A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion

A SELECTION FROM THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS WITH THE ENCHEIRIDION

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE LONG

CONTENTS.

EPICTETUS (BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE).

A SELECTION FROM THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.

THE ENCHEIRIDION, OR MANUAL.

EPICTETUS.

Very little is known of the life of Epictetus. It is said that he was a

native of Hierapolis in Phrygia, a town between the Maeander and a

branch of the Maeander named the Lycus. Hierapolis is mentioned in the

epistle of Paul to the people of Colossae (Coloss. iv., 13); from which

it has been concluded that there was a Christian church in Hierapolis

in the time of the apostle. The date of the birth of Epictetus is

unknown. The only recorded fact of his early life is that he was a

slave in Rome, and his master was Epaphroditus, a profligate freedman

of the Emperor Nero. There is a story that the master broke his slave’s

leg by torturing him; but it is better to trust to the evidence of

Simplicius, the commentator on the Encheiridion, or Manual, who says

that Epictetus was weak in body and lame from an early age. It is not

said how he became a slave; but it has been asserted in modern times

that the parents sold the child. I have not, however, found any

authority for this statement.

It may be supposed that the young slave showed intelligence, for his

master sent or permitted him to attend the lectures of C. Musonius

Rufus, an eminent Stoic philosopher. It may seem strange that such a

master should have wished to have his slave made into a philosopher;

but Garnier, the author of a “Mémoire sur les Ouvrages d’Epictète,”

explains this matter very well in a communication to Schweighaeuser.

Garnier says: “Epictetus, born at Hierapolis of Phrygia of poor

parents, was indebted apparently for the advantages of a good education

to the whim, which was common at the end of the Republic and under the

first emperors, among the great of Rome to reckon among their numerous

slaves grammarians, poets, rhetoricians, and philosophers, in the same

way as rich financiers in these later ages have been led to form at a

great cost rich and numerous libraries. This supposition is the only

one which can explain to us how a wretched child, born as poor as Irus,

had received a good education, and how a rigid Stoic was the slave of

Epaphroditus, one of the officers of the imperial guard. For we cannot

suspect that it was through predilection for the Stoic doctrine, and

for his own use, that the confidant and the minister of the

debaucheries of Nero would have desired to possess such a slave.”

Some writers assume that Epictetus was manumitted by his master, but I

can find no evidence for this statement. Epaphroditus accompanied Nero

when he fled from Rome before his enemies, and he aided the miserable

tyrant in killing himself. Domitian (Sueton., Domit. 14), afterwards

put Epaphroditus to death for this service to Nero. We may conclude

that Epictetus in some way obtained his freedom, and that he began to

teach at Rome; but after the expulsion of the philosophers from Rome by

Domitian, A.D. 89, he retired to Nicopolis in Epirus, a city built by

Augustus to commemorate the victory at Actium. Epictetus opened a

school or lecture room at Nicopolis, where he taught till he was an old

man. The time of his death is unknown. Epictetus was never married, as

we learn from Lucian (Demonax, c. 55, torn, ii., ed. Hemsterh., p.

393). When Epictetus was finding fault with Demonax, and advising him

to take a wife and beget children, for this also, as Epictetus said,

was a philosopher’s duty, to leave in place of himself another in the

universe, Demonax refuted the doctrine by answering: Give me then,

Epictetus, one of your own daughters. Simplicius says (Comment., c. 46,

p. 432, ed. Schweigh.) that Epictetus lived alone a long time. At last

he took a woman into his house as a nurse for a child, which one of

Epictetus’ friends was going to expose on account of his poverty, but

Epictetus took the child and brought it up.

Epictetus wrote nothing; and all that we have under his name was

written

Photius (Biblioth., 58) mentions among Arrian’s works “Conversations

with Epictetus,” [Greek: Homiliai Epichtaeton], in twelve books. Upton

thinks that this work is only another name for the Discourses, and that

Photius has made the mistake of taking the Conversations to be a

different work from the Discourses. Yet Photius has enumerated eight

books of the Discourses and twelve books of the Conversations.

Schweighaeuser observes that Photius had not seen these works of Arrian

on Epictetus, for so he concludes from the brief notice of these works

by Photius. The fact is that Photius does not say that he had read

these books, as he generally does when he is speaking of the books

which he enumerates in his Bibliotheca. The conclusion is that we are

not certain that there was a work of Arrian entitled “The Conversations

of Epictetus.”

Upton remarks in a note on iii., 23 (p. 184, Trans.), that “there are

many passages in these dissertations which are ambiguous or rather

confused on account of the small questions, and because the matter is

not expanded by oratorical copiousness, not to mention other causes.”

The discourses of Epictetus, it is supposed, were spoken extempore, and

so one thing after another would come into the thoughts of the speaker

(Wolf). Schweighaeuser also observes in a note (ii., 336 of his

edition) that the connection of the discourse is sometimes obscure

through the omission of some words which are necessary to indicate the

connection of the thoughts. The reader then will find that he cannot

always understand Epictetus, if he does not read him very carefully,

and some passages more than once. He must also think and reflect, or he

will miss the meaning. I do not say that the book is worth all this

trouble. Every man must judge for himself. But I should not have

translated the book, if I had not thought it worth study; and I think

that all books of this kind require careful reading, if they are worth

reading at all.

G.L.

A SELECTION FROM THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.

OF THE THINGS WHICH ARE IN OUR POWER AND NOT IN OUR POWER.—Of all the

faculties (except that which I shall soon mention), you will find not

one which is capable of contemplating itself, and, consequently, not

capable either of approving or disapproving. How far does the grammatic

art possess the contemplating power? As far as forming a judgment about

what is written and spoken. And how far music? As far as judging about

melody. Does either of them then contemplate itself? By no means. But

when you must write something to your friend, grammar will tell you

what words you should write; but whether you should write or not,

grammar will not tell you. And so it is with music as to musical

sounds; but whether you should sing at the present time and play on the

lute, or do neither, music will not tell you. What faculty then will

tell you? That which contemplates both itself and all other things. And

what is this faculty? The rational faculty; for this is the only

faculty that we have received which examines itself, what it is, and

what power it has, and what is the value of this gift, and examines all

other faculties: for what else is there which tells us that golden

things are beautiful, for they do not say so themselves? Evidently it

is the faculty which is capable of judging of appearances. What else

judges of music, grammar, and the other faculties, proves their uses,

and points out the occasions for using them? Nothing else.

