Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/385

Rh Pyrrho and Bion in this case are not in my conceit the signs of amendment and progress so much as of some other more perfect and absolute habit rather of the mind; for Bion willed and required his scholars and familiars that conversed with him, to think then (and never before) that they had proceeded and profited in philosophy, when they could with as good a will abide to hear men revile and rail at them, as if they spake unto them in this manner:

And Pyrrho (as it is reported), being upon a time at sea and in danger to be cast away in a tempest, shewed unto the rest of his fellow-passengers a porket feeding hard upon barley cast before him on shipboard: Lo, my masters (quoth he), we ought by reason and exercise in philosophy to frame ourselves to this pass, and to attain unto such an impassibility as to be moved and troubled with the accidents of fortune no more than this pig.

But consider, furthermore, what was the conceit and opinion of Zeno in this point; for he was of mind that every man might and ought to know whether he profited or no in the school of virtue, even by his very dreams; namely, if he took no pleasure to see in his sleep any filthy or dishonest thing, nor delighted to imagine that he either intended, did or approved any lewd, unjust or outrageous action; but rather did behold (as in a settled calm, without wind, weather and wave, in the clear bottom of the water) both the imaginative and also the passive faculty of the soul, wholly overspread and lightened with the bright beams of reason: which Plato before him (as it should seem) knowing well enough, hath prefigured and represented unto us what fantastical motions they be that proceed in sleep from the imaginative and sensual part of the soul given by nature to tyrannise and overrule the guidance of reason; namely, if a man dream that he seeketh to have carnal company with his own mother, or that he hath a great mind and appetite to eat all strange, unlawful, and forbidden meats; as if then the said tyrant gave himself wholly to all those sensualities and concupiscences as being let loose at such a time, which by day the law either by fear or shame doth repress and keep down. Like as therefore beasts which serve for draught or saddle, if they be well taught and trained, albeit their governors and rulers let the reins loose and give them the head, fling not out nor go