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SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

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EPISTLE LXXXV.<br />

vices <strong>of</strong> less degree as equivalent to virtues.* For<br />

indeed the man who does feel fear, though he feels<br />

it rather seldom and to a slight degree,<br />

is not free<br />

from wickedness, but is merely troubled bv it in a<br />

*/ /<br />

milder form.<br />

" Not so/' is the " reply, for I hold<br />

that a man is mad if he does not fear evils which<br />

hang over his head." What you say is perfectly<br />

true, if the things which threaten are really evils ;<br />

but if he knows that they are not evils and believes<br />

that the only evil is baseness, he will be bound to<br />

face dangers without anxiety and to despise things<br />

which other men cannot help fearing. Or, if it is<br />

the characteristic <strong>of</strong> a fool and a madman not to fear<br />

evils, then the wiser a man is the more he will fear<br />

such " things<br />

! It is the doctrine <strong>of</strong> you <strong>Stoic</strong>s,<br />

then," they " reply, that a brave man will expose<br />

himself to dangers." By no means; he will merely<br />

not fear them, though he will avoid them. It is<br />

proper for him to be careful, but not to be fearful. 6<br />

" What then ? Is he not to fear death, imprisonment,<br />

burning, and all the other missiles <strong>of</strong> Fortune<br />

"<br />

?<br />

Not at all ;<br />

for he knows that they are not evils, but<br />

only seem to be. He reckons all these things as<br />

the bugbears <strong>of</strong> man's existence. Paint him a picture<br />

<strong>of</strong> slavery, lashes, chains, want, mutilation by disease<br />

or by torture, or anything else you may care to<br />

mention ;<br />

he will count all such things as terrors<br />

caused by the derangement <strong>of</strong> the mind. These<br />

things are only to be feared by those who are fearful.<br />

Or do you regard as an evil that to which some day<br />

to resort <strong>of</strong> our own free will ?<br />

we may be compelled<br />

What then, you ask, is an evil ?<br />

It is the yielding<br />

to those things which are called evils ;<br />

it is the<br />

surrendering <strong>of</strong> one's liberty into their control, when<br />

really we ought to suffer all things in order to pre-<br />

301

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