Book 4

In many respects, Brutus, I am wont to admire the talents and virtues of our countrymen, but most of all in those studies which, sought very late, they carried over into this state from Greece. For when, from the very rise of the city, by the kingly institutions, and in part also by the laws, the auspices, the ceremonies, the assemblies, the rights of appeal, the council of the fathers, the ordering of horse and foot, the whole art of war had been divinely established, then an admirable advance was made, and an incredible course toward every excellence, once the state was freed from kingly domination. Nor indeed is this the place to speak of the morals and institutions of our ancestors, and of the discipline and ordering of the state; these things have been treated by me with sufficient care in other places, and most of all in those six books which I wrote On the Commonwealth.

But in this place, as I consider the studies of learning, many reasons indeed occur to me why these too should seem to have been fetched from elsewhere, and not only sought, but even preserved and cultivated. For there was almost within their sight, surpassing in wisdom and renown, Pythagoras, who was in Italy in the same times in which Lucius Brutus freed his country — that glorious founder of your nobility. And since the teaching of Pythagoras flowed far and wide, it seems to me to have penetrated into this state; and this is both probable by conjecture and indicated even by certain traces. For who is there who would think, when Greece flourished in Italy with its most powerful and greatest cities — that which was called Magna Graecia — and when in these, first the name of Pythagoras himself, then afterward that of the Pythagoreans, was so great, that the ears of our countrymen were closed to their most learned utterances?

Nay, I even think that, on account of admiration for the Pythagoreans, King Numa too was reckoned a Pythagorean by later men. For since they knew the teaching and institutions of Pythagoras, and had received from their ancestors the equity and wisdom of that king, but were ignorant of the ages and times on account of antiquity, they believed that he who excelled in wisdom had been a hearer of Pythagoras. And of conjecture, indeed, thus far. But although many traces of the Pythagoreans could be collected, we shall yet use a few, since that is not our business at this time. For since those men are said to have been wont to deliver certain precepts somewhat secretly in songs, and to lead their minds from the intensity of their thoughts to tranquillity by song and the lyre, Cato, a most weighty authority, said in his Origins that this was the custom among our ancestors at banquets — that in turn those who reclined should sing to the pipe the praises and virtues of famous men; from which it is plain that there were then both melodies set to the sounds of voices and songs.

Although the Twelve Tables too declare this — that it was even then the custom to compose a song; which, lest it might be done to another's injury, they sanctioned by law. Nor indeed is that no argument of a cultured time, that to the gods' couches and to the magistrates' banquets the lyre plays — which was proper to that discipline of which I speak. To me, indeed, even the song of Appius Caecus, which Panaetius greatly praises in a certain letter that is addressed to Quintus Tubero, seems Pythagorean. There are many things, too, in our institutions drawn from them; which I pass over, lest those things which we are thought to have ourselves discovered should seem to have been learned from elsewhere.

But that my discourse may return to its purpose — in how short a time how many and how great poets, and what orators too, arose! So that it readily appears that our countrymen could attain everything, as soon as they began to wish it. But of the other studies we shall speak in another place, if there be need, and have often spoken. The study of wisdom, indeed, is old among us; yet before the age of Laelius and Scipio I find none whom I could name by name. In whose youth I see that the Stoic Diogenes and the Academic Carneades were sent as envoys to the senate by the Athenians; who, since they had never touched any part of public affairs, and since the one was a Cyrenaean, the other a Babylonian, would surely never have been roused from their schools nor chosen for that office, had there not been in certain leading men of those times zeal for learning. Who, while they committed other things to writing — some the civil law, some their own speeches, some the monuments of their ancestors — pursued this most ample of all the arts, the discipline of living well, by their life rather than by their writings.

And so of that true and elegant philosophy, which, drawn from Socrates, has hitherto persisted among the Peripatetics, and likewise among the Stoics who say the same things in another manner, while the Academics decided their controversies, there are scarcely any, or very few, Latin monuments — whether on account of the greatness of the matters and the engagements of men, or even because they did not think those things could be approved by the unskilled; while meanwhile, those keeping silence, Gaius Amafinius came forward as a speaker, whose books being published, the multitude was stirred and betook itself to that teaching above all — whether because it was very easy to know, or because they were enticed by the soft allurements of pleasure, or even because, nothing better having been brought forward, they held to what there was.

After Amafinius, moreover, many rivals of the same system, having written much, occupied all Italy; and the very thing which is the greatest argument that those things are not said with subtlety — that they are both so easily learned by heart and approved by the unlearned — this they think to be the firm foundation of their teaching. But let each defend what he thinks; for judgements are free: we shall keep to our practice, and, bound by the laws of no single school, which in philosophy we must necessarily obey, we shall always inquire what is most probable in any matter. Which, as I have often done elsewhere, so lately at Tusculum I pursued with zeal. And so, the disputations of three days being set forth, the fourth day is concluded in this book. For when we had gone down into the lower walk — which we had done likewise on the former days — the matter went thus: Let anyone say, if he will, on what subject he wishes to dispute.

It does not seem to me that the wise man can be free of every disturbance of the mind. — Of distress, indeed, he seemed, in yesterday's disputation, unless perhaps you assented to me for the occasion's sake. — By no means; for your discourse was excellently approved by me. — You do not, then, think that distress befalls the wise man? — I do not think it at all. — And yet, if that cannot disturb the mind of the wise man, none will be able to. For what? Shall fear disturb it? But fear is of those things, absent, of which, present, there is distress; distress, then, being removed, fear is removed. There remain two disturbances, exultant joy and lust; which, if they shall not befall the wise man, the mind of the wise man will always be tranquil.

So precisely I understand. — Which, then, do you prefer? That we forthwith make sail, or that, like men going out from harbour, we row a little? — What is that? For I do not understand. — Because Chrysippus and the Stoics, when they dispute about the disturbances of the mind, are for the most part occupied in dividing and defining these; very scanty is that discourse of theirs by which they would heal minds and not suffer them to be turbulent; the Peripatetics, on the other hand, bring forward much for the calming of minds, and pass over the thorns of dividing and defining. I was asking, then, whether I should spread the sails of discourse at once, or first propel it a little with the oars of the dialecticians. — That way, indeed; for the whole of what I seek will be more complete from both. — That is the more correct course;

but you shall ask afterward, if anything be somewhat obscure. — I will indeed; yet you, as you are wont, will say those very obscure things more plainly than they are said by the Greeks. — I shall strive, indeed; but there is need of an attentive mind, lest everything slip away, if some one thing escape. — Since the things which the Greeks call pathē we prefer to call disturbances rather than diseases, in explaining these I shall follow that old division — first of Pythagoras, then of Plato — who divide the mind into two parts: the one they make a partaker of reason, the other devoid of it; in the part that partakes of reason they place tranquillity, that is, a placid and quiet steadfastness, in that other the turbid motions both of anger and of desire, contrary and hostile to reason.

