many things which he speaks, but quite indifferent how consistent he
may be, or how much to the purpose he is speaking. He commends spare
diet, and in that he speaks as a philosopher; but it is for Socrates or
Antisthenes to say so, and not for one who confines all good to
pleasure. He denies that any one can live pleasantly unless he lives
honestly, wisely, and justly. Nothing is more dignified than this
assertion, nothing more becoming a philosopher, had he not measured
this very expression of living honestly, justly, and wisely by
pleasure. What could be better than to assert that fortune interferes
but little with a wise man? But does he talk thus, who, after he has
said that pain is the greatest evil, or the only evil, might himself be
afflicted with the sharpest pains all over his body, even at the time
he is vaunting himself the most against fortune? And this very thing,
too, Metrodorus has said, but in better language: "I have anticipated
you, Fortune; I have caught you, and cut off every access, so that you
cannot possibly reach me." This would be excellent in the mouth of
Aristo the Chian, or Zeno the Stoic, who held nothing to be an evil but
what was base; but for you, Metrodorus, to anticipate the approaches of
fortune, who confine all that is good to your bowels and marrow--for
you to say so, who define the chief good by a strong constitution of
body, and well-assured hope of its continuance--for you to cut off
every access of fortune! Why, you may instantly be deprived of that
good. Yet the simple are taken with these propositions, and a vast
crowd is led away by such sentences to become their followers.

X. But it is the duty of one who would argue accurately to consider not
what is said, but what is said consistently. As in that very opinion
which we have adopted in this discussion, namely, that every good man
is always happy, it is clear what I mean by good men: I call those both
wise and good men who are provided and adorned with every virtue. Let