabet. So I kept the young man tossed between bashfulness and constancy.

2. 16. But while we provoked him with these words, jokingly, as if to eat his portion, I noticed that the rest, ignorant of the whole matter and eager to know what was being carried on so pleasantly among us alone, looked at us without laughing. They seemed to me exactly like—as often happens—those who, when they dine among the greediest and most rapacious of guests, hold back from snatching either out of dignity or out of bashful fear. And because I had given the invitation, and you have taught me to sustain the role of a great man and—to explain it fully—of a true man, the host even at such feasts, that inequality and discrepancy of our table moved me. I smiled at my mother. And she, most freely, as if commanding what was lacking to be brought out from her own storeroom, said, "Now tell us, and explain who these Academics are and what they mean." When I had explained this to her briefly and openly, so that none of them went away ignorant, she said, "These men are caducarii" (by which name those who are overthrown by the falling sickness are commonly called among us), and at once she rose to leave; and at this we all, glad and laughing, broke off and departed.

3. 17. The next day, when after the meal—but somewhat later than the day before—we had again sat down in the same place, I said, "You have come late to the banquet; which I judge happened to you not from indigestion but from your sense of security at the small number of dishes; for you thought there was no need to come to it so early, since you supposed you would soon eat them up. For not much of the leftovers could be believed to have remained, where on the day itself and the festival little had been found. Perhaps rightly. But what has been prepared for you, I too, along with you, do not know. For there is another who does not cease to offer to all such feasts—to all, but especially feasts like these; whereas we, for the most part, cease from eating, whether through weakness, or fullness, or business. That he, abiding in human beings, makes them happy, was, if I am not mistaken, agreed among us yesterday in piety and constancy. For when reason had shown that one is happy who has God, and none of you had resisted this opinion, it was asked which person seemed to you to have God. On this matter, if I remember well, three opinions were stated. For some thought that one has God who does what God wills. But others said that one has God who lives well. To the rest, God seemed to be in those in whom the spirit that is called unclean is not."

3. 18. "But perhaps you all, in different words, meant one and the same thing. For if we consider the first two: everyone who lives well does what God wills, and everyone who does what God wills lives well; and to live well is nothing other than to do what is pleasing to God—unless something else seems so to you." They agreed. "But that third must be considered a little more carefully, because in the practice of the most chaste rites an unclean spirit is, as far as I understand, usually spoken of in two ways: either the one that invades the soul from outside and disturbs the senses and brings a kind of madness on people—for casting out which those in charge are said to lay on their hands or to exorcize, that is, to expel it by adjuring it through divine things; but in another way every utterly unclean soul is called an unclean spirit, which is nothing other than a soul stained with vices and errors. And so I ask you, boy, who perhaps brought forth that opinion with a somewhat more serene and purer spirit, who seems to you not to have an unclean spirit: the one who does not have a demon, by which people are wont to be made mad; or the one who has already cleansed his soul from all vices and sins?" "He seems to me," he said, "not to have an unclean spirit, who lives chastely." "But whom," I said, "do you call chaste? The one who sins in nothing, or only the one who refrains from unlawful intercourse?" "How," he said, "can one be chaste, if, while abstaining only from unlawful intercourse, he does not cease to be stained by the other sins? That one is truly chaste who attends to God and holds himself to him alone." When I had decided that the boy's words should be written down just as they had been spoken, I said, "Then it is necessary that he live well, and one who lives well is necessarily such—unless something else seems so to you." He agreed, with the rest. "Then here," I said, "one and the same opinion has been stated."

