Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶27 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶27

What I say here may be distinguished in thought, though they are in fact the same, inasmuch as they both have their rise from lust and joy. For should money be the object of our desire, and should we not instantly apply to reason as if it were a kind of Socratic medicine to heal this desire, the evil glides into our veins, and cleaves to our bowels, and from thence proceeds a distemper or sickness which, when it is of any continuance, is incurable, and the name of this disease is covetousness. It is the same with other diseases: as the desire of glory, a passion for women, to which the Greeks give the name of φιλογυνεία. And thus all other diseases and sicknesses are generated. But those feelings which are the contrary of these are supposed to have fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women such as is displayed in the Woman-hater of Atilius, or the hatred of the whole human species as Timon is reported to have done, whom they call the Misanthrope. Of the same kind is inhospitality. And all these diseases proceed from a certain dread of such things as they hate and avoid. But they define sickness of mind to be an overweening opinion, and that fixed and deeply implanted in the heart, of something as very desirable which is by no means so. What proceeds from aversion, they define thus: a vehement idea of something to be avoided, deeply implanted and inherent in our minds, when there is no reason for avoiding it. And this kind of opinion is a deliberate belief that one understands things of which one is wholly ignorant. Now, sickness of the mind has all these subordinate divisions: avarice, ambition, fondness for women, obstinacy, gluttony, drunkenness, covetousness, and other similar vices. But avarice is a violent opinion about money, as if it were vehemently to be desired and sought after, which opinion is deeply implanted and inherent in our minds. And the definition of all the other similar feelings resembles these. But the definitions of aversions are of this sort: inhospitality is a vehement opinion, deeply implanted and inherent in your mind, that you should avoid a stranger. Thus, too, the hatred of women, like that felt by Hippolytus, is defined; and the hatred of the human species like that displayed by Timon.