Maximus of Tyre, Dissertation 33

Maximus of Tyre, Dissertation 33, “What is the object of philosophy?”

translated from ancient Greek by Eric S. Fallick


It is difficult to find a true reasoning—for the human soul runs the risk, through facility of thinking, to be at a loss for judgment. The other arts going forward through discovery become more successful, each concerning its own works—but philosophy, whenever it would be most abundant, then it is filled full of reasonings opposed and equally balanced, and it resembles a farmer suffering more fruitless earth whenever he would come to be in a surplus of many implements. Therefore, votes and the number of jurors and the opinions of public speakers and the (show of) hands of the people govern political suits—but, here, what judge will be present to us and by what vote will we judge the truth? By reason? But you would not have a reasoning to say for which you would not find the opposite reasoning. Emotion? But this is an untrustworthy judge. By the multitude (of people saying so)? But the very ignorant ones are more. By opinion? But the worse things are more held in esteem.

At once in this present problem, pleasure is contending and being measured against virtue—is not pleasure, pushing aside virtue, strong in (people's) opinion and surpassing in multitude of witnesses and having power in accordance with emotion? But that which is the only remaining ally of virtue, reason, is also split and divided, and some help to pleasures could also be discovered from it, and someone speaks finely speaking on behalf of pleasure, and holding virtue cheap, and transposing the rule from the men's quarters to the women's quarters—and dresses himself in the dress of a philosopher, and would claim to hold the name of a philosopher. Give it up, human being, the name also with the reasoning. You transgress the law about the foundations. There is nothing in common between wisdom and pleasure—the lover of pleasure is one person, the lover of wisdom is another—the names have been divided, the deeds have been divided, the races have been divided, as the Laconian things from the Attic, as the barbarian things from the Hellenic. But if saying you are a Spartan and a Hellene and a Dorian and a Heraclean, you esteem a Median tiara and a barbaric dining-table and a Persian covered carriage, you have gone Persian, you have gone barbarian, you have destroyed Pausanias—you are a Median, you are Mardonius—put aside the name with the race.

Thus, I bear the multitude singing the praises of pleasure—for their soul is vulgar and having been excluded from reason, pitiable in emotion, pardonable in ignorance—but I do not bear Epicurus on account of (his having) the name (of 'philosopher'), nor do I bear philosophy being wanton. For neither do I bear a general deserting the ranks and leading the flight, nor do I bear a farmer setting the crops on fire, nor do I bear a steersman being very fearful of the sea—it is necessary for you to sail, it is necessary for you to command, it is necessary for you to farm—these things are full of hard toils, but nothing noble comes to be through ease. But if pleasure follows the noble things, I grant it—let it follow, but let the noble lead in every way:
Let there be one ruler, one king, to whom it has been given
by Zeus to rule. But if you would transpose the order, and pleasure would rule, but reason would follow, you give to the soul a bitter and implacable tyrant, to whom it is necessary to be a slave and to serve with services indeterminate and of every sort, even if it would order ugly things, even if it would order unrighteous things. For what would be the limit of pleasure laying hold of license for desires? For this tyrant is insatiable, and disdainful of the things present and desirous of the things not present, being inflamed through abundance, rising through expectation, and waxing wanton through plenty. This tyrant makes the base things rise against the noble things, this one makes ready unrighteousness against righteousness, excess against moderation. Since certainly the need of the body fills up its appetites without difficulty. Is someone thirsty? There are springs everywhere. Is someone hungry? There are acorns everywhere. The sun is the warmest of cloaks. The meadows are the most variegated of spectacles. The flowers are natural fragrances. To go as far as these is to take need itself as the limit of pleasures. But if you step beyond these things and go on further, you give an unceasing run to pleasures and wall out virtues.

This begets greedinesses; this makes tyrannies. For the Pasargadae territory and the cardamom of Cyrus are not enough for the king of the Persians, but all of Asia divvies up lots to supply for the pleasures of one man. Media raises a Nisaean horse for him. Ionia sends Greek concubines. Babylon rears barbarian eunuchs. Egypt sends crafts of all kinds—the Indians ivory, the Arabs fragrance. And also the rivers supply for the pleasures of the king—the Pactolus gold, the Nile wheat, the Choaspes water. But not even these are enough for him, but he desires foreign pleasure, and through this comes to Europe, runs after the Scythians, dislodges the Paeonians, takes Eretria, sails against Marathon, and wanders everywhere. Most unfortunate one in poverty! For what would be poorer than a man desiring continuously? For when once a soul would taste pleasures beyond its need, it is held by satiety of the previous ones and desires others. And that then was the allegory of Tantalus—the continuous thirst of a pleasure loving man and the streams of pleasure coming up and going away again, and the flowing back of desires and the bitter pains having been mixed up with these, and the disturbances and fears. For on the one hand he is fearful lest pleasure being present would go away, but on the other hand he is distressed lest pleasure not being present would not come—so that it is a necessity for the one pursuing pleasure not to cease being pained, but also not to sense being pleased, but to live being confounded in much unclarity.

