Key Arguments

• He redefines the conventional letter formula about bodily health into a wish for philosophical health: "We have good reason to say: ‘I trust this finds you in pursuit of wisdom.’ For this is precisely what is meant by good health."
• He declares the mind without wisdom to be diseased: "Without wisdom the mind is sick, and the body itself, however physically powerful, can only have the kind of strength that is found in persons in a demented or delirious state."
• He prescribes the proper ordering of concerns: "So this is the sort of healthiness you must make your principal concern. You must attend to the other sort as well, but see that it takes second place."
• He implies that bodily health is relatively easy if one does not exaggerate its importance: "It won’t cost you any great trouble if good health is all you want."

Source Quotes

O ancestors had a custom, observed right down as far as my own lifetime, of adding to the opening words of a letter: ‘I trust this finds you as it leaves me, in good health.’ We have good reason to say: ‘I trust this finds you in pursuit of wisdom.’ For this is precisely what is meant by good health. Without wisdom the mind is sick, and the body itself, however physically powerful, can only have the kind of strength that is found in persons in a demented or delirious state.

For this is precisely what is meant by good health. Without wisdom the mind is sick, and the body itself, however physically powerful, can only have the kind of strength that is found in persons in a demented or delirious state. So this is the sort of healthiness you must make your principal concern.

Without wisdom the mind is sick, and the body itself, however physically powerful, can only have the kind of strength that is found in persons in a demented or delirious state. So this is the sort of healthiness you must make your principal concern. You must attend to the other sort as well, but see that it takes second place. It won’t cost you any great trouble if good health is all you want.

You must attend to the other sort as well, but see that it takes second place. It won’t cost you any great trouble if good health is all you want. For it is silly, my dear Lucilius, and no way for an educated man to behave, to spend one’s time exercising the biceps, broadening the neck and shoulders and developing the lungs.

Key Concepts

• We have good reason to say: ‘I trust this finds you in pursuit of wisdom.’ For this is precisely what is meant by good health.
• Without wisdom the mind is sick, and the body itself, however physically powerful, can only have the kind of strength that is found in persons in a demented or delirious state.
• So this is the sort of healthiness you must make your principal concern. You must attend to the other sort as well, but see that it takes second place.
• It won’t cost you any great trouble if good health is all you want.

Context

At the beginning of Letter XV, Seneca takes the traditional epistolary wish for bodily health and reframes it as a wish that Lucilius be engaged in the pursuit of wisdom, arguing that mental health through philosophy is the only real health.