the human mind, being derived from the divine reason, can be compared
with nothing but with the Deity itself, if I may be allowed the
expression. This, then, if it is improved, and when its perception is
so preserved as not to be blinded by errors, becomes a perfect
understanding, that is to say, absolute reason, which is the very same
as virtue. And if everything is happy which wants nothing, and is
complete and perfect in its kind, and that is the peculiar lot of
virtue, certainly all who are possessed of virtue are happy. And in
this I agree with Brutus, and also with Aristotle, Xenocrates,
Speusippus, Polemon.

XIV. To me such are the only men who appear completely happy; for what
can he want to a complete happy life who relies on his own good
qualities, or how can he be happy who does not rely on them? But he who
makes a threefold division of goods must necessarily be diffident, for
how can he depend on having a sound body, or that his fortune shall
continue? But no one can be happy without an immovable, fixed, and
permanent good. What, then, is this opinion of theirs? So that I think
that saying of the Spartan may be applied to them, who, on some
merchant's boasting before him that he had despatched ships to every
maritime coast, replied that a fortune which depended on ropes was not
very desirable. Can there be any doubt that whatever may be lost cannot
be properly classed in the number of those things which complete a
happy life? for of all that constitutes a happy life, nothing will
admit of withering, or growing old, or wearing out, or decaying; for
whoever is apprehensive of any loss of these things cannot be happy:
the happy man should be safe, well fenced, well fortified, out of the
reach of all annoyance, not like a man under trifling apprehensions,
but free from all such. As he is not called innocent who but slightly
offends, but he who offends not at all, so it is he alone who is to be