The Imagination of Seneca

Seneca’s imagination is sometimes no better regulated than that of Tertullian. His impetuous movements often carry him into unknown lands, where nevertheless he walks with the same assurance as if he knew where he is and where he is going. Provided he makes great strides, figured strides, and in a just cadence, he imagines he advances much; but he resembles those who dance, who always end where they began. One must carefully distinguish the force and beauty of words from the force and evidence of reasons.

There is without doubt much force and some beauty in the words of Seneca, but there is too little force and evidence in his reasons. He gives by the force of his imagination a certain turn to his words, which touches, agitates and persuades by impression; but he does not give them that clarity and pure light that enlightens and persuades by evidence. He convinces because he moves and because he pleases; but I do not believe it happens to him to persuade those who can read him with coolness, who take heed of surprise, and who are accustomed to yield only to the clarity and evidence of reasons. In a word, provided he speaks and speaks well, he cares little what he says, as if one could speak well without knowing what one says; and thus he persuades without one often knowing of what or how one is persuaded, as if one should ever let oneself be persuaded of something without conceiving it distinctly, and without having examined the proofs that demonstrate it.

What is more pompous and more magnificent than the idea he gives us of his wise man, but what is at bottom more vain and more imaginary? The portrait he makes of Cato is too beautiful to be natural: it is only rouge and plaster that strikes only the view of those who do not study and do not know nature. Cato was a man subject to the misery of men; he was not invulnerable, that is an idea; those who struck him wounded him. He had neither the hardness of diamond, which iron cannot break, nor the firmness of rocks, which waves cannot shake, as Seneca claims. In a word, he was not insensible; and the same Seneca finds himself obliged to agree, when his imagination has cooled a little, and he reflects more on what he says.

But what then, will he not grant that his wise man can become miserable, since he grants that he is not insensible to pain? No, doubtless, pain does not touch his wise man; the fear of pain does not trouble him: his wise man is above fortune and the malice of men; they are not capable of troubling him.

There are no walls and towers in the strongest places that battering rams and other machines do not make tremble and overturn in time, but there are no machines powerful enough to shake the mind of his wise man. Do not compare to him the walls of Babylon, which Alexander forced; nor those of Carthage and Numantia, which one same arm overthrew; nor finally the Capitol and the citadel, which still bear marks that enemies have made themselves masters of them. The arrows shot at the sun do not reach it. The sacrileges committed when temples are overturned and images broken do not harm the divinity. The gods themselves can be crushed under the ruins of their temples, but his wise man will not be crushed by them: or rather, if he is crushed by them, it is not possible that he be wounded by them.

But do not believe, says Seneca, that this wise man I depict for you is found nowhere. It is not a fiction to foolishly elevate the mind of man. It is not a great idea without reality and without truth; perhaps even Cato surpasses this idea.

But it seems to me, he continues, that I see your mind agitating and heating up. You wish to say perhaps that it is to make oneself contemptible to promise things that one can neither believe nor hope, and that the Stoics only change the name of things in order to say the same truths in a grander and more magnificent manner. But you are mistaken; I do not pretend to elevate the wise man by these magnificent and specious words, I pretend only that he is in an inaccessible place in which one cannot wound him.

Thus far the vigorous imagination of Seneca carries his weak reason. But can it be that men who continually feel their miseries and weaknesses can fall into sentiments so proud and so vain? Can a reasonable man ever persuade himself that his pain does not touch and wound him? And Cato, as wise and as strong as he was, could he suffer without some uneasiness or at least without some distraction, I do not say the atrocious injuries of an enraged people who drag him, strip him and mistreat him with blows, but the stings of a simple fly? What is weaker against proofs as strong and as convincing as those of our own experience, than this fine reason of Seneca, which is however one of his principal proofs? He who wounds, he says, must be stronger than he who is wounded. Vice is not stronger than virtue, therefore the wise man cannot be wounded; for one need only reply, either that all men are sinners, and consequently worthy of the misery they suffer, which religion teaches us, or that, if vice is not stronger than virtue, the vicious can sometimes have more force than the good, as experience makes known to us.

