180 THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS.sirable must certainly be approved of; whatever you ap prove of must be looked on as acceptable and welcome. You must consequently impute dignity to this ; and if so, it must necessarily be laudable: therefore, everything that is laudable is good. Hence it follows that what is honor able is the only good. And should we not look upon it in this light, there will be a great many things which we must call good. XVI. I forbear to mention riches, which, as any one, let him be ever so unworthy, may have them, I do not reckon among goods; for what is good is not attainable by all. I pass over notoriety and popular fame, raised by the united voice of knaves and fools. Even things which are abso lute nothings may be called goods; such as white teeth, handsome eyes, a good complexion, and what was com mended by Euryclea, when she was washing Ulysses's feet, the softness of his skin and the mildness of his discourse. If you look on these as goods, what greater encomiums can the gravity of a philosopher be entitled to than the wild opinion of the vulgar and the thoughtless crowd? The Stoics give the name of excellent and choice to what the others call good: they call them so, indeed; but they do not allow them to complete a happy life. But these others think that there is no life happy without them; or, admitting it to be happy, they deny it to be the most happy. But our opinion is, that it is the most happy; and we prove it from that conclusion of Socrates. For thus that author of philosophy argued: that as the disposition of a man's mind is, so is the man; such as the man is, such will be his discourse; his actions will correspond with his dis course, and his life with his actions. But the disposition of a good man's mind is laudable; the life, therefore, of a good man is laudable; it is honorable, therefore, because laudable; the unavoidable conclusion from which is that the life of good men is happy. For, good Gods ! did I not make it appear, by my former arguments or was I only amusing myself and killing time in what I then said? that the mind of a wise man was always free from every hasty motion which I call a perturbation, and that the most undisturbed peace always reigned in his breast? A man,

then, who is temperate and consistent, free from fear or