Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶30 — Cicero (on the Stoics)

Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶30

Herein, indeed, the mind and body are unlike: that though the mind when in perfect health may be visited by sickness, as the body may, yet the body may be disordered without our fault; the mind cannot. For all the disorders and perturbations of the mind proceed from a neglect of reason. These disorders, therefore, are confined to men; the beasts are not subject to such perturbations, though they act sometimes as if they had reason. There is a difference, too, between ingenious and dull men: the ingenious, like the Corinthian brass which is long before it receives rust, are longer before they fall into these perturbations and are recovered sooner; the case is different with the dull. Nor does the mind of an ingenious man fall into every kind of perturbation, for it never yields to any that are brutish and savage, and some of their perturbations have at first even the appearance of humanity: as mercy, grief, and fear. But the sicknesses and diseases of the mind are thought to be harder to eradicate than those leading vices which are in opposition to virtues; for vices may be removed, though the diseases of the mind should continue, which diseases are not cured with that expedition with which vices are removed. I have now acquainted you with the arguments which the Stoics put forth with such exactness, which they call logic, from their close arguing. And since my discourse has got clear of these rocks, I will proceed with the remainder of it, provided I have been sufficiently clear in what I have already said, considering the obscurity of the subject I have treated.