ge and serious opinion not
hastily taken up, then diffidence is a fear of an expected and
impending evil; and if hope is an expectation of good, fear must, of
course, be an expectation of evil. Thus fear and other perturbations
are evils. Therefore, as constancy proceeds from knowledge, so does
perturbation from error. Now, they who are said to be naturally
inclined to anger, or to pity, or to envy, or to any feeling of this
kind, their minds are constitutionally, as it were, in bad health; yet
they are curable, as the disposition of Socrates is said to have been;
for when Zopyrus, who professed to know the character of every one from
his person, had heaped a great many vices on him in a public assembly,
he was laughed at by others, who could perceive no such vices in
Socrates; but Socrates kept him in countenance by declaring that such
vices were natural to him, but that he had got the better of them by
his reason. Therefore, as any one who has the appearance of the best
constitution may yet appear to be naturally rather inclined to some
particular disorder, so different minds may be more particularly
inclined to different diseases. But as to those men who are said to be
vicious, not by nature, but their own fault, their vices proceed from
wrong opinions of good and bad things, so that one is more prone than
another to different motions and perturbations. But, just as it is in
the case of the body, an inveterate disease is harder to be got rid of
than a sudden disorder; and it is more easy to cure a fresh tumor in
the eyes than to remove a defluxion of any continuance.

XXXVIII. But as the cause of perturbations is now discovered, for all
of them arise from the judgment or opinion, or volition, I shall put an
end to this discourse. But we ought to be assured, since the boundaries
of good and evil are now discovered, as far as they are discoverable by
man, that nothing can be desired of philosophy greater or more useful
than the discussions which we have held these four days. For besides
instilling a contempt of death, and relieving pain so as to enable men
to bear it, we have added the appeasing of grief, than which there is
no greater evil to man. For though every perturbation of mind is
grievous, and differs but little from madness, yet we are used to say
of others when they are under any perturbation, as of fear, joy, or
desire, that they are agitated and disturbed; but of those who give
themselves up to grief, that