nd the truth about a life in which one can be at the top of the mountain one day and in prison awaiting execution the next. What had seemed to be clearly the best that life had to offer one day turned out to be meaningless the next. Philosophy teaches him that he had mistaken the means for the end: "Riches, honors, power, fame and pleasure . . . are found to be legitimate but partial objects of desire, but inadequate and disappointing as ends in themselves." In fact, "only God . . . can fully satisfy the desires of man's rational nature" (xv).
With regard to a personal theory of eudaemonism, or the study of happiness, especially as a consequence of the life committed to reason, Boethius' philosophy seems to be saying that one must begin such a study not with happiness but with misery. This is where Boethius himself begins, at the most miserable point of his life, just having lost everything in a sudden terrible turn of events, and now facing death in disgrace. If there is hope for him, it would seem that there would be hope for everyone.
Lady Philosophy argues that there is a long history of struggle between philosophy and the world. She says Boethius is going through precisely what Socrates went through, persecuted by the state for charges which were false, and finally put to death as punishment. The world is a place where wickedness is respected and goodness reviled. In such a world, it is easy to believe that there is no solid place to stand, no true moral code to follow, but Philosophy tells, or reminds Boethius that "The serene man who has ordered his life stands above menacing fate and unflinchingly faces good and bad fortune. This virtuous man can hold his head up unconquered" (9).
Such a man would be happy or have a sense of well-being which would carry him through the most difficult and painful situation, even unto death. The man of philosophy is he who has "ordered his life" by studying it and human existence in ge...