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Moral Epistles - Epistle 78On The Healing Power Of The Mind by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

That you are frequently troubled by the snuffling of catarrh and by short attacksof fever which follow after long and chronic catarrhal seizures, I am sorry tohear; particularly because I have experienced this sort of illness myself, andscorned it in its early stages. For when I was still young, I could put up withhardships and show a bold front to illness. But I finally succumbed, and arrivedat such state that I could do nothing but snuffle, reduced as I was to theextremity of thinness. I often entertained the impulse of ending my life then andthere; but the thought of my kind old father kept me back. For I reflected, nothow bravely I had the power to die, but how little power he had to bear bravely the loss of me. And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.Now I shall tell you what consoled me during those days, stating at the outsetthat these very aids to my peace of mind were as efficacious as medicine.Honorable consolation results in a cure; and whatever has uplifted the soulhelps the body also. My studies were my salvation. I place it to the credit of philosophy that I recovered and regained my strength. I owe my life tophilosophy, and that is the least of my obligations! My friends, too, helped megreatly toward good health; I used to be comforted by their cheering words, by the hours they spent at my bedside, and by their conversation. Nothing, my excellent Lucilius, refreshes and aids a sick man so much as the affection of hisfriends; nothing so steals away the expectation and the fear of death. In fact, Icould not believe that, if they survived me, I should be dying at all. Yes, I repeat,it seemed to me that I should continue to live, not with them, but through them.I imagined myself not to be yielding up my soul, but to be making it over tothem. All these things gave me the inclination to succor myself and to endure any torture; besides, it is a most miserable state to have lost one's zest for dying, andto have no zest for living. These, then, are the remedies to which you shouldhave recourse. The physician will prescribe your walks and your exercise; he will warn you not to become addicted to idleness, as is the tendency of theinactive invalid; he will order you to read in a louder voice and to exercise yourlungs, the passages and cavity of which are affected; or to sail and shake up your bowels by a little mild emotion; he will recommend the proper food, and thesuitable time for aiding your strength with wine or refraining from it in order tokeep your cough from being irritated and hacking. But as for me, my counsel to you is this,--and it is a cure, not merely of this disease of yours, but of your whole life,--"Despise death." There is no sorrow in the world, when we haveescaped from the fear of death. There are these three serious elements in every disease : fear of death, bodily pain, and interruption of pleasures. Concerningdeath enough has been said, and I shall add only a word: this fear is not a fear of disease, but a fear of nature. Disease has often postponed death, and a vision of dying has been many a man's salvation. You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive; even when you have been cured, the same end awaits you; when you have recovered, it will be not death, but ill-death, that you haveescaped.Let us now return to the consideration of the characteristic disadvantage of

disease: it is accompanied by great suffering. The suffering, however, isrendered endurable by interruptions; for the strain of extreme pain must cometo an end. No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, wholoves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurableor short. The severest pains have their seat in the most slender part of our body;nerves, joints, and any other of the narrow passages, hurt most cruelly whenthey have developed trouble within their contracted spaces. But these partssoon become numb, and by reason of the pain itself lose the sensation of pain, whether because the life-force, when checked in its natural course and changedfor the worse, loses the peculiar power through which it thrives and through which it warns us, or because the diseased humors of the body, when they ceaseto have a place into which they may flow, are thrown back upon themselves, anddeprive of sensation the parts where they have caused congestion. So ought, both in the feet and in the hands, and all pain in the vertebrae and in the nerves,have their intervals of the rest at the times when they have dulled the parts which they before had tortured; the first twinges, in all such cases, are whatcause the distress, and their onset is checked by lapse of time, so that there is anend of pain when numbness has set in. Pain in the teeth, eyes. and ears is mostacute for the very reason that it begins among the narrow spaces of the body,-noless acute, indeed, than in the head it self. But if it is more violent than usual, itturns to delirium and stupor. This is, accordingly, a consolation for excessivepain,-that you cannot help ceasing to feel it if you feel it to excess. The reason,however, why the inexperienced are impatient when their bodies suffer is, thatthey have not accustomed themselves to be contented in spirit. They have beenclosely associated with the body. Therefore a high-minded and sensible mandivorces soul from body, and dwells much with the better or divine part, andonly as far as he must with this complaining and frail portion."But it is a hardship," men say, "to do without our customary pleasures,-to fast,to feel thirst and hunger." These are indeed serious when one first abstainsfrom them. Later the desire dies down, because the appetites themselves whichlead to desire are wearied and forsake us; then the stomach becomes petulant,then the food which we craved before becomes hateful. Our very wants dieaway. But there is no bitterness in doing without that which you have ceased todesire. Moreover, every pain sometimes stops, or at any rate slackens;moreover, one may take precautions against its return, and, when it threatens,may check it by means of remedies. Every variety of pain has its premonitory symptoms; this is true, at any rate, of pain that is habitual and recurrent. Onecan endure the suffering which disease entails, if one has come to regard itsresults with scorn. But do not of your own accord make your troubles heavier to bear and burden yourself with complaining. Pain is slight if opinion has addednothing to it; but if, on the other hand, you begin to encourage yourself and say,"It is nothing,- a trifling matter at most; keep a stout heart and it will sooncease"; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends onopinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according toopinion that we suffer. A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that heis. I hold that we should do away with complaint about past sufferings and withall language like this: "None has ever been worse off than I. What sufferings, what evils have I endured! No one has thought that I shall recover. How oftenhave my family bewailed me, and the physicians given me over! Men who areplaced on the rack are not torn asunder with such agony!" However, even if allthis is true, it is over and gone. What benefit is there in reviewing pastsufferings, and in being unhappy, just because once you were unhappy?Besides, every one adds much to his own ills, and tells lies to himself. And that

