at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief
in general; still, if any other deficiency exists--should poverty bite,
should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or
should any of those things which I have just mentioned appear, there is
for each its appropriate consolation, which you shall hear whenever you
please. But we must have recourse again to the same original principle,
that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it
answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion
and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve,
when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so. When, then,
we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful
uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, some slight
pricking, will still remain. They may indeed call this natural,
provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of
grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom. But how various and
how bitter are the roots of grief! Whatever they are, I propose, after
having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be
necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have
leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up. But the
principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under
different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation,
detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation,
vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. The Stoics define
all these different feelings; and all those words which I have
mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express
the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as I shall
make appear perhaps in another place. These are those fibres of the
roots which, as I said at first, must be traced back and cut off and
destroyed, so that not one shall remain. You say it is a great and
difficult undertaking: who denies it? But what is there of any