they who are under no apprehensions, who are noways uneasy, who covet
nothing, who are lifted up by no vain joy, are happy: and therefore I
grant you that. But as for the other, that is not now in a fit state
for discussion; for it has been proved by your former arguments that a
wise man is free from every perturbation of mind.

_M._ Doubtless, then, the dispute is over; for the question appears to
have been entirely exhausted.

_A._ I think, indeed, that that is almost the case.

_M._ But yet that is more usually the case with the mathematicians than
philosophers. For when the geometricians teach anything, if what they
have before taught relates to their present subject, they take that for
granted which has been already proved, and explain only what they had
not written on before. But the philosophers, whatever subject they have
in hand, get together everything that relates to it, notwithstanding
they may have dilated on it somewhere else. Were not that the case, why
should the Stoics say so much on that question, Whether virtue was
abundantly sufficient to a happy life? when it would have been answer
enough that they had before taught that nothing was good but what was
honorable; for, as this had been proved, the consequence must be that
virtue was sufficient to a happy life; and each premise may be made to
follow from the admission of the other, so that if it be admitted that
virtue is sufficient to secure a happy life, it may also be inferred
that nothing is good except what is honorable. They, however, do not
proceed in this manner; for they would separate books about what is
honorable, and what is the chief good; and when they have demonstrated
from the one that virtue has power enough to make life happy, yet they
treat this point separately; for everything, and especially a subject