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Note also the significance of Zeno’s statement. For he said that every man might fairly derive from his dreams a consciousness that he was making progress if he observed that during his period of sleep he felt no pleasure in anything disgraceful, and did not tolerate or commit any dreadful or untoward action, but as though in the clear depth of an absolute calm there came over him the radiant thought that the fanciful and emotional element in his soul had been dispelled by reason. Plato, Republic, 571 D; the entire passage should be compared. apparently realizing this even earlier, has given form and expression to the operations of the fanciful and irrational element in a naturally despotic soul during sleep. It attempts incest, and feels a sudden hunger for a great variety of food, acting in lawless fashion, and giving loose rein to the desires which in the daytime the law keeps confined by means of shame and fear. Now well-trained beasts of burden, even if their driver lets go the reins, do not attempt to turn aside and leave the road, but in their accustomed manner they go on in their places and keep to their course without mishap; and so it is in the case of persons in whom the irrational impulse has already been rendered obedient and gentle by reason and has been thoroughly chastened; neither during sleep nor as a result of illness is it willing any longer to indulge readily in arrogance or lawlessness because of the desires, but it observes and bears in mind the habit it has acquired, and it is this which endows our vigilance with strength and intensity. For if the body by virtue of training is actually capable of rendering itself and its members so obedient to its injunctions of indifference that the eyes refrain from tears at a piteous sight, and the heart from throbbing in the midst of terrors, and the passions chastely remain unexcited and undisturbed in the presence of youthful or maidenly beauty, is it not indeed even more probable that training, by taking hold of the emotional element in the soul, will, as it were, do away with the irregularities and vagaries of our fancies and incitements, and carry its repression of them even into our slumbers ? There is a story, illustrating this point, about the philosopher Stilpo, who thought in his slumber that he saw Poseidon, who was angry at him for not having offered up a bull, which was the customary sacrifice; but he himself, in his dream, nowise disconcerted, replied, What are you saying, Poseidon ? Do you come whining like a child because I did not run into debt to fill the city with the savour of burnt offerings, but presented a modest offering from what I had in my house ? And then it seemed to him that Poseidon smiled and held out his hand, and said that he would send an abundance of anchovies to the Megarians for Stilpo’s sake. So in the case of persons blessed with dreams so pleasant and bright and untroubled, who experience in their hours of slumber no revival of anything terrifying or repellent nor of any act of malice or improbity, men like Zeno assert that such manifestations are bright reflections of their progress, but that torturing memories, perturbations, ignoble desertions, and childish transports of joy and sorrow, such as are experienced in dismal or abnormal dreams, are like to billows that break and toss, inasmuch as the soul does not yet possess the power to keep itself in order, but is still being moulded by external opinions and laws, and when it gets farthest away from these during the hours of slumber, it is again made free and open to other influences by the emotions. Cf. Plato, Republic, 571 C, and Plutarch, Moralia, 100 F. I beg, therefore, that you also will consider whether these things belong to progress in virtue, or to a state of mind already possessed of a constancy and strength based on reason, and hence unwavering.
