Cicero De officiis; or, His treatise concerning the moral duties of mankind. To which are subjoined, His Moral paradoxews; The vision of Scipio, concerning the future state; and His Letter on the duties of a magistrate. With notes and historical explanatory

Front matter

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Preface

The following is a collection of uninspired knowledge the most extensively useful of any ever published. It has served as a storehouse from whence all writers since the days of Cicero who have treated either of morals or ethics, have not only adorned but furnished their works. Divines have borrowed their systems, legislators their constitutions, statesmen their maxims, and magistrates their practice, from our author's Treatise de Officiis which may properly be termed the whole duty of man, as practised by the moral part of the heathen world before revelation took place. Our holy religion was so far from altering or depressing Cicero's doctrines, that it ennobled and improved them; so that they may justly be looked upon as containing a system of unrevealed Christianity.

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But it is amazing to see how a great name springing from excellencies, for which perhaps its owner is indebted to others, can absorb the lustre of its benefactors. Pansetius was the real original author of Cicero's book upon the Moral Duties, but the name of Pansetius as a philosopher, is as obscure as those of Hortensius, Crassus, Lucullus, and other great men are as orators. The lustre of Cicero has swallowed up their fame, and their literary merits would hardly be mentioned were it not for his writings.

This is not the only unjust effect that the great name of a man produces in admiring posterity, for it not only obscures brightness in others, but brightens defects in himself. The characteristic excellency of Cicero was eloquence ; he had scarcely another merit, I had almost said scarcely another virtue. He more than once owns that all the Greek learning he studied was with a view to improve himself in that art; and there cannot be a doubt that all his philosophical writings are taken from the Greeks. Many proofs of this are yet extant, but many more have perished through the injury of time, and the universality of his language, which rendered his originals dry, tedious, troublesome, and therefore disregarded by the public. Very different has been the fate of Cicero's writings, for his eloquence and his great command of expression give such liveliness to

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the most barren subjects he handles, that the ignorant learned his doctrine because they loved his writing", while the knowing loved his writing because they improved by his doctrine.

In vain do we look back to Cicero's practice, for the virtues of a philosopher or a patriot ; yet no man ever understood them better than Cicero did in theory, because the study of them is the indispensable requisite of eloquence. But it was only as an orator that he was acquainted with them ; as a man, his conduct was if possible, below contempt itself. When divested of the orator, when he suffers the anguish of affliction,, to bereave him of his eloquence, when he pours forth his soul to his friends in the language of nature, how despicable does he appear ? How unlike a Cato, a Brutus, a Socrates, a Charles the First, a More, or a Russel ?

A similar observation may be made with regard to his writings, especially the following Treatise concerning the Moral Duties. That part of it in which he has followed Pansetius, is sensible, clear, and undeniable, in most of its definitions, descriptions, and inferences ; but having little room for introducing into any part of it his favourite accomplishment, he is sometimes dry, tedious, and tautologous, and it is easy to see when he deviates from the accurate Greek, in order to give himself the air of an original. On the other hand, when he formallly separates

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from Panaetius, as he does at the end of the second Book, and when he as it were sets up for himself, how very different is then his manner from the preceding part of the Work ? He there indulges his natural vein. The encomiums he runs into upon Regulus and his other countrymen, are indeed the most pleasing part of the Work, because the most sentimental, but they are unphilosophical and declamatory. While he reasons concerning the obligation of an oath, he hampers himself by admitting the possibility that Providence takes no concern in human actions. In short, all that part, though extremely beautiful is destitute of that precision and closeness that are required from a philosopher, and which are visible in all our author's philosophical writings when he follows the Greeks.

The conferences concerning Old Age and Friendship, are as highly finished and as fine performances as perhaps ever appeared in any language ; for their subjects are such as admit the most beautiful touches of his art, which he has every where introduced into them with the utmost propriety. But above all, we may remark how wonderfully cautious he is when he speaks as a philosopher and in his own person, and how unreserved as an orator. In his Treatise concerning the Moral Duties, the mention he makes of Providence and a

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future state is rather unfavourable than otherwise to those two articles ; and seriously speaking, it is not quite clear that Cicero believed either of them. It is true that we often find him inculcating them in his writings, but it is always in the declamatory way, because the belief of those two important doctrines gave a glow to his eloquence as an orator, and flattered his vanity as a man. It is in this light that I consider all the beautiful passages of his Orations, in which he declaims with such spirit upon the immortality of the soul, and the existence of a future state. In like manner the fine sentiments which he puts into the mouths of his Cato, his Laelius, and his Scipio upon the same subject, are all of them accommodated only to oratorical purposes, and our author as a philosopher had always a ready excuse for those doctrines which he puts into the mouths of others, or which he himself preaches up as an orator. With him the phrase oratorio dictum signifies the very same thing as poetici dictum signifies among the poets.

