ALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}. Let us then translate it
perturbation, which is by its very name pointed out to be something
vicious. Nor are these perturbations, I say, excited by any natural force;
and they are altogether in kind four, but as to their divisions they are
more numerous. There is melancholy, fear, lust, and that feeling which the
Stoics call by the common name which they apply to both mind and body,
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}, and which I prefer translating joy (_laetitia_), rather than a
pleasurable elation of an exulting mind. But perturbations are not excited
by any force of nature; and all those feelings are judgments and opinions
proceeding from light-mindedness; and, therefore, the wise man will always
be free from them.

XI. But that everything which is honourable is to be sought for its own
sake, is an opinion common to us with many other schools of philosophers.
For, except the three sects which exclude virtue from the chief good, this
opinion must be maintained by all philosophers, and above all by us, who
do not rank anything whatever among goods except what is honourable. But
the defence of this opinion is very easy and simple indeed; for who is
there, or who ever was there, of such violent avarice, or of such
unbridled desires as not infinitely to prefer that anything which he
wishes to acquire, even at the expense of any conceivable wickedness,
should come into his power without crime, (even though he had a prospect
of perfect impunity,) than through crime? and what utility, or what
personal advantage do we hope for, when we are anxious to know whether
those bodies are moving whose movements are concealed from us, and owing
to what causes they revolve through the heavens? And who is there that
lives according to such clownish maxims, or who has so rigorously hardened
himself against the study of nature, as to be averse to things worthy of
being understood, and to be indifferent to and disregard such knowledge,
merely because there is no exact usefulness or pleasure likely to result
from it? or, who is there who--when he comes to know the exploits, and
sayings, and wise counsels of our forefathers, of the Africani, or of that
ancestor of mine whom you are always talking of, and of other brave men,
and citizens of pre-eminent virtue--does not f