Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​And neither appropriate actions nor contrary to appropriate action are all those that reason neither urges to do nor forbids, such as picking up a twig, holding a stylus or a scraper, and things similar to these. Moreover, some appropriate actions are without circumstance, while others depend on circumstance. And without circumstance are the following: to care for health and sense organs, and the like; while depending on circumstance are to mutilate oneself and to cast away one's possessions. An analogous proportion holds also for actions contrary to appropriate action. Furthermore, of appropriate actions, some are always appropriate, while others are not always. And always appropriate is to live according to virtue, but not always are questioning, answering, walking, and the like. And the same account applies also to actions contrary to appropriate action.

​There is also a certain appropriate action among those in intermediate conditions, such as children obeying their pedagogues. And they say that the soul has eight parts; for its parts are the five sense organs, the vocal part, the thinking part—which is the intellect itself—and the reproductive part. And from false impressions a perversion arises in the intellect, from which many passions and causes of instability sprout forth. And passion itself, according to Zeno, is an irrational and unnatural movement of the soul, or an excessive impulse. And the highest genera of the passions, as Hecato says in the second book of On Passions and Zeno in On Passions, are four: grief, fear, appetite, and pleasure.

​And they hold that passions are judgments, as Chrysippus says in On Passions; for love of money is a supposition that money is a fine thing, and drunkenness and licentiousness are likewise, and the rest as well. And grief is an irrational contraction; and its species are pity, envy, emulation, jealousy, burden, annoyance, distress, anguish, and confusion. Pity, then, is grief as over someone suffering hardship undeservedly; envy is grief at another’s goods; emulation is grief at another having present to him what one desires for oneself; jealousy is grief at another also having what one also possesses oneself;

​burden is a weighing-down grief; annoyance is a confining grief that produces distress; distress is a grief that remains or intensifies from brooding; anguish is a painful grief; confusion is an irrational grief, grinding down and preventing one from taking a clear view of present circumstances. Fear is the expectation of an evil. And under fear are also brought the following: dread, hesitation, shame, astonishment, perturbation, and anxiety. Dread, then, is a fear inspiring awe; shame is a fear of disrepute; hesitation is a fear of future action; astonishment is a fear arising from an impression of an unusual thing;

​perturbation is a fear accompanied by urgent crying; anxiety is a fear of an uncertain thing. And appetite is an irrational desire, under which are also arranged the following: craving, hatred, quarrelsome rivalry, anger, erotic love, wrath, and rage. Craving is a certain desire in failure of attainment and, as it were, separated from the object, yet stretched in vain toward it and drawn to it; hatred is a certain desire that it go ill with someone, accompanied by a certain progress and duration; quarrelsome rivalry is a certain desire concerning choice; anger is a desire for punishment of one who seems to have committed injustice inappropriately; and erotic love is a certain desire not concerned with virtuous persons; for it is an enterprise of friendship-making on account of visible beauty.