Notwithstanding this, I cannot absolutely pronounce that Cicero disbelieved either the immortality of the soul, or the existence of Providence. It is certain that without the belief of both, all the plans of philosophy which he inculcates and lays down with so much accuracy in the various parts of his writings must be very ineffectual for the service of mankind.

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In the following pieces he seems to have selected whatever was most probable and rational from all the various sects of philosophers. Though the reader who is acquainted with the vast modern improvements in natural philosophy and astronomy, may smile at the fanciful description which Scipio gives us in his vision of the system of nature, yet he will not find that moral philosophy has improved in proportion to natural. He will perceive that it is to Cicero we owe what is most valuable in Grotius, in PuffendorfF, in Cumberland, in Woolaston, and hundreds of other writers, and even in some of the fathers, who were perpetually abusing and imitating him. He will confess that in one respect our author stands yet unrivalled, and that is in the gracefulness and the propriety with which he introduces his subjects. When he is to lay down in the following volume a plan of virtuous life, and for the discharge of all the moral duties, he addresses it to his son, with whom he can be supposed to have no reserve, and to whom he unfolds the real sentiments of his own heart. When he recommends the means of making Old Age happy, he puts his sentiments in the mouth of the elder Cato, the great example of what he there describes. When he treats of virtuous Friendship, he takes advantage of the character of a Laelius, whose friendship with Scipio has been so celebrated ; and the im-

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mortality of the soul is solemnly inculcated upon the younger, by the elder Africanus.

These two are undoubtedly the greatest and most amiable characters that ever Rome produced, and to the elder perhaps we owe our Treatise De Officiis. For not contented to carry his country's military glories to a much greater height than they ever had been at before, he strove to make her as great in arts as in arms. The truth is, when the elder Scipio entered upon life, the learning of the Romans was very despicable, and their taste barbarous. He improved the one, and reformed the other. He had about him none of that unamiable haughtiness, none of those horrid virtues, upon which his countrymen so much valued themselves. He joined the activity of the Roman to the politeness of the Greek ; and crowned all with those moral virtues that were uncommon in either. But it was not enough that he practised them himself, for he communicated them to his country. He first taught the Romans how to engraft the elegance of manners upon the practice of morality, and he had the happy art of making business and amusement subservient to each other ; while all his actions had an air of ease which gave his enemies a handle to accuse him of indolence. This produced an inquiry into his conduct, which turned out so much to his advantage that they were forced to acknow-

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ledge that Scipio was the most indefatigable of mankind, and that his equal never was known in application, despatch, and regularity.

Such was the patron of Pansetius, the author of what is most valuable in the following Treatise upon the Moral Duties. The elder Africanus in all his actions and character was so well followed by the younger, that the life both in public and private of the latter, was but a transcript of the former.

I have thought myself obliged to do this justice to those two great Romans, because it was in the school of arts founded by them, that our author acquired his eloquence. Their example gave the manners of the noble Romans, a turn to learning and the polite arts, which created amongst them an emulation that was of the utmost service to literature, and which our author availed himself of so critically, that from an obscure birth he arrived at the highest honours his country could bestow.

With regard to the following translation, I have observed the same method that I did in translating the other pieces of Cicero. I have considered him equally as an author and as a writer ; that is, I have equally studied his matter and his manner. Doctor Cockman undoubtedly understood him as an author as well as any man, but in his translation we see nothing of the writer. Provided he expresses the sense of the

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author, he cares not in what poor inelegant terms he does it ; and his inattention to the beauties of both languages, I mean that which he translates into, and translates from, seems to render another translation expedient, if not necessary.

Some of the following pieces appeared in English, almost as early as the art of printing itself did in England. A translation of De Officiis was printed by Caxton, in the year 1481. The famous Sir John Falstaff, our Shakepeare's favourite character, at the age of fourscore recommended to the same Caxton the printing a translation of our author's Conference concerning Old Age, which Caxton accordingly executed, and dedicated it together with an English translation of the Conference concerning Friendship, to king Edward IV. In Caxton's preface we are told that the translation was performed by the Earl of Worcester, who afterwards lost his head in the civil wars of England. The Treatise De Officiis has been since several times translated into English, particularly by L'Estrange, but as he seems to have done it from a very bad translation of the French, I should not have mentioned his performance had it not been that it had such great success. I have likewise seen several French translations of the following pieces, but they are so truly French, that they deserve no particular mention.

