Plutarch's Morals
of worthless and incontinent persons, who, when they judge they ought to
love their father and mother better than some boy or girl they are
enamoured of, yet cannot, and yet at once love their mistress or
flatterer, when they judge they ought to hate them? For if passion and
judgement were the same thing, love and hate would immediately follow
the judging it right to love and hate, whereas the contrary happens,
passion following some judgements, but declining to follow others.
Wherefore they acknowledge, the facts compelling them to do so, that
every judgement is not passion, but only that judgement that is
provocative of violent and excessive impulse: admitting that judgement
and passion in us are something different, as what moves is different
from what is moved. Even Chrysippus himself, by his defining in many
places endurance and continence to be habits that follow the lead of
reason, proves that he is compelled by the facts to admit, that that
element in us which follows absolutely is something different from that
which follows when persuaded, but resists when not persuaded.
Sec. X. Now as to those who make all sins and offences equal, it is not now
the occasion to discuss if in other respects they deviate from truth:
but as regards the passions[238] they seem to go clean contrary to
reason and evidence. For according to them every passion is a sin, and
everyone who grieves, or fears, or desires, commits sin. But in good
truth it is evident that there are great differences between passions,
according as one is more or less affected by them. For who would say
that the craven fear of Dolon[239] was not something very different from
the fear of Ajax, "who retreated with his face to the enemy and at a
foot's pace, drawing back slowly knee after knee"?[240] Or who would say
that the grief of Plato at the death of Socrates was identical with the
grief of Alexander at the death of Clitus, when he attempted to lay
violent hands on himself? For grief is beyond measure intensified by
falling out against expectation: and the calamity that comes unlooked
for is more painful than that we may reasonably fear: as if when
expecting to see one's friend basking in prosperity and admiration, one
should hear that he had been put to the torture, as Parmenio heard about
Philotas. And who would say that the anger of Magas against Philemon was
equal to that of Nicocreon against Anaxarchus? Both Magas and Nicocreon
had been insulted, but whereas Nicocreon brayed Anaxarchus to death with
iron pestles and made mincemeat of him, Magas contented himself with
bidding the executioner lay his naked sword on Philemon's neck, and then
let him go.[241] And so Plato called anger the nerves of the mind,
since it can be both intensified by bitterness, and slackened by
mildness. To evade these and similar arguments, they deny that intensity
and excess of passion are according to judgement, wherein is the
propensity to fault, but maintain that they are bites and contractions
and diffusings capable of increase or diminution through the unreasoning
element. And yet it is evident that there are differences as regards
judgements; for some judge poverty to be no evil, while others judge it
to be a great evil, and others again the very greatest evil, insomuch
that they even throw themselves headlong down rocks and into the sea on
account of it. Again as to death, some think it an evil only in
depriving us of good things, whereas others think it so in regard to
eternal punishments and awful torments in the world below. Health again
is valued by some as natural and advantageous, while to others it seems
the greatest blessing of life, in comparison with which they reckon
little either of wealth or children or "royal power that makes one equal
to the gods," and at last come to think even virtue useless and
unprofitable, if health be absent. Thus it is clear that even with
regard to judgements themselves some err more, some less. But I shall
bring no further proof of this now, but this one may assume therefrom,
that they themselves concede that the unreasoning element is something
different from judgement, in that they allow that by it passion becomes
greater and more violent, and while they quarrel about the name and word
they give up the thing itself to those who maintain that the emotional
and unreasoning part of the soul is distinct from the reasoning and
judging element. And in his treatise on Anomaly,[242] Chrysippus, after
telling us that anger is blind, and frequently does not let one see what
is obvious, frequently also obscures what we do get a sight of, goes on
to say, "The encroachment of the passions blots out reason, and makes
things look different to what they should look, violently forcing people
on unreasonable acts." And he quotes as witness Menander, who says,
"Alas! poor me, wherever were my brains in my body at the time when I
chose that line of conduct, and not this?" And Chrysippus proceeds,
"Though every living creature endowed with reason is naturally inclined
to use reason and to be governed by it on every occasion, yet often do
we reject it, being borne away by a more violent impulse;" thus
admitting what results from the difference between passion and reason.
For otherwise it is ridiculous, as Plato says, to argue that a man is
sometimes better than himself, sometimes worse, sometimes master of
himself, sometimes not master of himself.
Sec. XI. For how is it possible that the same person can be both better and
worse than himself, both master of himself and not master, unless
everyone is in some way twofold, having in himself both a better and
worse self? For so he that makes the baser element subject to the better
has self-control and is a superior man, whereas he who allows the nobler
element of the soul to follow and be subservient to the incorrigible and
unreasoning element, is inferior to what he might be, and is called
incontinent, and is in an unnatural condition. For by nature it
appertains to reason, which is divine, to rule and govern the
unreasoning element, which has its origin from the body, which it also
naturally resembles and participates in its passions, being placed in it
and mixed up with it, as is proved by the impulses to bodily delights,
which are always fierce or languid according to the changes of the body.
