Don't serve the body. Seneca, Epistles 2.14.1-6

Seneca admonishes Lucilius to avoid serving the body, which is properly a tool and not an end in itself, and then describes our fear of bodily harm. He says that this fear is most potent when we apprehend disaster before it happens. Fear of conquest trumps fear of plague, he thinks, because the former is more evident: it presents itself vividly to the mind before invading and investing the body.

Fateor insitam esse nobis corporis nostri caritatem; fateor nos huius gerere tutelam. Non nego indulgendum illi, serviendum nego; multis enim serviet qui corpori servit, qui pro illo nimium timet, qui ad illud omnia refert. Sic gerere nos debemus, non tamquam propter corpus vivere debeamus, sed tamquam non possimus sine corpore. Huius nos nimius amor timoribus inquietat, sollicitudinibus onerat, contumeliis obicit. Honestum ei vile est cui corpus nimis carum est. Agatur eius diligentissime cura, ita tamen ut, cum exiget ratio, cum dignitas, cum fides, mittendum in ignes sit. Nihilominus quantum possumus evitemus incommoda quoque, non tantum pericula, et in tutum nos reducamus, excogitantes subinde quibus possint timenda depelli.

Quorum tria, nisi fallor, genera sunt: timetur inopia, timentur morbi, timentur quae per vim potentioris eveniunt. Ex his omnibus nihil nos magis concutit quam quod ex aliena potentia impendet; magno enim strepitu et tumultu venit. Naturalia mala quae rettuli, inopia atque morbus, silentio subeunt nec oculis nec auribus quicquam terroris incutiunt: ingens alterius mali pompa est; ferrum circa se et ignes habet et catenas et turbam ferarum quam in viscera immittat humana. Cogita hoc loco carcerem et cruces et eculeos et uncum, et adactum per medium hominem qui per os emergeret stipitem, et distracta in diversum actis curribus membra, illam tunicam alimentis ignium et illitam et textam, et quidquid aliud praeter haec commenta saevitia est.

Non est itaque mirum, si maximus huius rei timor est cuius et varietas magna et apparatus terribilis est. Nam quemadmodum plus agit tortor quo plura instrumenta doloris exposuit (specie enim vincuntur qui patientiae restitissent), ita ex iis quae animos nostros subigunt et domant plus proficiunt quae habent quod ostendant. Illae pestes non minus graves sunt⸺famem dico et sitim et praecordiorum suppurationes et febrem viscera ipsa torrentem⸺sed latent, nihil habent quod intentent, quod praeferant: haec ut magna bella aspectu paratuque vicerunt.

I concede that the body is naturally dear to us, that we are stewards whose proper role is to look after it. What I deny the body is not indulgence, but servitude. Many things shall enslave the man who serves the body, who fears too much for it, who refers every decision to it. We ought to conduct ourselves not as though it were our duty to live for the body, but on the understanding that we cannot live without it. Excessive love for it troubles us with fears, burdens us with worries, delivers us to injury. Honor is cheap to the man who cares too much for his body. But no matter how diligently we care for it, when reason, dignity, or faith demand, we must cast our body to the flames. Still, let us avoid as many inconveniences as possible, not merely the dangerous ones, and conduct ourselves with an eye to safety, constantly contriving means to defeat the things we fear.

These things come in three kinds, unless I am mistaken: we fear poverty, diseases, and the consequences of encountering force that outmatches our own. None of these strikes us more than the last, which comes from power beyond us, for it arrives with great din and disorder. The natural evils I mentioned, poverty and disease, slink up to us in silence, imposing no sudden terror on the eyes and ears. But foreign conquest brings a great retinue in its wake. It has fire and sword close by, and chains, and the mob of savage beasts that it sends to feast on human guts. Think here of prisons and crosses, the rack and the hook, and the stake driven right through a man to emerge at his mouth. Think of limbs crushed and scattered by chariot wheels, garments smeared and covered with ash, and whatever else besides speaks fury to your mind.

No wonder then, that our fear of conquest is so great: it brings a mighty train of diverse evils, and the sight of them is terrible. It is like the torturer who achieves more by showing first his tools: those who would have resisted the suffering are overcome by the sight of it. Even so, the things that break and tame our minds achieve more by the fact that they show us what they hold. Plagues are not less powerful than conquests⸺I remind you of the hunger and thirst that they bring, the abscesses infesting the body, and the fever that burns us inside⸺but they are invisible. They have nothing to show before they strike, while fear of conquest boasts of great wars won merely by the sight of her arming.