Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] The question has often been raised whether it is better to have moderate feelings or none at all. Our school expels them; the Peripatetics moderate them. I do not see how any moderate amount of a disease can be healthy or useful. Don't be alarmed: I am not taking away anything you don't want to be denied. I will be easy and indulgent about the things you are aiming at, the things you consider necessary, useful, or pleasant in life; I will only remove the defect. For once I have forbidden you to crave, I will allow you to want, so that you may do those same things fearlessly, with a steadier purpose, and feel the pleasures themselves more fully—why should they not reach you more when you command them than when you are their slave? [2] 'But it's natural,' you say, 'for me to be tormented by longing for a friend: grant tears that fall so justly their due. It's natural to be affected by people's opinions and saddened by hostile ones: why not allow me this fear, so honorable, of a bad reputation?' There is no vice without its defense; every vice has a modest and persuadable beginning, but from there it spreads far wider. You will not manage to make it stop once you have allowed it to begin. [3] Every passion is weak at first; then it works itself up and gathers strength as it goes: it is easier to shut it out than to drive it out. Who denies that every passion flows from some starting point that is, in a sense, natural? Nature entrusted to us care for ourselves, but once you indulge this too much, it becomes a vice. Nature mixed pleasure in with necessary things, not so that we would pursue pleasure itself, but so that the addition of pleasure would make more welcome to us the things without which we cannot live; once it comes in its own right, claiming its own authority, it is excess. So let us resist things at the point of entry, since, as I said, it is easier for them not to be let in than to be sent out again. [4] 'Allow me,' you say, 'to grieve a little, to fear a little.' But that 'a little' stretches out far, and does not stop where you want it to. For the wise man it is safe not to watch himself anxiously; he can halt his tears and his pleasures wherever he wishes; for us, since it is not easy to turn back, the best course is not to advance at all. [5] I think Panaetius answered elegantly a young man who asked whether the wise man would fall in love. 'As for the wise man,' he said, 'we shall see; as for you and me, who are still far from wise, we must not risk falling into something so disturbed, so out of control, so subject to another's will, so worthless in its own eyes. For if the beloved responds to us, we are provoked by her kindness; if she scorns us, we are set on fire by pride. Love's easiness harms as much as its difficulty: we are captured by easiness, we struggle against difficulty. And so, conscious of our own weakness, let us stay still; let us not entrust a mind already frail to wine, or to beauty, or to flattery, or to anything else that draws us on with soft coaxing.' [6] What Panaetius answered the young man about love, I say about all the passions: as far as we can, let us step back from slippery ground; even on dry ground we hardly stand firm enough.
[7] Here you will meet me with that common objection people make against the Stoics: 'Your promises are too grand, your rules too harsh. We are only little people; we cannot deny ourselves everything. We will grieve, but only a little; we will desire, but in moderation; we will grow angry, but we will be calmed.' [8] Do you know why we cannot manage this? Because we do not believe we can. No, by god, the truth is something else: we defend our vices because we love them, and we would rather make excuses for them than shake them off. Nature has given man strength enough, if only we use it, if we gather our powers and turn them wholly to our own defense, and certainly not against ourselves. Unwillingness is the real cause; incapacity is only the pretext. Farewell.