Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
John C. Rolfe, Ed.

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“[p. 353] what our forefathers, the founders of the Stoic sect, thought about that brief but inevitable and natural fear, or rather,” said he, “read it, for if you read it, you will be the more ready to believe it and you will remember it better.” Thereupon before my eyes he drew from his little bag the fifth book of the Discourses of the philosopher Epictetus, which, as arranged by Arrian, undoubtedly agree with the writings of Zeno and Chrysippus.

In that book I read this statement, which of course was written in Greek ¹ : “The mental visions, which the philosophers call φαντασίαι or 'phantasies,' by which the mind of man on the very first appearance of an object is impelled to the perception of the object, are neither voluntary nor controlled by the will, but through a certain power of their own they force their recognition upon men; but the expressions of assent, which they call συγκαταθέσεις, by which these visions are recognized, are voluntary and subject to man's will. Therefore when some terrifying sound, either from heaven or from a falling building or as a sudden announcement of some danger, or anything else of that kind occurs, even the mind of a wise man must necessarily be disturbed, must shrink and feel alarm, not from a preconceived idea of any danger, but from certain swift and unexpected attacks which forestall the power of the mind and of reason. Presently, however, the wise man does not approve ' such phantasies,' that is to say, such terrifying mental visions (to quote the Greek, 'he does not consent to them nor confirm them'), but he rejects and scorns them, nor does he see in them anything that ought to excite fear. And they say that there is this difference between ”