What then should a man have in readiness in such circumstances? What

else than this? What is mine, and what is not mine; and what is

permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me. I must die. Must I

then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I

must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles

and cheerfulness and contentment? Tell me the secret which you possess.

I will not, for this is in my power. But I will put you in chains. Man,

what are you talking about? Me, in chains? You may fetter my leg, but

my will not even Zeus himself can overpower. I will throw you into

prison. My poor body, you mean. I will cut your head off. When then

have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off? These are the

things which philosophers should meditate on, which they should write

daily, in which they should exercise themselves.

What then did Agrippinus say? He said, “I am not a hindrance to

myself.” When it was reported to him that his trial was going on in the

Senate, he said: “I hope it may turn out well; but it is the fifth hour

of the day”—this was the time when he was used to exercise himself and

then take the cold bath,—“let us go and take our exercise.” After he

had taken his exercise, one comes and tells him, “You have been

condemned.” “To banishment,” he replies, “or to death?” “To

banishment.” “What about my property?” “It is not taken from you.” “Let

us go to Aricia then,” he said, “and dine.”

HOW A MAN ON EVERY OCCASION CAN MAINTAIN HIS PROPER CHARACTER.—To the

rational animal only is the irrational intolerable; but that which is

rational is tolerable. Blows are not naturally intolerable. How is

that? See how the Lacedaemonians endure whipping when they have learned

that whipping is consistent with reason. To hang yourself is not

intolerable. When then you have the opinion that it is rational, you go

and hang yourself. In short, if we observe, we shall find that the

animal man is pained by nothing so much as by that which is irrational;

and, on the contrary, attracted to nothing so much as to that which is

rational.

Only consider at what price you sell your own will: if for no other

reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum. But

that which is great and superior perhaps belongs to Socrates and such

as are like him. Why then, if we are naturally such, are not a very

great number of us like him? Is it true then that all horses become

swift, that all dogs are skilled in tracking footprints? What then,

since I am naturally dull, shall I, for this reason, take no pains? I

hope not. Epictetus is not superior to Socrates; but if he is not

inferior, this is enough for me; for I shall never be a Milo, and yet I

do not neglect my body; nor shall I be a Croesus, and yet I do not

neglect my property; nor, in a word, do we neglect looking after

anything because we despair of reaching the highest degree.

HOW A MAN SHOULD PROCEED FROM THE PRINCIPLE OF GOD BEING THE FATHER OF

ALL MEN TO THE REST.—If a man should be able to assent to this doctrine

as he ought, that we are all sprung from God in an especial manner, and

that God is the father both of men and of gods, I suppose that he would

never have any ignoble or mean thoughts about himself. But if Cæsar

(the emperor) should adopt you, no one could endure your arrogance; and

if you know that you are the son of Zeus, will you not be elated? Yet

we do not so; but since these two things are mingled in the generation

of man, body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in

common with the gods, many incline to this kinship, which is miserable

and mortal; and some few to that which is divine and happy. Since then

it is of necessity that every man uses everything according to the

opinion which he has about it, those, the few, who think that they are

formed for fidelity and modesty and a sure use of appearances have no

mean or ignoble thoughts about themselves; but with the many it is

quite the contrary. For they say, What am I? A poor, miserable man,

with my wretched bit of flesh. Wretched, indeed; but you possess

something better than your bit of flesh. Why then do you neglect that

which is better, and why do you attach yourself to this?

Through this kinship with the flesh, some of us inclining to it become

like wolves, faithless and treacherous and mischievous; some become

like lions, savage and bestial and untamed; but the greater part of us

become foxes, and other worse animals. For what else is a slanderer and

malignant man than a fox, or some other more wretched and meaner

animal? See then and take care that you do not become some one of these

miserable things.

OF PROGRESS OR IMPROVEMENT.—He who is making progress, having learned

from philosophers that desire means the desire of good things, and

aversion means aversion from bad things; having learned too that

happiness and tranquillity are not attainable by man otherwise than by

not failing to obtain what he desires, and not falling into that which

he would avoid; such a man takes from himself desire altogether and

confers it, but he employs his aversion only on things which are

dependent on his will. For if he attempts to avoid anything independent

of his will, he knows that sometimes he will fall in with something

which he wishes to avoid, and he will be unhappy. Now if virtue

promises good fortune and tranquillity and happiness, certainly also

the progress towards virtue is progress towards each of these things.

For it is always true that to whatever point the perfecting of anything

leads us, progress is an approach towards this point.

How then do we admit that virtue is such as I have said, and yet seek

progress in other things and make a display of it? What is the product

of virtue? Tranquillity. Who then makes improvement? Is it he who has

read many books of Chrysippus? But does virtue consist in having

understood Chrysippus? If this is so, progress is clearly nothing else

than knowing a great deal of Chrysippus. But now we admit that virtue

produces one thing, and we declare that approaching near to it is

another thing, namely, progress or improvement. Such a person, says

one, is already able to read Chrysippus by himself. Indeed, sir, you

are making great progress. What kind of progress? But why do you mock

the man? Why do you draw him away from the perception of his own

misfortunes? Will you not show him the effect of virtue that he may

learn where to look for improvement? Seek it there, wretch, where your

work lies. And where is your work? In desire and in aversion, that you

may not be disappointed in your desire, and that you may not fall into

that which you would avoid; in your pursuit and avoiding, that you

commit no error; in assent and suspension of assent, that you be not

deceived. The first things, and the most necessary are those which I

have named. But if with trembling and lamentation you seek not to fall

into that which you avoid, tell me how you are improving.

Do you then show me your improvement in these things? If I were talking

to an athlete, I should say, Show me your shoulders; and then he might

say, Here are my Halteres. You and your Halteres look to that. I should

reply, I wish to see the effect of the Halteres. So, when you say: Take

the treatise on the active powers ([Greek: hormea]), and see how I have

studied it, I reply: Slave, I am not inquiring about this, but how you

exercise pursuit and avoidance, desire and aversion, how you design and

purpose and prepare yourself, whether conformably to nature or not. If

conformably, give me evidence of it, and I will say that you are making

progress; but if not conformably, be gone, and not only expound your

books, but write such books yourself; and what will you gain by it? Do

you not know that the whole book costs only five denarii? Does then the

expounder seem to be worth more than five denarii? Never then look for

the matter itself in one place, and progress towards it in another.

