[45] It may perchance be asked whether this human fellowship which is most closely allied to nature is also always
to have the precedence over modesty and decency. I think not. For there are certain things, some so repulsive,
some so scandalous, that a wise man would not do them even to save his country. Posidonius has brought together
a great many of these things, some of them so foul, so indecent, that it would be offensive even to name them.
These things, then, one will not do for the sake of the state, nor yet will the state demand that they should be
done for its sake. But the question is the more easily settled, inasmuch as there cannot come any crisis in which
it can be for the interest of the state that a wise man should do any of these things.
This, then, may be regarded as settled, that in choosing between conflicting duties preference must be given to
the class of duties essential to the maintenance of human society. Moreover, considerate action is the result of
knowledge and prudence. It therefore follows that to act considerately is of more worth than to think wisely. But
I have said enough on this point; for this division of the subject has been so laid open that it cannot be difficult
in an inquiry as to duty to see in any particular case which duty is to be regarded as of prime and which of secondary obligation.
But in society itself there are gradations of duties, from which it may be determined what one owes in any individual
relation. Thus we are bound in obligation, first to the immortal gods, secondly to our country, thirdly to our parents,
then by successive degrees to other persons more or less nearly related to us.
From this brief discussion light may be thrown, not only on the question whether certain specific acts are right
or wrong, but also, when the choice lies between two right things, on the question which of the two is of the highest
obligation. This last head, as I said above, is omitted by Panaetius. Let us go on now to what remains of the subject.
Here ends Book I of Cicero's De Officiis; the topic is
continued in Book II.
Notes
/1/ See the following from 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica–
Marcus Tullius Cicero, only son of the orator and his wife Terentia, was born in 65 B.C.
At the age of seventeen he served with Pompey in Greece, and commanded a squadron of cavalry at the battle of Pharsalus.
In 45 he was sent to Athens to study rhetoric and philosophy, but abandoned himself to a life of dissipation.
It was during his stay at Athens that his father dedicated the de Officiis to him.
After the murder of Caesar (44 B.C.) he attracted the notice of Brutus, by whom he was offered the post of military tribune,
in which capacity he rendered good service to the republican cause. After the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.),
he took refuge with Sextus Pompeius in Sicily, where the remnants of the republican forces were collected.
He took advantage of the amnesty granted by the treaty of Misenum (39 B.C.) to return to Rome, where he took no part in public
affairs, but resumed his former dissipated habits. In spite of this, he received signal marks of distinction from Octavian,
who not only nominated him augur, but accepted him as his colleague in the consulship (30 B.C.). He had the satisfaction of carrying out the
decree which ordered that all the statues of Antony should be demolished, and thus “the divine justice reserved the completion of Antony's
punishment for the house of Cicero” (Plutarch). He was subsequently appointed proconsul of Asia or Syria, but nothing further is known
of his life. In spite of his debauchery, there is no doubt that he was a man of considerable education and no mean soldier,
while Brutus, in a letter to his father (Epp. ad Brutum, ii. 3), even goes so far as to say that
the son would be capable of attaining the highest honours without borrowing from the father's reputation.
/2/
Cratippus of Pergamum, was a Peripatetic philosopher of the 1st century B.C. who taught at Mytilene and Athens.
He became head of the Lyceum in 44 B.C.
/3/
See the following from Cato Maior de Senectute, by Marcus Tullius Cicero,
introduction by James S. Reid, M.L., Allyn and Bacon, Boston-New York-Chicago, 1882–
In Cicero's time the productive era of Greek Philosophy had well-nigh passed. Its tendency was less speculative, more ethical and
practical than in the earlier time. There were four prominent schools, the New Academy, the Peripatetic,
the Stoic, and the Epicurean.
The supporters of the last-named advocated in Science the doctrine of the atom, in Ethics the pursuit of pleasure,
in Religion the complete inactivity of the gods.
The Stoics and Peripatetics were divided by comparatively unimportant differences. In Ethics, considered by them as almost the
whole of Philosophy, which was itself defined as 'the art of living', the main question between the two schools was the amount of
importance to be attributed to Virtue,—the Stoics declaring that in comparison with Virtue all other things sink into absolute
insignificance, while the Peripatetics maintained that these have a certain though infinitesimally small significance.
The New Academy taught at this time no complete philosophical system. It simply proclaimed the view that in the field of
knowledge certainty is unattainable, and that all the inquirer has to do is to balance probabilities one against the other.
The New Academic, therefore, was free to accept any opinions which seemed to him to have the weight of probability on their side,
but he was bound to be ready to abandon them when anything appeared which altered his views of the probabilities.
He not only might be, but he could not help being, eclectic; that is, he chose such views promulgated by other schools
as seemed to him at the moment to be most reasonable or probable. Cicero called himself an adherent of this school.
On most points however, although eclectic, he agreed with the Peripatetics, but with a decided leaning toward the Stoic
ethical system. The Stoic opinion that it is the duty of the wise man to abstain from public life, which the Peripatetics
contested, Cicero decisively rejected. With the Epicureans he had absolutely no sympathy. Up to this time these schools
and their teachings were known to the Romans only through the medium of the Greek.
/4/
Demetrius Phalereus, c. 350-c. 280 B.C., was an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, a student of
Theophrastus and one of the first Peripatetics
/5/
Theophrastus, 371–c. 287 B.C., a Greek native of Eressos in Lesbos,was the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school.
/6/
Demosthenes, 384–322 B.C., prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens.
Plutarch wrote a Life of Demosthenes
/7/
Panaetius of Rhodes, c. 185-c. 110 B.C., Stoic philosopher, and head of the Stoic school in Athens.
/8/
No "turn the other cheek" in Cicero's philosophy.
/9/
Circero traces his doctrine of Non nobis solum to Plato. The work to which he refers
is Plato's Letter to Archytas, also called the Ninth Letter of Plato, Epistle IX, or Letter IX; it is an epistle that tradition ascribes
to Plato but which modern scholarship rejects as spurious.
/10/
Marcus Licinius Crassus, d. 53 B.C.; supporter of of Sylla;
wealthiest man in Rome; defeated the slave uprising lead by Spartacus;
with Caesar and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate.
/11/
The Twelve Tables of Roman Laws, c. 451-450 B.C. have come down
to use only in fregments. Cicero (De Oratore, I.44:) says of the Tables
Though all the world exclaim against me, I will
say what I think: that single little book of the Twelve Tables, if anyone look to the
fountains and sources of laws, seems to me, assuredly, to surpass the libraries of all the
philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of utility.
/12/
When Cicero, as consul, put down the Catiline's conspiracy of 63 B.C.