which was bitter to bear is pleasant to have borne; it is natural to rejoice at theending of one's ills.Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all,-the fear of futuresuffering, and the recollection of past suffering, since the latter no longerconcerns me, and the former concerns me not yet. But when set in the very midst of troubles one should say: "Perchance some day the memory of hissorrow / Will even bring delight." Let such man fight against them with all hismight: if he once gives way, he will be vanquished; but if he strives against hissufferings, he will conquer. As it is, however, what most men do is to drag downupon their own heads a falling ruin which they ought to try to support. If you begin to withdraw your support from that which thrusts toward you and tottersand is ready to plunge, it will follow you and lean more heavily upon you; but if you hold your ground and make up your mind to push against it, it will beforced back. What blows do athletes receive on their faces and all over their bodies! Nevertheless, through their desire for fame they endure every torture,and they undergo these things not only because they are fighting but in order to be able to fight. Their very training means torture. So let us also win the way to victory in all our struggles,-for the reward is not a garland or a palm or atrumpeter who calls for silence at the proclamation of our names, but rather virtue, steadfastness of soul, and a peace that is won for all time, if fortune hasonce been utterly vanquished in any combat. You say, "I feel severe pain." Whatthen; are you relieved from feeling it, if you endure it like a woman? Just as anenemy is more dangerous to a retreating army, so every trouble that fortune brings attacks us all the harder if we yield and turn our backs. "But the troubleis serious." What? Is it for this purpose that we are strong,-that we may havelight burdens to bear? Would you have your illness long-drawn-out, or would you have it quick and short? If it is long, it means a respite, allows you a periodfor resting yourself, bestows upon you the boon of time in plenty; as it arises, soit must also subside. A short and rapid illness will do one of two things: it willquench or be quenched. And what difference does it make whether it is not or Iam not? In either case there is an end of pain.This, too, will help-to turn the mind aside to thoughts of other things and thusto depart from pain. Call to mind what honorable or brave deeds you have done;consider the good side of your own life. Run over in your memory those things which you have particularly admired. Then think of all the brave men who haveconquered pain: of him who continued to read his book as he allowed thecutting out of varicose veins; of him who did not cease to smile, though that very smile so enraged his torturers that they tried upon him every instrument of their cruelty. If pain can be conquered by a smile, will it not be conquered by reason? You may tell me now of whatever you like-of colds, hard coughing-spells that bring up parts of our entrails, fever that parches our very vitals,thirst, limbs so twisted that the joints protrude in different directions; yet worsethan these are the stake, the rack, the red-hot plates, the instrument thatreopens wounds while the wounds themselves are still swollen and that drivestheir imprint still deeper. Nevertheless there have been men who have notuttered a moan amid these tortures. "More yet!" says the torturer; but the victim has not begged for release. "More yet!" he says again; but no answer hascome. "More yet!" the victim has smiled, and heartily, too. Can you not bring yourself, after an example like this, to make a mock at pain?"But," you object, "my illness does not allow me to be doing anything; it has withdrawn me from all my duties." It is your body that is hampered by ill-

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On The Healing Power Of The Mind - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Moral Epistles - Epistle 78 On The Healing Power Of The Mind by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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Category:	School Work > Essays & Theses
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Upload Date:	02/02/2009
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