SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXXXV.
vices of less degree as equivalent to virtues.* For
indeed the man who does feel fear, though he feels
it rather seldom and to a slight degree,
is not free
from wickedness, but is merely troubled bv it in a
*/ /
milder form.
" Not so/' is the " reply, for I hold
that a man is mad if he does not fear evils which
hang over his head." What you say is perfectly
true, if the things which threaten are really evils ;
but if he knows that they are not evils and believes
that the only evil is baseness, he will be bound to
face dangers without anxiety and to despise things
which other men cannot help fearing. Or, if it is
the characteristic of a fool and a madman not to fear
evils, then the wiser a man is the more he will fear
such " things
! It is the doctrine of you Stoics,
then," they " reply, that a brave man will expose
himself to dangers." By no means; he will merely
not fear them, though he will avoid them. It is
proper for him to be careful, but not to be fearful. 6
" What then ? Is he not to fear death, imprisonment,
burning, and all the other missiles of Fortune
"
?
Not at all ;
for he knows that they are not evils, but
only seem to be. He reckons all these things as
the bugbears of man's existence. Paint him a picture
of slavery, lashes, chains, want, mutilation by disease
or by torture, or anything else you may care to
mention ;
he will count all such things as terrors
caused by the derangement of the mind. These
things are only to be feared by those who are fearful.
Or do you regard as an evil that to which some day
to resort of our own free will ?
we may be compelled
What then, you ask, is an evil ?
It is the yielding
to those things which are called evils ;
it is the
surrendering of one's liberty into their control, when
really we ought to suffer all things in order to pre-
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