Let this, then, be the source; yet in describing these disturbances let us use the definitions and divisions of the Stoics, who seem to me to handle this question most acutely. This, then, is the definition of Zeno: that a disturbance — what he calls pathos — is a commotion of the mind turned away from right reason and contrary to nature. Some more briefly say that a disturbance is a too-vehement craving; but they would have that craving to be too vehement which has departed further from the constancy of nature. The parts of disturbances they hold to be born from two imagined goods and from two imagined evils; so that there are four: from goods, lust and joy — joy being of present goods, lust of future ones; from evils, they think fear and distress are born — fear from things to come, distress from things present; for the things which, coming, are feared, these same, being at hand, affect with distress.

Joy, however, and lust are concerned with an opinion of goods, since lust is enticed and inflamed and snatched toward that which seems good, while joy is carried away and exults at having now attained something desired. For all by nature follow those things which seem goods, and flee their contraries; wherefore, as soon as the appearance of anything is presented which seems good, nature itself impels toward attaining it. When this is done steadily and prudently, the Stoics call such craving boulēsis; let us call it will (voluntas); they think it is in the wise man alone; which they thus define: will is that which desires something with reason. But that which is roused too vehemently, reason opposing, is lust or unbridled desire, which is found in all the foolish.

And likewise, when we are so moved that we are in some good, this happens in two ways. For when the mind is moved placidly and steadily with reason, then that is called gladness (gaudium); but when the mind exults emptily and extravagantly, then that may be called exultant or excessive joy, which they thus define: an elation of the mind without reason. And since, as by nature we crave goods, so by nature we turn away from evils, that turning-away, when it shall be done with reason, let it be called caution (cautio), and let it be understood to be in the wise man alone; but that which is without reason and with a low and broken faint-heartedness, let it be named fear: fear, then, is a caution turned away from reason.

But of a present evil there is no affection in the wise man; that of the foolish is distress, and by it they are affected in imagined evils, and they let down and contract their minds, not obeying reason. And so this is the first definition: that distress is a contraction of the mind, reason opposing. Thus there are four disturbances, three steadfast states (constantiae), since to distress no steadfast state is opposed. But they think all disturbances come about by judgement and opinion. And so they define them more precisely, that it may be understood not only how vicious they are, but also how much they are in our power. Distress, then, is a fresh opinion of a present evil, in which it seems right that the mind be let down and contracted; joy, a fresh opinion of a present good, in which it seems right to be carried away; fear, an opinion of an impending evil which seems intolerable; lust, an opinion of a coming good, which would be advantageous if it were already present and at hand.

But the judgements and the opinions which I have said the disturbances to be — not in these alone do they say the disturbances are placed, but those things too which are effected by the disturbances: as that distress effects a kind of bite, as it were, of pain; fear, a certain recoiling and flight of the mind; joy, an effusive cheerfulness; lust, an unbridled craving. And opinion (opinatio), which we have included in all the foregoing definitions, they hold to be a weak assent.

But under single disturbances are placed several parts of the same kind: as under distress, envy (invidentia) — for the less customary word must be used for teaching's sake, since invidia is spoken of not only of him who envies, but also of him who is envied — emulation, disparagement, pity, anguish, mourning, grief, hardship, pain, lamentation, anxiety, trouble, affliction, despair, and any others of the same kind. Under fear are placed sluggishness, shame, terror, timidity, panic, faintness, confusion, dread; under pleasure, malevolence rejoicing at another's ill, delight, vaunting, and the like; under lust, anger, irascibility, hatred, enmity, discord, want, longing, and the rest of that kind. These they define in this manner: they say that envy is a distress taken up on account of another's prosperity, which does no harm to the envier.

(For if anyone grieve at the prosperity of one by whom he himself is hurt, he would not rightly be said to envy, as if Agamemnon at Hector; but he who, though another's advantages do him no harm, yet grieves that the other enjoys them — he, assuredly, envies.) Emulation (aemulatio), indeed, is spoken of in two ways, so that this name is both in praise and in fault; for the imitation of virtue is called emulation — but with that we have nothing to do in this place, for it is a thing of praise — and there is also emulation that is a distress, if another enjoys that which one desired, while oneself lacks it. But disparagement (obtrectatio) is that which I wish to be understood as zēlotypia, a distress arising from this — that another too enjoys that which one has oneself desired.

Pity is a distress arising from the misery of another suffering wrongfully (for no one is moved with pity at the punishment of a parricide or a traitor); anguish, an oppressing distress; mourning, a distress arising from the bitter death of one who was dear; grief, a tearful distress; hardship, a laborious distress; pain, a torturing distress; lamentation, a distress with wailing; anxiety, a distress with thought; trouble, an abiding distress; affliction, a distress with vexation of the body; despair, a distress without any expectation of better things. But those things which are placed under fear they thus define: sluggishness, a fear of toil to follow;

...terror, a fear that shakes, from which it comes about that a blush follows shame, paleness and trembling and chattering of teeth follow terror; timidity, a fear of an approaching evil; panic, a fear moving the mind from its place, whence that line of Ennius: "then panic drives all wisdom from my breast, made lifeless"; faintness, a fear following and as it were the companion of panic; confusion, a fear shaking out one's thoughts; dread, an abiding fear.

The parts of pleasure they describe in this manner: that malevolence is a pleasure from another's ill without one's own profit; delight, a pleasure soothing the mind by the sweetness of hearing; and such as this is, of the ears, such are those of the eyes and of touches and of smells and of tastes, which are all of one kind, pleasures, as it were, liquefied for drenching the mind. Vaunting (iactatio) is a pleasure exultant and carrying itself too insolently.

But the things placed under lust are thus defined: that anger is a lust of punishing him who seems to have hurt one by injury; irascibility (excandescentia), an anger arising and just now existing, which in Greek is called thymōsis; hatred, an inveterate anger; enmity, an anger watching for a time of avenging; discord, a sharper anger conceived in the inmost mind and heart; want, an insatiable lust; longing, a lust of seeing one who is not yet present. They also distinguish this — that lust is of those things which are spoken of some one or some several things, which the dialecticians call katēgorēmata (predicates), as to have riches, to take offices; but want is of the things themselves, as of offices, of money.

