our desires are limited by our possessions, but as long as desires are not completely dead within us, they are sure to aim at something that we have not, for what is already possessed has ceased to be an object of desire. Therefore Horace’s hypothesis brings us to this conclusion: if a man is to desire nothing, he must either possess all that is desirable or be dead. The dream of a golden mean cannot be realised, as, when we consider the matter, we find that either the mean disappears or the man