t service to speak
contemptuously of those very things of which we are afraid. So that it
fell out very well, whether it was by accident or design, that I
disputed the first and second day on death and pain--the two things
that are the most dreaded: now, if what I then said was approved of, we
are in a great degree freed from fear. And this is sufficient, as far
as regards the opinion of evils.

XXXI. Proceed we now to what are goods--that is to say, to joy and
desire. To me, indeed, one thing alone seems to embrace the question of
all that relates to the perturbations of the mind--the fact, namely,
that all perturbations are in our own power; that they are taken up
upon opinion, and are voluntary. This error, then, must be got rid of;
this opinion must be removed; and, as with regard to imagined evils, we
are to make them more supportable, so with respect to goods, we are to
lessen the violent effects of those things which are called great and
joyous. But one thing is to be observed, that equally relates both to
good and evil: that, should it be difficult to persuade any one that
none of those things which disturb the mind are to be looked on as good
or evil, yet a different cure is to be applied to different feelings;
and the malevolent person is to be corrected by one way of reasoning,
the lover by another, the anxious man by another, and the fearful by
another: and it would be easy for any one who pursues the best approved
method of reasoning, with regard to good and evil, to maintain that no
fool can be affected with joy, as he never can have anything good. But,
at present, my discourse proceeds upon the common received notions.
Let, then, honors, riches, pleasures, and the rest be the very good
things which they are imagined to be; yet a too elevated and exulting
joy on the possession of them is unbecoming; just as, though it might
be allowable to laugh, to giggle would be indecent. Thus, a mind
enlarged by joy is as blamable as a contraction of it by grief; and
eager longing is a sign of as much levity in desiring as immoderate joy
is in possessing; and, as those who are too dejected are said to be
effeminate, so they who are too elated with joy are properly called
volatile; and as feeling envy is a part of grief, and the being pleased
with another's misfortune is a kind of joy, both these feelings are
usually corrected by showing the wildness and insensibility of them:
and as it becomes a man to be cautious, but