fainting is the associate and constant attendant on dread; confusion, a fear that drives away all thought; alarm, a continued fear.
136IX. The different species into which they divide pleasure come under this description; so that malevolence is a pleasure in the misfortunes of another, without any advantage to yourself; delight, a pleasure that soothes the mind by agreeable impressions on the ear. What is said of the ear may be applied to the sight, to the touch, smell, and taste. All feelings of this kind are a sort of melting pleasure that dissolves the mind. Boastfulness is a pleasure that consists in making an appearance, and setting off yourself with insolence.—The subordinate species of lust they define in this manner: Anger is a lust of punishing any one who, as we imagine, has injured us without cause. Heat is anger just forming and beginning to exist, which the Greeks call θύμωσις. Hatred is a settled anger. Enmity is anger waiting for an opportunity of revenge. Discord is a sharper anger conceived deeply in the mind and heart. Want an insatiable lust. Regret is when one eagerly wishes to see a person who is absent. Now here they have a distinction; so that with them regret is a lust conceived on hearing of certain things reported of some one, or of many, which the Greeks call κατηγορήματα, or predicaments; as that they are in possession of riches and honors: but want is a lust for those very honors and riches. But these definers make intemperance the fountain of all these perturbations; which is an absolute revolt from the mind and right reason—a state so averse to all rules of reason that the appetites of the mind can by no means be governed and restrained. As, therefore, temperance appeases these desires, making them obey right reason, and maintains the well-weighed judgments of the mind, so intemperance, which is in opposition to this, inflames, confounds, and puts every state of the mind into a violent motion. Thus, grief and fear, and every other perturbation of the mind, have their rise from intemperance.
X. Just as distempers and sickness are bred in the body from the corruption of the blood, and the too great abundance of phlegm and bile, so the mind is deprived of its health, and disordered with sickness, from a confusion of depraved opinions that are in opposition to one another. From these perturbations arise, first, diseases, which they call νοσήματα; and also those feelings which are in opposition 137to these diseases, and which admit certain faulty distastes or loathings; then come sicknesses, which are called ἀῤῥωστήματα by the Stoics, and these two have their opposite aversions. Here the Stoics, especially Chrysippus, give themselves unnecessary trouble to show the analogy which the diseases of the mind have to those of the body: but, overlooking all that they say as of little consequence, I shall treat only of the thing itself. Let us, then, understand perturbation to imply a restlessness from the variety and confusion of contradictory opinions; and that when this heat and disturbance of the mind is of any standing, and has taken up its residence, as it were, in the veins and marrow, then commence diseases and sickness, and those aversions which are in opposition to these diseases and sicknesses.
XI. What I say here may be distinguished in thought, though they are in fact the same; inasmuch as they both have their rise from lust and joy. For should money be the object of our desire, and should we not instantly apply to reason, as if it were a kind of Socratic medicine to heal this desire, the evil glides into our veins, and cleaves to our bowels, and from thence proceeds a distemper or sickness, which, when it is of any continuance, is incurable, and the name of this disease is covetousness. It is the same with other diseases; as the desire of glory, a passion for women, to which the Greeks give the name of φιλογυνεία: and thus all other diseases and sicknesses are generated. But those feelings which are the contrary of these are supposed to have fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women, such as is displayed in the Woman-hater of Atilius; or the hatred of the whole human species, as Timon is reported to have done, whom they call the Misanthrope. Of the same kind is inhospitality. And all these diseases proceed from a certain dread of such things as they hate and avoid. But they define sickness of mind to be an overweening opinion, and that fixed and deeply implanted in the heart, of something as very desirable which is by no means so. What proceeds from aversion, they define thus: a vehement idea of something to be avoided, deeply implanted, and inherent in our minds, when there is no reason for avoiding it; and this kind of opinion is a deliberate 138belief that one understands things of which one is wholly ignorant. Now, sickness of the mind has all these subordinate divisions: avarice, ambition, fondness for women, obstinacy, gluttony, drunkenness, covetousness, and other similar vices. But avarice is a violent opinion about money, as if it were vehemently to be desired and sought after, which opinion is deeply implanted and inherent in our minds; and the definition of all the other similar feelings resembles these. But the definitions of aversions are of this sort: inhospitality is a vehement opinion, deeply implanted and inherent in your mind, that you should avoid a stranger. Thus, too, the hatred of women, like that felt by Hippolytus, is defined; and the hatred of the human species like that displayed by Timon.
XII. But to come to the analogy of the state of body and mind, which I shall sometimes make use of, though more sparingly than the Stoics. Some men are more inclined to particular disorders than others; and, therefore, we say that some people are rheumatic, others dropsical, not because they are so at present, but because they are often so: some are inclined to fear, others to some other perturbation. Thus in some there is a continual anxiety, owing to which they are anxious; in some a hastiness of temper, which differs from anger, as anxiety differs from anguish: for all are not anxious who are sometimes vexed, nor are they who are anxious always uneasy in that manner: as there is a difference between being drunk and drunkenness; and it is one thing to be a lover, another to be given to women. And this disposition of particular people to particular disorders is very common: for it relates to all perturbations; it appears in many vices, though it has no name. Some are, therefore, said to be envious, malevolent, spiteful, fearful, pitiful, from a propensity to those perturbations, not from their being always carried away by them. Now this propensity to these particular disorders may be called a sickness from analogy with the body; meaning, that is to say, nothing more than a propensity towards sickness. But with regard to whatever is good, as some are more inclined to different good qualities than others, we may call this a facility or tendency: this tendency to evil is a proclivity or inclination to falling; 139but where anything is neither good nor bad, it may have the former name.
