For I allow that in what you have stated the one proposition is the consequence of the other; that as, if what is honorable be the only good, it must follow that a happy life is the effect of virtue: so that if a happy life consists in virtue, nothing can be good but virtue.

But your friend Brutus, on the authority of Aristo and Antiochus, does not see this; for he thinks the case would be the same even if there were anything good besides virtue.
_M._ What, then?
do you imagine that I am going to argue against Brutus?
_A._ You may do what you please; for it is not for me to prescribe what you shall do.
_M._ How these things agree together shall be examined somewhere else; for I frequently discussed that point with Antiochus, and lately with Aristo, when, during the period of my command as general, I was lodging with him at Athens.

For to me it seemed that no one could possibly be happy under any evil; but a wise man might be afflicted with evil, if there are any things arising from body or fortune deserving the name of evils.

These things were said, which Antiochus has inserted in his books in many places--that virtue itself was sufficient to make life happy, but yet not perfectly happy; and that many things derive their names from the predominant portion of them, though they do not include everything, as strength, health, riches, honor, and glory: which qualities are determined by their kind, not their number.

Thus a happy life is so called from its being so in a great degree, even though it should fall short in some point.