M. Yet this division does not proceed from ignorance; for the soul admits of a twofold division, one of which partakes of reason, the other is without it. When, therefore, we are ordered to give a law to ourselves, the meaning is, that reason should restrain our rashness.
There is in the soul of every man something naturally soft, low, enervated in a manner, and languid. Were there nothing besides this, men would be the greatest of monsters; but there is present to every man reason, which presides over and gives laws to all; which, by improving itself, and making continual advances, becomes perfect virtue.
It behooves a man, then, to take care that reason shall have the command over that part which is bound to practice obedience. “In what manner?” you will say. Why, as a master has over his slave, a general over his army, a father over his son.
If that part of the soul which I have called soft behaves disgracefully, if it gives itself up to lamentations and womanish tears, then let it be restrained, and committed to the care of friends and relations, for we often see those persons brought to order by shame whom no reasons can influence.
Therefore, we should confine those feelings, like our servants, in safe custody, and almost with chains. But those who have more resolution, and yet are not utterly immovable, we should encourage with our exhortations, as we would good soldiers, to recollect themselves, and maintain their honor.
That wisest man of all Greece, in the Niptrae, does not lament too much over his wounds, or, rather, he is moderate in his grief:
“Move slow, my friends; your hasty speed refrain,
Lest by your motion you increase my pain.”
Pacuvius is better in this than Sophocles, for in the one Ulysses bemoans his wounds too vehemently; for the very people who carried him after he was wounded, though his grief was moderate, yet, considering the dignity of the man, did not scruple to say,
“And thou, Ulysses, long to war inured,
Thy wounds, though great, too feebly hast endured.”
The wise poet understood that custom was no contemptible instructor how to bear pain. But the same hero complains with more decency, though in great pain:
“Assist, support me, never leave me so;
Unbind my wounds, oh! execrable woe!”
He begins to give way, but instantly checks himself:
“Away! begone! but cover first the sore;
For your rude hands but make my pains the more.”
Do you observe how he constrains himself? not that his bodily pains were less, but because he checks the anguish of his mind. Therefore, in the conclusion of the Niptrae, he blames others, even when he himself is dying:
“Complaints of fortune may become the man,
None but a woman will thus weeping stand.”
And so that soft place in his soul obeys his reason, just as an abashed soldier does his stern commander.
There is in the soul of every man something naturally soft, low, enervated in a manner, and languid. Were there nothing besides this, men would be the greatest of monsters; but there is present to every man reason, which presides over and gives laws to all; which, by improving itself, and making continual advances, becomes perfect virtue.
It behooves a man, then, to take care that reason shall have the command over that part which is bound to practice obedience. “In what manner?” you will say. Why, as a master has over his slave, a general over his army, a father over his son.
If that part of the soul which I have called soft behaves disgracefully, if it gives itself up to lamentations and womanish tears, then let it be restrained, and committed to the care of friends and relations, for we often see those persons brought to order by shame whom no reasons can influence.
Therefore, we should confine those feelings, like our servants, in safe custody, and almost with chains. But those who have more resolution, and yet are not utterly immovable, we should encourage with our exhortations, as we would good soldiers, to recollect themselves, and maintain their honor.
That wisest man of all Greece, in the Niptrae, does not lament too much over his wounds, or, rather, he is moderate in his grief:
“Move slow, my friends; your hasty speed refrain,
Lest by your motion you increase my pain.”
Pacuvius is better in this than Sophocles, for in the one Ulysses bemoans his wounds too vehemently; for the very people who carried him after he was wounded, though his grief was moderate, yet, considering the dignity of the man, did not scruple to say,
“And thou, Ulysses, long to war inured,
Thy wounds, though great, too feebly hast endured.”
The wise poet understood that custom was no contemptible instructor how to bear pain. But the same hero complains with more decency, though in great pain:
“Assist, support me, never leave me so;
Unbind my wounds, oh! execrable woe!”
He begins to give way, but instantly checks himself:
“Away! begone! but cover first the sore;
For your rude hands but make my pains the more.”
Do you observe how he constrains himself? not that his bodily pains were less, but because he checks the anguish of his mind. Therefore, in the conclusion of the Niptrae, he blames others, even when he himself is dying:
“Complaints of fortune may become the man,
None but a woman will thus weeping stand.”
And so that soft place in his soul obeys his reason, just as an abashed soldier does his stern commander.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.21
It isn’t my place to speculate on what Plato may originally have intended, but I am wary when some of his followers insist upon a strict dualism, which can even come across like Manicheanism, where the soul is good and the body is evil. Instead of separating mind from matter, I suppose I am more interested in discovering how they have been made to work together.
At the same time, few texts have helped me to better understand the relationship between the intellect and the passions than the Platonic dialogues, particularly the various accounts from the Republic, though also some of the arguments in the Phaedo, Meno, Crito, and Pheadrus.
The vivid Chariot Allegory, for example, has done me a world of good, in which the mind as a driver is giving direction to the appetites as two mighty horses. While my aggressive spirit urges me to go this way, my desire for pleasures pulls me in another, and it will be my judgment that permits me to tame them, to discern the proper path. As odd as it may sound, that image has kept me away from heaps of trouble.
The natural order is for my head, the intellect, to command the heart, the irascible appetite, and thereby the gut, the concupiscible appetite. And yes, even as they create a harmony, it remains a matter of authority, of the superior ruling over the inferior.
