FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323  
324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   337   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   345   346   347   348   >>   >|  
What will you, moreover, say of pain, which Aristippus, Hieronimus, and most of the sages have reputed the worst of evils; and those who have denied it by word of mouth have, however, confessed it in effect? Posidonius being extremely tormented with a sharp and painful disease, Pompeius came to visit him, excusing himself that he had taken so unseasonable a time to come to hear him discourse of philosophy. "The gods forbid," said Posidonius to him, "that pain should ever have the power to hinder me from talking," and thereupon fell immediately upon a discourse of the contempt of pain: but, in the meantime, his own infirmity was playing his part, and plagued him to purpose; to which he cried out, "Thou mayest work thy will, pain, and torment me with all the power thou hast, but thou shalt never make me say that thou art an evil." This story that they make such a clutter withal, what has it to do, I fain would know, with the contempt of pain? He only fights it with words, and in the meantime, if the shootings and dolours he felt did not move him, why did he interrupt his discourse? Why did he fancy he did so great a thing in forbearing to confess it an evil? All does not here consist in the imagination; our fancies may work upon other things: but here is the certain science that is playing its part, of which our senses themselves are judges: "Qui nisi sunt veri, ratio quoque falsa sit omnis." ["Which, if they be not true, all reasoning may also be false. --"Lucretius, iv. 486.] Shall we persuade our skins that the jerks of a whip agreeably tickle us, or our taste that a potion of aloes is vin de Graves? Pyrrho's hog is here in the same predicament with us; he is not afraid of death, 'tis true, but if you beat him he will cry out to some purpose. Shall we force the general law of nature, which in every living creature under heaven is seen to tremble under pain? The very trees seem to groan under the blows they receive. Death is only felt by reason, forasmuch as it is the motion of an instant; "Aut fuit, aut veniet; nihil est praesentis in illa." ["Death has been, or will come: there is nothing of the present in it."--Estienne de la Boetie, Satires.] "Morsque minus poenae, quam mora mortis, habet;" ["The delay of death is more painful than death itself." --Ovid, Ep. Ariadne to Theseus, v. 42.] a thousand beasts, a thousand men, are sooner de
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323  
324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   337   338   339   340   341   342   343   344   345   346   347   348   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

discourse

 

thousand

 

purpose

 

meantime

 

contempt

 

playing

 

painful

 

Posidonius

 

Pyrrho

 

Graves


predicament

 

afraid

 

Lucretius

 

sooner

 

reasoning

 

persuade

 

potion

 

tickle

 

agreeably

 

beasts


creature

 
praesentis
 

veniet

 

Satires

 

Boetie

 

Morsque

 
present
 
mortis
 
Estienne
 
instant

motion

 

poenae

 

heaven

 

living

 

general

 
Ariadne
 
nature
 

tremble

 

reason

 

receive


forasmuch

 

quoque

 

Theseus

 

philosophy

 
forbid
 

unseasonable

 

excusing

 
infirmity
 

plagued

 

immediately