ABSTRACT
The classical conservative could understand suffering and the greatness of its value to man. From the desperate struggles of Roman moral and political life, the existential insight into the spirit of the conservative intellectual is clear. The conservative must present again the principle of moral duty, as it was presented to a failing classical society by the Stoics. Conservatism is the defense of a moral order in its final and existential meaning. The modern man of the crisis should be able to understand Marcus Tullius Cicero. He should be able to take the De Officiis in its setting and understand better his own critical moment. Through the centuries Cicero's De Officiis has been read by succeeding generations, and it has a relation to modern man were he disposed to indulge in ethical and moral inquiry. At the end of De Officiis, Cicero denounces Epicureanism and the doctrine that good and evil are pleasure and pain.
