Wherefore, as I before said, the philosophers have all one method of cure, so that we need say nothing about what sort of thing that is which disturbs the mind, but we must speak only concerning the perturbation itself. Thus first, with regard to desire itself, when the business is only to remove that, the inquiry is not to be whether that thing be good or evil which provokes lust, but the lust itself is to be removed; so that whether whatever is honest is the chief good, or whether it consists in pleasure, or in both these things together, or in the other three kinds of goods, yet should there be in anyone too vehement an appetite for even virtue itself, the whole discourse should be directed to the deterring him from that vehemence. But human nature, when placed in a conspicuous point of view, gives us every argument for appeasing the mind, and, to make this the more distinct, the laws and conditions of life should be explained in our discourse. Therefore, it was not without reason that Socrates is reported, when Euripides was exhibiting his play called Orestes, to have repeated the first three verses of that tragedy—
What tragic story men can mournful tell,
Whate’er from fate or from the gods befell,
That human nature can support—52
But in order to persuade those to whom any misfortune has happened that they can and ought to bear it, it is very useful to set before them an enumeration of other persons who have borne similar calamities. Indeed, the method of appeasing grief was explained in my dispute of yesterday, and in my book on Consolation, which I wrote in the midst of my own grief, for I was not myself so wise a man as to be insensible to grief, and I used this—notwithstanding Chrysippus’s advice to the contrary, who is against applying a medicine to the agitations of the mind while they are fresh—but I did it, and committed a violence on nature, that the greatness of my grief might give way to the greatness of the medicine.
But fear borders upon grief—of which I have already said enough, but I must say a little more on that. Now, as grief proceeds from what is present, so does fear from future evil, so that some have said that fear is a certain part of grief. Others have called fear the harbinger of trouble, which, as it were, introduces the ensuing evil. Now, the reasons that make what is present supportable, make what is to come very contemptible, for, with regard to both, we should take care to do nothing low or grovelling, soft or effeminate, mean or abject. But notwithstanding we should speak of the inconstancy, imbecility, and levity of fear itself, yet it is of very great service to speak contemptuously of those very things of which we are afraid. So that it fell out very well, whether it was by accident or design, that I disputed the first and second day on death and pain—the two things that are the most dreaded. Now, if what I then said was approved of, we are in a great degree freed from fear. And this is sufficient, as far as regards the opinion of evils.
Proceed we now to what are goods—that is to say, to joy and desire. To me, indeed, one thing alone seems to embrace the question of all that relates to the perturbations of the mind—the fact, namely, that all perturbations are in our own power, that they are taken up upon opinion and are voluntary. This error, then, must be got rid of, this opinion must be removed, and, as with regard to imagined evils we are to make them more supportable, so with respect to goods we are to lessen the violent effects of those things which are called great and joyous. But one thing is to be observed that equally relates both to good and evil: that should it be difficult to persuade anyone that none of those things which disturb the mind are to be looked on as good or evil, yet a different cure is to be applied to different feelings, and the malevolent person is to be corrected by one way of reasoning, the lover by another, the anxious man by another, and the fearful by another. And it would be easy for anyone who pursues the best approved method of reasoning with regard to good and evil, to maintain that no fool can be affected with joy, as he never can have anything good. But, at present, my discourse proceeds upon the common received notions. Let, then, honors, riches, pleasures, and the rest be the very good things which they are imagined to be, yet a too elevated and exulting joy on the possession of them is unbecoming; just as, though it might be allowable to laugh, to giggle would be indecent. Thus, a mind enlarged by joy is as blamable as a contraction of it by grief; and eager longing is a sign of as much levity in desiring as immoderate joy is in
