Seneca
The first lesson of philosophy is that we cannot be wise about everything.
We are fragments in infinity
and moments in eternity;
for such forked atoms to describe the universe,
or the Supreme Being,
must make the planets tremble with mirth.…One may prove out of his writings
that he was a monotheist, a pantheist,
a materialist, a Platonist,
a monist, a dualist.
Sometimes God is to him a personal Providence —
who watches over all,
“loves good men,” answers their prayers,
and helps them by divine grace;
in other passages God is the First Cause
in an unbroken chain of causes and effects,
and the ultimate force is Fate, “an irrevocable cause
which carries along human and divine affairs equally….
leading the willing and dragging the unwilling along.”
—-excerpt from The Story of Civilization by Will Durant
on De providentia by Lucius Anneus Seneca
One thought on “Seneca”
Great quote! That we humans believe we have a metaphysical handle on the true nature of the universe should “make the planets tremble with mirth.” Most of the philosophical musings that make sense to me, that connect to me on a personal level, are those that do not answer great questions about the meaning of life or expound of the reasons of being, but those that ask unanswerable questions. Questions that go to heart of the individual perspective and hold a mirror up to each person so that we may see deep within ourselves. For this reason, there can be no correct answer, no ultimately explanation for who and what we are or our “purpose” under the stars. Our species is at once much simpler and much more complex than we can ever know.
This Seneca guy was one smart cookie.