C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

On Leisure

By Seneca (c. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.)

WITH leisure we can carry out that which we have once for all decided to be best, when there is no one to interfere with us, and with the help of the mob pervert our as yet feeble judgment; with leisure only can life, which we distract by aiming at the most incompatible objects, flow on in a single gentle stream. Indeed, the worst of our various ills is that we change our very vices, and so have not even the advantage of dealing with a well-known form of evil; we take pleasure first in one and then in another, and are besides troubled by the fact that our opinions are not only wrong, but lightly formed: we toss as it were on waves, and clutch at one thing after another; we let go what we just now sought for, and strive to recover what we have let go. We oscillate between desire and remorse: for we depend entirely upon the opinions of others; and it is that which many people praise and seek after, not that which deserves to be praised and sought after, which we consider to be best. Nor do we take any heed of whether our road be good or bad in itself; but we value it by the number of footprints upon it, among which there are none of any who have returned. You will say to me:—“Seneca, what are you doing? do you desert your party? I am sure that our Stoic philosophers say we must be in motion up to the very end of our life: we will never cease to labor for the general good, to help individual people, and when stricken in years to afford assistance even to our enemies. We are the sect that gives no discharge for any number of years’ service; and in the words of the most eloquent of poets,—We are they who are so far from indulging in any leisure until we die, that if circumstances permit it, we do not allow ourselves to be at leisure even when we are dying. Why do you preach the maxims of Epicurus in the very headquarters of Zeno? nay, if you are ashamed of your party, why do you not go openly altogether over to the enemy rather than betray your own side?”

I will answer this question straightway: What more can you wish than that I should imitate my leaders? What then follows? I shall go whither they lead me, not whither they send me.

Now I will prove to you that I am not deserting the tenets of the Stoics; for they themselves have not deserted them: and yet I should be able to plead a very good excuse even if I did follow, not their precepts, but their examples. I shall divide what I am about to say into two parts: first, that a man may from the very beginning of his life give himself up entirely to the contemplation of truth; secondly, that a man when he has already completed his term of service has the best of rights—that of his shattered health—to do this; and that he may then apply his mind to other studies, after the manner of the Vestal Virgins, who allot different duties to different years,—first learn how to perform the sacred rites, and when they have learned them, teach others.

I will show that this is approved of by the Stoics also: not that I have laid any commandment upon myself to do nothing contrary to the teaching of Zeno and Chrysippus, but because the matter itself allows me to follow the precepts of those men; for if one always follows the precepts of one man, one ceases to be a debater and becomes a partisan. Would that all things were already known; that truth were unveiled and recognized, and that none of our doctrines required modification! but as it is, we have to seek for truth in the company of the very men who teach it. The two sects of Epicureans and Stoics differ widely in most respects, and on this point among the rest; nevertheless, each of them consigns us to leisure, although by a different road. Epicurus says, “The wise man will not take part in politics, except upon some special occasion.” Zeno says, “The wise man will take part in politics, unless prevented by some special circumstance.” The one makes it his aim in life to seek for leisure, the other seeks it only when he has reasons for so doing; but this word “reasons” has a wide signification. If the State is so rotten as to be past helping, if evil has entire dominion over it, the wise man will not labor in vain or waste his strength in unprofitable efforts. Should he be deficient in influence or bodily strength, if the State refuse to submit to his guidance, if his health stand in the way, then he will not attempt a journey for which he is unfit; just as he would not put to sea in a worn-out ship, or enlist in the army if he were an invalid. Consequently, one who has not yet suffered either in health or fortune has the right, before encountering any storms, to establish himself in safety, and thenceforth to devote himself to honorable industry and inviolate leisure, and the service of those virtues which can be practiced even by those who pass the quietest of lives. The duty of a man is to be useful to his fellow-men; if possible, to be useful to many of them; failing this, to be useful to a few; failing this, to be useful to his neighbors; and failing them, to himself: for when he helps others, he advances the general interests of mankind. Just as he who makes himself a worse man does harm not only to himself, but to all those to whom he might have done good if he had made himself a better one,—so he who deserves well of himself does good to others by the very fact that he is preparing what will be of service to them.

