ON OTHER PERTURBATIONS OF THE MIND. 143as a mind disordered and drawn off from right and un-

erring reason loses at once, not only its resolution, but its health. Therefore the thoughts and declarations of the Peripatetics are soft and effeminate, for they say that the mind must necessarily be agitated, but at the same time they lay down certain bounds beyond which that agitation is not to proceed. And do you set bounds to vice ? or is it no vice to disobey reason? Does not reason sufficient ly declare that there is no real good which you should de sire too ardently, or the possession of which you should al low to transport you ? and that there is no evil that should be able to overwhelm you, or the suspicion of which should distract you? and that all these things assume too melan choly or too cheerful an appearance through our own er ror ? But if fools find this error lessened by time, so that, though the cause remains the same, they are not affected in the same manner, after some time, as they were at first, why, surely a wise man ought not to be influenced at all by it. But what are those degrees by which we are to limit it? Let us fix these degrees in grief, a difficult sub ject, and one much canvassed. Fannius writes that P. Rutilius took it much to heart that his brother was refused the consulship ; but he seems to have been too much af fected by this disappointment, for it was the occasion of bis death: he ought, therefore, to have borne it with more moderation. But let us suppose that while he was bear ing this with moderation, the death of his children had in tervened ; here would have started a fresh grief, which, ad mitting it to be moderate in itself, yet still must have been a great addition to the other. Now, to these let us add some acute pains of body, the loss of his fortune, blindness, banishment. Supposing, then, each separate misfortune to occasion a separate additional grief, the whole would be too great to be supportable. XVIII. The man who attempts to set bounds to vice acts like one who should throw himself headlong from Leucate, persuaded that he could stop himself whenever he pleased. Now, as that is impossible, so a perturbed and disordered mind cannot restrain itself, and stop where it pleases. Certainly whatever is bad in its increase is

bad in its birth. Now grief and all other perturbations