Epicurus was right to say that “offenses are bearable to a wise man.” But Seneca is wrong to say that “wise men cannot even be offended.” The virtue of the Stoics could not render them invulnerable, since true virtue does not prevent one from being miserable and worthy of compassion at the time one suffers some evil. Saint Paul and the first Christians had more virtue than Cato and the Stoics. They nevertheless admitted that they were miserable by the pains they endured, although they were happy in the hope of an eternal reward. “If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable,” says Saint Paul.

As there is only God who can give us by His grace a true and solid virtue, there is also only He who can make us enjoy a solid and true happiness; but He does not promise it and does not give it in this life. It is in the other that one must hope for it from His justice, as the reward of miseries suffered for love of Him. We are not at present in the possession of that peace and rest that nothing can trouble. The grace of Jesus Christ itself does not give us an invincible force; it ordinarily leaves us feeling our own weakness, to make us know that there is nothing in the world that cannot wound us, and to make us suffer with a humble and modest patience all the injuries we receive, and not with a proud and arrogant patience, like the constancy of the proud Cato.

When Cato [26] was struck in the face, he did not become angry, he did not avenge himself, he did not pardon either; but he proudly denied that any injury had been done to him. He wished to be believed infinitely above those who had struck him. His patience was only pride and arrogance. It was shocking and injurious to those who had mistreated him; and Cato showed, by this Stoic patience, that he regarded his enemies as beasts against whom it is shameful to become angry. It is this contempt for his enemies and this great esteem for himself that Seneca calls greatness of courage. “With a greater spirit,” he says, speaking of the injury done to Cato, “he did not acknowledge it than if he had pardoned it.” What excess, to confuse greatness of courage with pride, and to separate patience from humility to join it with an insufferable arrogance! But how agreeably these excesses flatter the vanity of man who never wishes to abase himself; and how dangerous it is, especially for Christians, to instruct themselves in morality in an author as little judicious as Seneca, but whose imagination is so strong, so vivid and so imperious that it dazzles, stuns and carries away all those who have little firmness of mind and much sensibility for all that flatters the concupiscence of pride!

Let Christians rather learn from their Master that the impious are capable of wounding them, and that the good are sometimes subjected to these impious by the order of Providence. When one of the high priest’s officers gave a slap to Jesus Christ, this wise man of Christians, infinitely wise, and even as powerful as He is wise, confesses that this servant was capable of wounding Him. He does not become angry, He does not avenge Himself like Cato; but He pardons as having been truly offended. He could avenge Himself and destroy His enemies; but He suffers with a humble and modest patience that is injurious to no one, not even to this servant who had offended Him. Cato on the contrary, unable or not daring to take real vengeance for the offense he had received, tries to draw an imaginary one that flatters his vanity and pride. He raises himself in spirit up to the clouds; from there he sees men below as small as flies, and he despises them as insects incapable of having offended him and unworthy of his anger. This vision is a thought worthy of the wise Cato. It is this that gives him that greatness of soul and that firmness of courage that makes him resemble the gods. It is this that renders him invulnerable, since it is this that places him above all the force and all the malice of other men. Poor Cato! You imagine that your virtue elevates you above all things; your wisdom is only folly and your greatness abomination before God [27], whatever the wise of the world may think.

There are visionaries of several kinds: some imagine they are transformed into roosters and hens; others believe they have become kings or emperors; others finally persuade themselves that they are independent and as if gods. But if men always regard as mad those who assert that they have become roosters or kings, they do not always think that those who say that their virtue renders them independent and equal to God are truly visionaries. The reason is that, to be esteemed mad, it is not enough to have mad thoughts; one must, besides, that other men take the thoughts one has for visions and follies. For the mad do not pass for what they are among the mad who resemble them, but only among reasonable men, just as the wise do not pass for what they are among the mad. Men therefore recognize as mad those who imagine they have become roosters or kings, because all men have reason not to believe that one can so easily become a rooster or a king. But it is not only today that men believe they can become like gods; they have believed it at all times and perhaps more than they believe it today. Vanity has always made this thought sufficiently probable to them. They hold it from their first parents; for without doubt our first parents were of this sentiment when they obeyed the demon who tempted them by the promise he made them that they would become like God: “Eritis sicut dii” (You shall be as gods). Even the purest and most enlightened intelligences were so blinded by their own pride that they believed they could become independent and even formed the design of mounting the throne of God. Thus one should not be astonished if men who have neither the purity nor the light of angels abandon themselves to the movements of their vanity, which blinds and seduces them.

