EPISTLE LXXXV.
vices of less degree as equivalent to virtues.[1] For indeed the man who does feel fear, though he feels it rather seldom and to a slight degree, is not free from wickedness, but is merely troubled by it in a milder form. “Not so,” is the reply, “for I hold that a man is mad if he does not fear evils which hang over his head.” What you say is perfectly true, if the things which threaten are really evils; but if he knows that they are not evils and believes that the only evil is baseness, he will be bound to face dangers without anxiety and to despise things which other men cannot help fearing. Or, if it is the characteristic of a fool and a madman not to fear evils, then the wiser a man is the more he will fear such things! 26. “It is the doctrine of you Stoics, then,” they reply, “that a brave man will expose himself to dangers.” By no means; he will merely not fear them, though he will avoid them. It is proper for him to be careful, but not to be fearful.[2] “What then? Is he not to fear death, imprisonment, burning, and all the other missiles of Fortune?” Not at all; for he knows that they are not evils, but only seem to be. He reckons all these things as the bugbears of man’s existence. 27. Paint him a picture of slavery, lashes, chains, want, mutilation by disease or by torture,—or anything else you may care to mention; he will count all such things as terrors caused by the derangement of the mind. These things are only to be feared by those who are fearful. Or do you regard as an evil that to which some day we may be compelled to resort of our own free will?
28. What then, you ask, is an evil? It is the yielding to those things which are called evils; it is the surrendering of one’s liberty into their control, when really we ought to suffer all things in order to pre-
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