Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero
page 157 of 604 (25%)
page 157 of 604 (25%)
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evil, in which it seems to be right that the mind should shrink and be
dejected. Joy is a recent opinion of a present good, in which it seems to be right that the mind should be elated. Fear is an opinion of an impending evil which we apprehend will be intolerable. Lust is an opinion of a good to come, which would be of advantage were it already come, and present with us. But however I have named the judgments and opinions of perturbations, their meaning is, not that merely the perturbations consist in them, but that the effects likewise of these perturbations do so; as grief occasions a kind of painful pricking, and fear engenders a recoil or sudden abandonment of the mind, joy gives rise to a profuse mirth, while lust is the parent of an unbridled habit of coveting. But that imagination, which I have included in all the above definitions, they would have to consist in assenting without warrantable grounds. Now, every perturbation has many subordinate parts annexed to it of the same kind. Grief is attended with enviousness (_invidentia_)--I use that word for instruction's sake, though it is not so common; because envy (_invidia_) takes in not only the person who envies, but the person, too, who is envied--emulation, detraction, pity, vexation, mourning, sadness, tribulation, sorrow, lamentation, solicitude, disquiet of mind, pain, despair, and many other similar feelings are so too. Under fear are comprehended sloth, shame, terror, cowardice, fainting, confusion, astonishment. In pleasure they comprehend malevolence--that is, pleased at another's misfortune--delight, boastfulness, and the like. To lust they associate anger, fury, hatred, enmity, discord, wants, desire, and other feelings of that kind. But they define these in this manner: VIII. Enviousness (_invidentia_), they say, is a grief arising from the |
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