Discourses - Book II   

of Antisthenes." Then, having told your dreams to one another, you
return to the same things: your desires are the same, your aversions
the same, your pursuits are the same, and your designs and purposes,
you wish for the same things and work for the same. In the next
place you do not even seek for one to give you advice, but you are
vexed if you hear such things. Then you say, "An ill-natured old
fellow: when I was going away, he did not weep nor did he say, 'Into
what danger you are going: if you come off safe, my child, I will burn
lights.' This is what a good-natured man would do." It will be a great
thing for you if you do return safe, and it will be worth while to
burn lights for such a person: for you ought to be immortal and exempt
from disease.
Casting away then, as I say, this conceit of thinking that we know
something useful, we I I must come to philosophy as we apply to
geometry, and to music: but if we do not, we shall not even approach
to proficiency, though we read all the collections and commentaries of
Chrysippus and those of Antipater and Archedemus.

CHAPTER 18

How we should struggle against appearances

Every habit and faculty is maintained and increased by the
corresponding actions: the habit of walking by walking, the habit of
running by running. If you would be a good reader, read; if a
writer, write. But when you shall not have read thirty days in
succession, but have done something else, you will know the
consequence. In the same way, if you shall have lain down ten days,
get up and attempt to make a long walk, and you will see how your legs
are weakened. Generally, then, if you would make anything a habit,
do it; if you would not make it a habit, do not do it, but accustom
yourself to do something else in place of it.
So it is with respect to the affections of the soul: when you have
been angry, you must know that not only has this evil befallen you,
but that you have also increased the habit, and in a manner thrown
fuel upon fire. When you have been overcome in sexual intercourse with
a person, do not reckon this single defeat only, but reckon that you
have also nurtured, increased your incontinence. For it is
impossible for habits and faculties, some of them not to be
produced, when they did not exist before, and others not be
increased and strengthened by corresponding acts.
In this manner certainly, as philosophers say, also diseases of
the mind grow up. For when you have once desired money, if reason be
applied to lead to a perception of the evil, the desire is stopped,
and the ruling faculty of our mind is restored to the original
authority. But if you apply no means of cure, it no longer returns
to the same state, but, being again excited by the corresponding
appearance, it is inflamed to desire quicker than before: and when
this takes place continually, it is henceforth hardened, and the
disease of the mind confirms the love of money. For he who has had a