We speak of a “sunny” room when the same room is perfectly dark at night. Day fills it with light; night takes it away. So it is with those things we term “indifferent” or “middle,” such as riches, strength, beauty, reputation, sovereignty – or their opposites: death, exile, ill-heath, pain, and all the others that we find more or less terrifying. It is wickedness or virtue that gives them the name of good or evil. By itself a lump of metal is neither hot nor cold: thrown into the furnace it gets hot, put back in the water it is cold. Seneca, Epistles 82.14