In an age when the illusion of lazy egalitarianism has become the fashion, such a hierarchy, however benign, seems repugnant to the free thinker. Yet when sound judgments no longer hold sway, the force of the impressions alone will run wild, and we find ourselves in a twisted reversal of the human condition. The gut now takes a hold of the heart, and the heart finally makes a slave of the head.
Plato and Cicero spoke of this perversion long ago, where men become like monsters, and the warning still applies today. The classics are not old—they are perennial.
If I surrender the clarity of my own thinking, then anger tells me to seek revenge over justice, lust tells me to gratify myself without question, and fear tells me to cling to survival at all costs. It will now feel shameful to stand against the crowd, to tolerate any hardship, to restrain my reproach and resentment.
And the way out of this destructive cycle is to rebuild what has been knocked over, to restore the upside down to the right side up. The virtuous man knows why he should not become a libertine.
Upon my first reading of this chapter, I was confused about the references to the Niptrae, which goes to show how little I know about the things I pretend to teach. I went off on a little research adventure, and it turns out that there were a number of different accounts, including plays by Sophocles and Pacuvius, of the death of Odysseus. The quick version is that he was mortally wounded by his own son, Telegonus, with a spear tipped in the venom of a stingray.
Who needs soap operas when you have ancient epics and tragedies?
Now how should Odysseus, or any person of character, face a painful death? The version by Pacuvius had him remain steadfast in his suffering, though it would seem that the version by Sophocles had his litter-bearers question the hero’s demeanor.
Were they perhaps being too critical? Again, Cicero reminds us how pain is all too real, and crying out is no sin, nor is any agony to be dismissed lightly. What matters most is taking control of oneself before the feelings take control of you.
I cannot imagine myself being brave enough not to scream or to weep, so I don’t buy into the claim that real men never shed a tear. A good many will do so, and I have even heard some of them call out for their mothers when the going gets tough. There is the immediate instinct, and then there is the conscious commitment to rise above the circumstances, as fully as is within our power.
The moral excellence of a wise man is not to be confused with the impulsive persistence of an ignorant beast. Moderate the lower while ascending to the higher.
It isn’t my place to speculate on what Plato may originally have intended, but I am wary when some of his followers insist upon a strict dualism, which can even come across like Manicheanism, where the soul is good and the body is evil. Instead of separating mind from matter, I suppose I am more interested in discovering how they have been made to work together.
At the same time, few texts have helped me to better understand the relationship between the intellect and the passions than the Platonic dialogues, particularly the various accounts from the Republic, though also some of the arguments in the Phaedo, Meno, Crito, and Pheadrus.
The vivid Chariot Allegory, for example, has done me a world of good, in which the mind as a driver is giving direction to the appetites as two mighty horses. While my aggressive spirit urges me to go this way, my desire for pleasures pulls me in another, and it will be my judgment that permits me to tame them, to discern the proper path. As odd as it may sound, that image has kept me away from heaps of trouble.
The natural order is for my head, the intellect, to command the heart, the irascible appetite, and thereby the gut, the concupiscible appetite. And yes, even as they create a harmony, it remains a matter of authority, of the superior ruling over the inferior.
In an age when the illusion of lazy egalitarianism has become the fashion, such a hierarchy, however benign, seems repugnant to the free thinker. Yet when sound judgments no longer hold sway, the force of the impressions alone will run wild, and we find ourselves in a twisted reversal of the human condition. The gut now takes a hold of the heart, and the heart finally makes a slave of the head.
Plato and Cicero spoke of this perversion long ago, where men become like monsters, and the warning still applies today. The classics are not old—they are perennial.
If I surrender the clarity of my own thinking, then anger tells me to seek revenge over justice, lust tells me to gratify myself without question, and fear tells me to cling to survival at all costs. It will now feel shameful to stand against the crowd, to tolerate any hardship, to restrain my reproach and resentment.
And the way out of this destructive cycle is to rebuild what has been knocked over, to restore the upside down to the right side up. The virtuous man knows why he should not become a libertine.
Upon my first reading of this chapter, I was confused about the references to the Niptrae, which goes to show how little I know about the things I pretend to teach. I went off on a little research adventure, and it turns out that there were a number of different accounts, including plays by Sophocles and Pacuvius, of the death of Odysseus. The quick version is that he was mortally wounded by his own son, Telegonus, with a spear tipped in the venom of a stingray.
Who needs soap operas when you have ancient epics and tragedies?
Now how should Odysseus, or any person of character, face a painful death? The version by Pacuvius had him remain steadfast in his suffering, though it would seem that the version by Sophocles had his litter-bearers question the hero’s demeanor.
Were they perhaps being too critical? Again, Cicero reminds us how pain is all too real, and crying out is no sin, nor is any agony to be dismissed lightly. What matters most is taking control of oneself before the feelings take control of you.
I cannot imagine myself being brave enough not to scream or to weep, so I don’t buy into the claim that real men never shed a tear. A good many will do so, and I have even heard some of them call out for their mothers when the going gets tough. There is the immediate instinct, and then there is the conscious commitment to rise above the circumstances, as fully as is within our power.
The moral excellence of a wise man is not to be confused with the impulsive persistence of an ignorant beast. Moderate the lower while ascending to the higher.
—Reflection written in 8/1996
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