I am so full of miseries, there is[p. 460] Now who can imagine any assertions more repugnant to one another than that of Chrysippus concerning the Gods and that concerning men; when he says, that the Gods do in the best manner possible provide for men, and yet men are in the worst condition imaginable?
No place to stow them in.
1
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But they make this repugnancy yet more evident by
their demonstration. For they say, that what may be used
both well and ill, the same is neither good nor bad; but
fools make an ill use of riches, health, and strength of
body; therefore none of these is good. If therefore God
gives not virtue to men,—but honesty is eligible of itself,
—and yet bestows on them riches and health without
virtue, he confers them on those who will use them not
well but ill, that is hurtfully, shamefully, and perniciously.
Now, if the Gods can bestow virtue and do not, they are
not good; but if they cannot make men good, neither can
they help them, for except virtue nothing is good and helpful. Now to judge those who are otherwise made good
according to virtue and strength . . . is nothing to the
purpose, for good men also judge the Gods according to
virtue and strength; so that they do no more aid men than
they are aided by them.
Now Chrysippus neither professes himself nor any one
of his disciples and teachers to be virtuous. What then
do they think of others, but those things which they say,
—that they are all mad, fools, impious, transgressors of
the laws, and in the utmost degree of misery and unhappiness? And yet they say that our affairs, though we act
thus miserably, are governed by the providence of the
Gods. Now if the Gods, changing their minds, should
desire to hurt, afflict, overthrow, and quite crush us, they
could not put us in a worse condition than we already
are; as Chrysippus demonstrates that life can admit no
greater degree either of misery or of unhappiness; so
that if it had a voice, it would pronounce these words of
Hercules:
1 Eurip. Here. Fur. 1245.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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