Seneca's Moral Epistles Vol. 3 (Letters 93-124)

having in it nothing but old wives' original: "anilia" precepts, he claims that the actual dogmas of philosophy and the definition of the Supreme Good summum bonum the highest good provide the greatest benefit. Anyone who has well understood and learned these can frame for himself what should be done in any given case. Just as one learning to throw the javelin seeks a fixed target and trains the hand to direct the missiles, once he has gained this power through discipline and practice, he uses it wherever he wishes—for he has learned not to strike this or that, but whatever he chooses: so, he who has instructed himself for the whole of life does not require to be admonished in detail, being taught in the whole. For he does not merely learn how he should live with his wife or his son, but how he should live well. In this is included also how he should live with his wife and children.

Cleanthes judges this part to be useful indeed, but feeble unless it flows from the universal, unless one has known the actual dogmas and chief principles of philosophy. This topic is therefore divided into two questions: whether it is useful or useless, and whether it can produce a good man by itself, that is, whether it is superfluous or renders all other things superfluous.

Those who wish this part to appear superfluous say this: "If anything opposes the eyes and delays the vision, it must be removed. As long as it is an object in the way, he who gives the precept—‘walk thus, stretch your hand out there’—wastes his effort."