Where then is progress? If any of you, withdrawing himself from

externals, turns to his own will ([Greek: proairesis]) to exercise it

and to improve it by labor, so as to make it conformable to nature,

elevated, free, unrestrained, unimpeded, faithful, modest; and if he

has learned that he who desires or avoids the things which are not in

his power can neither be faithful nor free, but of necessity he must

change with them and be tossed about with them as in a tempest, and of

necessity must subject himself to others who have the power to procure

or prevent what lie desires or would avoid; finally, when he rises in

the morning, if he observes and keeps these rules, bathes as a man of

fidelity, eats as a modest man; in like manner, if in every matter that

occurs he works out his chief principles ([Greek: ta proaegoumena]) as

the runner does with reference to running, and the trainer of the voice

with reference to the voice—this is the man who truly makes progress,

and this is the man who has not travelled in vain. But if he has

strained his efforts to the practice of reading books, and labors only

at this, and has travelled for this, I tell him to return home

immediately, and not to neglect his affairs there; for this for which

he has travelled is nothing. But the other thing is something, to study

how a man can rid his life of lamentation and groaning, and saying, Woe

to me, and wretched that I am, and to rid it also of misfortune and

disappointment, and to learn what death is, and exile, and prison, and

poison, that he may be able to say when he is in fetters, Dear Crito,

if it is the will of the gods that it be so, let it be so; and not to

say, Wretched am I, an old man: have I kept my gray hairs for this? Who

is it that speaks thus? Do you think that I shall name some man of no

repute and of low condition? Does not Priam say this? Does not Oedipus

say this? Nay, all kings say it! For what else is tragedy than the

perturbations ([Greek: pathae]) of men who value externals exhibited in

this kind of poetry? But if a man must learn by fiction that no

external things which are independent of the will concern us, for my

part I should like this fiction, by the aid of which I should live

happily and undisturbed. But you must consider for yourselves what you

wish.

What then does Chrysippus teach us? The reply is, to know that these

things are not false, from which happiness comes and tranquillity

arises. Take my books, and you will learn how true and conformable to

nature are the things which make me free from perturbations. O great

good fortune! O the great benefactor who points out the way! To

Triptolemus all men have erected temples and altars, because he gave us

food by cultivation; but to him who discovered truth and brought it to

light and communicated it to all, not the truth which shows us how to

live, but how to live well, who of you for this reason has built an

altar, or a temple, or has dedicated a statue, or who worships God for

this? Because the gods have given the vine, or wheat, we sacrifice to

them; but because they have produced in the human mind that fruit by

which they designed to show us the truth which relates to happiness,

shall we not thank God for this?

AGAINST THE ACADEMICS.—If a man, said Epictetus, opposes evident

truths, it is not easy to find arguments by which we shall make him

change his opinion. But this does not arise either from the man’s

strength or the teacher’s weakness; for when the man, though he has

been confuted, is hardened like a stone, how shall we then be able to

deal with him by argument?

Now there are two kinds of hardening, one of the understanding, the

other of the sense of shame, when a man is resolved not to assent to

what is manifest nor to desist from contradictions. Most of us are

afraid of mortification of the body, and would contrive all means to

avoid such a thing, but we care not about the soul’s mortification. And

indeed with regard to the soul, if a man be in such a state as not to

apprehend anything, or understand at all, we think that he is in a bad

condition; but if the sense of shame and modesty are deadened, this we

call even power (or strength).

OF PROVIDENCE.—From everything, which is or happens in the world, it is

easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities: the

faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons and things,

and a grateful disposition. If he does not possess these two qualities,

one man will not see the use of things which are and which happen:

another will not be thankful for them, even if he does know them. If

God had made colors, but had not made the faculty of seeing them, what

would have been their use? None at all. On the other hand, if he had

made the faculty of vision, but had not made objects such as to fall

under the faculty, what in that case also would have been the use of

it? None at all. Well, suppose that he had made both, but had not made

light? In that case, also, they would have been of no use. Who is it

then who has fitted this to that and that to this?

What, then, are these things done in us only? Many, indeed, in us only,

of which the rational animal had peculiar need; but you will find many

common to us with irrational animals. Do they then understand what is

done? By no means. For use is one thing, and understanding is another;

God had need of irrational animals to make use of appearances, but of

us to understand the use of appearances. It is therefore enough for

them to eat and to drink, and to copulate, and to do all the other

things which they severally do. But for us, to whom he has given also

the intellectual faculty, these things are not sufficient; for unless

we act in a proper and orderly manner, and conformably to the nature

and constitution of each thing, we shall never attain our true end. For

where the constitutions of living beings are different, there also the

acts and the ends are different. In those animals then whose

constitution is adapted only to use, use alone is enough; but in an

animal (man), which has also the power of understanding the use, unless

there be the due exercise of the understanding, he will never attain

his proper end. Well then God constitutes every animal, one to be

eaten, another to serve for agriculture, another to supply cheese, and

another for some like use; for which purposes what need is there to

understand appearances and to be able to distinguish them? But God has

introduced man to be a spectator of God and of his works; and not only

a spectator of them, but an interpreter. For this reason it is shameful

for man to begin and to end where irrational animals do; but rather he

ought to begin where they begin, and to end where nature ends in us;

and nature ends in contemplation and understanding, and in a way of

life conformable to nature. Take care then not to die without having

been spectators of these things.

But you take a journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias, and all

of you think it a misfortune to die without having seen such things.

But when there is no need to take a journey, and where a man is, there

he has the works (of God) before him, will you not desire to see and

understand them? Will you not perceive either what you are, or what you

were born for, or what this is for which you have received the faculty

of sight? But you may say, There are some things disagreeable and

troublesome in life. And are there none at Olympia? Are you not

scorched? Are you not pressed by a crowd? Are you not without

comfortable means of bathing? Are you not wet when it rains? Have you

not abundance of noise, clamor, and other disagreeable things? But I

suppose that setting all these things off against the magnificence of

the spectacle, you bear and endure. Well then and have you not received

faculties by which you will be able to bear all that happens? Have you

not received greatness of soul? Have you not received manliness? Have

you not received endurance? And why do I trouble myself about anything

that can happen if I possess greatness of soul? What shall distract my

mind, or disturb me, or appear painful? Shall I not use the power for

the purposes for which I received it, and shall I grieve and lament

over what happens?

