Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
Letter 88: On liberal and vocational studies
Letter 88 answers a question about the liberal studies: Seneca respects none that aims at money, and finds in grammar, music, geometry and astronomy nothing that rids one of fear or bridles desire.
Only what concerns virtue deserves to be called free, and the rest is at best a preparation.
From the letter
Pronouncing syllables, investigating words, memorizing plays, or making rules for the scansion of poetry,—what is there in all this that rids one of fear, roots out desire, or bridles the passions?
The mathematician teaches me how to lay out the dimensions of my estates; but I should rather be taught how to lay out what is enough for a man to own.
The mathematician teaches me how I may lose none of my boundaries; I, however, seek to learn how to lose them all with a light heart.
You know what a straight line is; but how does it benefit you if you do not know what is straight in this life of ours?
However, those alone are really liberal—or rather, to give them a truer name, “free”—whose concern is virtue.
Coverage
Our editions hold 30 letters of 124 in Richard Mott Gummere’s translation (1917–1925); 29 of them have a page here, those that Joseph Baillard’s French translation (1861) also contains.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+ — 1 passage of this letter, with its reference; Marcus Aurelius is free in the app.