SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXXXV.
be, it knows no obedience, and does not welcome
advice. a Just as no animal, whether wild or tamed
and gentle, obeys reason, since nature made it deaf
to advice ;
so the passions do not follow or listen,
however slight they are. Tigers and lions never put
off their wildness ; they sometimes moderate it, and
then, when you are least prepared, their softened
fierceness is roused to madness. Vices are never
genuinely tamed. Again, if reason prevails, the
passions will not even get a start but if ;
they get
under way against the will of reason, they will maintain
themselves against the will of reason. For it is
easier to stop them in the beginning than to control
them when they gather force. This half-way ground
is
accordingly misleading and useless it is to
;
be
regarded just as the declaration that we ought to
'
'
be " moderately insane, or " moderately
ill.
Virtue alone possesses moderation ;
the evils that
afflict the mind do not admit of moderation. You
can more easily remove than control them.
Can one
doubt that the vices of the human mind, when they
have become chronic and callous ("
diseases " we call
them), are beyond control, as, for example, greed,
cruelty, and wantonness? Therefore the passions also
are beyond control for
;
it is from the passions that
we pass over to the vices. Again, if you grant any
privileges to sadness, fear, desire, and all the other
wrong impulses, they will cease to lie within our
jurisdiction. And why
?
Simply because the means
of arousing them lie outside our own power. They
will accordingly increase in proportion as the causes
by which they are stirred up are greater or less.
Fear will grow to greater proportions, if that which
causes the terror is seen to be of greater magnitude
or in closer proximity and desire will grow keener
;
VOL. ii K 2 291