3. 19. "But I ask you a little further: does God will that a person seek God?" They granted it. "Again I ask: can we say that the one who seeks God lives badly?" "In no way," they said. "Answer this third point too: can an unclean spirit seek God?" They said no—Navigius hesitating somewhat, who afterward yielded to the others' voices. "If, then," I said, "the one who seeks God does what God wills, and lives well, and does not have an unclean spirit; but the one who seeks God does not yet have God: then not everyone who either lives well, or does what God wills, or does not have an unclean spirit, is forthwith to be said to have God." Here, when the others laughed that they had been deceived by their own concessions, my mother—after she had long been at a loss—asked me to loosen and resolve by explanation the very thing I had said with the twisted necessity of a conclusion. When this was done, she said, "But no one can come to God unless he has sought God." "Excellent," I said. "Yet one who is still seeking has not yet come to God, and already lives well. Therefore not everyone who lives well has God." "It seems to me," she said, "that no one does not have God: but those who live well have him favorable; those who live badly, hostile." "Then," I said, "we conceded badly yesterday that one is happy who has God: since every person has God, and yet not every person is happy." "Add, then," she said, "favorable."

3. 20. "At least," I said, "is this agreed enough among us: that one is happy who has God favorable?" "I would like to consent," said Navigius, "but I am afraid of the man who is still seeking; especially lest you conclude that the Academic is happy, who in yesterday's talk was named—by a common word, bad Latin indeed, but most apt, as it seems to me—a caducarius. For I cannot say that God is against a person seeking God; and if it is wicked to say so, he will be favorable; and one who has God favorable is happy. Then the one who seeks will be happy: but everyone who seeks does not yet have what he wants. Therefore a person will be happy who does not have what he wants—which yesterday seemed absurd to us all; whence we believed the darkness of the Academics had been scattered. So now Licentius will triumph over us; and a prudent physician, as it were, will warn me that those sweet things, which I rashly took against my health, are exacting this penalty from me."

3. 21. Here, when my mother too had smiled, Trygetius said, "I do not concede that God is forthwith hostile to one to whom he is not favorable, but I think there is something in between." To him I said, "Yet do you concede that this middling man, to whom God is neither favorable nor hostile, has God in some way?" When he hesitated, my mother said, "It is one thing to have God, another not to be without God." "Which then," I said, "is better—to have God, or not to be without God?" "As far as I can understand," she said, "this is my opinion: he who lives well has God, but favorable; he who lives badly has God, but adverse. But he who is still seeking and has not yet found has him neither favorable nor adverse, but is not without God." "Is this," I said, "your opinion too?" They said it was. "Tell me, I pray," I said: "does it not seem to you that God is favorable to a person whom he favors?" They confessed it was so. "Then," I said, "does not God favor the person who seeks him?" They answered that he favors him. "Therefore," I said, "one who seeks God has God favorable; and everyone who has God favorable is happy. So then the one who seeks is also happy. But the one who seeks does not yet have what he wants. Therefore a person will be happy who does not have what he wants." "Truly," said my mother, "one does not seem to me happy who does not have what he wants." "Then," I said, "not everyone who has God favorable is happy." "If reason compels this," she said, "I cannot deny it." "This, then," I said, "will be the distribution: that everyone who has now found God both has God favorable and is happy; but everyone who seeks God has God favorable but is not yet happy; while whoever estranges himself from God by vices and sins not only is not happy, but does not even live with God favorable to him."

3. 22. When this had pleased everyone, I said, "It is well; but I still fear this, lest you be troubled by what we conceded earlier—that whoever is not happy is wretched—from which it will follow that the person who has God favorable, whom, while still seeking God, we said is not yet happy, is wretched. Or rather—as Cicero says—shall we call the masters of many estates on earth rich, but name the possessors of all the virtues poor? (See Cicero, Hortensius, frag. 104) But consider this: whether, just as it is true that everyone in want is wretched, it is also true that everyone wretched is in want. For so it will be true that wretchedness is nothing other than want—which, when it was said, you felt me praise just now. But to inquire into this would take long today; so I ask that it not be tiresome to you to gather again at this table tomorrow as well." When all said they would most gladly do so, we rose.

