CHAPTER XIV

THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF

’Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two equal desires:  for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem; and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an equal appetite to drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die of thirst and hunger.  To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics, when they are asked whence the election in the soul of two indifferent things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a great number of crowns, rather take one than another, they being all alike, and there being no reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer, that this movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular, entering into us by a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse.  It might rather, methinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly, tempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a packthread equally strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break; for, where will you have the breaking to begin? and that it should break altogether is not in nature.  Whoever, also, should hereunto join the geometrical propositions that, by the certainty of their demonstrations, conclude the contained to be greater than the containing, the centre to be as great as its circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching each other, which yet can never meet, and the philosopher’s stone, and the quadrature of the circle, where the reason and the effect are so opposite, might, peradventure, find some argument to second this bold saying of Pliny: 

                    “Solum certum nihil esse certi,
               et homine nihil miserius ant superbius.”

     ["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing
     is more miserable or more proud than man.”—­Nat.  Hist., ii. 7.]

CHAPTER XV

THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY

There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the philosophers.  I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of the ancients alleges for the contempt of life:  “No good can bring pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand prepared.”

          “In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,”

          ["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it,
          are equal.”—­Seneca, Ep., 98.]

meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us if we are in fear of losing it.  It might, however, be said, on the contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly, and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less assured and fear to have it taken from us:  for it is evident, as fire burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is more obstinate by being opposed: