Whether The Disorders Of Mind Or Body Are Worse

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Title:     Whether The Disorders Of Mind Or Body Are Worse
Author: Plutarch [More Titles by Plutarch]

Sec. I. Homer, looking at the mortality of all living creatures, and comparing them with one another in their lives and habits, gave vent to his thoughts in the words,

"Of all the things that on the earth do breathe,
Or creep, man is by far the wretchedest;"[312]

assigning to man an unhappy pre-eminence in extreme misfortune. But let us, assuming that man is, as thus publicly declared, supreme in infelicity and the most wretched of all living creatures, compare him with himself, in the estimate of his misery dividing body and soul, not idly but in a very necessary way, that we may learn whether our life is more wretched owing to Fortune or through our own fault. For disease is engendered in the body by nature, but vice and depravity in the soul is first its own doing, then its settled condition. And it is no slight aid to tranquillity of mind if what is bad be capable of cure, and lighter and less violent.

Sec. II. The fox in AEsop[313] disputing with the leopard as to their respective claims to variety, the latter showed its body and appearance all bright and spotted, while the tawny skin of the former was dirty and not pleasant to look at. Then the fox said, "Look inside me, sir judge, and you will see that I am more full of variety than my opponent," referring to his trickiness and versatility in shifts. Let us similarly say to ourselves, Many diseases and disorders, good sir, thy body naturally produces of itself, many also it receives from without; but if thou lookest at thyself within thou wilt find, to borrow the language of Democritus, a varied and susceptible storehouse and treasury of what is bad, not flowing in from without, but having as it were innate and native springs, which vice, being exceedingly rich and abundant in passion, produces. And if diseases are detected in the body by the pulse and by pallors and flushes,[314] and are indicated by heats and sudden pains, while the diseases of the mind, bad as they are, escape the notice of most people, the latter are worse because they deprive the sufferer of the perception of them. For reason if it be sound perceives the diseases of the body, but he that is diseased in his mind cannot judge of his sufferings, for he suffers in the very seat of judgement. We ought to account therefore the first and greatest of the diseases of the mind that ignorance,[315] whereby vice is incurable for most people, dwelling with them and living and dying with them. For the beginning of getting rid of disease is the perception of it, which leads the sufferer to the necessary relief, but he who through not believing he is ill knows not what he requires refuses the remedy even when it is close at hand. For amongst the diseases of the body those are the worst which are accompanied by stupor, as lethargies, headaches, epilepsies, apoplexies, and those fevers which raise inflammation to the pitch of madness, and disturb the brain as in the case of a musical instrument,

"And move the mind's strings hitherto untouched."[316]

Sec. III. And so doctors wish a man not to be ill, or if he is ill to be ignorant of it, as is the case with all diseases of the soul. For neither those who are out of their minds, nor the licentious, nor the unjust think themselves faulty--some even think themselves perfect. For no one ever yet called a fever health, or consumption a good condition of body, or gout swift-footedness, or paleness a good colour; but many call anger manliness, and love friendship, and envy competition, and cowardice prudence. Then again those that are ill in body send for doctors, for they are conscious of what they need to counteract their ailments; but those who are ill in mind avoid philosophers, for they think themselves excellent in the very matters in which they come short. And it is on this account that we maintain that ophthalmia is a lesser evil than madness, and gout than frenzy. For the person ill in body is aware of it and calls loudly for the doctor, and when he comes allows him to anoint his eye, to open a vein, or to plaster up his head; but you hear mad Agave in her frenzy not knowing her dearest ones, but crying out, "We bring from the mountain to the halls a young stag recently torn limb from limb, a fortunate capture."[317] Again he who is ill in body straightway gives up and goes to bed and remains there quietly till he is well, and if he toss and tumble about a little when the fit is on him, any of the people who are by saying to him,

"Gently,
Stay in the bed, poor wretch, and take your ease,"[318]

restrain him and check him. But those who suffer from a diseased brain are then most active and least at rest, for impulses bring about action, and the passions are vehement impulses. And so they do not let the mind rest, but when the man most requires quiet and silence and retirement, then is he dragged into the open air, and becomes the victim of anger, contentiousness, lust, and grief, and is compelled to do and say many lawless things unsuitable to the occasion.

Sec. IV. As therefore the storm which prevents one's putting into harbour is more dangerous than the storm which will not let one sail, so those storms of the soul are more formidable which do not allow a man to take in sail, or to calm his reason when it is disturbed, but without a pilot and without ballast, in perplexity and uncertainty through contrary and confusing courses, he rushes headlong and falls into woeful shipwreck, and shatters his life. So that from these points of view it is worse to be diseased in mind than body, for the latter only suffer, but the former do ill as well as suffer ill. But why need I speak of our various passions? The very times bring them to our mind. Do you see yon great and promiscuous crowd jostling against one another and surging round the rostrum and forum? They have not assembled here to sacrifice to their country's gods, nor to share in one another's rites; they are not bringing to Ascraean Zeus the firstfruits of Lydian produce,[319] nor are they celebrating in honour of Dionysus the Bacchic orgies on festival nights with common revellings; but a mighty plague stirring up Asia in annual cycles drives them here for litigation and suits at law at stated times: and the mass of business, like the confluence of mighty rivers, has inundated one forum, and festers and teems with ruiners and ruined. What fevers, what agues, do not these things cause? What obstructions, what irruptions of blood into the air-vessels, what distemperature of heat, what overflow of humours, do not result? If you examine every suit at law, as if it were a person, as to where it originated, where it came from, you will find that one was produced by obstinate temper, another by frantic love of strife, a third by some sordid desire.[320]

Footnotes:

[312] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 446, 447.

[313] See the Fable [Greek: Alopex kai Pardalis]. No. 42, Ed. Halme.

[314] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: ochriasesi kai erythemasi].

[315] Forte [Greek: agnoian]."--Wyttenbach. The ordinary reading is [Greek: anoian]. "E coelo descendit [Greek: gnothi seauton]," says Juvenal truly, xi. 27.

[316] Compare the image in Shakspere, "Hamlet," A. iii. Sc. I. 165, 166.

"Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh."

[317] Euripides, "Bacchae," 1170-1172. Agave's treatment of her son Pentheus was a stock philosophical comparison. See for example Horace, ii. "Sat." iii. 303, 304, and context.

[318] Euripides, "Orestes," 258.

[319] "Aurum puta. Pactolus enim aurum fert. Videtur dictio e Pindaro desumta esse."--Reiske.

[320] "Libellus hic fine carere videtur. Quare autem opusculum hoc Plutarcho indignum atque suppositum visum Xylandro fuerit, non intelligo."--Reiske.

[The end]
Plutarch's essay: Whether The Disorders Of Mind Or Body Are Worse

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