M. The different species into which they divide pleasure come under this description:
So that malevolence is a pleasure in the misfortunes of another, without any advantage to yourself.
Delight, a pleasure that soothes the mind by agreeable impressions on the ear. What is said of the ear may be applied to the sight, to the touch, smell, and taste. All feelings of this kind are a sort of melting pleasure that dissolves the mind.
Boastfulness is a pleasure that consists in making an appearance, and setting off yourself with insolence.
The subordinate species of lust they define in this manner:
Anger is a lust of punishing anyone who, as we imagine, has injured us without cause.
Heat is anger just forming and beginning to exist, which the Greeks call θύμωσις.
Hatred is a settled anger. Enmity is anger waiting for an opportunity of revenge.
Discord is a sharper anger conceived deeply in the mind and heart.
Want an insatiable lust.
Regret is when one eagerly wishes to see a person who is absent.
Now here they have a distinction; so that with them regret is a lust conceived on hearing of certain things reported of someone, or of many, which the Greeks call κατηγορήματα, or predicaments; as that they are in possession of riches and honors: but want is a lust for those very honors and riches.
But these definers make intemperance the fountain of all these perturbations; which is an absolute revolt from the mind and right reason—a state so averse to all rules of reason that the appetites of the mind can by no means be governed and restrained.
As, therefore, temperance appeases these desires, making them obey right reason, and maintains the well-weighed judgments of the mind, so intemperance, which is in opposition to this, inflames, confounds, and puts every state of the mind into a violent motion.
Thus, grief and fear, and every other perturbation of the mind, have their rise from intemperance.
So that malevolence is a pleasure in the misfortunes of another, without any advantage to yourself.
Delight, a pleasure that soothes the mind by agreeable impressions on the ear. What is said of the ear may be applied to the sight, to the touch, smell, and taste. All feelings of this kind are a sort of melting pleasure that dissolves the mind.
Boastfulness is a pleasure that consists in making an appearance, and setting off yourself with insolence.
The subordinate species of lust they define in this manner:
Anger is a lust of punishing anyone who, as we imagine, has injured us without cause.
Heat is anger just forming and beginning to exist, which the Greeks call θύμωσις.
Hatred is a settled anger. Enmity is anger waiting for an opportunity of revenge.
Discord is a sharper anger conceived deeply in the mind and heart.
Want an insatiable lust.
Regret is when one eagerly wishes to see a person who is absent.
Now here they have a distinction; so that with them regret is a lust conceived on hearing of certain things reported of someone, or of many, which the Greeks call κατηγορήματα, or predicaments; as that they are in possession of riches and honors: but want is a lust for those very honors and riches.
But these definers make intemperance the fountain of all these perturbations; which is an absolute revolt from the mind and right reason—a state so averse to all rules of reason that the appetites of the mind can by no means be governed and restrained.
As, therefore, temperance appeases these desires, making them obey right reason, and maintains the well-weighed judgments of the mind, so intemperance, which is in opposition to this, inflames, confounds, and puts every state of the mind into a violent motion.
Thus, grief and fear, and every other perturbation of the mind, have their rise from intemperance.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.9
Now my first instinct is to say that the emotions involving pleasure and desire, for what is present or for what is anticipated respectively, are far safer and more agreeable than those involving the perils of grief and fear. Surely “good feelings” are preferable to “bad feelings”? What sort of fool would wish to be deprived when he has the option of being gratified?
We have here the premise behind a culture built on hedonism, which sounds all well and good until we suddenly realize how the pursuit of sensuality has an uncanny knack for making us utterly miserable. We all too soon forget how the value of the feeling depends upon the virtue of the action, and why an understanding of the true and the good is the necessary condition for living in peace and joy.
I think of myself during my darkest times, along with my many accomplices in the confusion of longing, as we assumed it had to be about getting more, when the solution was really to be found in wanting less. The passions will be balanced and healthy when they are in the service of a sound mind, when I have the wisdom to look behind the lure of the impression to the dignity of the nature.
Temperance, in this sense, is not confined to denying ourselves, but is rather the choice of liberating ourselves. Moderation is the virtue of self-mastery over pleasure and pain, and no virtue is ever possible without the guidance of reasonable judgements. It falls into place once I recognize myself as a rational animal, whose emotions are to be measured through the excellence of an informed conscience.
There is nothing fulfilling about being a prisoner to gratification, and there is nothing harmless about being enslaved to lust. The unsavory side of it is quickly apparent if I am consumed by malevolence, because I find a perverse pleasure in the suffering of my neighbor, or if I am inflamed with anger, because I am looking forward to some brutal reckoning. If I scratch the surface, I see how gluttony is like an insatiable hunger, and avarice is like a spiral of addiction.
It will be incredibly difficult to persuade the confident go-getter that his plans for conquest will only spell his doom, just as is it will be quite the challenge to convince the drunk that he should part ways with his precious bottle. In the end, only they can change their own thinking, and thereby tame their own feelings.
Now my first instinct is to say that the emotions involving pleasure and desire, for what is present or for what is anticipated respectively, are far safer and more agreeable than those involving the perils of grief and fear. Surely “good feelings” are preferable to “bad feelings”? What sort of fool would wish to be deprived when he has the option of being gratified?
We have here the premise behind a culture built on hedonism, which sounds all well and good until we suddenly realize how the pursuit of sensuality has an uncanny knack for making us utterly miserable. We all too soon forget how the value of the feeling depends upon the virtue of the action, and why an understanding of the true and the good is the necessary condition for living in peace and joy.
I think of myself during my darkest times, along with my many accomplices in the confusion of longing, as we assumed it had to be about getting more, when the solution was really to be found in wanting less. The passions will be balanced and healthy when they are in the service of a sound mind, when I have the wisdom to look behind the lure of the impression to the dignity of the nature.
Temperance, in this sense, is not confined to denying ourselves, but is rather the choice of liberating ourselves. Moderation is the virtue of self-mastery over pleasure and pain, and no virtue is ever possible without the guidance of reasonable judgements. It falls into place once I recognize myself as a rational animal, whose emotions are to be measured through the excellence of an informed conscience.
There is nothing fulfilling about being a prisoner to gratification, and there is nothing harmless about being enslaved to lust. The unsavory side of it is quickly apparent if I am consumed by malevolence, because I find a perverse pleasure in the suffering of my neighbor, or if I am inflamed with anger, because I am looking forward to some brutal reckoning. If I scratch the surface, I see how gluttony is like an insatiable hunger, and avarice is like a spiral of addiction.
It will be incredibly difficult to persuade the confident go-getter that his plans for conquest will only spell his doom, just as is it will be quite the challenge to convince the drunk that he should part ways with his precious bottle. In the end, only they can change their own thinking, and thereby tame their own feelings.
—Reflection written in 1/1999
IMAGE: Giovanni Segantini, The Punishment of Lust (1891)
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