at. Then the fox said, "Look inside me, sir judge,
and you will see that I am more full of variety than my opponent,"
referring to his trickiness and versatility in shifts. Let us similarly
say to ourselves, Many diseases and disorders, good sir, thy body
naturally produces of itself, many also it receives from without; but if
thou lookest at thyself within thou wilt find, to borrow the language of
Democritus, a varied and susceptible storehouse and treasury of what is
bad, not flowing in from without, but having as it were innate and
native springs, which vice, being exceedingly rich and abundant in
passion, produces. And if diseases are detected in the body by the pulse
and by pallors and flushes,[314] and are indicated by heats and sudden
pains, while the diseases of the mind, bad as they are, escape the
notice of most people, the latter are worse because they deprive the
sufferer of the perception of them. For reason if it be sound perceives
the diseases of the body, but he that is diseased in his mind cannot
judge of his sufferings, for he suffers in the very seat of judgement.
We ought to account therefore the first and greatest of the diseases of
the mind that ignorance,[315] whereby vice is incurable for most people,
dwelling with them and living and dying with them. For the beginning of
getting rid of disease is the perception of it, which leads the sufferer
to the necessary relief, but he who through not believing he is ill
knows not what he requires refuses the remedy even when it is close at
hand. For amongst the diseases of the body those are the worst which are
accompanied by stupor, as lethargies, headaches, epilepsies, apoplexies,
and those fevers which raise inflammation to the pitch of madness, and
disturb the brain as in the case of a musical instrument,

"And move the mind's strings hitherto untouched."[316]

Sec. III. And so doctors wish a man not to be ill, or if he is ill to be
ignorant of it, as is the case with all diseases of the soul. For
neither those who are out of their minds, nor the licentious, nor the
unjust think themselves faulty--some even think themselves perfect. For
no one ever yet called a fever health, or consumption a good condition
of body, or gout swift-footedness, or paleness a good colour; but many
call anger manliness, and love friendship, and envy competition, and
cowardice prudence. Then again those that are ill in body send for
doctors, for they are conscious of what