at Athens. For to me it seemed that no one could possibly be
happy under any evil; but a wise man might be afflicted with evil, if
there are any things arising from body or fortune deserving the name of
evils. These things were said, which Antiochus has inserted in his
books in many places--that virtue itself was sufficient to make life
happy, but yet not perfectly happy; and that many things derive their
names from the predominant portion of them, though they do not include
everything, as strength, health, riches, honor, and glory: which
qualities are determined by their kind, not their number. Thus a happy
life is so called from its being so in a great degree, even though it
should fall short in some point. To clear this up is not absolutely
necessary at present, though it seems to be said without any great
consistency; for I cannot imagine what is wanting to one that is happy
to make him happier, for if anything be wanting to him, he cannot be so
much as happy; and as to what they say, that everything is named and
estimated from its predominant portion, that may be admitted in some
things. But when they allow three kinds of evils--when any one is
oppressed with every imaginable evil of two kinds, being afflicted with
adverse fortune, and having at the same time his body worn out and
harassed with all sorts of pains--shall we say that such a one is but
little short of a happy life, to say nothing about the happiest
possible life?

IX. This is the point which Theophrastus was unable to maintain; for
after he had once laid down the position that stripes, torments,
tortures, the ruin of one's country, banishment, the loss of children,
had great influence on men's living miserably and unhappily, he durst
not any longer use any high and lofty expressions when he was so low
and abject in his opinion. How right he was is not the question; he
certainly was consistent. Therefore, I am not for objecting to
consequences where the premises are admitted. But this most elegant and
learned of all the philosophers is not taken to task very severely when
he asserts his three kinds of good; but he is attacked by every one for
that book which he wrote on a happy life, in which book he has many
arguments why one who is tortured and racked cannot be happy. For in
that book he is supposed to say that a man who is placed on the wheel
(that is a kind of torture in use among the Greeks) cannot attain to a
completely happy life. He nowhere, i