See what and what kind of tyrant you give to the soul: as Critias to the Athenians, thrusting away Solon; as Pausanias to the Lacedaemonians, thrusting away Lycurgus. But I, desiring freedom, have need of law, have need of reason. This will guard for me well-being true and unshaken and without fear and independent, but not base, not having been contrived by the arts of slaves, by which collecting for myself I will gather together that “great profit”, pleasure, begging not little bits, by Zeus, as in the begging in Homer, nor only swords and kettles, but things even stranger than these: relish from Mithaecus, wine from Sarambus, song from Connus, and a courtesan from Melesias. And what will be the measure of these things? What will be the limit of the “well-being” from pleasures? Where will we stop? To whom should we give the prizes of victory we are bearing? Who is this “blessed” man, vigilant and laborious, whom not even one pleasure escapes and goes unnoticed by, neither by night nor day, but whose soul stretching out all the senses, just as the marine octopus its tentacles, brings in through these from all sides all the pleasures together?

Let us form, if possible, an image of this sort: a man “well-off” in the “well-being” from pleasures, seeing the most pleasant colors, hearing the sweetest sounds, smelling the most delightful odors, tasting the most varied flavors, being warmed, and having sexual intercourse, all together. For if you would give time and separate the pleasures and would divide the sense-perceptions, you will cut short the “well-being”. For all which being present gladdens, being taken away gives pain. What soul could bear a mob of so many pleasures streaming in and being laid upon it and affording no cessation and respite at all? But would it not likely live most miserably and desire change and long for rest? For continuing pleasure produces pain. What would be more untrustworthy than a “well-being” to be pitied? Oh Zeus and the gods, fathers and makers of earth and sea and how many creatures there are of earth and sea, what kind of living being have you put in this place here and life, rash and hasty and boisterous, deficient in good, destitute of profit, being fed and won over by pleasures.
If only it had been unborn and perished unmarried
--that whole genus, if it will have nothing from you better than pleasure.

And how does it not have something better? For let us answer according to Homer on behalf of Zeus. For it has, it has, mind and reason, but its life has been mixed together from immortal and mortal things, as a certain living being assigned to the border and from mortal error having the body while from the immortal outflow receiving the mind. But pleasure is the characteristic thing of the flesh while reason is of the mind; and it has the flesh in common with the beasts, but the mind as its own proper thing. Here then seek the good of the human being, where its proper work is. There is its proper work, where its own proper organ is. There is its proper organ, where its preservation is. Begin from the thing saving it. Which is the preservative of which, body of soul or soul of body? Soul of body—you have found the saving thing. Seek the proper organ. What is the organ of soul? Mind. Seek the proper work. What is the proper work of mind? Wisdom—you have found the good. But if someone dishonoring that understanding and god-loving and god-loved part of the human being, says the person is only that despicable creature, the flesh, and would want to feed the incontinent part, the gluttonous part, the friend of pleasures, to what would I compare such a mode of living than to a myth, by Zeus?


The poets say that there are men in Pelion, a Thessalian genus, with strange bodies, from the navel trailing along the nature of a horse. But in the lack of harmony of such a sort of association, there is, at any time, every necessity to feed the bestial nature together with the human; to speak as a human being, but to eat as a beast; to see as a human being, but to copulate as a beast. Well done indeed, poets and sons of poets, fathers of an ancient and noble muse, how clearly then you have allegorized for us the bond of pleasures. Whenever bestial pleasures would rule the soul, maintaining a human appearance, they show by the service of their deeds that the one enjoying them has become a beast from a human being. That is the Centaurs, that is the Gorgons, that is the Chimaeras, the Geryon, the Cecrops. Take away the desire of the stomach, and you have taken away the beast from the human being. Take away the desire of the genitals, and you have cut through the beast. But as long as these things would live and be fed together in someone and he has inclined to their tendance, it is a necessity for the appetites of those to rule and the soul to cry out their sounds.



©2012 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (period) com