4. 23. The morning of the third day of our discussion scattered the clouds that had been forcing us into the baths, and made the afternoon most bright. So it pleased us to go down to a meadow nearby; and when we had all sat down where it seemed convenient, the rest of the talk was carried through thus. "Almost everything," I said, "that I wanted to be granted me by you when I asked, I have and hold; so today, by which we may at last mark off this banquet of ours with some interval of days, there will be little or nothing, I think, that you will need to answer me. For it was said by my mother that wretchedness is nothing other than want, and it was agreed among us that those who are in want are wretched. But whether all the wretched, too, are in want is a question we could not resolve yesterday. And if reason shows that it is so, the question who is happy is most perfectly found: for he will be the one who is not in want. For everyone who is not wretched is happy. So he is happy who lacks want, if the want we speak of proves to be the same as wretchedness."

4. 24. "Why," said Trygetius, "can it not now be made out, from the fact that it is clear that everyone who is in want is wretched, that everyone not in want is happy? For I remember we conceded that there is nothing in between the wretched and the happy." "Does anything," I said, "seem to you to be in between the dead and the living? Is not every person either living or dead?" "I admit," he said, "that here too there is nothing in between; but to what end is this?" "Because," I said, "this too, I believe, you admit: that everyone who was buried a year ago is dead." He did not deny it. "What? Is everyone who was not buried a year ago alive?" "That," he said, "does not follow." "Then," I said, "it does not follow that if everyone who is in want is wretched, everyone who is not in want is happy—even though, between the wretched and the happy, as between the living and the dead, nothing in between can be found."

4. 25. When some of them had understood this a little too slowly, and I was opening it up and turning it about in words fitted, as I could, to their understanding, I said, "So no one doubts that everyone who is in want is wretched; nor do certain things necessary for the body of the wise man frighten us. For the mind itself does not stand in want of them, the mind in which the happy life is set. For the mind itself is perfect; and nothing perfect is in want of anything: it will take what seems necessary for the body, if it is at hand; if it is not at hand, the lack of these things will not break it. For every wise man is brave; and no brave man fears anything. Therefore the wise man does not fear either the death of the body, or pains, for the driving off or avoiding or deferring of which those things are necessary, the lack of which can befall him. Yet he does not cease to use them well, if they are not lacking. For that saying is most true:"

He will therefore avoid death and pain, as far as he can and as far as is fitting; lest, if he should fail to avoid it, he be wretched on that account not because these things happen, but because, when he could have avoided it, he was unwilling to—which is a clear sign of folly. So one who does not avoid these things will be wretched not by the suffering of those things, but by folly. But if he has not been able to avoid it, when he has acted diligently and becomingly, those things rushing in will not make him wretched. For that other saying of the same comic poet is no less true:

How will he be wretched, to whom nothing happens contrary to his will? For what he sees cannot come about, he cannot will. For he has the will of the most certain things—that is, that whatever he does, he do nothing except by a certain prescript of virtue and by the divine law of wisdom, which can in no way be snatched from him.

4. 26. "Now then, see whether everyone who is wretched is also in want. For what makes this opinion hard to concede is the fact that many are set amid a great abundance of the gifts of fortune, for whom all things are so easy that, at their nod, whatever desire demands is at hand. That life is indeed a difficult case. But let us imagine someone such as Cicero says Orata was (See Cicero, Hortensius, frag. 10). For who would readily say that Orata labored under want—a man most rich, most charming, most given to delights, who lacked nothing for pleasure, nor for favor, nor for good and sound health? For he had abundance, as much as he liked, of the most profitable estates and the most agreeable friends; and he used them all most aptly for the health of the body, and (to explain the whole briefly) a prosperous succession followed his every undertaking and every wish. But perhaps one of you will say that he wanted to have more than he had. This we do not know. But, as far as is enough for the question, let us make him not have desired more than he held. Does he seem to you to have been in want?" "Even if I grant," said Licentius, "that he desired nothing more—which I do not know how to accept in a man who is not wise—still he was afraid (for he was, as they say, of no bad wit) lest all those things be snatched from him by even a single adverse blow. For it was no great thing to understand that all such things, however great they were, are set under chances." Then I, smiling, said, "You see, Licentius, that this most fortunate man was hindered from the happy life by the goodness of his wit. For the keener he was, the more he saw that he could lose all those things; and he was broken by that fear, and confirmed well enough that common saying: It is to his own harm that an untrustworthy man is shrewd (See Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 1, 465c)."