The Paradoxes, which the reader will like-

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wise find in this volume, are a kind of philosophical exercises which are executed with wonderful spirit, and they have by many learned men been preferred to any piece of our author. The reader will perhaps be pleased to compare the character which he gives of Cato's eloquence with the speech put into his mouth by Sallust.

This volume would not have been complete, without the excellent political letter wrote by our author to his brother. The doctrine it conveys is of general use to all magistrates, and in all countries, and it is laid down in a very happy manner. The flattery it contains was necessary to make the subject go down with a man so haughty and so choleric as Quintus was. Meanwhile, the reader will perceive with what unlimited powers the governors of the Roman provinces were vested. Their own edicts seem to have been their Jaws, and the injured had no relief but by an application to Rome, and to judges who were too much interested to do them justice, because they might themselves next day, be in the condition of the impeached.

POSTSCRIPT.

It is said of a late English nobleman, who was distinguished by a fine taste in architecture, and by a noble collection of every thing relating to that art, that he was struck with surprise at the model of a beautiful church he saw in Italy, and greedily inquiring where the original was to be seen, he was told in London, where his lordship had spent most of his life. I own the same, in one respect, is somewhat my own case. For though I have had through my hands, I believe, about fifty different editions of Cicero's Offices in the original, I never knew that the very best one was printed within these ten years at London, till I saw it lately by chance mentioned in the end of an advertisement, at the latter part of a newspaper. The edition I mean, is that of Doctor Pearce, now Lord Bishop of Bangor, illustrated with his lordship's and Doctor Chapman's excellent notes.

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This omission, unaccountable as it was, gave me however a sensible pleasure when upon a review and a comparison, I found I had executed my undertaking almost in the same manner as if I had applied to that powerful auxiliary, whose assistance had I had it, would at once' have deprived me of great satisfaction, and have saved me from great labour.

I can esteem where I do not adore, I can ackno wledge merit where I cannot place infallibility ; he is a despicable writer, who in literary matters pins his faith upon any human authority ; and a weak man who cannot differ with another without acrimony, or vindicate himself without ill manners. I have through the course of the following notes, made free with several great authorities who have commented upon, or translated the Treatise De Officiis, and if the reader should compare my translation and notes, with his lordship's edition and notes, he will find that I have in several passages understood my author in a sense different from that of his lordship. It is therefore a piece of respect that I owe not only to my readers, but to his lordship's great erudition, to give my reasons, why I have not thought proper to alter the passages in question.

I cannot be of his lordship's opinion in his note, p. 32. (p. 18. 1. 8. of the translation) upon the words in alterum incidunt. His lordship

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thinks there is no sense in saying, that while men are practising one part of the moral duties and fall upon another, they are therefore to blame. I own, that before I saw his lordship's edition I had no doubt in my own mind, that incidere in aliquod may signify to fail, to break short, or to trip in a matter. De Oratore 1. 2. cap. 82. Inciditur omnis Deliberation all debate breaks short or is at an end. Incidens Vox, a faultering pronunciation. With numberless other instances.

In the passage before us, it has a peculiar propriety ; because of the words assequuntur and impediti.

I agree with his lordship in thinking the passage in p. 51, (that critics have thought not to be genuine) is Cicero's.

His lordship, p< 53, (p. 27. 1. 3. of the translation) in his note upon the word capitalior seems to think it necessarily implies a criminal sense ; and as such, he introduces an alteration of the text in p. 341. I had, before I saw his lordship's edition, given my reasons (see translation p. 192 and 193, in the note) why I did not think that the word capitalist necessarily implies a criminal sense.

But in the passage p. 53, of his lordship's edition, the sense is precisely the same, if the word is translated the most guilty villain, as the chief or the capital villain.

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I had translated the words (p. 38. 1. 5. of the translation), p. 72, of his lordship's edition, quo difficilius, hoc pr&clarius, " The more difficult the task of correcting this abuse is, it is the more glorious," and I have not altered the passage, though his lordship takes it in another sense, viz. " But the more difficult it is to practise justice while we aim at excellency, it is the more glorious." I am far from condemning this sense, nay I should have entirely embraced it, had it not been for the immediately following words in the original, which make me think that the passage is one of the many oblique reflections that Cicero throws out in this work against the government of Caesar and his followers, whose practices he here describes.