They say that the fount of all disturbances is intemperance, which is a falling away of the whole mind from right reason, so turned away from the prescription of reason that in no way can the cravings of the mind either be ruled or be restrained. As, then, temperance calms the cravings and brings it about that they obey right reason, and preserves the considered judgements of the mind, so intemperance, hostile to it, inflames, confounds, rouses the whole state of the mind; and so both distresses and fears and all the remaining disturbances are begotten from it. As, when the blood is corrupted, or when phlegm or bile overflows, diseases and sicknesses arise in the body, so the confusion of depraved opinions, and their mutual repugnance, strips the mind of soundness and disturbs it with diseases;

but from the disturbances are made, first, diseases, which they call nosēmata, and those things which are contrary to those diseases, which have a vicious aversion and loathing toward fixed objects; then sicknesses, which are called by the Stoics arrōstēmata, and likewise the aversions opposed and contrary to these. In this place too much labour is spent by the Stoics, especially by Chrysippus, while the likeness of the diseases of the mind is compared to the diseases of the body; which discourse being passed over as least necessary, let us handle those things which contain the matter.

Let it be understood, then, that, the opinions tossing themselves to and fro, a disturbance is always in motion, inconstantly and turbidly; but when this fervour and agitation of the mind has grown old and has settled, as it were, in the veins and marrow, then there will arise both a disease and a sickness and those aversions which are contrary to those diseases and sicknesses. These things which I speak differ among themselves in thought, but in fact are coupled, and they arise from lust and from joy. For when money has been coveted, and reason has not at once been applied, like a certain Socratic medicine, to heal that desire, the evil penetrates into the veins and clings in the inward parts, and there arises a disease and sickness, which, when inveterate, cannot be plucked out; and the name of that disease is avarice;

and likewise the other diseases — as the desire of glory, as woman-madness, that I may so call that which in Greek is called philogynia, and the rest of the diseases and sicknesses are born in like manner. But those things which are contrary to these are thought to be born from fear, as a hatred of women, such as is in the Misogynist of Atilius, as a hatred toward the whole race of men, which we have heard of Timon, who is called the Man-hater (misanthropos), as inhospitality is: all which sicknesses of the mind arise from a certain fear of those things which they flee and hate.

They define a sickness of the mind as a vehement opinion about a thing not to be sought, as though it were greatly to be sought, clinging and deeply implanted. But that which is born from aversion they thus define: a vehement opinion about a thing not to be fled, clinging and deeply implanted, as though it were to be fled; and this opinion is a judging that one knows what one does not know. And under sickness are placed certain such things: avarice, ambition, woman-madness, obstinacy, daintiness, drunkenness, gluttony, and any like things. But avarice is a vehement opinion about money, as though it were greatly to be sought, clinging and deeply implanted; and like it is the definition, of the same kind, of the rest.

The definitions of the aversions are of this sort: that inhospitality is a vehement opinion that a guest is greatly to be fled, and that clinging and deeply implanted; and likewise are defined both a hatred of women, as of Hippolytus, and, as of Timon, of the human race. And, to come to the likeness of bodily health, and to use that comparison sometimes — but more sparingly than the Stoics are wont: as some are more prone than others to certain diseases — and so we call certain men subject to colds, certain to gripes, not because they are so already, but because they often are — so some are prone to fear, others to another disturbance; whence in some there is said to be anxiety, whence the anxious, in others irascibility. Which differs from anger; and it is one thing to be irascible, another to be angry, as anxiety differs from anguish (for not all are anxious who are sometimes anguished, nor are those who are anxious always anguished), as there is a difference between drunkenness and the habit of drunkenness, and it is one thing to be a lover, another to be in love. And this proneness of some toward certain diseases extends widely; for it pertains to all disturbances;

it appears also in many vices, but the thing has no name. Therefore men are called both envious and malevolent and lustful and timid and pitiful, because they are prone to those disturbances, not because they are always carried away. This proneness, then, each toward its own kind, let it be called, from the likeness of the body, a sickliness, provided it be understood as a proneness to sicken. But in good things — because some are fitter for certain goods — let it be named aptitude (facilitas); in evils, proneness, that it may signify a tendency to fall; in neither case let it have the former name. And as in the body there is disease, there is sickness, there is vice, so in the mind. They call disease a corruption of the whole body; sickness, a disease with weakness; vice, when the parts of the body are at variance among themselves, whence comes the crookedness of the limbs, distortion, deformity.

And so those two, disease and sickness, are begotten from a shaking and disturbance of the whole bodily health; but vice is discerned of itself, the health being entire. But in the mind we can separate disease from sickness only in thought; viciousness, however, is a disposition or affection, throughout the whole life inconstant and at variance with itself. So it comes about that in the one corruption of opinions disease and sickness are effected, in the other inconstancy and repugnance. For not every vice has equal dissensions: as the affection of those who are not far from wisdom is, indeed, discordant with itself, while it is foolish, but not distorted nor depraved. But diseases and sicknesses are parts of viciousness; whether disturbances are parts of the same is a question.

For vices are abiding affections, but disturbances are moving ones, so that they cannot be parts of abiding affections. And as in evils the likeness of the body touches upon the nature of the mind, so in goods. For there are in the body things excellent — beauty, strength, health, firmness, swiftness; there are likewise in the mind. For as the tempering of the body, when those things of which we are composed agree among themselves, is called health, so it is called of the mind, when its judgements and opinions are in concord; and this is the virtue of the mind, which some say is temperance itself, others say is something obedient to the precepts of temperance and following it, having no form of its own; but whether it be this or that, it is in the wise man alone. But there is a certain soundness of mind which falls even to the foolish, when, by the cure and purging of physicians, the confusion of the mind is taken away.

And as there is in the body a fit shaping of the limbs, with a certain sweetness of colour, and that is called beauty, so in the mind an evenness and steadiness of opinions and judgements, with a certain firmness and stability, following virtue or containing the very force of virtue, is called beauty. And likewise, by like words, the strength of the mind is named, like the strength and sinews and efficacy of the body. But the swiftness of the body is called speed, which same is held to be a praise of talent too, on account of the mind's running through many things in a short time. This is unlike in minds and in bodies: that healthy minds cannot be assailed by disease, but bodies can; but the body's afflictions can happen without fault, those of the mind not so, all of whose diseases and disturbances arise from a spurning of reason. And so they exist in men alone; for beasts do something like, but they do not fall into disturbances.

Between the keen and the dull, however, there is this difference: that men of talent, like Corinthian bronze toward rust, both fall into disease more slowly and recover more quickly, the dull not so. Nor indeed does the mind of a man of talent fall into every disease and disturbance; for there are not many savage and monstrous ones; but some have even a first appearance of humanity, as pity, distress, fear. But the sicknesses and diseases of minds are thought to be more difficult to pluck out than those highest vices which are contrary to the virtues. For, the diseases remaining, the vices can be removed, because they are not healed so quickly as those are removed.

