never you
please. But we must have recourse again to the same original principle,
that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it
answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion
and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve,
when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so. When, then,
we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful
uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, some slight
pricking, will still remain. They may indeed call this natural,
provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of
grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom. But how various and
how bitter are the roots of grief! Whatever they are, I propose, after
having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be
necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have
leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up. But the
principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under
different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation,
detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation,
vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. The Stoics define
all these different feelings; and all those words which I have
mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express
the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as I shall
make appear perhaps in another place. These are those fibres of the
roots which, as I said at first, must be traced back and cut off and
destroyed, so that not one shall remain. You say it is a great and
difficult undertaking: who denies it? But what is there of any
excellency which has not its difficulty? Yet philosophy undertakes to
effect it, provided we admit its superintendence. But enough of this.
The other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here or
anywhere else.

* * * * *

BOOK IV.

On other perturbations of the mind.

I. I have often wondered, Brutus, on many occasions, at the ingenuity
and virtues of our countrymen; but nothing has surprised me more than
their development in those studies, which, though they came somewhat
late to us, have been transported into this city from Greece. For the
system of auspices, and religious ceremonies, and courts of justice,
and appeals to the people, the senate, the establishment of an army of
cavalry and in