Come, then, do you also having observed these things look to the

faculties which you have, and when you have looked at them, say: Bring

now, O Zeus, any difficulty that thou pleasest, for I have means given

to me by thee and powers for honoring myself through the things which

happen. You do not so; but you sit still, trembling for fear that some

things will happen, and weeping, and lamenting, and groaning for what

does happen; and then you blame the gods. For what is the consequence

of such meanness of spirit but impiety? And yet God has not only given

us these faculties, by which we shall be able to bear everything that

happens without being depressed or broken by it; but, like a good king

and a true father, He has given us these faculties free from hindrance,

subject to no compulsion, unimpeded, and has put them entirely in our

own power, without even having reserved to Himself any power of

hindering or impeding. You, who have received these powers free and as

your own, use them not; you do not even see what you have received, and

from whom; some of you being blinded to the giver, and not even

acknowledging your benefactor, and others, through meanness of spirit,

betaking yourselves to fault-finding and making charges against God.

Yet I will show to you that you have powers and means for greatness of

soul and manliness; but what powers you have for finding fault making

accusations, do you show me.

HOW FROM THE FACT THAT WE ARE AKIN TO GOD A MAN MAY PROCEED TO THE

CONSEQUENCES.—I indeed think that the old man ought to be sitting here,

not to contrive how you may have no mean thoughts nor mean and ignoble

talk about yourselves, but to take care that there be not among us any

young men of such a mind, that when they have recognized their kinship

to God, and that we are fettered by these bonds, the body, I mean, and

its possessions, and whatever else on account of them is necessary to

us for the economy and commerce of life, they should intend to throw

off these things as if they were burdens painful and intolerable, and

to depart to their kinsmen. But this is the labor that your teacher and

instructor ought to be employed upon, if he really were what he should

be. You should come to him and say: Epictetus, we can no longer endure

being bound to this poor body, and feeding it, and giving it drink and

rest, and cleaning it, and for the sake of the body complying with the

wishes of these and of those. Are not these things indifferent and

nothing to us; and is not death no evil? And are we not in a manner

kinsmen of God, and did we not come from him? Allow us to depart to the

place from which we came; allow us to be released at last from these

bonds by which we are bound and weighed down. Here there are robbers

and thieves and courts of justice, and those who are named tyrants, and

think that they have some power over us by means of the body and its

possessions. Permit us to show them that they have no power over any

man. And I on my part would say: Friends, wait for God: when he shall

give the signal and release you from this service, then go to him; but

for the present endure to dwell in this place where he has put you.

Short indeed is this time of your dwelling here, and easy to bear for

those who are so disposed; for what tyrant, or what thief, or what

courts of justice are formidable to those who have thus considered as

things of no value the body and the possessions of the body? Wait then,

do not depart without a reason.

OF CONTENTMENT.—With respect to gods, there are some who say that a

divine being does not exist; others say that it exists, but is inactive

and careless, and takes no forethought about anything; a third class

say that such a being exists and exercises forethought, but only about

great things and heavenly things, and about nothing on the earth; a

fourth class say that a divine being exercises forethought both about

things on the earth and heavenly things, but in a general way only, and

not about things severally. There is a fifth class to whom Ulysses and

Socrates belong, who say:

I move not without thy knowledge.—Iliad, x., 278.

Before all other things then it is necessary to inquire about each of

these opinions, whether it is affirmed truly or not truly. For if there

are no gods, how is it our proper end to follow them? And if they

exist, but take no care of anything, in this case also how will it be

right to follow them? But if indeed they do exist and look after

things, still if there is nothing communicated from them to men, nor in

fact to myself, how even so is it right (to follow them)? The wise and

good man then, after considering all these things, submits his own mind

to him who administers the whole, as good citizens do to the law of the

state. He who is receiving instruction ought to come to be instructed

with this intention, How shall I follow the gods in all things, how

shall I be contented with the divine administration, and how can I

become free? For he is free to whom everything happens according to his

will, and whom no man can hinder. What then, is freedom madness?

Certainly not; for madness and freedom do not consist. But, you say, I

would have everything result just as I like, and in whatever way I

like. You are mad, you are beside yourself. Do you not know that

freedom is a noble and valuable thing? But for me inconsiderately to

wish for things to happen as I inconsiderately like, this appears to be

not only not noble, but even most base. For how do we proceed in the

matter of writing? Do I wish to write the name of Dion as I choose? No,

but I am taught to choose to write it as it ought to be written. And

how with respect to music? In the same manner. And what universally in

every art or science? Just the same. If it were not so, it would be of

no value to know anything, if knowledge were adapted to every man’s

whim. Is it then in this alone, in this which is the greatest and the

chief thing, I mean freedom, that I am permitted to will

inconsiderately? By no means; but to be instructed is this, to learn to

wish that everything may happen as it does. And how do things happen?

As the disposer has disposed them? And he has appointed summer and

winter, and abundance and scarcity, and virtue and vice, and all such

opposites for the harmony of the whole; and to each of us he has given

a body, and parts of the body, and possessions, and companions.

What then remains, or what method is discovered of holding commerce

with them? Is there such a method by which they shall do what seems fit

to them, and we not the less shall be in a mood which is conformable to

nature? But you are unwilling to endure, and are discontented; and if

you are alone, you call it solitude; and if you are with men, you call

them knaves and robbers; and you find fault with your own parents and

children, and brothers and neighbors. But you ought when you are alone

to call this condition by the name of tranquillity and freedom, and to

think yourself like to the gods; and when you are with many, you ought

not to call it crowd, nor trouble, nor uneasiness, but festival and

assembly, and so accept all contentedly.

What then is the punishment of those who do not accept? It is to be

what they are. Is any person dissatisfied with being alone? Let him be

alone. Is a man dissatisfied with his parents? Let him be a bad son,

and lament. Is he dissatisfied with his children? Let him be a bad

father. Cast him into prison. What prison? Where he is already, for he

is there against his will; and where a man is against his will, there

he is in prison. So Socrates was not in prison, for he was there

willingly. Must my leg then be lamed? Wretch, do you then on account of

one poor leg find fault with the world? Will you not willingly

surrender it for the whole? Will you not withdraw from it? Will you not

gladly part with it to him who gave it? And will you be vexed and

discontented with the things established by Zeus, which he, with the

Moirae (fates) who were present and spinning the thread of your

generation, defined and put in order? Know you not how small a part you

are compared with the whole. I mean with respect to the body, for as to

intelligence you are not inferior to the gods nor less; for the

magnitude of intelligence is not measured by length nor yet by height,

but by thoughts.

