(E44:3) "The best men",says Cicero, "are especially led by honour.
(4) Even philosophers, when they write a book contemning honour, sign
their names thereto," and so on.
[De.XLV] Luxury is excessive desire, or even love of
living sumptuously.
[De.XLVI] Intemperance is the excessive desire and
love of drinking.
[De.XLVII] Avarice is the excessive desire and love of riches.
[De.XLVIII] Lust is desire and love in the matter of
sexual intercourse.
Explanation.- (E48:1) Whether this desire be excessive or not, it is
still called lust. (2) These last five emotions (as I have shown in
[lvi] ) have no contraries. (3) For deference is a species of
ambition. Cf. [xxix] note.
(E48:4) Again, I have already pointed out, that temperance, sobriety,
and chastity, indicate rather a power than a passivity of the mind.
(5) It may, nevertheless, happen, that an avaricious, an ambitious,
or a timid man may abstain from excess in eating, drinking, or sexual
indulgence, yet avarice, ambition, and fear are not contraries to luxury,
drunkenness, and debauchery. (E48:6) For an avaricious man often is glad
to gorge himself with food and drink at another man's expense. (7) An
ambitious man will restrain himself in nothing, so long as he thinks his
indulgences are secret; and if he lives among drunkards and debauchees,
he will, from the mere fact of being ambitious, be more prone to those
vices.
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