“[p. 355] the mind of a foolish man and that of a wise man, that the foolish man thinks that such ' visions ' are in fact as dreadful and terrifying as they appear at the original impact of them on his mind, and by his assent he approves of such ideas as if they were rightly to be feared, and 'confirms' them; for προσεπιδοξάζει is the word which the Stoics use in their discourses on the subject. But the wise man, after being affected for a short time and slightly in his colour and expression, 'does not assent,' but retains the steadfastness and strength of the opinion which he has always had about visions of this kind, namely that they are in no wise to be feared but excite terror by a false appearance and vain alarms.” That these were the opinions and utterances of Epictetus the philosopher in accordance with the beliefs of the Stoics I read in that book which I have mentioned, and I thought that they ought to be recorded for this reason, that when things of the kind which I have named chance to occur, we may not think that to fear for a time and, as it were, turn white is the mark of a foolish and weak man, but in that brief but natural impulse we yield rather to human weakness than because we believe that those things are what they seem.
II
[2arg] That of the five senses of the body two in particular we share with beasts; and that pleasure which comes from hearing, sight and smell is base and reprehensible, but that which comes from taste and touch is the most shameful of all, since the last two are felt also by beasts, the others only by mankind.MEN have five senses, which the Greeks call αἰσθήσεις, by which mental or bodily pleasure is
