Glossary
Premeditatio malorum
praemeditatio malorum (latin)
Praemeditatio malorum, the rehearsal of evils in advance, is a Latin label that Cicero uses in book III of the Tusculan Disputations for an exercise all three Stoic authors describe: picturing, before it happens, what fortune can do, so that nothing arrives as a surprise. The label is not in our editions; the practice is, in each of them.
Seneca gives the fullest statement in Letter 91, written after the burning of Lyon. In Richard Gummere’s translation of §4, our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider not what is wont to happen but what can happen. The argument stands in the same letter: the unexpected puts the heaviest load upon us, and what has been foreseen strikes with less force. He returns to it in Letter 107 and Letter 76.
Epictetus makes it the preface to any action. Enchiridion IV (Carter, 1758): before going about anything, remind yourself of what nature the action is, at the baths, for instance, where people splash and push and steal, so that an impediment, when it comes, was already part of the plan. Marcus Aurelius opens the second book of the Meditations with the same move: begin the morning by saying to yourself that you will meet the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant (Meditations, II, 1, Long 1862), and then say why none of them can injure you.
The exercise is directed at judgment, not mood. Its stated purpose is to keep the mind in its own state when the foreseen thing occurs, not to dwell on misfortune for its own sake. Applied to death, it becomes memento mori.
In the texts
Seneca · Letter 91, §4
Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider, not what is wont to happen, but what can happen.
Epictetus · Enchiridion, IV
When you are going about any Action, remind yourself of what Nature the Action is.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, II, 1
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
What the term does not mean
- Not pessimism or worry. The aim stated in Letter 91 is that the blow, when it comes, weighs less; the exercise ends, it does not linger.
- Not visualisation for motivation. The object is what can happen, not what one wants; Seneca says to consider not the usual but the possible.
- Not the “negative visualisation” of self-help manuals, which often adds gratitude as its purpose. The ancient purpose is the steadiness of judgment.
Related terms
- Memento mori — memento mori (latin)
- Dichotomy of control — τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν / τὰ οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν (ta eph’ hēmin, ta ouk eph’ hēmin)
- Amor fati — amor fati (latin)
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