His lordship's remark upon the expression, p. 73, of his edition, et Glorice Cupiditate, is certainly just, and I own it did not occur to me ; but the manner in which I have translated the whole passage is so little different from his lorship's sense of it, that I scarcely think it requires any alteration.

In the note upon the words Mtitudo Animi, p. 92 (p. 50. 1. 23, translation), I beg leave to differ widely from his lordship. I have translated the whole passage, " A smoothness, or what we may call a depth of temper," and I can see no reason from his lordship's note for altering it. And I found Aptitudo, the word he wants

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to substitute in the text, I should have understood it ; but had another critic suggested Alti* tudo, I should have liked it much better. That Altitudo may signify depth, his lordship seems to allow ; and there scarcely can be a doubt that facilis especially in our author, many times signifies smooth, and that smoothness is the effect of depth in water is generally admitted and experienced; therefore the objection his lordship brings against the impropriety of the period, I think vanishes. Not to mention that his lordship observes Aptitudo to be no where else used by our author ; and that the allusions of the mind to the sea are frequent in Cicero. Add to this, that his lordship himself mentions our author making use of Altitudo animi in his oratorial partitions ; and if the reader consults that passage he will find he does it in the very sense contended for here, viz. that depth of temper which is required under a free state in a great man, who wants to rise or to rule, and which conceals the great variety of provocations which an abuse of liberty may expose him to.

I have translated the passage of note (8) p. 107, (p. 59. 1. 13. Translation) in his lordship's sense, but his lordship seems to be mistaken in the principle of his opposition to the common reading ; and that from his not attending to the meaning of the word quidem which with our

b

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author often, if not generally, is almost the same with Saltern, at least. In this sense the sentence objected to by his lordship will run thus. " The one kind of wit is worthy a man, the other is unworthy, at least of a gentleman. " I agree, however, with his lordship, that his reading makes better sense.

This leads me to his lordship's note (9) p. 153, (p. 83. 1. 20. Translation) where he objects to the reading from which I have translated the passage there referred to; for says he every thing that is worthy a Homo, is worthy a Liber ; because adds he afterwards, the idea of the human kind comprehends the Libert as well as the Servi. But his lordship in this place does not seem to attend, that Liber is not put in contradistinction to Servus, but to Homo, and signifies a man of fortune and education.

I cannot imagine how his lordship comes to think that the words in p. 158. (p. 86. 1. 16. Translation) which he has enclosed within crotchets are misplaced, for I think nothing can come more naturally to strengthen our author's argument.

The words in p. 164, (in p. 90. 1. 1. Translation), Aut quid maxime utile, which his lordship thinks does not belong to Cicero, are translated by me without any such mark of reprobation ; nor even after reading his lordship's objection to them do I find any reason to be of

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another opinion than that they are genuine. Cicero proposes to treat of the Utilia, and amongst the Vtilia, which is Utilius, or Magis utile, and which is Utilissimum, or Maxime utile. His lordship thinks that utilius and maxime utile are the same. But whoever attends to the thread of our author's reasoning, which is professedly antistoical, must see that he lays down all the three degrees ; and admits that a thing may be more useful or profitable than another, and yet not profitable in the highest degree. In like manner as he lays it down, that virtue is either Sola expetenda, or that it is maxime expetenda, i. e. " The only desireable object," or " of all objects, the most desirable." I agree with his lordship in his notes (5 and 6) p. 165 and 166, but I have translated the passages (p. 90. 1. 28. Translation) differently from the sense in which Doctor Cockman has translated them, and in which I believe, his lordship understands them. For I have translated the words Agendo and Actiones literally, but Doctor Cockman translates Actiones, public orations. Now, I think it much safer to translate it conduct, because that word comprehends not only bis pleadings and politics, but the whole of his public life, upon which he tells Lentulus, Epist. ad Fam. 9. he had wrote three books. Upon the whole, I do not remember that in all this Treatise Cicero once has the word Actio signifying a

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pleading, though he frequently uses it in the sense in which I have translated it.

I entirely agree with the note (5) that has Chapman at the end of it, p. 180. His lordship thinks note (1) p. 211. that the copulative bought there to be left out. 1 have indeed translated it (p. 115. 1. 14. Translation) in that manner, but I do not understand the passage in the same manner with his lordship. Facilis in our author, does not always signify what we in English term easy. Ready is here and often elsewhere the sense of that word, and as such it corresponds extremely well with our author's meaning, which is to show the great advantages which an early prepossession of the public of a young man are to him ; and that that prepossession may be readily acquired by the ap-> pearance of his attaching himself to men of learning and virtue.