HOW EVERYTHING MAY BE DONE ACCEPTABLY TO THE GODS.—When some one asked,

How may a man eat acceptably to the gods, he answered: If he can eat

justly and contentedly, and with equanimity, and temperately, and

orderly, will it not be also acceptable to the gods? But when you have

asked for warm water and the slave has not heard, or if he did hear has

brought only tepid water, or he is not even found to be in the house,

then not to be vexed or to burst with passion, is not this acceptable

to the gods? How then shall a man endure such persons as this slave?

Slave yourself, will you not bear with your own brother, who has Zeus

for his progenitor, and is like a son from the same seeds and of the

same descent from above? But if you have been put in any such higher

place, will you immediately make yourself a tyrant? Will you not

remember who you are, and whom you rule? That they are kinsmen, that

they are brethren by nature, that they are the offspring of Zeus? But I

have purchased them, and they have not purchased me. Do you see in what

direction you are looking, that it is towards the earth, towards the

pit, that it is towards these wretched laws of dead men? but towards

the laws of the gods you are not looking.

WHAT PHILOSOPHY PROMISES.—When a man was consulting him how he should

persuade his brother to cease being angry with him, Epictetus replied:

Philosophy does not propose to secure for a man any external thing. If

it did (or if it were not, as I say), philosophy would be allowing

something which is not within its province. For as the carpenter’s

material is wood, and that of the statuary is copper, so the matter of

the art of living is each man’s life. When then is my brother’s? That

again belongs to his own art; but with respect to yours, it is one of

the external things, like a piece of land, like health, like

reputation. But Philosophy promises none of these. In every

circumstance I will maintain, she says, the governing part conformable

to nature. Whose governing part? His in whom I am, she says.

How then shall my brother cease to be angry with me? Bring him to me

and I will tell him. But I have nothing to say to you about his anger.

When the man who was consulting him said, I seek to know this, How,

even if my brother is not reconciled to me, shall I maintain myself in

a state conformable to nature? Nothing great, said Epictetus, is

produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is. If you say

to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you that it requires

time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit, and then ripen. Is

then the fruit of a fig-tree not perfected suddenly and in one hour,

and would you possess the fruit of a man’s mind in so short a time and

so easily? Do not expect it, even if I tell you.

THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO BE ANGRY WITH THE ERRORS (FAULTS) OF OTHERS.—Ought

not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed? By no means

say so, but speak rather in this way: This man who has been mistaken

and deceived about the most important things, and blinded, not in the

faculty of vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the

faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should we not destroy him? If

you speak thus you will see how inhuman this is which you say, and that

it is just as if you would say, Ought we not to destroy this blind and

deaf man? But if the greatest harm is the privation of the greatest

things, and the greatest thing in every man is the will or choice such

as it ought to be, and a man is deprived of this will, why are you also

angry with him? Man, you ought not to be affected contrary to nature by

the bad things of another. Pity him rather; drop this readiness to be

offended and to hate, and these words which the many utter: “These

accursed and odious fellows.” How have you been made so wise at once?

and how are you so peevish? Why then are we angry? Is it because we

value so much the things of which these men rob us? Do not admire your

clothes, and then you will not be angry with the thief. Consider this

matter thus: you have fine clothes; your neighbor has not; you have a

window; you wish to air the clothes. The thief does not know wherein

man’s good consists, but he thinks that it consist in having fine

clothes, the very thing which you also think. Must he not then come and

take them away? When you show a cake to greedy persons, and swallow it

all yourself, do you expect them not to snatch it from you? Do not

provoke them; do not have a window; do not air your clothes. I also

lately had an iron lamp placed by the side of my household gods;

hearing a noise at the door, I ran down, and found that the lamp had

been carried off. I reflected that he who had taken the lamp had done

nothing strange. What then? To-morrow, I said, you will find an earthen

lamp; for a man only loses that which he has. I have lost my garment.

The reason is that you had a garment. I have a pain in my head. Have

you any pain in your horns? Why then are you troubled? For we only lose

those things, we have only pains about those things, which we possess.

But the tyrant will chain—what? The leg. He will take away—what? The

neck. What then will he not chain and not take away? The will. This is

why the ancients taught the maxim, Know thyself. Therefore we ought to

exercise ourselves in small things, and beginning with them to proceed

to the greater. I have pain in the head. Do not say, Alas! I have pain

in the ear. Do not say alas! And I do not say that you are not allowed

to groan, but do not groan inwardly; and if your slave is slow in

bringing a bandage, do not cry out and torment yourself, and say, Every

body hates me; for who would not hate such a man? For the future,

relying on these opinions, walk about upright, free; not trusting to

the size of your body, as an athlete, for a man ought not to be

invincible in the way that an ass is.

HOW WE SHOULD BEHAVE TO TYRANTS.—If a man possesses any superiority, or

thinks that he does when he does not, such a man, if he is

uninstructed, will of necessity be puffed up through it. For instance,

the tyrant says, I am master of all! And what can you do for me? Can

you give me desire which shall have no hindrance? How can you? Have you

the infallible power of avoiding what you would avoid? Have you the

power of moving towards an object without error? And how do you possess

this power? Come, when you are in a ship, do you trust to yourself or

to the helmsman? And when you are in a chariot, to whom do you trust

but to the driver? And how is it in all other arts? Just the same. In

what, then, lies your power? All men pay respect to me. Well, I also

pay respect to my platter, and I wash it and wipe it; and for the sake

of my oil-flask, I drive a peg into the wall. Well, then, are these

things superior to me? No, but they supply some of my wants, and for

this reason I take care of them. Well, do I not attend to my ass? Do I

not wash his feet? Do I not clean him? Do you not know that every man

has regard to himself, and to you just the same as he has regard to his

ass? For who has regard to you as a man? Show me. Who wishes to become

like you? Who imitates you, as he imitates Socrates? But I can cut off

your head. You say right. I had forgotten that I must have regard to

you, as I would to a fever and the bile, and raise an altar to you, as

there is at Rome an altar to fever.

What is it then that disturbs and terrifies the multitude? Is it the

tyrant and his guards? (By no means.) I hope that it is not so. It is

not possible that what is by nature free can be disturbed by anything

else, or hindered by any other thing than by itself. But it is a man’s

own opinions which disturb him. For when the tyrant says to a man, I

will chain your leg, he who values his leg says, Do not; have pity. But

he who values his own will says, If it appears more advantageous to

you, chain it. Do you not care? I do not care. I will show you that I

am master. You cannot do that. Zeus has set me free; do you think that

he intended to allow his own son to be enslaved? But you are master of

my carcase; take it. So when you approach me, you have no regard to me?