If the temptation for greatness and independence is the strongest of all, it is because it appears to us, as to our first parents, sufficiently conformable to our reason as well as to our inclination, because we do not always feel all our dependence. If the serpent had threatened our first parents by saying to them: If you eat of the fruit which God has forbidden you to eat, you will be transformed, you into a rooster and you into a hen, one need not fear to assert that they would have mocked so gross a temptation; for we would mock it ourselves. But the demon, judging others by himself, knew well that the desire for independence was the weak point by which he must take them.

The second reason why one regards as mad those who assert they have become roosters or kings, and one does not have the same thought of those who assert that no one can wound them because they are above pain; is that it is visible that the hypochondriacs are mistaken, and that one need only open one’s eyes to have sensible proofs of their wandering.

But when Cato asserts that those who struck him did not wound him, and that he is above all the injuries that can be done to him, he asserts it, or he can assert it, with so much pride and gravity that one cannot recognize whether he is effectively so within as he appears to be without. One is even led to believe that his soul is not shaken because his body remains immobile, because the exterior air of our body is a natural mark of what passes in the depths of our soul. Thus when a bold liar lies with much assurance, he often makes the most incredible things believed, because this assurance with which he speaks is a proof that touches the senses, and which consequently is very strong and very persuasive for most men. There are therefore few people who regard the Stoics as visionaries or as bold liars, because one has no sensible proof of what passes in the depths of their hearts, and the air of their face is a sensible proof that easily imposes, besides that vanity leads us to believe that the human mind is capable of that greatness and independence of which they boast.

All this shows that there are few errors more dangerous and which communicate themselves as easily as those with which the books of Seneca are filled, because these errors are delicate, proportioned to the vanity of man, and similar to that into which the demon engaged our first parents. They are clothed in these books with pompous and magnificent ornaments that open their passage into most minds. They enter, they take possession, they stun and blind them. But they blind them with a superb blindness, a dazzling blindness, a blindness accompanied by glimmers, and not a humiliating blindness full of darkness that makes one feel one is blind and makes it recognized by others. When one is struck by this blindness of pride, one places oneself among the fine minds and strong minds. Others themselves place us there and admire us. Thus, there is nothing more contagious than this blindness, because the vanity and sensibility of men, the corruption of their senses and passions dispose them to seek to be struck by it and excite them to strike others with it.

I do not believe therefore that one can find an author more suitable than Seneca to make known what is the contagion of an infinity of people called fine minds and strong minds, and how strong and vigorous imaginations dominate weak and little enlightened minds, not by the force nor the evidence of reasons, which are productions of the mind, but by the turn and vivid manner of expression, which depend on the force of imagination.

I know well that this author is much esteemed in the world, and that it will be taken for a kind of temerity that I speak of him as a very imaginative and little judicious man. But it is principally because of this esteem that I have undertaken to speak of him, not by a kind of envy or humor, but because the esteem one has for him will touch minds more and make them pay attention to the errors I have combated. One must as much as possible bring illustrious examples of the things one says when they are of consequence, and it is sometimes to do honor to a book to criticize it. But finally I am not the only one who finds fault in Seneca’s writings; for, not to speak of some illustrious men of this century, there are nearly sixteen hundred years since a very judicious author remarked that there was little exactitude in his philosophy [28], little discernment and correctness in his elocution [29], and that his reputation was rather the effect of a fervor and indiscreet inclination of young people than of a consent of learned and well-sensible persons [30].

