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[105]
“But,” objection was further made, “even if1
Jupiter had been angry, he could not have inflicted
greater injury upon Regulus than Regulus brought
upon himself.”
Quite true, if there is no evil except pain. But
philosophers2 of the highest authority assure us that
pain is not only not the supreme evil but no evil at
all. And pray do not disparage Regulus, as no unimportant witness—nay, I am rather inclined to
think he was the very best witness—to the truth of
their doctrine. For what more competent witness
do we ask for than one of the foremost citizens of
Rome, who voluntarily faced torture for the sake of
being true to his moral duty?
Again, they say, “Of evils choose the least”—
[p. 385]
that is, shall one “choose moral wrong rather than3
misfortune,” or is there any evil greater than moral
wrong? For if physical deformity excites a certain
amount of aversion, how offensive ought the deformity and hideousness of a demoralized soul to seem!
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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