4. 27. Here, when both he and the rest had smiled, I said, "Let us nonetheless attend more carefully to this: that even though this man was afraid, he was not in want—whence the question arises. For to be in want is to be in the not-having, not in the fear of losing what you have. Now this man was wretched, because he was afraid, although he was not in want. Therefore not everyone who is wretched is in want." When she too, whose opinion I was defending, had approved this with the rest, yet hesitating a little, she said, "Still, I do not know, and I do not yet plainly understand, how wretchedness can be separated from want, or want from wretchedness. For this man, who was rich and wealthy and—as you say—desired nothing more, yet because he was afraid lest he lose, was in want of wisdom. Then would we call this man in want if he were in want of silver and money, but when he was in want of wisdom, we will not call him so?" When at this all cried out in wonder—I myself too no little eager and glad, because it had been said precisely by her, what I had prepared to bring forward as something great, and last, from the books of the philosophers—I said, "Do you see that it is one thing to have many and various doctrines, and another to have the mind most attentive upon God? For from where do these things we wonder at proceed, if not from there?" Here Licentius, joyfully crying out, said, "Surely nothing truer, nothing more divine, could have been said. For there is no greater or more pitiable want than to be in want of wisdom; and one who is not in want of wisdom can be in want of nothing at all."

4. 28. "The want of the mind, then," I said, "is nothing other than folly. For this is contrary to wisdom, and so contrary as death is to life, as the happy life to the wretched—that is, with nothing in between. For as every person who is not happy is wretched, and every person who is not dead is alive, so it is clear that everyone who is not foolish is wise. From which it is now possible to see this too: that Sergius Orata was wretched not only because he feared lest he lose those gifts of fortune, but because he was foolish. So it comes about that he would have been more wretched if he had feared nothing at all amid those things, so hanging and wavering, which he thought good. For he would have been more secure not by the watch of courage but by the sleep of the mind, and, sunk in a deeper folly, wretched. But if everyone who lacks wisdom suffers great want, and everyone in possession of wisdom is in want of nothing, it follows that folly is want. And as every foolish person is wretched, so every wretched person is foolish. Therefore, as all want is wretchedness, so all wretchedness is proven to be want."

4. 29. When Trygetius said he had understood this conclusion too little, I said, "What did we agree on among us by reason?" "That he is in want," he said, "who does not have wisdom." "What, then," I said, "is it to be in want?" "Not to have wisdom." "What is it," I said, "not to have wisdom?" When he was silent, "Is it not this," I said, "to have folly?" "It is," he said. "Then to have want," I said, "is nothing other than to have folly; from which it is now necessary that want be named by another word, when it is named folly. Although somehow we say 'he has want' or 'he has folly.' For it is as if we should say that some place which lacks light has darkness—which is nothing other than not to have light. For darkness does not, as it were, come or go away; but to lack light is itself already to be dark, as to lack clothing is to be naked. For it is not by clothing's coming on that nakedness flees, as if it were some movable thing. So, then, we say that someone 'has want,' as if we said he 'has nakedness.' For 'want' is a word for not-having. Therefore, that I may explain what I mean as best I can, 'he has want' is so said as if it were said, 'he has not-having.' And so, if folly itself has been shown to be true and certain want, see now whether the question we had undertaken is resolved. For it was doubted among us whether, when we call something wretchedness, we name nothing other than want. But we have given the reason that folly is rightly called want. Therefore, just as every foolish person is wretched, and every wretched person is foolish, so it is necessary that we admit not only that everyone in want is wretched, but also that everyone who is wretched is in want. But if, from the fact that every foolish person is wretched, it is made out that folly is wretchedness, why do we not, from the fact that everyone who is wretched is in want, make out that wretchedness is nothing other than want?"