No, but I have regard to myself; and if you wish me to say that I have

regard to you also, I tell you that I have the same regard to you that

I have to my pipkin.

What then? When absurd notions about things independent of our will, as

if they were good and (or) bad, lie at the bottom of our opinions, we

must of necessity pay regard to tyrants: for I wish that men would pay

regard to tyrants only, and not also to the bedchamber men. How is it

that the man becomes all at once wise, when Cæsar has made him

superintendent of the close stool? How is it that we say immediately,

Felicion spoke sensibly to me? I wish he were ejected from the

bedchamber, that he might again appear to you to be a fool.

Has a man been exalted to the tribuneship? All who meet him offer their

congratulations; one kisses his eyes, another the neck, and the slaves

kiss his hands. He goes to his house, he finds torches lighted. He

ascends the Capitol; he offers a sacrifice on the occasion. Now who

ever sacrificed for having had good desires? for having acted

conformably to nature? For in fact we thank the gods for those things

in which we place our good.

A person was talking to me to-day about the priesthood of Augustus. I

say to him: Man, let the thing alone; you will spend much for no

purpose. But he replies, Those who draw up agreements will write my

name. Do you then stand by those who read them, and say to such

persons, It is I whose name is written there? And if you can now be

present on ail such occasions, what will you do when you are dead? My

name will remain. Write it on a stone, and it will remain. But come,

what remembrance of you will there be beyond Nicopolis? But I shall

wear a crown of gold. If you desire a crown at all, take a crown of

roses and put it on, for it will be more elegant in appearance.

AGAINST THOSE WHO WISH TO BE ADMIRED.—When a man holds his proper

station in life, he does not gape after things beyond it. Man, what do

you wish to happen to you? I am satisfied if I desire and avoid

conformably to nature, if I employ movements towards and from an object

as I am by nature formed to do, and purpose and design and assent. Why

then do you strut before us as if you had swallowed a spit? My wish has

always been that those who meet me should admire me, and those who

follow me should exclaim, O the great philosopher! Who are they by whom

you wish to be admired? Are they not those of whom you are used to say

that they are mad? Well, then, do you wish to be admired by madmen?

ON PRÆCOGNITIONS.—Præcognitions are common to all men, and præcognition

is not contradictory to præcognition. For who of us does not assume

that Good is useful and eligible, and in all circumstances that we

ought to follow and pursue it? And who of us does not assume that

Justice is beautiful and becoming? When then does the contradiction

arise? It arises in the adaptation of the præcognitions to the

particular cases. When one man says, “He has done well; he is a brave

man,” and another says, “Not so; but he has acted foolishly,” then the

disputes arise among men. This is the dispute among the Jews and the

Syrians and the Egyptians and the Romans; not whether holiness should

be preferred to all things and in all cases should be pursued, but

whether it is holy to eat pig’s flesh or not holy. You will find this

dispute also between Agamemnon and Achilles; for call them forth. What

do you say, Agamemnon? ought not that to be done which is proper and

right? “Certainly.” Well, what do you say, Achilles? do you not admit

that what is good ought to be done? “I do most certainly.” Adapt your

præcognitions then to the present matter. Here the dispute begins.

Agamemnon says, “I ought not to give up Chryseis to her father.”

Achilles says, “You ought.” It is certain that one of the two makes a

wrong adaptation of the præcognition of “ought” or “duty.” Further,

Agamemnon says, “Then if I ought to restore Chryseis, it is fit that I

take his prize from some of you.” Achilles replies, “Would you then

take her whom I love?” “Yes, her whom you love.” “Must I then be the

only man who goes without a prize? and must I be the only man who has

no prize?” Thus the dispute begins.

What then is education? Education is the learning how to adapt the

natural præcognitions to the particular things conformably to nature;

and then to distinguish that of things some are in our power, but

others are not. In our power are will and all acts which depend on the

will; things not in our power are the body, the parts of the body,

possessions, parents, brothers, children, country, and, generally, all

with whom we live in society. In what then should we place the good? To

what kind of things ([Greek: ousia]) shall we adapt it? To the things

which are in our power? Is not health then a good thing, and soundness

of limb, and life, and are not children and parents and country? Who

will tolerate you if you deny this?

Let us then transfer the notion of good to these things. Is it

possible, then, when a man sustains damage and does not obtain good

things, that he can be happy? It is not possible. And can he maintain

towards society a proper behavior? He can not. For I am naturally

formed to look after my own interest. If it is my interest to have an

estate in land, it is my interest also to take it from my neighbor. If

it is my interest to have a garment, it is my interest also to steal it

from the bath. This is the origin of wars, civil commotions, tyrannies,

conspiracies. And how shall I be still able to maintain my duty towards

Zeus? For if I sustain damage and am unlucky, he takes no care of me.

And what is he to me if he cannot help me? And further, what is he to

me if he allows me to be in the condition in which I am? I now begin to

hate him. Why then do we build temples, why setup statues to Zeus, as

well as to evil demons, such as to Fever; and how is Zeus the Saviour,

and how the giver of rain, and the giver of fruits? And in truth if we

place the nature of Good in any such things, all this follows.

What should we do then? This is the inquiry of the true philosopher who

is in labor. Now I do not see what the good is nor the bad. Am I not

mad? Yes. But suppose that I place the good somewhere among the things

which depend on the will; all will laugh at me. There will come some

greyhead wearing many gold rings on his fingers, and he will shake his

head and say: “Hear, my child. It is right that you should

philosophize; but you ought to have some brains also; all this that you

are doing is silly. You learn the syllogism from philosophers; but you

know how to act better than philosophers do.” Man why then do you blame

me, if I know? What shall I say to this slave? If I am silent, he will

burst. I must speak in this way: “Excuse me, as you would excuse

lovers; I am not my own master; I am mad.”

HOW WE SHOULD STRUGGLE WITH CIRCUMSTANCES.—It is circumstances

(difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty

falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has

matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you may say. Why,

that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished

without sweat. In my opinion no man has had a more profitable

difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an

athlete would deal with a young antagonist. We are now sending a scout

to Rome; but no man sends a cowardly scout, who, if he only hears a

noise and sees a shadow anywhere, comes running back in terror and

reports that the enemy is close at hand. So now if you should come and

tell us: “Fearful is the state of affairs at Rome; terrible is death;

terrible is exile; terrible is calumny; terrible is poverty; fly, my

friends, the enemy is near,” we shall answer: “Begone, prophesy for

yourself; we have committed only one fault, that we sent such a scout.”