You have those things which the Stoics dispute precisely concerning the disturbances, which they call logika, because they are reasoned out more subtly. From which, since my discourse has, as it were, sailed out from rough rocks, let us hold the course of the remaining disputation, provided I have said those things clearly enough for the obscurity of the matters. — Quite enough; but if anything is to be known more diligently, we shall inquire another time; now we await the sails, of which you just spoke, and the course.

Since, as in other places we have both spoken of virtue and must often speak — for most questions which pertain to life and morals are drawn from the fount of virtue — since, then, virtue is a constant and harmonious affection of the mind, making praiseworthy those in whom it is, and itself, of itself, by its own accord, praiseworthy even apart from any usefulness, from it proceed honourable wills, opinions, actions, and all right reason (although virtue itself can most briefly be called right reason). The contrary of this virtue, then, is viciousness — for so I prefer to call that which the Greeks call kakia, rather than malice (malitia); for malice is the name of a certain particular vice, viciousness of all — from which the disturbances are roused, which are, as we said a little before, the turbid and agitated motions of minds, turned away from reason and most hostile to a mind and life that is tranquil. For they bring in anxious and bitter distresses, and afflict and weaken minds with fear; they likewise inflame them with excessive craving, which we call now desire, now lust, a certain powerlessness of the mind very far removed from temperance and moderation.

Which, if ever it attain that which was coveted, then is carried away with alacrity, so that nothing it does has any consistency; as that man who thinks the excessive pleasure of the mind to be the highest error. The healing of these evils, then, lies in virtue alone. But what is not only more wretched, but even fouler and more deformed, than someone afflicted with distress, weakened, lying prostrate? Nearest to which misery is he who, fearing some approaching evil, hangs faint of mind. The force of which evil the poets, signifying, make a rock to hang over Tantalus among the dead, on account of his crimes and the powerlessness and arrogant speech of his mind. That is the common punishment of folly. For over all whose mind shrinks from reason, some such terror always hangs.

And as these are the wasting disturbances of the mind — I mean distress and fear — so those more cheerful ones — desire ever greedily seeking something, and empty alacrity, that is, exultant joy — do not differ much from madness. From which it is understood of what sort that man is whom we call now moderate, at other times modest, temperate, at other times steadfast and continent; sometimes we wish to refer these same words to the name of frugality as to their head. And unless under that name the virtues were contained, that saying would never have become so commonly spread as now to hold the place of a proverb — that a frugal man does everything rightly. Which same thing, when the Stoics say it of the wise man, they seem to say too wonderfully and too magnificently.

Therefore he, whoever he is, who by moderation and steadfastness is quiet in mind and at peace with himself, so that he neither wastes away with troubles nor is broken by fear, nor, thirstily seeking something, burns with longing, nor, exulting with empty alacrity, melts away — he is the wise man whom we seek, he is the happy man, to whom nothing of human affairs can seem either intolerable, so as to cast down his mind, or too gladdening, so as to carry it away. For what can seem great to him in human affairs, to whom all eternity and the magnitude of the whole world is known? For what, either in human studies or in so scant a brevity of life, can seem great to the wise man, who is always so watchful in mind that nothing unforeseen can befall him, nothing unexpected, nothing wholly new?

And the same man so strains his keen vision on every side that he ever sees a seat and a place for living without trouble and anguish, so that, whatever chance fortune brings in, he bears it fitly and quietly. And he who shall do this will be free not only of distress, but also of all the remaining disturbances. And a mind free of these makes men perfectly and absolutely happy; whereas the same mind, agitated and drawn away from sound and certain reason, loses not only steadfastness but even soundness. Wherefore the reasoning and discourse of the Peripatetics must be thought soft and nerveless, who say that minds must necessarily be disturbed, but apply a certain measure, beyond which one ought not to advance.

Do you apply a measure to a vice? Or is it no vice not to obey reason? Or does reason teach insufficiently both that that is not a good which you either ardently desire or, having attained, are carried away by insolently, nor, again, an evil by which you either lie oppressed, or, lest you be oppressed, scarcely keep your mind steady? And that all these things, either too sad or too glad, come about by error, which error in the foolish is extenuated by the day, so that, though the thing remain the same, they bear inveterate things otherwise than fresh ones — but which does not touch the wise man at all?

For indeed, what at last will that measure be? For let us seek a measure of distress, on which most labour is spent. It is written in Fannius that Publius Rupilius took ill his brother's rejection from the consulship. But yet he seems to have passed the measure, since on that account he departed from life; he ought, then, to have borne it more moderately. What if, while he bore that moderately, the death of his children had been added? A new distress would have been born, but that moderate. Yet a great addition would have been made. What if then grave bodily pains, if the loss of goods, if blindness, if exile? If for single evils distresses were added, that sum would become such as could not be borne.

He, then, who seeks a measure in a vice does likewise as if he should think that one who has cast himself down from Leucate could hold himself up when he wished. For as he cannot, so a disturbed and agitated mind can neither restrain itself nor halt where it wishes. And altogether, the things which are pernicious when growing are the same vicious things when being born;

but distress and the other disturbances, when amplified, are certainly pestilential: therefore even when taken up they are forthwith in great part of a plague. For they impel themselves, once there has been a departure from reason, and that very weakness indulges itself and is carried out into the deep, unawares, and finds no place to halt. Wherefore it makes no difference whether they approve moderate disturbances or moderate injustice, moderate cowardice, moderate intemperance; for he who sets a measure to vices takes up a part of the vices; which, since it is in itself hateful, is then the more troublesome, because they are on a slippery slope, and, once set going down an incline, they slip and can in no way be held up. — What of the fact that the same Peripatetics say that those disturbances which we think must be uprooted are not only natural, but even usefully given by nature?

Whose discourse is of this kind: first they praise irascibility in many words, they say it is the whetstone of fortitude, and that the assaults of angry men are much more vehement both against an enemy and against a wicked citizen, but trivial the little reasonings of those who think thus: it is right that this battle be fought, it is fitting to fight for the laws, for liberty, for the fatherland; these have no force, unless fortitude has blazed up with anger. Nor indeed do they argue of warriors only: they think that there are no severe commands without some bitterness of irascibility; finally, they approve an orator, not only when accusing, but not even when defending, without the stings of irascibility, which, even if it be not present, they think must yet be feigned by words and gesture, so that the action of the orator may kindle the anger of the hearer. Finally, they deny that he seems a man who knows not how to be angry, and that which we call gentleness they call by the vicious name of slackness.