4. 30. When all admitted that this was so, I said, "Now this follows: that we see who is not in want; for he will be the one who is wise and happy. But want is folly, and the name 'want'—this word usually signifies a certain barrenness and lack. Attend, then, more deeply, with how much care of the men of old all words, or—what is clear—certain words, were coined, especially of those things the knowledge of which was most necessary. For you now grant that every foolish person is in want, and everyone who is in want is foolish: I believe you also grant that the foolish mind is faulty, and that all the faults of the mind are included under the one name of folly. But on the first day of this discussion of ours we had said that wickedness (nequitia) was so named from its being worth nothing (nequidquam), and that frugality, contrary to it, was named from frux (fruit). So in these two contraries—that is, frugality and wickedness—those two things seem to stand out, to be and not to be. But to want, about which the question is, what do we think is contrary?" Here, when they hesitated somewhat, Trygetius said, "If I say riches, I see that poverty is contrary to these." "It is indeed," I said, "near it. For poverty and want are usually taken as one and the same. Yet another word must be found, lest the better part lack a single term; so that, while the one side abounds with the name of poverty and of want, on this side only the name of riches is set against it. For nothing is more absurd than that there should here be a want of a word, where there is the part contrary to want." "Fullness," said Licentius, "if it can be so said, seems to me rightly set against want."

4. 31. "Later," I said, "we shall perhaps inquire more carefully about the word. For this is not to be the concern in the search for truth. For although Sallust, a most choice weigher of words, set wealth (opulentia) against want (See Sallust, Catiline 52.22), yet I accept that 'fullness' of yours. For here too we shall not be freed from the dread of the grammarians, nor need we fear lest we be chastised by them because we use words carelessly—we, who have given them their own matters to use." When they had smiled at this, I said, "Then, since I have resolved not to scorn your minds, when you are intent upon God, as if they were certain oracles, let us see what this word means; for I judge none more fitted to the truth. Fullness, then, and want are contraries: but here too, similarly, as in wickedness and frugality, those two appear, to be and not to be. And if want is folly itself, fullness will be wisdom. Deservedly, too, many have said that frugality is the mother of all the virtues. Agreeing with them, Cicero too, in a speech before the people, says: Let each take it as he will: I, however, judge frugality—that is, restraint and temperance—to be the greatest virtue (Cicero, For Deiotarus 9.26). Most learnedly and becomingly: for he considered frux, that is, that which we call to be, to which not to be is contrary. But on account of the common habit of speech, by which frugality is usually called, as it were, thrift, he illustrated what he meant by two words that follow, by adding restraint and temperance; and let us attend to these two words more carefully."

4. 32. "Restraint (modestia) is surely so named from measure (modus), and temperance (temperantia) from due proportion (temperies). But where there is measure and due proportion, there is nothing either more or less. This, then, is the very fullness which we had set as contrary to want—much better than if we set abundance. For in abundance is understood overflow and, as it were, the pouring out of a thing too greatly overflowing. And when this happens beyond what is enough, there too measure is wanted, and the thing that is too much is in want of measure. So want is not foreign even to redundancy itself; but from measure both more and less are foreign. Even wealth (opulentia) itself, if you examine it, you will find to hold nothing other than measure. For 'opulence' is named from nothing but help (ops). But how does what is too much give help, when it is often more troublesome than too little? Whatever, then, is either too little or too much, because it is in want of measure, is liable to want. Measure, then, of the mind is wisdom. For wisdom is not denied to be contrary to folly, and folly is want, and contrary to want is fullness. Therefore wisdom is fullness. But in fullness is measure. Measure, then, is in the mind through wisdom. Whence that famous saying, and not undeservedly spread abroad:"

