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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 28

On real ethics as superior to syllogistic subtleties

117:28

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.

28.

How, I ask you, can that which is still nothing be already a Good?

And in what better way do you wish it to be proved to you that a certain thing is not, than to say: “It is yet to be”?

For it is clear that something which is on the way has not yet arrived. “Spring will follow”: I know that winter is here now. “Summer will follow:” I know that it is not summer.

The best proof to my mind that a thing is not yet present is that it is yet to be.