Nor indeed do they praise this lust alone — for anger is, as I just now defined, a lust of avenging — but they say that that very kind, whether of lust or of desire, was given by nature for the highest usefulness; for no one can do anything excellently save what pleases him. Themistocles used to walk by night in public, because he could not take sleep, and to those who asked he answered that he was roused from sleep by the trophies of Miltiades. Who has not heard of the vigils of Demosthenes? Who said he grieved if ever he were outdone by the before-dawn industry of the craftsmen. Finally, the very chiefs of philosophy could never have made such great advances in their studies without a burning desire. We have heard that Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato roamed the farthest lands. For wherever there was anything that could be learned, thither they judged they must go. Do we think these things could have been done without the highest ardour of desire?

Distress itself, which we have said must be fled like a foul and monstrous beast, they say was established by nature not without great usefulness, that men might grieve at being affected with chastisements, reprehensions, ignominies, in their fault. For impunity for sins seems given to those who bear ignominy and infamy without pain; it is better to be bitten by conscience. Whence comes that saying drawn from life by Afranius: for, when the dissolute son says, "Alas, wretched me!" then the stern father: "Provided he grieve at something, let him grieve at whatever you please."

They say that the other parts of distress too are useful: pity, for bringing help and relieving the calamities of unworthy men; that very emulating and disparaging is not useless, when one sees either that he himself has not attained the same as another, or that another has the same as he; but that, if anyone took away fear, all the diligence of life would be taken away, which is highest in those who fear the laws, the magistrates, poverty, ignominy, death, pain. These things, however, they so argue that they confess they must be pruned, and say that they can neither be plucked out utterly nor need to be, and they think that in nearly all things the middle course is best. When they set these things forth, do they seem to you to say nothing, or something? — To me, indeed, to say something; and so I await what you have against those points. — I shall perhaps find something; but this first:

do you see how great was the modesty among the Academics? For they plainly say what pertains to the matter: "To the Peripatetics the Stoics make answer; let them fight it out, for all I care, since for me it is necessary only to inquire where that is which seems most like the truth." What is there, then, that occurs in this question, from which something like the truth may be reached, beyond which the human mind cannot advance further? The definition of a disturbance, which I think Zeno rightly used. For he so defines it, that a disturbance is a commotion of the mind turned away from reason, contrary to nature; or, more briefly, that a disturbance is a too-vehement craving; and that craving is understood to be too vehement which is far from the constancy of nature.

What can I say against these definitions? And these things are for the most part of men disputing prudently and acutely; those other things, indeed, are of the rhetoricians' parade: the ardours of minds and the whetstones of the virtues. But can a brave man, unless he has begun to fume, not be brave? That, indeed, is gladiator-like. Although in those very men we often see steadfastness: they confer, they meet, they ask something, they demand, so that they seem more appeased than angry; but in that kind let there be, by all means, some Pacideianus of this spirit, as Lucilius tells: "I will slay him indeed and conquer him, if that is what you ask," he says, "but this, I believe, will be: I shall first take a blow in the face myself, before I plant the sword in the gut and lungs of the thief. I hate the man, I fight in anger, nor is there anything longer to us than while the other fits the sword to his right hand; to such a degree, with zeal and hatred of him, am I carried away by anger." But without this gladiatorial irascibility we see Ajax in Homer advancing with much cheerfulness, when he was about to fight it out with Hector;

whose entry, when he had taken up his arms, brought gladness to his comrades but terror to his enemies, so that Hector himself, who, as it is in Homer, trembled in his whole breast, repented of having challenged him to fight. And these, having conferred among themselves before they joined hands, gently and quietly did nothing angrily or rabidly even in the very fight. I do not think that even that Torquatus, who invented this surname, was angry when he stripped the torque from the Gaul; nor that Marcellus at Clastidium was brave because he was angry.

As for Africanus, indeed, because he is better known to us on account of recent memory, I could even swear that he was not then inflamed with irascibility, when in the battle-line he protected with his shield Marcus Alliennius the Pelignian and fixed his sword in the enemy's breast. About Lucius Brutus I might perhaps doubt whether, on account of his boundless hatred of the tyrant, he assailed Arruns too unbridledly; for I see that both fell in close combat by a mutual blow. Why, then, do you bring anger in here? Or does fortitude, unless it has begun to be mad, not have its own assaults? What? Hercules, whom that very thing which you would have to be irascibility — that is, fortitude — raised to heaven, do you think fought angrily with the Erymanthian boar or the Nemean lion? Or did Theseus too seize the horns of the Marathonian bull in anger? Take heed lest fortitude be least of all rabid, and irascibility be wholly of levity.

For there is no fortitude that is devoid of reason. Human things must be despised, death must be disregarded, both pains and toils must be thought bearable — when these are settled by judgement and opinion, then is that robust and stable fortitude — unless perhaps we suspect that the things which are done vehemently, keenly, spiritedly, are done angrily. To me not even that Scipio the pontifex maximus, who declared this saying of the Stoics to be true — that the wise man is never a private man — seems to have been angry with Tiberius Gracchus then, when he left the languishing consul and himself, a private man, as if he were consul, bade those who wished the commonwealth to be safe follow him.

I do not know whether we ourselves have done anything bravely in the commonwealth; if we have done anything, certainly we did it not in anger. Or is there anything more like madness than anger? Which Ennius well called the beginning of madness. Colour, voice, eyes, breath, the powerlessness of words and deeds — what part have they of soundness? What is fouler than the Homeric Achilles, what than Agamemnon in the quarrel? For Ajax, indeed, anger led to fury and death. Fortitude, then, does not require irascibility called in as advocate; it is sufficiently equipped, ready, armed of itself. For in that fashion one might call drunkenness useful for fortitude, madness useful too, because both the insane and the drunk often do many things more vehemently. Always was Ajax brave, yet bravest in his fury; for "He did a mighty deed, when, the Greeks giving way, he accomplished the highest matter with his hand." He restored the battle while raving:

shall we say, then, that madness is useful? Handle the definitions of fortitude: you will understand that it has no need of fuming. Fortitude, then, is an affection of the mind obedient to the highest law in the enduring of things, or the preservation of a stable judgement in undergoing and repelling those things which seem dreadful, or a knowledge of dreadful things and their contraries, or of those wholly to be disregarded, preserving a stable judgement of those things; or, more briefly, as Chrysippus (for the former definitions were of Sphaerus, a man among the first in defining well, as the Stoics think; for they are altogether nearly all alike, but declare the common notions, one more, another less) — how, then, does Chrysippus? "Fortitude," he says, "is a knowledge of things to be endured, or an affection of the mind in suffering and enduring, obedient to the highest law, without fear." However much we may assail these men, as Carneades was wont, I fear they are the only philosophers. For which of those definitions does not open up our notion, which we all have of fortitude, covered and wrapped up? And, this being opened up, who is there who would seek anything for either the warrior or the general or the orator, or think that they can do anything bravely without rabidness?

