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For what in animals is nature, we call in
man wretchedness, by which we recognise that, his nature being now like that
of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his.
For who is unhappy at not being a king, except a deposed king? Was Paulus
Aemilius unhappy at being no longer consul? On the contrary, everybody
thought him happy in having been consul, because the office could only be
held for a time. But men thought Perseus so unhappy in being no longer king,
because the condition of kingship implied his being always king, that they
thought it strange that he endured life. Who is unhappy at only having one
mouth? And who is not unhappy at having only one eye? Probably no man ever
ventured to mourn at not having three eyes. But any one is inconsolable at
having none.
410. Perseus, King of Macedon.--Paulus Aemilius reproached Perseus for not
killing himself.
411. Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and
take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress and which
lifts us up.
412. There is internal war in man between reason and the passions.
If he had only reason without passions...
If he had only passions without reason...
But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace
with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided
against and opposed to himself.
413. This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of
those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their
passions and become gods; the others would renounce reason and become brute
beasts. (Des Barreaux.) But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to
condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions and to trouble the repose
of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive
in those w
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