Work · Renaissance & Humanism
On Constancy
Dialogue set during the war in the Low Countries: the author flees his homeland but learns from his friend Langius that the remedy for public evils is not travel but constancy – a mind steadied by reason that accepts providence and necessity.
Introduction
Lipsius published “De constantia” in Antwerp in 1584, during the Dutch Revolt; it was reprinted many times and translated into most European languages. In two books of dialogue the author, fleeing the troubles of his homeland, meets the older Langius, who teaches him that travel cannot cure the disorders of the mind: only constancy, a strength of mind grounded in reason, can. Public evils are to be borne by recognising God’s providence and the necessity of events, and by seeing their usefulness and their universality. The book united Stoic ethics drawn from Seneca with Christian faith and became the founding text of European Neostoicism.
Connections
Builds on
- Letters to Luciliusc. 65 · Seneca
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