What? The Stoics, who say that all the foolish are insane — do they not gather up these points? Remove the disturbances, and especially irascibility: they will at once seem to say monstrous things. But now they so argue, that they say all the foolish are insane just as all mire stinks. But not always. Stir it: you will perceive. So the irascible man is not always angry; provoke him: now you will see him raving. What? That warlike irascibility, when it has returned home, of what sort is it with the wife, with the children, with the household? Is it then too useful? Is there, then, anything which a disturbed mind can do better than a steadfast one? Or can anyone be angry without a disturbance of the mind? Well, then, did our countrymen, when all vices were in the morals, because none was fouler than irascibility, call the irascible alone "morose" (morosi).

But for an orator to be angry is least of all becoming; to feign it is not unbecoming. Do I seem to you to be angry then, when in pleadings I say something more keenly and vehemently? What? When, the matters being now transacted and past, we write our speeches, do we write them angry? Has anyone noticed this: "Conquer them!"? Do you think Aesopus ever acted angry, or that Accius wrote angry? Those things are acted excellently — and indeed better by the orator, if he is an orator, than by any actor — but they are acted gently and with a tranquil mind. But to praise lust — of what lust is that? You bring forward to me Themistocles and Demosthenes, you add Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato. What? Do you call studies a lust? Which, even of the best things, as those are which you bring forward, ought yet to be calm and tranquil. And to praise distress, the one most detestable thing — of what philosophers, pray, is that? But Afranius said aptly: "Provided he grieve at something, let him grieve at whatever you please." For he said it of a ruined and dissolute youth, but we are inquiring about a steadfast and wise man. And let a centurion, indeed, have that very anger, or a standard-bearer, or the rest, of whom it is not necessary to speak, lest we open the mysteries of the rhetoricians. For it is useful to use a motion of the mind for one who cannot use reason. But we, as I often testify, are inquiring about the wise man.

But still, it is useful to emulate, to disparage, to pity. Why should you pity rather than bring help, if you can do it? Or can we not be liberal without pity? For we ought not ourselves to take up distresses on account of others, but to relieve others, if we can, of distress. But to disparage another, or to emulate by that vicious emulation which is like rivalry — what usefulness has it, since it is the part of the emulator to be anguished at another's good which he himself does not have, and of the disparager to be anguished at another's good because another too has it? How could it be approved, to take up distress for the sake of getting experience, if you wish to have anything? For merely to wish to have is the height of madness. But who could rightly praise middling states of evils?

For who can, in whom there is lust or desire, not be lustful and desirous? In whom there is anger, not be irascible? In whom anguish, not be anxious? In whom fear, not be timid? Do we think the wise man, then, is lustful and irascible and anxious and timid? Of whose excellence many things, indeed, can be said however fully and widely, but most briefly in this manner: that wisdom is the science and knowledge of things divine and human, and of the cause of each thing; from which it follows that he imitates things divine and counts all human things lower than virtue. Into this, then, as into a sea which is subject to the winds, did you say that disturbance seems to you to fall? What is there that should disturb so great a gravity and steadfastness? Is it something unforeseen or sudden? What such thing can befall him to whom nothing that can happen to a man is unpremeditated? For as to their saying that excess ought to be cut away, and the natural left, what at last can be natural which at the same time can be excessive? For all those things are sprung from the roots of errors, which must be plucked out and extracted deeply, not pruned nor lopped.

But since I suspect that you are inquiring not so much about the wise man as about yourself — for him you think free of every disturbance, yourself you wish to be — let us see how great are the remedies which philosophy applies to the diseases of minds. For there is, certainly, a certain medicine; nor was nature so hostile and inimical to the human race that, having found so many healthful things for bodies, she found none for minds; toward which she has even deserved better in this — that the aids of bodies are applied from without, while the health of minds is enclosed in those very minds. But the greater and more divine is the excellence in these, the greater is the diligence they need. And so reason well applied discerns what is best; neglected, it is entangled in many errors.

To you, then, must all my discourse now be turned; for you pretend to inquire about the wise man, but you inquire, perhaps, about yourself. Of those disturbances, then, which I have set forth, the cures are various. For not every distress is calmed by one method (for one medicine is to be applied to a mourner, another to one who pities or envies); there is also, in all four disturbances, this distinction — whether the discourse be better applied to the disturbance in general, which is a spurning of reason or a too-vehement craving, or to single ones, as to fear, lust, the rest; and whether it should be made to seem either that that is not to be taken ill from which the distress was taken up, or that distress in all things must be wholly removed; so that, if anyone takes ill that he is poor, you should argue either that poverty is not an evil, or that a man ought not to take anything ill. Doubtless this latter is the better, lest, if perchance you do not persuade about poverty, distress must be conceded; but, distress being removed by its proper reasons, which we used yesterday, in a certain manner the evil of poverty too is removed.

But every disturbance of this kind would indeed be washed away by that appeasing, when you teach that that is not a good from which joy or lust arises, nor an evil from which either fear or distress arises; yet still this is the sure and proper healing — if you teach that the disturbances themselves are of themselves vicious and have nothing either natural or necessary; as we see distress itself softened when we cast in the teeth of mourners the weakness of an effeminate mind, and when we praise the gravity and steadfastness of those who bear human things without turbulence. Which indeed is wont to happen even to those who think those things evils, yet judge they must be borne with an even mind. Someone thinks pleasure a good, another money; yet both that one can be called away from intemperance, and this one from avarice. But that other method and discourse, which at once takes away the false opinion and draws off the distress, is, indeed, more useful, but rarely profits, and is not to be applied to the crowd.

But there are certain distresses which that medicine could in no way relieve: as, if anyone take ill that there is no virtue in himself, no spirit, no duty, no honour, he is anguished, indeed, on account of evils, but some other cure must be applied to him, and such a one, indeed, as could be that of all the philosophers, even of those who differ on other matters. For it ought to be agreed among all that the commotions of minds turned away from right reason are vicious, so that, even if those things be evils which move fear or distress, or goods which move desire or joy, yet the commotion itself is vicious. For we wish that man to be a certain steadfast, calm, grave one, despising all human things, whom we call great-souled and brave. But such a one no one can be who either mourns or fears or desires or exults. For these things are of those who count human events higher than their own minds.