And so it is that young men are keen and vehement in their desires,
being red hot and raging from their fulness of blood and animal heat,
whereas with old men the liver, which is the seat of desire, is dried up
and weak and feeble, and reason has more power with them than passion
which decays with the body. This principle also no doubt characterizes
the nature of animals as regards the sexual appetite. For it is not of
course from any fitness or unfitness of opinions, that some animals are
so bold and resolute in the presence of danger, while others are
helpless and full of fear and trembling; but this difference of emotion
is produced by the workings of the blood and spirit and body, the
emotional part growing out of the flesh, as from a root, and carrying
along with it its quality and temperament. And that the body of man
sympathizes with and is affected by the emotional impulses is proved by
pallors, and blushings, and tremblings, and palpitations of the heart,
as on the other hand by an all-pervading joy in the hope and expectation
of pleasures. But whenever the mind is by itself and unmoved by passion,
the body is in repose and at rest, having no participation or share in
the working of the intellect, unless it involve the emotional, or the
unreasoning element call it in. So that it is clear that there are two
distinct parts of the soul differing from one another in their
faculties.
Sec. XII. And generally speaking of all existing things, as they themselves
admit and is clear, some are governed by nature, some by habit, some by
an unreasoning soul, some by a soul that has reason and intelligence.
Man too participates in all this, and is subject to all those
differences here mentioned, for he is affected by habit, and nourished
by nature, and uses reason and intelligence. He has also a share of the
unreasoning element, and has the principle of passion innate in him, not
as a mere episode in his life but as a necessity, which ought not
therefore to be entirely rooted out, but requires care and attention.
For the function of reason is no Thracian or Lycurgean one to root up
and destroy all the good elements in passion indiscriminately with the
bad, but, as some genial and mild god, to prune what is wild, and to
correct disproportion, and after that to train and cultivate the useful
part. For as those who are afraid to get drunk do not pour on the ground
their wine, _but mix it with water_, so those who are afraid of the
disturbing element in passion do not eradicate passion altogether but
temper it. Similarly with oxen and horses people try to restrain their
mad bounds and restiveness, not their movements and powers of work, and
so reason makes use of the passions when they have become tame and
docile, not by cutting out the sinews or altogether mutilating the
serviceable part of the soul. For as Pindar says, "The horse to the
chariot, and the ox to the plough, while he that meditates destruction
for the boar must find a staunch hound."[243] But much more useful than
these are the whole tribe of passions when they wait on reason and run
parallel to virtue. Thus moderate anger is useful to courage, and hatred
of evil to uprightness, and righteous indignation against those who are
fortunate beyond their deserts, when they are inflamed in their souls
with folly and insolence and need a check. And no one if they wished
could pluck away or sever[244] natural affection from friendship, or
pity from philanthropy, or sympathy both in joy and grief from genuine
goodwill. And if those err who wish to banish love because of erotic
madness, neither are they right who blame all desire because of love of
money, but they act like people who refuse to run because they might
stumble, or to throw because they might throw wide of the mark, or
object to sing altogether because they might make a false note. For as
in sounds music does not create melody by the banishment of sharps and
flats, and as in bodies the art of the physician procures health not by
the doing away of cold and heat but by their being blended in due
proportions and quantities, so is victory won in the soul by the powers
and motions of the passions being reduced by reason to moderation and
due proportion. For excessive grief or fear or joy in the soul (I speak
not of mere joy grief or fear), resembles a body swollen or inflamed.
And Homer when he says excellently,
"The brave man's colour never changes, nor
Is he much frightened,"[245]
does not take away all fear but only excessive fear, that bravery may
not become recklessness, nor confidence foolhardiness. So also in regard
to pleasure we must do away with excessive desire, and in regard to
vengeance with excessive hatred of evil. For so in the former case one
will not be apathetic but temperate, and in the latter one will not be
savage or cruel but just. But if the passions were entirely removed,
supposing that to be possible, reason would become in many duller and
blunter, like the pilot in the absence of a storm. And no doubt it is
from having noticed this that legislators try to excite in states
ambition and emulation among their townsmen, and stir up and increase
their courage and pugnacity against enemies by the sound of trumpets
and flutes. For it is not only in poems, as Plato says, that he that is
inspired by the Muses, and as it were possessed by them, will laugh to
shame the plodding artist, but also in fighting battles passion and