4. 33. "But we had said, at the opening of today's discussion, that if we found wretchedness to be nothing other than want, we would admit that one is happy who is not in want. And it has been found; therefore to be happy is nothing other than not to be in want—that is, to be wise. But if you ask what wisdom is (reason has already, as far as it could for the present, unrolled and brought it out), it is nothing other than the measure of the mind—that is, that by which the mind balances itself, so as neither to run out into too much nor to be cramped below what is full. Now it runs out into extravagances, lordships, prides, and the rest of that kind, by which the minds of the unrestrained and wretched think joys and powers are procured for themselves. And it is cramped by squalor, fears, grief, desire, and the others, whatever they are, by which the wretched confess men to be wretched. But when the mind contemplates wisdom found, and—to use this boy's word—holds itself to it, and is not turned by any emptiness to the deceit of the images, by embracing whose weight it is wont to fall and sink away from its God: then it dreads nothing of immoderation, and therefore nothing of want, therefore nothing of wretchedness. So whoever is happy has his own measure—that is, wisdom."

4. 34. "But what is to be called wisdom, except that which is the Wisdom of God? And we have received, too, on divine authority, that the Son of God is nothing other than the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24): and the Son of God is surely God. Therefore whoever is happy has God—which already pleased us all before, when we entered upon this banquet. But what do you think wisdom is, except truth? For this too has been said: I am the Truth (John 14:6). But that truth may be, it comes about through some highest measure, from which it proceeds and into which, made perfect, it turns itself back. But on the highest measure itself no other measure is imposed: for if the highest measure is a measure through the highest measure, it is a measure through itself. But it is also necessary that the highest measure be a true measure. As, therefore, truth is begotten by measure, so measure is known by truth. Neither, then, was truth ever without measure, nor measure without truth. Who is the Son of God? It has been said: the Truth. Who is he who has no father—who else but the highest measure? Whoever, then, comes to the highest measure through truth is happy. This is to have God in the mind, that is, to enjoy God. For other things, although they are had from God, do not have God."

4. 35. "But a certain admonition, which deals with us so that we may remember God, that we may seek him, that we may thirst for him with all disdain driven off, flows out to us from the very fountain of truth. This is the radiance that the secret sun pours into our inner lights. Of this is everything true that we speak, even when, with eyes still less than sound or suddenly opened, we are afraid to turn boldly and to gaze on the whole. And this too appears to be nothing other than God, perfect with no falling-away hindering. For there the whole and the entire is perfect, and at the same time he is the most omnipotent God. But still, as long as we are seeking, not yet sated by the fountain itself and—to use that word—by the fullness, let us admit that we have not yet come to our measure; and therefore, although now with God's help, we are nonetheless not yet wise and happy. That, then, is the full satiety of minds—that is, the happy life: to know, piously and perfectly, by whom you are led into truth, what truth you enjoy, through what you are joined to the highest measure. These three show one God to those who understand, and one substance, with the vanities of varied superstition excluded." Here my mother, recognizing the words that clung deep in her memory and, as if waking up into her own faith, joyfully poured out that verse of our priest:

and she added: "This, with no one in doubt, is the happy life, which is the perfect life, to which we, hastening, must presume that we can be brought by solid faith, eager hope, and burning charity."

4. 36. "Therefore," I said, "since measure itself admonishes us to mark off our banquet with some interval of days, I give as great thanks as I can, with all my strength, to the highest and true God, Father, the Lord who delivers souls; and next to you, who, harmoniously invited, have heaped me too with many gifts. For you have brought so much into our conversation that I cannot deny that I have been satisfied by my own guests." Here, while all rejoiced and praised God, Trygetius said, "How I wish you would feed us in this way every day." "That measure," I said, "is everywhere to be kept, everywhere to be loved, if our return to God is at your heart." When this had been said, and the end of the discussion made, we departed.