Kitap 3
12
And because habit has a powerful influence, and we are habituated to apply our desire and aversion to externals only. we must oppose one habit to another: and where the semblances are most treacherous, there oppose the force of training. I am inclined to pleasure. I will bend myself, even unduly, to the other side, as a matter of training. I am averse to pain. I will strive and wrestle with these semblances, that I may cease to shrink from any such object. For who is truly in training? He who endeavors totally to control desire, and to apply aversion only to things controllable by Will, and strives for it most in the most difficult cases. Hence different persons are to be trained in different ways. What signifies it, to this purpose, to balance a pole, or to go about with tent and implements [of exhibition]? If you are hasty, man, let it be your training to bear ill language patiently; and when you are affronted, not to be angry. Thus, at length, you may arrive at such a proficiency as, when any one strikes you, to say to yourself, Let me suppose this to be like grasping a statue. Next train yourself to make but a moderate use of wine,—not to drink a great deal, to which some are so foolish as to train themselves,—but to abstain from this first; and then to abstain from women and from gluttony. Afterwards you will venture into the lists at some proper season, by way of trial, if at all, to see whether these semblances get the better of you as much as they used to do. But at first flee from what is stronger than you. The contest between a fascinating woman and a young man just initiated into philosophy is unequal. The brass pot and the earthen pitcher, as the fable says, are an unfair match.
12
Next to the desires and aversions is the second class, of the pursuits and avoidances; that they may be obedient to reason; that nothing may be done improperly, in point of time and place, or in any other respect.
