Consolation Of Philosophy

“Who [...] has allowed these hysterical sluts to approach this sick man's bedside? They have no medicine to ease his pains, only sweetened poisons to make them worse. These are the very creatures who slay the rich and fruitful harvest of Reason with the barren thorns of Passion.” 

These are the first words spoken by Philosophy as she stands by Boethius's bedside, revealing at once her commanding and imperious nature. The quote reflects a contrast commonly drawn in Boethius's day between poetry—understood as the realm of emotion and passion—and philosophy—understood as the realm of clear-headed reason. Philosophy arrives on the scene just as the Muses—the goddesses of poetry—minister Boethius and “takes over the show,” declaring that her medicine will be more suitable than the “sweetened poisons” of the Muses. 

“You are the man, are you not, who was brought up on the milk of my learning and fed on my own food until you reached maturity? I gave you arms to protect you and keep your strength unimpaired, but you threw them away.” 

Spoken a short time after the previous quote, this shows a contrasting tender and caring side to Philosophy, a gentle “nurse” who wants to heal Boethius with the medicine of wisdom. She implies that Boethius was brought up as a philosopher, but the cares of a political life caused him to discard and forget his philosophical background. 

“Fortune's very mutability deprives her threats of their terror and her enticements of their allure.” 

Philosophy declares that it is foolish to rail against fortune for doing what is in her very nature. The fact that she fluctuates constantly means that nothing she does is permanent, and fortunes will always change again. 

“No reins will serve to hold in check / The headlong course of appetite [...] No man is rich who shakes and groans / Convinced that he needs more.” 

This verse occurs in the context of the discussion of fortune. Philosophy sidesteps briefly into the subject of happiness and desires, anticipating the major theme of Book 3. The message is that unbridled desire for lesser goods leads us away from true happiness, which is based on the search for the true good which is God. 

“So nothing is miserable except when you think it so, and vice versa, all luck is good luck to the man who bears it with equanimity.” 

In this bit of positive wisdom, Philosophy comforts Boethius with the thought that all fortune is relative. Philosophy reminds Boethius of his many blessings—blessings that many less fortunate people would envy. Fortune and misfortune are always mixed together, and fortune is all in what we make of it. 

“Why then do you mortal men seek after happiness outside yourselves, when it lies within you?”

Anticipating Book 3, Philosophy touches on the subject of true happiness. Human beings are continually discontent with their lot because they are seeking happiness in things external to themselves. The most precious thing a person has is his own self, and this is something fortune can't take away. Happiness does not consist of things that can be taken away; therefore, happiness cannot consist of things that are governed by fortune and chance. 

“What is this power, then, which cannot banish the nagging of worry or avoid the pin-prick of fear? Kings would like to live free from worry, but they can't.” 

Philosophy is considering whether power can bring happiness. She concludes that, on the contrary, it brings with it a tremendous amount of worry as the powerful person struggles to secure his wealth and power. 

“[T]hat the end of pleasure is sorrow is known to everyone who cares to recall his own excesses.” 

Philosophy considers bodily pleasure as a source of happiness only briefly before dismissing it out of hand, for “its pursuit is full of anxiety and its fulfillment full of remorse” (59). Philosophy describes pleasure in terms of its excessive use, having the potential for illness and pain. 

“To see Thee is our end / Who are our source and maker, lord and path and goal.” 

This is one of the most explicit statements in the work about God as the end of all human knowledge. It occurs in the context of the Platonic prayer that Philosophy prays with Boethius as a benediction on their philosophical inquiry. According to translator Victor Watts, this specific phrase echoes language from the Gospel of John, one of the few references to Christianity found in Consolation. 

“But we have agreed that perfect good is true happiness; so it follows that true happiness is to be found in the supreme God.” 

This quote links with the theme of the previous quote, but in the more specific context of God as a center of happiness. After considering various things and activities which people consider sources of happiness, Boethius and Philosophy conclude that only God both embodies happiness and is a source of perfect happiness for us. 

“The chief point and reason, therefore, for seeking all things is goodness.” 

It is inconceivable to desire something unless it is (or appears) good. As St. Thomas Aquinas would later argue, even evil things are sought after because they appear good to the seeker. Thus, the good is the motivation for every pursuit. 

“So that evil is nothing, since that is what He cannot do who can do anything.” 

This quote reflects a common early Christian view—shared by St. Augustine, for example—that evil has no positive existence but is merely the privation or negation of the good. To say that God cannot do something in this sense is merely to affirm that, being the author of reason, he cannot do that which is self-contradictory. 

