from the dominion of fear; the essence of fear, that which prompts
it, is the consciousness of our vulnerability. What we all dread is
the disease or the accident that may disable us, the loss of money
or credit, the death of those whom we love and whose love makes the
sunshine of our life, the anger and hostility and displeasure and
scorn and ill-usage of those about us. These are the definite things
which the anxious mind forecasts, and upon which it mournfully
dwells.

The object then in the minds of the philosophers or teachers who
would fain relieve the unhappiness of the world, has been always to
suggest ways in which this vulnerability may be lessened; and thus
their object has been to disengage as far as possible the hopes and
affections of men from things which must always be fleeting. That
is the principle which lies behind all asceticism, that, if one can
be indifferent to wealth and comfort and popularity, one has a
better chance of serenity. The essence of that teaching is not that
pleasant things are not desirable, but that one is more miserable
if one loses them than if one never cares for them at all. The
ascetic trains himself to be indifferent about food and drink and
the apparatus of life; he aims at celibacy partly because love
itself is an overmastering passion, and partly because he cannot
bear to engage himself with human affections, the loss of which may
give him pain. There is, of course, a deeper strain in asceticism
than this, which is a suspicious mistrust of all physical joys and
a sense of their baseness; but that is in itself an artistic
preference of mental and spiritual joys, and a defiance to
everything which may impair or invade them.

The Stoic imperturbability is an attempt to take a further step;