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Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero
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covetousness. It is the same with other diseases; as the desire of
glory, a passion for women, to which the Greeks give the name of
[Greek: philogyneia]: and thus all other diseases and sicknesses are
generated. But those feelings which are the contrary of these are
supposed to have fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women, such
as is displayed in the Woman-hater of Atilius; or the hatred of the
whole human species, as Timon is reported to have done, whom they call
the Misanthrope. Of the same kind is inhospitality. And all these
diseases proceed from a certain dread of such things as they hate and
avoid. But they define sickness of mind to be an overweening opinion,
and that fixed and deeply implanted in the heart, of something as very
desirable which is by no means so. What proceeds from aversion, they
define thus: a vehement idea of something to be avoided, deeply
implanted, and inherent in our minds, when there is no reason for
avoiding it; and this kind of opinion is a deliberate belief that one
understands things of which one is wholly ignorant. Now, sickness of
the mind has all these subordinate divisions: avarice, ambition,
fondness for women, obstinacy, gluttony, drunkenness, covetousness, and
other similar vices. But avarice is a violent opinion about money, as
if it were vehemently to be desired and sought after, which opinion is
deeply implanted and inherent in our minds; and the definition of all
the other similar feelings resembles these. But the definitions of
aversions are of this sort: inhospitality is a vehement opinion, deeply
implanted and inherent in your mind, that you should avoid a stranger.
Thus, too, the hatred of women, like that felt by Hippolytus, is
defined; and the hatred of the human species like that displayed by
Timon.

XII. But to come to the analogy of the state of body and mind, which I
shall sometimes make use of, though more sparingly than the Stoics.
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