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Updated: May 8, 2025
Again, the assumption of Epictetus and of all the Stoics that the will is wholly free, that man has only to choose and seek goodness and he can perfectly achieve it, misses the familiar and bitter experience of humanity, that too often man carries his prison and fetters within himself. A Roman poet voiced it: Meliora video proboque, deteriora sequor.
And thus he is, from time to time, in the state of that unhappy complainer, Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor: which sentence, allowed for true, and made good by constant experience, may in this, and possibly no other way, be easily made intelligible. Because the Removal of Uneasiness is the first Step to Happiness.
"You have exprest yourself extremely well," cries Booth; "and I entirely agree with the justice of your sentiments; but, however true all this may be in theory, I still doubt its efficacy in practice. And the cause of the difference between these two is this; that we reason from our heads, but act from our hearts: -Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor.
He could not live without work, while pleasure palled upon him. In a letter to a stranger who sought to convert him, he showed anything but anger or contempt. "Do me," says he, "the justice to suppose, that Video meliora proboque, however the deteriora sequor may have been applied to my conduct." Alas, he could not undo the mischief he had done!
There is a call on us for vigorous and continual resolution, self-denial, and activity. Now, man is not a being of mere intellect. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, is a complaint which, alas! we all of us might daily utter. The slightest solicitation of appetite is often able to draw us to act in opposition to our clearest judgment, our highest interests, and most resolute determinations.
"Video meliora, proboque, I see the better, and approve it; deteriora sequor, I follow after the worse; 't is that natural dislike to what is good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted selfishness, totally insensible to the claims of" Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty. "Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a poor old black woman wants to see you so much!"
[Footnote 2: Video meliora, proboque, &c. Writers were now beginning to pride themselves on their classical reading. The present occasion, it must be owned, was a very good one for introducing the passage from Horace. The previous words have an affecting ingenuousness; and, indeed, the whole stanza is beautiful: "Io non mi posso dal cor dipartire La dolce vista del viso sereno, Perch'io mi sento senza lei morire, E 'l spirto a poco a poco venir meno. Or non mi vale forza, nè l'ardire Contra d' amor, the m' ha gi
"Video meliora, proboque, I see the better, and approve it; deteriora sequor, I follow after the worse; 't is that natural dislike to what is good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted selfishness, totally insensible to the claims of" Here the worthy man was interrupted by Miss Letty. "Do come, if you can, grandpapa," said the young girl; "here is a poor old black woman wants to see you so much!"
She considered me with a very searching look. "Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?" "Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks to cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor? is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegious fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself." "You do not love him?" said she.
The Reason is, Because the vicious Believer gives the Precedency to the virtuous Man, and allows the good Christian to be the worthier Person, at the same time that he cannot come up to his Perfections. This we find exemplified in that trite Passage which we see quoted in almost every System of Ethicks, tho' upon another Occasion. ... Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor ...
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