XIII. Even as there may be, with respect to the body, a disease, a sickness, and a defect, so it is with the mind. They call that a disease where the whole body is corrupted; they call that sickness where a disease is attended with a weakness, and that a defect where the parts of the body are not well compacted together; from whence it follows that the members are misshapen, crooked, and deformed. So that these two, a disease and sickness, proceed from a violent concussion and perturbation of the health of the whole body; but a defect discovers itself even when the body is in perfect health. But a disease of the mind is distinguishable only in thought from a sickness. But a viciousness is a habit or affection discordant and inconsistent with itself through life. Thus it happens that, in the one case, a disease and sickness may arise from a corruption of opinions; in the other case, the consequence may be inconstancy and inconsistency. For every vice of the mind does not imply a disunion of parts; as is the case with those who are not far from being wise men. With them there is that affection which is inconsistent with itself while it is foolish; but it is not distorted, nor depraved. But diseases and sicknesses are parts of viciousness; but it is a question whether perturbations are parts of the same, for vices are permanent affections: perturbations are such as are restless; so that they cannot be parts of permanent ones. As there is some analogy between the nature of the body and mind in evil, so is there in good; for the distinctions of the body are beauty, strength, health, firmness, quickness of motion: the same may be said of the mind. The body is said to be in a good state when all those things on which health depends are consistent: the same may be said of the mind when its judgments and opinions are not at variance with one another. And this union is the virtue of the mind, which, according to some people, is temperance itself; others make it consist in an obedience to the precepts of temperance, and a compliance with them, not allowing it to be any distinct species of itself. But, be it one or the other, it is to be found only in a wise man. But there is a certain 140soundness of mind, which even a fool may have, when the perturbation of his mind is removed by the care and management of his physicians. And as what is called beauty arises from an exact proportion of the limbs, together with a certain sweetness of complexion, so the beauty of the mind consists in an equality and constancy of opinions and judgments, joined to a certain firmness and stability, pursuing virtue, or containing within itself the very essence of virtue. Besides, we give the very same names to the faculties of the mind as we do to the powers of the body, the nerves, and other powers of action. Thus the velocity of the body is called swiftness: a praise which we ascribe to the mind, from its running over in its thoughts so many things in so short a time.
XIV. Herein, indeed, the mind and body are unlike: that though the mind when in perfect health may be visited by sickness, as the body may, yet the body may be disordered without our fault; the mind cannot. For all the disorders and perturbations of the mind proceed from a neglect of reason; these disorders, therefore, are confined to men: the beasts are not subject to such perturbations, though they act sometimes as if they had reason. There is a difference, too, between ingenious and dull men; the ingenious, like the Corinthian brass, which is long before it receives rust, are longer before they fall into these perturbations, and are recovered sooner: the case is different with the dull. Nor does the mind of an ingenious man fall into every kind of perturbation, for it never yields to any that are brutish and savage; and some of their perturbations have at first even the appearance of humanity, as mercy, grief, and fear. But the sicknesses and diseases of the mind are thought to be harder to eradicate than those leading vices which are in opposition to virtues; for vices may be removed, though the diseases of the mind should continue, which diseases are not cured with that expedition with which vices are removed. I have now acquainted you with the arguments which the Stoics put forth with such exactness; which they call logic, from their close arguing: and since my discourse has got clear of these rocks, I will proceed with the remainder of it, provided I have been sufficiently clear in what I have already 141said, considering the obscurity of the subject I have treated.
A. Clear enough; but should there be occasion for a more exact inquiry, I shall take another opportunity of asking you. I expect you now to hoist your sails, as you just now called them, and proceed on your course.
XV. M. Since I have spoken before of virtue in other places, and shall often have occasion to speak again (for a great many questions that relate to life and manners arise from the spring of virtue); and since, as I say, virtue consists in a settled and uniform affection of mind, making those persons praiseworthy who are possessed of her, she herself also, independent of anything else, without regard to any advantage, must be praiseworthy; for from her proceed good inclinations, opinions, actions, and the whole of right reason; though virtue may be defined in a few words to be right reason itself. The opposite to this is viciousness (for so I choose to translate what the Greeks call κακία, rather than by perverseness; for perverseness is the name of a particular vice; but viciousness includes all), from whence arise those perturbations which, as I just now said, are turbid and violent motions of the mind, repugnant to reason, and enemies in a high degree to the peace of the mind and a tranquil life, for they introduce piercing and anxious cares, and afflict and debilitate the mind through fear; they violently inflame our hearts with exaggerated appetite, which is in reality an impotence of mind, utterly irreconcilable with temperance and moderation, which we sometimes call desire, and sometimes lust, and which, should it even attain the object of its wishes, immediately becomes so elated that it loses all its resolution, and knows not what to pursue; so that he was in the right who said “that exaggerated pleasure was the very greatest of mistakes.” Virtue, then, alone can effect the cure of these evils.
XVI. For what is not only more miserable, but more base and sordid, than a man afflicted, weakened, and oppressed with grief? And little short of this misery is one who dreads some approaching evil, and who, through faintheartedness, is under continual suspense. The poets, to express the greatness of this evil, imagine a stone to 142hang over the head of Tantalus, as a punishment for his wickedness, his pride, and his boasting. And this is the common punishment of folly; for there hangs over the head of every one whose mind revolts from reason some similar fear. And as these perturbations of the mind, grief and fear, are of a most wasting nature, so those two others, though of a more merry cast (I mean lust, which is always coveting something with eagerness, and empty mirth, which is an exulting joy), differ very little from madness. Hence you may understand what sort of person he is whom we call at one time moderate, at another modest or temperate, at another constant and virtuous; while sometimes we include all these names in the word frugality, as the crown of all; for if that word did not include all virtues, it would never have been proverbial to say that a frugal man does everything rightly. But when the Stoics apply this saying to their wise man, they seem to exalt him too much, and to speak of him with too much admiration.