Diogenes, who was sent as a scout before you, made a different report

to us. He says that death is no evil, for neither is it base; he says

that fame (reputation) is the noise of madmen. And what has this spy

said about pain, about pleasure, and about poverty? He says that to be

naked is better than any purple robe, and to sleep on the bare ground

is the softest bed; and he gives as a proof of each thing that he

affirms his own courage, his tranquillity, his freedom, and the healthy

appearance and compactness of his body. There is no enemy near, he

says; all is peace. How so, Diogenes? “See,” he replies, “if I am

struck, if I have been wounded, if I have fled from any man.” This is

what a scout ought to be. But you come to us and tell us one thing

after another. Will you not go back, and you will see clearer when you

have laid aside fear?

ON THE SAME.—If these things are true, and if we are not silly, and are

not acting hypocritically when we say that the good of man is in the

will, and the evil too, and that everything else does not concern us,

why are we still disturbed, why are we still afraid? The things about

which we have been busied are in no man’s power; and the things which

are in the power of others, we care not for. What kind of trouble have

we still?

But give me directions. Why should I give you directions? Has not Zeus

given you directions? Has he not given to you what is your own free

from hindrance and free from impediment, and what is not your own

subject to hindrance and impediment? What directions then, what kind of

orders did you bring when you came from him? Keep by every means what

is your own; do not desire what belongs to others. Fidelity (integrity)

is your own, virtuous shame is your own; who then can take these things

from you? who else than yourself will hinder you from using them? But

how do you act? When you seek what is not your own, you lose that which

is your own. Having such promptings and commands from Zeus, what kind

do you still ask from me? Am I more powerful than he, am I more worthy

of confidence? But if you observe these, do you want any others

besides? “Well, but he has not given these orders,” you will say.

Produce your præcognitions ([Greek: prolaepseis]), produce these proofs

of philosophers, produce what you have often heard, and produce what

you have said yourself, produce what you have read, produce what you

have meditated on; and you will then see that all these things are from

God.

If I have set my admiration on the poor body, I have given myself up to

be a slave; if on my poor possessions, I also make myself a slave. For

I immediately make it plain with what I may be caught; as if the snake

draws in his head, I tell you to strike that part of him which he

guards; and do you be assured that whatever part you choose to guard,

that part your master will attack. Remembering this, whom will you

still flatter or fear?

But I should like to sit where the Senators sit. Do you see that you

are putting yourself in straits, you are squeezing yourself? How then

shall I see well in any other way in the amphitheatre? Man, do not be a

spectator at all, and you will not be squeezed. Why do you give

yourself trouble? Or wait a little, and when the spectacle is over,

seat yourself in the place reserved for the Senators and sun yourself.

For remember this general truth, that it is we who squeeze ourselves,

who put ourselves in straits; that is, our opinions squeeze us and put

us in straits. For what is it to be reviled? Stand by a stone and

revile it, and what will you gain? If then a man listens like a stone,

what profit is there to the reviler? But if the reviler has as a

stepping-stone (or ladder) the weakness of him who is reviled, then he

accomplishes something. Strip him. What do you mean by him? Lay hold of

his garment, strip it off. I have insulted you. Much good may it do

you.

This was the practice of Socrates; this was the reason why he always

had one face. But we choose to practise and study anything rather than

the means by which we shall be unimpeded and free. You say:

“Philosophers talk paradoxes.” But are there no paradoxes in the other

arts? And what is more paradoxical than to puncture a man’s eye in

order that he may see? If any one said this to a man ignorant of the

surgical art, would he not ridicule the speaker? Where is the wonder,

then, if in philosophy also many things which are true appear

paradoxical to the inexperienced?

IN HOW MANY WAYS APPEARANCES EXIST, AND WHAT AIDS WE SHOULD PROVIDE

AGAINST THEM.—Appearances are to us in four ways. For either things

appear as they are; or they are not, and do not even appear to be; or

they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to

be. Further, in all these cases to form a right judgment (to hit the

mark) is the office of an educated man. But whatever it is that annoys

(troubles) us, to that we ought to apply a remedy. If the sophisms of

Pyrrho and of the Academics are what annoys (troubles), we must apply

the remedy to them. If it is the persuasion of appearances, by which

some things appear to be good, when they are not good, let us seek a

remedy for this. If it is habit which annoys us, we must try to seek

aid against habit. What aid, then, can we find against habit? The

contrary habit. You hear the ignorant say: “That unfortunate person is

dead; his father and mother are overpowered with sorrow; he was cut off

by an untimely death and in a foreign land.” Hear the contrary way of

speaking. Tear yourself from these expressions; oppose to one habit the

contrary habit; to sophistry oppose reason, and the exercise and

discipline of reason; against persuasive (deceitful) appearances we

ought to have manifest præcognitions ([Greek: prolaepseis]), cleared of

all impurities and ready to hand.

When death appears an evil, we ought to have this rule in readiness,

that it is fit to avoid evil things, and that death is a necessary

thing. For what shall I do, and where shall I escape it? Suppose that I

am not Sarpedon, the son of Zeus, nor able to speak in this noble way.

I will go and I am resolved either to behave bravely myself or to give

to another the opportunity of doing so; if I cannot succeed in doing

anything myself, I will not grudge another the doing of something

noble. Suppose that it is above our power to act thus; is it not in our

power to reason thus? Tell me where I can escape death; discover for me

the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not

visit. Discover to me a charm against death. If I have not one, what do

you wish me to do? I cannot escape from death. Shall I not escape from

the fear of death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling? For the

origin of perturbation is this, to wish for something, and that this

should not happen. Therefore if I am able to change externals according

to my wish, I change them; but if I cannot, I am ready to tear out the

eyes of him who hinders me. For the nature of man is not to endure to

be deprived of the good, and not to endure the falling into the evil.

Then at last, when I am neither able to change circumstances nor to

tear out the eyes of him who hinders me, I sit down and groan, and

abuse whom I can, Zeus and the rest of the gods. For if they do not

care for me, what are they to me? Yes, but you will be an impious man.

