grieves
merely because he thinks it right so to do. Certainly, then, as in
pleadings we do not state all cases alike (if I may adopt the language
of lawyers for a moment), but adapt what we have to say to the time, to
the nature of the subject under debate, and to the person; so, too, in
alleviating grief, regard should be had to what kind of cure the party
to be comforted can admit of. But, somehow or other, we have rambled
from what you originally proposed. For your question was concerning a
wise man, with whom nothing can have the appearance of evil that is not
dishonorable; or at least, anything else would seem so small an evil
that by his wisdom he would so overmatch it as to make it wholly
disappear; and such a man makes no addition to his grief through
opinion, and never conceives it right to torment himself above measure,
nor to wear himself out with grief, which is the meanest thing
imaginable. Reason, however, it seems, has demonstrated (though it was
not directly our object at the moment to inquire whether anything can
be called an evil except what is base) that it is in our power to
discern that all the evil which there is in affliction has nothing
natural in it, but is contracted by our own voluntary judgment of it,
and the error of opinion.

XXXIV. But the kind of affliction of which I have treated is that which
is the greatest; in order that when we have once got rid of that, it
may appear a business of less consequence to look after remedies for
the others. For there are certain things which are usually said about
poverty; and also certain statements ordinarily applied to retired and
undistinguished life. There are particular treatises on banishment, on
the ruin of one's country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, and
on every incident that can come under the name of an evil. The Greeks
divide these into different treatises and distinct books; but they do
it for the sake of employment: not but that all such discussions are
full of entertainment. And yet, as physicians, in curing the whole
body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is
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 whe