Wherefore of all the philosophers, as I said before, there is one method of healing — that nothing must be said about the quality of that which disturbs the mind, but about the disturbance itself. And so, first, in desire itself, when the sole aim is that it be removed, it must not be inquired whether that be a good or not which moves the lust, but the lust itself must be removed; so that, whether the honourable be the highest good, or pleasure, or both of these joined, or those three kinds of goods, yet, even if there be a too-vehement craving of virtue itself, the same discourse must be applied to all for deterring them. But human nature, set in view, contains every calming of the mind; and that it may the more easily be discerned, when expressed, the common condition and law of life must be unfolded in discourse.

And so not without cause, when Euripides was producing the play Orestes, Socrates is said to have called back the first three verses: "Neither is any speech so terrible to tell, nor chance, nor anger of the gods bringing in evil, that human nature could not bear it in suffering." And it is useful, for persuading that the things which have happened both can and ought to be borne, an enumeration of those who have borne them. Although the calming of distress has both been unfolded in yesterday's disputation, and in the book of Consolation, which I wrote in the midst of mourning and grief — for we were not wise men; and what Chrysippus forbids — to apply a remedy to the fresh swellings, as it were, of the mind — that we did, and offered violence to nature, that the magnitude of grief might yield to the magnitude of the medicine.

But to distress, about which enough has been disputed, fear is neighbour, of which a few things must be said. For fear is, as distress of a present evil, so that of a future one. And so some said that fear was a certain part of distress, but others called fear a fore-trouble, because it was, as it were, the leader of the trouble to follow. By whatever reasons, then, present things are borne, by the same future ones are despised. For in both it must be seen that we do nothing low, submissive, soft, effeminate, broken, abject. But although something must be said of the inconstancy, weakness, and levity of fear itself, yet it profits much to despise the very things which are feared. And so, whether it happened by chance or by design, it was very aptly done, that about those things which are most feared, death and pain, it was disputed on the first and nearest day. Which, if they have been proved, we are in great part freed of fear. And of the opinion of evils thus far;

let us now see of goods, that is, of joy and of desire. To me, indeed, in the whole system which pertains to the disturbance of the mind, one thing seems to contain the cause: that all these are in our power, all taken up by judgement, all voluntary. This error, then, must be wrested away, this opinion must be drawn off; and as in imagined evils the things which are thought great and to be feared must be made bearable, so in goods the things which are counted great and gladdening must be made more calm. And this, indeed, is common to evils and goods: that, even if it be now difficult to persuade that none of those things which disturb the mind is to be held either among goods or among evils, yet one cure must be applied to one motion, another to another, and the malevolent man must be corrected by one method, the lover by another, the anxious again by another, the timid by another.

And it were easy, following that method which is most approved concerning goods and evils, to deny that the foolish man can ever be affected with joy, because he never has anything good; but we are now speaking after the common manner. Let those things, by all means, be goods which are thought so — honours, riches, pleasures, the rest; yet, in the very gaining of these, an exulting and exultant joy is base, just as, if to laugh be permitted, yet immoderate laughter is blamed. For the effusion of the mind in joy is of the same vice as the contraction in grief, and desire is of the same levity in seeking as joy in enjoying, and as men too afflicted with trouble, so men too elated with joy, are justly judged to be light; and, since to envy is part of distress, but to take pleasure in others' ills is of joy, both are wont to be chastised by setting forth a certain monstrousness and savagery; and as it becomes one to be cautious, but not to fear, so it becomes one to be glad, but not to be joyful — since, for teaching's sake, we distinguish joy (laetitia) from gladness (gaudium);

that we have already said above: that a contraction of the mind can never rightly come about, but an elation can. For in one way that Naevian Hector rejoices: "I am glad to be praised by you, father, by a praised man"; in another way that man in Trabea: "The bawd, soothed by silver, will watch my nod — what I wish, what I am bent on. Coming up, I shall push the door with my finger; the gates will open. When Chrysis catches sight of me unawares, eager she will come to meet me, longing for my embrace, will give herself to me. How beautiful she thinks this, he himself will now say: I shall outstrip Fortune herself by my fortunes."

How base this joy is, it is enough for one attending diligently to see thoroughly. And as those are base who carry themselves away with joy when they enjoy the pleasures of love, so those are infamous who covet them with an inflamed mind. But that whole thing which is commonly called love — nor, by Hercules, do I find by what other name it could be called — is of so great a levity that I see nothing which I think comparable to it. Whom Caecilius thinks anyone who does not reckon the highest god, either a fool or unskilled in things, "in whose hand it is whom he wishes to be mad, whom to be wise, whom to be healed, whom to be cast into disease, whom to be loved in return, whom to be sought, whom to be summoned." O glorious corrector of life, poetry, which thinks that love, the author of infamy and levity, must be placed in the council of the gods!

I speak of comedy, which, if we did not approve these infamies, would not exist at all. What says that chief of the Argonauts out of tragedy? "You saved me for the sake of love rather than of honour." What then? This love of Medea — what fires of miseries it kindled! And she yet dares, in another poet, to say to her father that she had had that man for a husband "whom Love had given, who prevails more and is mightier than a father."

But let us suffer the poets to play, in whose fables we see even Jove himself engaged in this infamy: let us come to the philosophers, the masters of virtue, who deny that love is of debauchery, and in that matter quarrel with Epicurus, not lying much, as my opinion is. For what is that "love of friendship"? Why does no one love an ugly youth or a handsome old man? To me, indeed, this custom seems to have been born in the gymnasia of the Greeks, in which these loves are free and permitted. Well, then, said Ennius: "The beginning of infamy is to bare one's body among fellow citizens." Who, even if they be chaste — which I see can come about — are yet anxious and troubled, and the more so because they restrain and check themselves.

And, to omit the loves of women, to whom nature has granted greater license, who either doubts about the rape of Ganymede what the poets mean, or does not understand what Laius in Euripides both says and desires? Finally, what do the most learned men and the highest poets publish about themselves in their songs and in their lays? Alcaeus, a brave man, known in his own commonwealth, what things he writes about the love of youths! For the whole poetry of Anacreon, indeed, is of love. But that, above all of them, Ibycus of Rhegium burned with love, appears from his writings. And we see that the loves of all these were lustful. We philosophers have arisen — and on the authority indeed of our own Plato, whom Dicaearchus not unjustly accuses — to attribute authority to love.

