Ethics 257
health is not unconditionally a preferred thing, nor is disease rejected.- So just as when we write words we sometimes put one letter first,
sometimes another, fitting them to their different circumstances (we write
the D first for Dion's name, the I first for Ion, the 0 first for Orion); it
is not that some letters are naturally preferred to others, but just that
circumstances force us to do this. In the same way in matters which are
intermediate between virtue and vice there is no natural preference for
one set over the other, but this, rather, is determined by circumstances.
Galen On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and
Plato 4.2.9-18 (5.368-370 K; SVF 3.462)[11-117]We shall see this more clearly if we quote his own [Chrysippus']
utterances. The first passage goes like this: "We must first keep in mind
that the rational animal is by nature such as to follow reason and to act
according to reason as a guide. Nevertheless, he often moves toward
some things and away from some things in another way, disobediently
to reason, when he is pushed too far [or to excess]. Both definitions [of
passion, the one mentioning] the natural motion which arises irrationally
in this way and [the one mentioning] the excessiveness in the impulses,
are in terms of this motion. For this irrationality must be taken to be
disobedient to reason and turning its back on reason. And it is in terms
of this motion that we also say in ordinary usage that some people are
'pushed' and 'moved irrationally without reason and judgement'. For we
do not use these expressions as if someone is moved mistakenly and
because he overlooks something that is according to reason, but most
especially according to the motion he [Zeno?] outlines, since the rational
animal does not naturally move in accordance with his soul in this way,
but rather in accordance with reason .... The excess of the impulse was
also spoken of in terms of this, because they overstep the symmetry of
impulses which is proper to themselves and natural. What I say would
be made easier to understand by means of these examples. In walking
according to impulse the motion of the legs is not excessive but is in a
sense coextensive with the impulse, so that it can come to a standstill
when he [the walker] wishes, or change direction. But in the case of
those who are running according to impulse, this sort of thing is no
longer the case, but the motion of the legs exceeds the impulse so that
it is carried away and does not change direction obediently in this way
as soon as they start to do so. I think something similar to these motions
[of the legs] occurs in the impulses because of the overstepping of the
symmetry which is according to reason, so that whenever one has an
impulse he is not obedient with respect to it, the excess being beyond