Scipio. Well, then, when you are angry, do you permit your anger to triumph over your judgment?
No, by Hercules! said Lælius; I imitate the famous Archytas of Tarentum, who, when he came to his villa, and found all its arrangements were contrary to his orders, said to his steward, “Ah! you unlucky scoundrel, I would flog you to death, if it were not that I am in a rage with you.”
Capital, said Scipio. Archytas, then, regarded unreasonable anger as a kind of sedition and rebellion of nature which he sought to appease by reflection. And so, if we examine avarice, the ambition of power or of glory, or the lusts of concupiscence and licentiousness, we shall find a certain conscience in the mind of man, which, like a king, sways by the force of counsel all the inferior faculties and propensities; and this, in truth, is the noblest portion of our nature; for when conscience reigns, it allows no resting-place to lust, violence, or temerity.
Lælius. You have spoken the truth.
Scipio. Well, then, does a mind thus governed and regulated meet your approbation?
Lælius. More than anything upon earth.
Scipio. Then you would not approve that the evil passions, which are innumerable, should expel conscience, and that lusts and animal propensities should assume an ascendency over us?
Lælius. For my part, I can conceive nothing more wretched than a mind thus degraded, or a man animated by a soul so licentious.
389Scipio. You desire, then, that all the faculties of the mind should submit to a ruling power, and that conscience should reign over them all?
Lælius. Certainly, that is my wish.