The Stoics, indeed, both say that the wise man will love, and define love itself as an effort of making friendship from the appearance of beauty. And if there is any such love in the nature of things, without anxiety, without longing, without care, without sighing, let it be, by all means; for it is free of all lust; but this discourse is about lust. But if there is any love — as there certainly is — which is nothing absent, or not much, from madness, such as is in the Leucadia: "If indeed there be any god to whom I am a care" —

but it was to be cared for by all the gods, in what way this man should enjoy the pleasure of love! "Alas, unhappy me!" — nothing truer. And rightly too that other: "Are you sane, who lament rashly?" So he seems insane even to his own people. But what tragedies he makes! "You, holy Apollo, bring aid, and you, Neptune, mighty over the streams, I invoke, and you indeed, Winds!" He thinks the whole world will turn itself to the relieving of his love; Venus alone he shuts out as unjust: "For why should I call upon you, Venus?" He says that she, through lust, cares for nothing — as though he himself did not, on account of lust, both do and say such great infamies.

— To one so affected, then, this cure must be applied: that both that which he desires be shown how light, how contemptible, how utterly of no account it is, how easily it can be accomplished either from elsewhere or in another manner, or wholly disregarded; he must also sometimes be drawn away to other studies, cares, concerns, businesses; finally, by a change of place, like sick men not recovering, he must often be cured;

some, too, think that an old love, like a nail by a nail, must be driven out by a new love; but above all he must be admonished how great is the fury of love. For of all the disturbances of the mind there is assuredly none more vehement; so that, even if you should not wish to accuse those very things — I mean debaucheries and corruptions and adulteries, incests, finally, of all which the baseness is accusable — but, to omit these, the very disturbance of the mind in love is foul in itself.

For, to pass over those things which are of fury, these very things which seem to be moderate, what levity have they! "Wrongs, suspicions, enmities, truces, war, then peace again! If you should demand to make these uncertain things certain by reason, you would accomplish nothing more than if you should take pains to be mad with reason." This inconstancy and changeableness of mind, whom would it not deter by its very depravity? There is also that which, in every disturbance, is said and must be demonstrated — that there is none but what is a matter of opinion, taken up by judgement, voluntary. For indeed, if love were natural, both all would love, and they would love always, and they would love the same; nor would shame deter one, reflection another, satiety another. But anger — which, as long as it disturbs the mind, leaves no doubt of madness — by whose impulse there arises even between brothers such a quarrel as this:

"What man anywhere among the nations has surpassed you in shamelessness? And who in malice has surpassed you?" — you know what follows; for in alternate verses the gravest insults are hurled between the brothers, so that it readily appears that they are the sons of Atreus, of him who plots a new punishment against his brother: "A greater mass for me, a greater evil must be mixed, that I may crush and press down that man's bitter heart." Whither, then, does this mass burst out? Hear Thyestes: "My very brother urges me, wretched, to chew my own children with my jaws" — he sets their flesh before him. For what is there to which anger does not advance, to the same point as fury? And so we properly say that angry men have gone out of their power, that is, out of counsel, out of reason, out of mind; for the power of these ought to be over the whole mind.

From these men either those against whom they try to make their assault must be withdrawn, while they collect themselves — but what is it to collect oneself but to gather the scattered parts of the mind again into their place? — or they must be asked and entreated that, if they have any power of avenging, they defer it to another time, while the anger cools. But to cool surely signifies an ardour of the mind roused against the will of reason. Whence is praised that saying of Archytas, who, when he had become rather angry with his bailiff, said: "In what manner would I have treated you, had I not been angry!"

Where, then, are those who say irascibility is useful — can madness be useful? — or natural? Or is anything according to nature which is done with reason resisting? But in what way, if anger were natural, would one be more irascible than another, or would the lust of avenging have an end before it was avenged, or would anyone repent of what he had done through anger? As we see King Alexander, who, when he had slain Clitus his friend, scarcely held his hands from himself; so great was the force of his repentance. These things being known, who is there who would doubt that this motion of the mind too is wholly a matter of opinion and voluntary? For who would doubt that the sicknesses of the mind, such as avarice, the desire of glory, arise from this — that that thing is greatly esteemed from which the mind sickens? Whence it ought to be understood that every disturbance too is in opinion.

And if confidence — that is, a firm trust of mind — is a certain knowledge and a grave opinion of one not rashly assenting, fear too is a distrust of an expected and impending evil; and if hope is the expectation of a good, fear must of necessity be the expectation of an evil. As fear, then, so the remaining disturbances are in evil. Therefore, as steadfastness is of knowledge, so disturbance is of error. But those who are said by nature to be irascible or pitiful or envious or anything of the kind, are constituted, as it were, with a bad health of mind, yet curable, as Socrates is said: when Zopyrus, who professed to discern each man's nature from his form, had collected many vices against him in an assembly, he was laughed at by the rest, who did not recognize those vices in Socrates, but was relieved by Socrates himself, who said that those vices were indeed born in him, but had been cast off by reason.

Therefore, as everyone endowed with the best health can seem by nature more prone to some disease, so one mind is more inclined to certain vices than another. But those who are said to be vicious not by nature, but by fault, their vices consist of false opinions of good and evil things, so that one is more prone than another to certain motions and disturbances. But an inveterate condition, as in bodies, is more troublesomely driven away than a disturbance, and a sudden swelling of the eyes is more quickly healed than a long-standing inflammation is driven off.

But the cause of the disturbances being now known — which all arise from the judgements of opinions and from the will — let there now be a measure to this disputation. But we ought to know that, the limits of goods and evils being known, so far as they can be known by man, nothing greater or more useful can be sought from philosophy than these things which have been disputed by us in these four days. For, death being despised, and pain being lightened toward the enduring, we have joined the calming of distress, than which there is no greater evil for man. For although every disturbance of the mind is grave, and differs not much from madness, yet others, when they are in some disturbance either of fear or of joy or of desire, we are wont to call merely moved and disturbed, but those who have given themselves up to distress, wretched, afflicted, hardship-laden, calamitous.

And so it seems to have been done not by chance, but proposed by you with reason, that we should dispute separately about distress and about the other disturbances; for in it is the fount and head of miseries. But both of distress and of the remaining diseases of the mind there is one healing — that all are matters of opinion and voluntary, and are taken up for this reason, that it seems right so to do. This error, as it were the root of all evils, philosophy promises to draw out by the roots.

Let us, then, give ourselves to her to be cultivated, and suffer ourselves to be healed. For, these evils sitting within, we can be not only not happy, but not even sound. Either, then, let us deny that anything is accomplished by reason, when, on the contrary, nothing can be done rightly without reason; or, since philosophy consists in the bringing together of reasonings, let us, if we wish to be both good and happy, seek from her all the aids and helps of living well and happily.