Let us grasp the fact that there are two republics: one vast and truly “public,” which contains alike gods and men, in which we do not take account of this or that nook of land, but make the boundaries of our State reach as far as the rays of the sun; and another to which we have been assigned by the accident of birth. This may be that of the Athenians or Carthaginians, or of any other city which does not belong to all men but to some especial ones. Some men serve both of these States, the greater and the lesser, at the same time; some serve only the lesser, some only the greater. We can serve the greater commonwealth even when we are at leisure: indeed, I am not sure that we cannot serve it better when we are at leisure to inquire into what virtue is, and whether it be one or many; whether it be nature or art that makes men good; whether that which contains the earth and sea and all that in them is, be one, or whether God has placed therein many bodies of the same species….

“But,” say you, “it makes a difference whether you adopt the contemplative life for the sake of your own pleasure, demanding nothing from it save unbroken contemplation without any result; for such a life is a sweet one and has attractions of its own.” To this I answer you: It makes just as much difference in what spirit you lead the life of a public man; whether you are never at rest, and never set apart any time during which you may turn your eyes away from the things of earth to those of heaven. It is by no means desirable that one should merely strive to accumulate property without any love of virtue, or do nothing but hard work without any cultivation of the intellect; for these things ought to be combined and blended together: and similarly, virtue placed in leisure without action is but an incomplete and feeble good thing, because she never displays what she has learned. Who can deny that she ought to test her progress in actual work; and not merely think what ought to be done, but also sometimes use her hands as well as her head, and bring her conceptions into actual being? But if the wise man be quite willing to act thus,—if it be the things to be done that are wanting, not the man to do them,—will you not then allow him to live to himself? What is the wise man’s purpose in devoting himself to leisure? He knows that in leisure as well as in action he can accomplish something by which he will be of service to posterity. Our school at any rate declares that Zeno and Chrysippus have done greater things than they would have done had they been in command of armies, or filled high offices, or passed laws; which latter indeed they did pass, though not for one single State, but for the whole human race. How then can it be unbecoming to a good man to enjoy a leisure such as this, by whose means he gives laws to ages to come, and addresses himself not to a few persons, but to all men of all nations, both now and hereafter? To sum up the matter, I ask you whether Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and Zeno lived in accordance with their doctrine? I am sure that you will answer that they lived in the manner in which they taught that men ought to live; yet no one of them governed a State. “They had not,” you reply, “the amount of property or social position which as a rule enables people to take part in public affairs.” Yet for all that, they did not live an idle life: they found the means of making their retirement more useful to mankind than the perspirings and runnings to and fro of other men; wherefore these persons are thought to have done great things, in spite of their having done nothing of a public character.

Moreover, there are three kinds of life, and it is a stock question which of the three is the best: the first is devoted to pleasure, the second to contemplation, the third to action. First let us lay aside all disputatiousness and bitterness of feeling, which, as we have stated, causes those whose paths in life are different to hate one another beyond all hope of reconciliation; and let us see whether all these three do not come to the same thing, although under different names: for neither he who decides for pleasure is without contemplation, nor is he who gives himself up to contemplation without pleasure; nor yet is he whose life is devoted to action, without contemplation. “It makes,” you say, “all the difference in the world, whether a thing is one’s main object in life or whether it be merely an appendage to some other object.” I admit that the difference is considerable: nevertheless, the one does not exist apart from the other; the one man cannot live in contemplation without action, nor can the other act without contemplation: and even the third, of whom we all agree in having a bad opinion, does not approve of passive pleasure, but of that which he establishes for himself by means of reason; even this pleasure-seeking sect itself, therefore, practices action also. Of course it does; since Epicurus himself says that at times he would abandon pleasure and actually seek for pain, if he became likely to be surfeited with pleasure, or if he thought that by enduring a slight pain he might avoid a greater one. With what purpose do I state this? To prove that all men are fond of contemplation. Some make it the object of their lives: to us it is an anchorage, but not a harbor.

- GENERAL INDEX - SONGS & LYRICS - QUICK INDEX - BIOGRAPHIES - READER’S DIGEST - STUDENT’S COURSE - PORTRAITS - BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD