SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

human mind ?
EPISTLE LXXXI1.
For the mind will never rise to virtue
if it believes that death is an evil ;
but it will so rise
if it holds that death is a matter of indifference. It
is not in the order of nature that a man shall proceed
with a great heart to a destiny which he believes to
be evil ;
he will go sluggishly and with reluctance.
But nothing glorious can result from unwillingness
and cowardice; virtue does nothing under compulsion.
Besides, no deed that a man does is honourable unless
he has devoted himself thereto and attended to
it with all his heart, rebelling against it with no
portion of his being. When, however, a man goes
to face an evil, either through fear of worse evils
or in the hope of goods whose attainment is of sufficient
moment to him that he can swallow the one
evil which he must endure, in that case the judgment
of the agent
is drawn in two directions. On the one
side is the motive which bids him carry out his purpose
on the other, the motive which restrains him
;
and makes him flee from something which has aroused
his apprehension or leads to danger. Hence he is torn
in different directions ;
and if this happens, the glory
of his act is gone. For virtue accomplishes its plans
only when the spirit is in harmony with itself. There
is no element of fear in any of its actions.
Yield not to evils, but, still braver, go
Where'er thy fortune shall allow.
You cannot " still braver go," if you are persuaded
that those things are the real evils. Root out this idea
from your soul ;
otherwise your apprehensions will
remain undecided and will thus check the impulse to
action. You will be pushed into that towards which
you ought to advance like a soldier.
Those of our school, it is true, would have men
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