Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 1

to strive to catch new phrases and floral ornaments, like boys chasing butterflies, little concerned with the internal, true, and fitting force of their passages, and they apply themselves with greater ardor to appearing to have marked out and said something new, while showing off their own mental acumen, than to directing their mind simply and candidly to explaining the whole and true intent of the authors.

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Therefore, I shall discuss some generalities concerning this renowned work of Seneca, divided in two ways: so that in the first part I may deal with its argument or subject matter, compared with those things that are not contained under the same genus and related to its inscription; in the second, I shall treat the remaining matters that must be investigated concerning it, namely, what kind of work it is. Here will pertain, in the first place, the sources from which he drew; in the second, the cause, reason, and plan that moved him to write; in the third, the people and persons to whom he wrote; in the fourth, the time at which he composed this work; fifth, and finally, its quality and the author’s merit regarding the study of nature. And here, indeed, it will be demanded whether a certain integrity and established order exists in these Questions, either by the hand and work of scribes or by the will and plan of Seneca; and it will be investigated how both of those can be vindicated for them, and with what better order Seneca could have arranged and treated both the entirety of these questions and the individual ones.

I.

Seneca prefaces the first book with how serious that part of philosophy is which he is about to treat (§ 1, 2, 3), rebukes men who do not lift themselves above their corporeal nature, being content not to be the worst (4), not being truly blessed (5), even if they are very rich and powerful (6, 7)—by which he pricks the Caesars, whose power is meager compared to the world (8)—and [states that] the mind that lifts itself is the only one truly blessed (9, 10), despising earthly things (11), and happy in the contemplation of God (12), who created and ordered the world, which many think to be fortuitous (13), and [that he is] alien to the errors of others concerning these things (14), and that, having cast these aside, he strives to unearth the truth by meditating, lifted above himself (15).