“[F]rom what I already admitted it follows that the good are powerful and the bad weak.” 

Philosophy argues that the wicked are inherently weak because they are unequipped to obtain the goal toward which they are naturally impelled. They will always be frustrated in their goal because they are confused about the nature of the good, which they equate with the satisfaction of their desires for power, money, and pleasure. 

“A thing exists when it keeps its proper place and preserves its own nature. Anything which departs from this ceases to exist, because its existence depends on the preservation of its nature.”

Philosophy is arguing that the existence of the wicked is not absolute and complete existence; it has been compromised and corrupted. She compares the wicked to a corpse, which we would define as “a dead man” but not “a man.” Similarly, the wicked have corrupted their nature and cannot be called fully human. As Philosophy states in the following chapter: “The result is that you cannot think of anyone as human whom you see transformed by wickedness” (94). For Boethius, as for classical thinkers in general, things have essences or natures that they must live up to. If they try to go against their nature, they do so at their own peril. 

“The proper way of looking at it is to regard the goal of every action as its reward, just as the prize for running in the stadium is the wreath of laurels for which the race is run.” 

This is part of Philosophy's argument that, as the popular phrase has it: “Virtue is its own reward.” The same goes for vice, which is its own punishment. Although on the surface it may seem that fortune deals out unjust rewards to the good and the wicked, we must understand that there is a reward or punishment inherent in the deeds themselves. 

“Then love the good, show pity for the bad.” 

Because actions are their own reward, then it follows that wicked actions make their perpetrators miserable. Thus, our proper response should be pity and a desire to bring them back to goodness and health. Philosophy argues that courts of law should excite sympathy for the guilty, “like sick men being brought to the doctor, so that their guilt could be cut back by punishment like a malignant growth” (101). Philosophy continues that “[a]mong wise men there is no place at all left for hatred” (101). 

“[God] looks out from the watch-tower of Providence, sees what suits each person, and applies to him whatever He knows is suitable.” 

Philosophy is describing how God distributes good and bad fortune to individuals, giving them whatever they need to help them in their journey toward the good. 

“And so sovereign Providence has often produced a remarkable effect—evil men making other evil men good.”

Human beings burn with hatred for evil men, but God has the power to make good out of evil. God, through correction and chastisement, often brings the wicked to self-awareness and reformation. What appears chaotic in the affairs of fortune and chance is only part of a different order that Providence is creating. 

“All fortune is certainly good.” 

Related to many of the previous quotes, this expresses succinctly the core of what Philosophy is trying to get Boethius to see: There is an overarching order to things as arranged by Providence. Closely allied to this is a quote from Book 2: “Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens” (44). 

“It is in your own hands what fortune you wish to shape for yourself, for the only function of adversity apart from discipline and correction, is punishment.”

Instead of becoming clay in the hands of fortune, we should take charge and decide what fortune will mean for us. Philosophy bids Boethius to “avoid falling victim to her when she is adverse or being corrupted by her when she is favorable” (113). Whichever way the wind blows, we can make constructive use of our fortune.

“Everything that is known is comprehended not according to its own nature, but according to the ability to know of those who do the knowing.” 

God's knowledge is on a higher plane than ours, able to grasp things in all their aspects and dimensions, while our knowledge is piecemeal and incomplete—segmented into the particular kinds of knowledge gained by sense, imagination, reason, and intelligence. More specifically, Philosophy intends this principle to support the idea that God's foreknowledge does not make our actions predetermined. 

“For just as the knowledge of present things imposes no necessity on what is happening, so foreknowledge imposes no necessity on what is going to happen.” 

This quote occurs during the long discussion on God's foreknowledge and free will. Philosophy is trying to make Boethius see that God's knowledge of what is going to happen does not mean that all actions are predetermined. Although God sees all future actions, some of these actions are the result of free will. 

“God has foreknowledge and rests a spectator from on high of all things; and as the ever present eternity of His vision dispenses reward to the good and punishment to the bad, it adapts itself to the future quality of our actions.” 

God exists outside of time, seeing all things as an eternal present. The fact that we may change our minds about what to do does not affect his foreknowledge at all. 

“Whatever lives in time exists in the present and progresses from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace simultaneously the whole extent of its life: it is in the position of not yet possessing tomorrow when it has already lost yesterday.” 

By contrast, this quote describes, the way we live. Those who are subject to time understand time as a succession of fleeting moments segmenting into past, present, and future.