His lordship's note (6) p. 234. (p. 128. 1. 17. Translation) is I apprehend, built upon a mistaken fact. For according to Cicero's words (of which his lordship does not impeach the reading) the fact was, that even when Cimon lived at Athens, his house in that city was open to those of his tribe ; that he had ordered his economy so ; and that though he was not in the country himself, his villas were likewise open to them.

P. 237. note (3) his lordship here adopts a

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note from Manutius which I was dissatisfied with, when I was translating the passage (see the Translation p. 129. 1. 28.) where I have translated it, who readily toils, nor can I see the propriety of the note of Manutius.

I should be of his lordship's opinion in note (8) p. 240. (p. 132. 1. 5. Translation) were it not that the word Modestum, which our author joins with Probum, signifies the very same thing that his lordship contends the word probus does. The scope of the note, however, is certainly just, but I think not quite applicable to this passage.

P. 261. note (9) may be just, but I think the manner in which I have translated the passage answers pretty well to our author's meaning, and is defensible from his lordship's objections to the common reading of the original. See Translation p. 143. 1. 5.

I can by no means be of his lordship's opinion, note (2) p. 263. (p. 143. 1. 17. Translation.) The whole of the passage has an air of ridicule ; and I apprehend there was as great a difference between the Romans who laid out (as Atticus and other men of property did) their money at legal interest, and the Fceneratores ad medium Janum sedentes, as there is between the directors of our public companies and the sharks of Exchange-alley.

I caunot agree either with his lordship or

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Doctor Chapman in their notes, p. 200 and 201 note (2) (p. 110. 1. 1. Translation) Doctor Chapman thinks that Majores cannot be understood in the sense I have taken it, because says he, it is incompatible with Tully's philosophy; but I can by no means be of that opinion. Our author in all this work disclaims systematical philosophy, and nothing can be more agreeable to his way of thinking than that some powers of the soul are fitted for magnanimity, &c. and that these are the sublimer faculties of the mind which pleasures may thus warp ; and which are opposed to that yielding to pleasure spoken of immediately before. In like manner Cicero allots fervency to be the property of certain great minds, and not of others, vide 1.1. De Offic. chap. 15. Besides the word Plerique which immediately follows would be superfluous if we were to understand it in the Doctor's sense, viz. the greatest part of mankind.

I have nothing to object to his lordship's emendation, note (1) p. 286. excepting that he lays it down as being more than conjecture. But however plausible it may be, I can retract nothing of what I have said in my note upon the same passage (p. 159. see note Translation.) The old philosophers almost of all denominations admitted that the unjust affections of the mind were the greatest of all evils. " Therefore (says our author) a man rather than break into

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the laws of society will endure the greatest hardships of body and fortune ; he will likewise endure the greatest anguish of mind (excepting that anguish which arises from passions dishonest in themselves, and which give rise to the very evil here complained of), that is, he will endure all kind of afflictions on account of his nearest and tenderest concerns/' I repeat it again, that I have nothing to object to his lordship's sense of this passage, but if we admit of conjectures not warranted by any manuscripts, it is hard to say where the practice may stop.

And for that reason I cannot agree with the conjecture of Manutius, which his lordship recommends note (4) p. 296. I have in my note upon that passage (p. 165. Translation) given my reasons for the sense in which I have translated it. I have there, indeed, blamed the obvious acceptation of the common reading, but upon a review I should choose to adopt it, rather than a reading that is warranted only by conjecture. In short I cannot see the least foundation for that jealousy which his lordship seems to entertain for our author's principles if the common reading is not altered ; for I know no passage in this work less liable to an exception of this kind, even if we suffer the common reading to stand.

His lordship, p. 307. note (3) seems to approve of Olivet's alteration of Utilitas toVilitas,

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but I can see no manner of reason for it, and therefore, have followed (p. 173. 1. 29. Translation) the allowed reading.

I have nothing to object to his lordship's note (7) p. 317. (p. 179. 1. 9. Translation) but admitting the justness of it, I see no reason for altering my translation of the passage. I believe however, it is no unusual thing for brokers to be in combinations, even of the kind his lordship thinks to be improbable, and that many a fine picture for instance, has gone at an under value by men, who were reputed to have skill, putting them up at auctions at a small value, and after bidding a very little more, letting them fall into the hands of those with whom they are in combination.