Putting, then, all such theories aside, we bring the argument to a practical issue.  Self-preservation is the first great principle of nature; and so strong is this instinctive love of life both among men and animals, that we see even the iron-hearted Stoic shrink from the actual pangs of a voluntary death.  Then comes the question, What is this nature that is so precious to each of us?  Clearly it is compounded of body and mind, each with many virtues of its own; but as the mind should rule the body, so reason, as the dominant faculty, should rule the mind.  Virtue itself is only “the perfection of this reason”, and, call it what you will, genius or intellect is something divine.

Furthermore, there is in man a gradual progress of reason, growing with his growth until it has reached perfection.  Even in the infant there are “as it were sparks of virtue”—­half-unconscious principles of love and gratitude; and these germs bear fruit, as the child develops into the man.  We have also an instinct which attracts us towards the pursuit of wisdom; such is the true meaning of the Sirens’ voices in the Odyssey, says the philosopher, quoting from the poet of all time: 

  “Turn thy swift keel and listen to our lay;
  Since never pilgrim to these regions came,
  But heard our sweet voice ere he sailed away,
  And in his joy passed on, with ampler mind".[1]

It is wisdom, not pleasure, which they offer.  Hence it is that men devote their days and nights to literature, without a thought of any gain that may accrue from it; and philosophers paint the serene delights of a life of contemplation in the islands of the blest.

[Footnote 1:  Odyss. xii. 185 (Worsley).]

Again, our minds can never rest.  “Desire for action grows with us;” and in action of some sort, be it politics or science, life (if it is to be life at all) must be passed by each of us.  Even the gambler must ply the dice-box, and the man of pleasure seek excitement in society.  But in the true life of action, still the ruling principle should be honour.

Such, in brief, is Piso’s (or rather Cicero’s) vindication of the old masters of philosophy.  Before they leave the place, Cicero fires a parting shot at the Stoic paradox that the ‘wise man’ is always happy.  How. he pertinently asks, can one in sickness and poverty, blind, or childless, in exile or in torture, be possibly called happy, except by a monstrous perversion of language?[1]

[Footnote 1:  In a little treatise called “Paradoxes”, Cicero discusses six of these scholastic quibbles of the Stoics.]

Here, somewhat abruptly, the dialogue closes; and Cicero pronounces no judgment of his own, but leaves the great question almost as perplexed as when he started the discussion.  But, of the two antagonistic theories, he leans rather to the Stoic than to the Epicurean.  Self-sacrifice and honour seem, to his view, to present a higher ideal than pleasure or expediency.