Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.37

M. Where, then, are they who say that anger has its use? Can madness be of any use? 

 

“But still it is natural.” 

 

Can anything be natural that is against reason? Or how is it, if anger is natural, that one person is more inclined to anger than another? Or that the lust of revenge should cease before it has revenged itself? Or that anyone should repent of what he had done in a passion? As we see that Alexander the king did, who could scarcely keep his hands from himself, when he had killed his favorite Cleitus, so great was his compunction. 

 

Now who that is acquainted with these instances can doubt that this motion of the mind is altogether in opinion and voluntary? For who can doubt that disorders of the mind, such as covetousness and a desire of glory, arise from a great estimation of those things by which the mind is disordered? From whence we may understand that every perturbation of the mind is founded in opinion. 

 

And if boldness—that is to say, a firm assurance of mind—is a kind of knowledge and serious opinion not hastily taken up, then diffidence is a fear of an expected and impending evil; and if hope is an expectation of good, fear must, of course, be an expectation of evil. Thus fear and other perturbations are evils. Therefore, as constancy proceeds from knowledge, so does perturbation from error. 

 

Now, they who are said to be naturally inclined to anger, or to pity, or to envy, or to any feeling of this kind, their minds are constitutionally, as it were, in bad health; yet they are curable, as the disposition of Socrates is said to have been; for when Zopyrus, who professed to know the character of everyone from his person, had heaped a great many vices on him in a public assembly, he was laughed at by others, who could perceive no such vices in Socrates; but Socrates kept him in countenance by declaring that such vices were natural to him, but that he had got the better of them by his reason. 

 

Therefore, as anyone who has the appearance of the best constitution may yet appear to be naturally rather inclined to some particular disorder, so different minds may be more particularly inclined to different diseases. 

 

But as to those men who are said to be vicious, not by nature, but their own fault, their vices proceed from wrong opinions of good and bad things, so that one is more prone than another to different motions and perturbations. 

 

But, just as it is in the case of the body, an inveterate disease is harder to be got rid of than a sudden disorder; and it is more easy to cure a fresh tumor in the eyes than to remove a defluxion of any continuance. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.37 

 

I was never very fond of how the ideological bullies would order me to toe the line, by a pure power of the will, without any concern for the circumstances of my head and my heart. In their quest for perfection, they were quick to ignore the quirks of the human condition. “Suck it up, buttercup!” 

 

At the same time, I never improved one bit when I allowed myself to be coddled by relativism, making all sorts of excuses for self-indulgence. Once every desire was acceptable, and any inclination was natural, I was actually abandoning my responsibility in favor of slavery “If it feels good, do it!” 

 

Only an upside-down view of the human person will start with the passions, and then concoct a convenient reason to justify them. In reality, it is working from the false premise that meaning is to be found in the emotions, when an emotion is merely an impression. 

 

How will I now choose to understand it, to guide it, to transform it? A day does not pass without the temptation of anger or lust, but that does not mean it is natural for me to succumb—it is natural for me to form a conscience. 

 

I was often told it was good for me to outraged at someone who offended me, or to satisfy my libido whenever I felt the urge, as if I were bound by some primal necessity. Yet I am a man, not a beast, since I possess the power of judgment. 

 

What if I decided to express a rapport instead of a resentment, or to be respectful instead of randy? If it is natural to obey every longing, then why are these libertines so miserable? If it is impossible to resist a compulsion, then why are those modest folks in the corner so at peace? 

 

There was nothing great about Alexander when he killed Cleitus during a drunken argument, and his remorse was then hardly noble when he succumbed to despair. He was not required to act as he did, but he could only have mastered his excesses by comprehending his own predilections. 

 

Yes, whether we are somehow born with them or we acquire them through long practice, our tendencies become like a part of our makeup. No, such dispositions do not bind us to our fate. The improvement of our nature is to decide how we will find a way to rise above them. 

 

In other words, an ailment is not our natural state. Of course, Socrates knew that he had flaws, though what made him a man of worth was his willingness to overcome them, by means of seeking wisdom and virtue. By struggling to know himself, his own peculiar personality within the greater design of Nature, he becomes something of a role model for the confused thinker desperately trying to find his way. 

 

While it remains a work in progress, and I imagine I will never be done with it, I learn more about my instincts and proclivities every day, and by doing so I discover my unique position in the bigger picture. How I build the patterns of my habits, for good or for ill, is a function of my deliberate estimation. 

—Reflection written in 1/1999 

IMAGE: Andre Castaigne, The Killing of Cleitus by Alexander the Great (1899)