It is useless to combat by public writings gross errors, because they are not contagious. It is ridiculous to warn men that hypochondriacs are mistaken, they know it well enough. But if those of whom they make much esteem are mistaken, it is always useful to warn them, lest they follow their errors. Now it is visible that the spirit of Seneca is a spirit of pride and vanity. Thus, since pride, according to Scripture, is the source of sin—“Initium peccati superbia”—the spirit of Seneca cannot be the spirit of the Gospel, nor can his morality ally itself with the morality of Jesus Christ, which alone is solid and true.

It is true that not all Seneca’s thoughts are false or dangerous. This author can be read with profit by those who have a sound mind and know the foundations of Christian morality. Great men have usefully made use of him, and I take care not to condemn those who, to accommodate themselves to the weakness of other men who had too much esteem for him, have drawn from this author’s works proofs to defend the morality of Jesus Christ, and thus to combat the enemies of the Gospel with their own weapons.

There are good things in the Alcoran, and one finds true prophecies in the Centuries of Nostradamus; one uses the Alcoran to combat the religion of the Turks, and one can use the Prophecies of Nostradamus to convince some bizarre and visionary minds. But what is good in the Alcoran does not make the Alcoran a good book, and some true explanations of the Centuries of Nostradamus will never make Nostradamus pass for a prophet; and one cannot say that those who make use of these authors approve them, or that they have a true esteem for them.

One must not pretend to combat what I have advanced of Seneca by reporting a great number of passages of this author that contain only solid truths conformable to the Gospel; I agree that there are some, but there are also some in the Alcoran and other wicked books. One would be wrong likewise to overwhelm me with the authority of an infinity of people who have made use of Seneca; because one can sometimes make use of a book that one believes impertinent, provided those to whom one speaks do not make the same judgment of it as we.

To ruin all the wisdom of the Stoics, one need know only one thing, which is sufficiently proved by experience and by what has already been said: that we hold to our body, to our parents, to our friends, to our prince, to our country, by bonds that we cannot break, and that we would even be ashamed to try to break. Our soul is united to our body, and by our body to all visible things, by a hand so powerful that it is impossible by ourselves to detach ourselves from it. It is impossible that our body be pricked without our being pricked and wounded ourselves, because in the state in which we are this correspondence of us with the body that is ours is absolutely necessary. Likewise, it is impossible that insults be said to us and that we be despised without our feeling chagrin about it; because God having made us to be in society with other men, He has given us an inclination for everything capable of binding us with them, which we cannot overcome by ourselves. It is chimerical to say that pain does not wound us, and that words of contempt are not capable of offending us, because one is above all that. One is never above nature, except by grace: and no Stoic ever despised glory and the esteem of men by the sole forces of his mind.

Men can well conquer their passions by contrary passions; they can conquer fear or pain by vanity; I mean only that they can not flee or not complain when, feeling themselves in view of many people, the desire for glory sustains them and stops in their bodies the movements that carry them to flight. They can conquer in this way; but that is not conquering, that is not delivering oneself from servitude; it is perhaps changing masters for some time, or rather it is extending one’s slavery; it is becoming wise, happy and free only in appearance, and suffering in effect a hard and cruel servitude. One can resist the natural union one has with one’s body by the union one has with men, because one can resist nature by the forces of nature; one can resist God by the forces God gives us. But one cannot resist by the forces of one’s mind; one cannot entirely overcome nature except by grace, because one cannot, if one may speak thus, overcome God except by a particular help from God.

Thus this magnificent division of all things that do not depend on us, and on which we should not depend, is a division that seems conformable to reason, but which is not conformable to the disordered state to which sin has reduced us. We are united to all creatures by the order of God, and we depend absolutely on them by the disorder of sin. So that not being able to be happy when we are in pain and anxiety, we should not hope to be happy in this life, by imagining that we do not depend on all those things of which we are naturally slaves. We can be happy only by a lively faith and a strong hope that makes us enjoy in advance future goods; and we cannot live according to the rules of virtue, and overcome nature, if we are not sustained by the grace that Jesus Christ has merited for us.