I shall indeed arrange for you, in careful order and narrow compass, the notes which you request. But consider whether you may not get more help from the customary method than from that which is now commonly called a "breviary," though in the good old days, when real Latin was spoken, it was called a "summary." The former is more necessary to one who is learning a subject, the latter to one who knows it. For the one teaches, the other stirs the memory. But I shall give you abundant opportunity for both. A man like you should not ask me for this authority or that; he who furnishes a voucher for his statements argues himself unknown. I shall therefore write exactly what you wish, but I shall do it in my own way; until then, you have many authors whose works will presumably keep your ideas sufficiently in order. Pick up the list of the philosophers; that very act will compel you to wake up, when you see how many men have been working for your benefit. You will desire eagerly to be one of them yourself, for this is the most excellent quality that the noble soul has within itself, that it can be roused to honourable things.
No man of exalted gifts is pleased with that which is low and mean; the vision of great achievement summons him and uplifts him. Just as the flame springs straight into the air and cannot be cabined or kept down any more than it can repose in quiet, so our soul is always in motion, and the more ardent it is, the greater its motion and activity. But happy is the man who has given it this impulse toward better things! He will place himself beyond the jurisdiction of chance; he will wisely control prosperity; he will lessen adversity, and will despise what others hold in admiration. It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great. For the one condition is useful and life-giving; but the other does harm just because it is excessive. Similarly, too rich a soil makes the grain fall flat, branches break down under too heavy a load, excessive productiveness does not bring fruit to ripeness. This is the case with the soul also; for it is ruined by uncontrolled prosperity, which is used not only to the detriment of others, but also to the detriment of itself. What enemy was ever so insolent to any opponent as are their pleasures to certain men? The only excuse that we can allow for the incontinence and mad lust of these men is the fact that they suffer the evils which they have inflicted upon others. And they are rightly harassed by this madness, because desire must have unbounded space for its excursions, if it transgresses nature's mean. For this has its bounds, but waywardness and the acts that spring from willful lust are without boundaries. Utility measures our needs; but by what standard can you check the superfluous? It is for this reason that men sink themselves in pleasures, and they cannot do without them when once they have become accustomed to them, and for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached such a pass that what was once superfluous to them has become indispensable. And so they are the slaves of their pleasures instead of enjoying them; they even love their own ills, – and that is the worst ill of all! Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits. --Seneca, Letter 39.
lt's always a surprise to encounter a thought in a figure one canonically or subjectively associates with a later author. For example, Seneca says that "our soul is always in motion" [ita noster animus in motu est,], which I associate with Hobbes's idea that "all mankind [has] a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death." (The association is made firmer and clearer by the fact that for Hobbes the soul, and such desire, just is matter in motion.) A thought, in turn, associate with Nietzsche's will to power (and Spinoza's Conatus doctrine). Obviously, Seneca need not be talking about power, but in context it's clear that Seneca assumes that the vast majority of most of us, ordinarily, constantly strive for pleasures and power (the things admired by the many). We are, in fact, slaves of our pleasures--a phrase that evokes Hume's infamous idea that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, we are slaves to our passions." Of course, Seneca denies Hume's ought, but not the underlying fact.
I am not claiming Hobbes or Hume are indebted to Seneca. They are targeting his philosophy, and so it's no surprise that they enjoy using rhetoric that evokes it. Rather, I am noticing the more quirky fact that certain phrases get connected pedagogically and by way of shared short-hand with certain thinkers even if these phrases may have been articulated first by (equally eloquent) opposite philosophies. There is a historical irony lurking here because that Seneca's choice phrases became available for such re-use is, in part, due to the fact that his quotes would be passed on the list of philosophers/summaries/breviaries (etc.) circulating in the renaissance and early modern period.
Be that as it may, one striking claim by Seneca is that a key quality of a magnanimous soul is to despise great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too superfluous [Magni animi est magna contemnere ac mediocria malle quam nimia.] This is rather distinct from Aristotelian μεγαλοψυχία (megalopsychia), which is primarily characterized in terms of a great-souled man's relationship to others (see the Nicomachean Ethics, 1124b). In so far as the desires of the great-souled man are characterized by Aristotle, these are articulated in terms of their uncommonly high honors or achievements (themselves also positional goods). Of course, Aristotle and Seneca agree, in a sense, that ordinarily the non-great-souled are mistaken about what matters, but that's the extent of the agreement.
While in this Letter, Seneca is annoyingly terse about the content of his version of magnanimity, it's crucial that is not subject to the jurisdiction of fortune [ponet se extra ius dicionemque fortunae] It's pretty clear that Seneca means to be suggesting that the magnanimous person embraces the empire of necessity (recall Letter 1 and Letter 4); but see Letter 13). This is a genuine contrast with Aristotle, where a willingness to face danger in a great cause is especially praiseworthy. In Aristotelian great dangers, there is always an element of chance.
For both Aristotle and Plato, chance is uniquely democratic (recall this post). And there is indeed no doubt that Seneca rejects the commercial and political market place, which he takes to be ruled by utility and open-ended and so destructive desire. But Rancière correctly reminds us that for Plato philosopher-kings need chance, a providential fate, to become rulers (recall also this post). (See Republic 592; also, perhaps, Laws 708e-709a). And so in rejecting the role of chance, Seneca is de facto also refusing the possibility of direct philosophical rule. The embrace of necessity entails, then, a form of magnanimity that is oriented toward goods that are commonly not taken to be very special.
One may worry here that what Plato relies on is not strictly speaking the Atomist/Epicurean fortune; that the Socratic providential fate is something distinct from that. And that Seneca, as a good Stoic, is willing to embrace some such conception providence.* I can't rule that out here. If one that's that possibility seriously, it would also entail that the kind of rule Seneca is willing to embrace is invisible from the majority mankind.
As should be clear the speculative thought of the past paragraph is not the position I am attributing to Seneca. But it is notable that it coincides with the position of Francis Bacon (where true ruler-ship by would be philosopher-kings is hidden from mankind (New Atlantis)), who was one of the funkier readers of Seneca.
* I ignore here the tricky relationship between providence and necessity in Seneca's thought.
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