they need to counteract their
ailments; but those who are ill in mind avoid philosophers, for they
think themselves excellent in the very matters in which they come short.
And it is on this account that we maintain that ophthalmia is a lesser
evil than madness, and gout than frenzy. For the person ill in body is
aware of it and calls loudly for the doctor, and when he comes allows
him to anoint his eye, to open a vein, or to plaster up his head; but
you hear mad Agave in her frenzy not knowing her dearest ones, but
crying out, "We bring from the mountain to the halls a young stag
recently torn limb from limb, a fortunate capture."[317] Again he who is
ill in body straightway gives up and goes to bed and remains there
quietly till he is well, and if he toss and tumble about a little when
the fit is on him, any of the people who are by saying to him,

"Gently,
Stay in the bed, poor wretch, and take your ease,"[318]

restrain him and check him. But those who suffer from a diseased brain
are then most active and least at rest, for impulses bring about action,
and the passions are vehement impulses. And so they do not let the mind
rest, but when the man most requires quiet and silence and retirement,
then is he dragged into the open air, and becomes the victim of anger,
contentiousness, lust, and grief, and is compelled to do and say many
lawless things unsuitable to the occasion.

Sec. IV. As therefore the storm which prevents one's putting into harbour
is more dangerous than the storm which will not let one sail, so those
storms of the soul are more formidable which do not allow a man to take
in sail, or to calm his reason when it is disturbed, but without a pilot
and without ballast, in perplexity and uncertainty through contrary and
confusing courses, he rushes headlong and falls into woeful shipwreck,
and shatters his life. So that from these points of view it is worse to
be diseased in mind than body, for the latter only suffer, but the
former do ill as well as suffer ill. But why need I speak of our various
passions? The very times bring them to our mind. Do you see yon great
and promiscuous crowd jostling against one another and surging round the
rostrum and forum? They have not assembled here to sacrifice to their
country's gods, nor to share in one another's rites; they are not
bringing to Ascraean Zeus the firstfruits of Lydian produce,[319] nor are
they celebrating in honou