WHETHER VIRTUE ALONE BE SUFFICIENT. 163BOOK V. WHETHER VIRTUE ALONE BE SUFFICIENT FOR A HAPPY LIFE. I. Tins fifth day, Brutus, shall put an end to our Tus- culan Disputations : on which day we discussed your fa vorite subject. For I perceive from that book which you wrote for me with the greatest accuracy, as well as from your frequent conversation, that you are clearly of this opinion, that virtue is of itself sufficient for a happy life : and though it may be difficult to prove this, on account of the many various strokes of fortune, yet it is a truth of such a nature that we should endeavor to facilitate the proof of it. For among all the topics of philosophy, there is not one of more dignity or importance. For as the first philosophers must have had some inducement to neglect everything for the search of the best state of life : surely, the inducement must have been the hope of living happi ly, which impelled them to devote so much care and pains to that study. Now, if virtue was discovered and carried to perfection by them, and if virtue is a sufficient securi ty for a happy life, who can avoid thinking the work of philosophizing excellently recommended by them, and un dertaken by nje ? But if virtue, as being subject to such various and uncertain accidents, were but the slave of fort une, and were not of sufficient ability to support herself, I am afraid that it would seem desirable rather to offer up prayers, than to rely on our own confidence in virtue as the foundation for our hope of a happy life. And, indeed, when I reflect on those troubles with which I have been so severely exercised by fortune, I begin to distrust this opinion ; and sometimes even to dread the weakness and frailty of human nature, for I am afraid lest, when nature had given us infirm bodies, and had joined to them incur able diseases and intolerable pains, she perhaps also gave

us minds participating in these bodily pains, and harassed