In what respect, then, will it be worse for me than it is now? To sum

up, remember that unless piety and your interest be in the same thing,

piety cannot be maintained in any man. Do not these things seem

necessary (true)?

THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO BE ANGRY WITH MEN; AND WHAT ARE THE SMALL AND THE

GREAT THINGS AMONG MEN.—What is the cause of assenting to anything? The

fact that it appears to be true. It is not possible then to assent to

that which appears not to be true. Why? Because this is the nature of

the understanding, to incline to the true, to be dissatisfied with the

false, and in matters uncertain to withhold assent. What is the proof

of this? Imagine (persuade yourself), if you can, that it is now night.

It is not possible. Take away your persuasion that it is day. It is not

possible. Persuade yourself or take away your persuasion that the stars

are even in number. It is impossible. When then any man assents to that

which is false, be assured that he did not intend to assent to it as

false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, as Plato

says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true. Well, in acts what have

we of the like kind as we have here truth or falsehood? We have the fit

and the not fit (duty and not duty), the profitable and the

unprofitable, that which is suitable to a person and that which is not,

and whatever is like these. Can then a man think that a thing is useful

to him and not choose it? He cannot. How says Medea?

“’Tis true I know what evil I shall do,

But passion overpowers the better counsel.”

She thought that to indulge her passion and take vengeance on her

husband was more profitable than to spare her children. It was so; but

she was deceived. Show her plainly that she is deceived, and she will

not do it; but so long as you do not show it, what can she follow

except that which appears to herself (her opinion)? Nothing else. Why

then are you angry with the unhappy woman that she has been bewildered

about the most important things, and is become a viper instead of a

human creature? And why not, if it is possible, rather pity, as we pity

the blind and the lame, so those who are blinded and maimed in the

faculties which are supreme?

Whoever then clearly remembers this, that to man the measure of every

act is the appearance (the opinion), whether the thing appears good or

bad. If good, he is free from blame; if bad, himself suffers the

penalty, for it is impossible that he who is deceived can be one

person, and he who suffers another person—whoever remembers this will

not be angry with any man, will not be vexed at any man, will not

revile or blame any man, nor hate, nor quarrel with any man.

So then all these great and dreadful deeds have this origin, in the

appearance (opinion)? Yes, this origin and no other. The Iliad is

nothing else than appearance and the use of appearances. It appeared to

Alexander to carry off the wife of Menelaus. It appeared to Helene to

follow him. If then it had appeared to Menelaus to feel that it was a

gain to be deprived of such a wife, what would have happened? Not only

would the Iliad have been lost, but the Odyssey also. On so small a

matter then did such great things depend? But what do you mean by such

great things? Wars and civil commotions, and the destruction of many

men and cities. And what great matter is this? Is it nothing? But what

great matter is the death of many oxen, and many sheep, and many nests

of swallows or storks being burnt or destroyed? Are these things then

like those? Very like. Bodies of men are destroyed, and the bodies of

oxen and sheep; the dwellings of men are burnt, and the nests of

storks. What is there in this great or dreadful? Or show me what is the

difference between a man’s house and a stork’s nest, as far as each is

a dwelling; except that man builds his little houses of beams and tiles

and bricks, and the stork builds them of sticks and mud. Are a stork

and a man then like things? What say you? In body they are very much

alike.

Does a man then differ in no respect from a stork? Don’t suppose that I

say so; but there is no difference in these matters (which I have

mentioned). In what then is the difference? Seek and you will find that

there is a difference in another matter. See whether it is not in a man

the understanding of what he does, see if it is not in social

community, in fidelity, in modesty, in steadfastness, in intelligence.

Where then is the great good and evil in men? It is where the

difference is. If the difference is preserved and remains fenced round,

and neither modesty is destroyed, nor fidelity, nor intelligence, then

the man also is preserved; but if any of these things is destroyed and

stormed like a city, then the man too perishes: and in this consist the

great things. Alexander, you say, sustained great damage then when the

Hellenes invaded and when they ravaged Troy, and when his brothers

perished. By no means; for no man is damaged by an action which is not

his own; but what happened at that time was only the destruction of

stork’s nests. Now the ruin of Alexander was when he lost the character

of modesty, fidelity, regard to hospitality, and to decency. When was

Achilles ruined? Was it when Patroclus died? Not so. But it happened

when he began to be angry, when he wept for a girl, when he forgot that

he was at Troy not to get mistresses, but to fight. These things are

the ruin of men, this is being besieged, this is the destruction of

cities, when right opinions are destroyed, when they are corrupted.

ON CONSTANCY (OR FIRMNESS).—The being (nature) of the good is a certain

will; the being of the bad is a certain kind of will. What, then, are

externals? Materials for the will, about which the will being

conversant shall obtain its own good or evil. How shall it obtain the

good? If it does not admire (over-value) the materials; for the

opinions about the materials, if the opinions are right, make the will

good: but perverse and distorted opinions make the will bad. God has

fixed this law, and says, “If you would have anything good, receive it

from yourself.” You say, No, but I will have it from another. Do not

so: but receive it from yourself. Therefore when the tyrant threatens

and calls me, I say, Whom do you threaten? If he says, I will put you

in chains, I say, You threaten my hands and my feet. If he says, I will

cut off your head, I reply, You threaten my head. If he says, I will

throw you into prison, I say, You threaten the whole of this poor body.

If he threatens me with banishment, I say the same. Does he then not

threaten you at all? If I feel that all these things do not concern me,

he does not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom

he threatens. Whom then do I fear? the master of what? The master of

things which are in my own power? There is no such master. Do I fear

the master of things which are not in my power? And what are these

things to me?

Do you philosophers then teach us to despise kings? I hope not. Who

among us teaches to claim against them the power over things which they

possess? Take my poor body, take my property, take my reputation, take

those who are about me. If I advise any persons to claim these things,

they may truly accuse me. Yes, but I intend to command your opinions

also. And who has given you this power? How can you conquer the opinion

of another man? By applying terror to it, he replies, I will conquer

it. Do you not know that opinion conquers itself, and is not conquered

by another? But nothing else can conquer will except the will itself.

For this reason too the law of God is most powerful and most just,

which is this: Let the stronger always be superior to the weaker. Ten

are stronger than one. For what? For putting in chains, for killing,

for dragging whither they choose, for taking away what a man has. The

ten therefore conquer the one in this in which they are stronger. In

what then are the ten weaker? If the one possesses right opinions and

the others do not. Well then, can the ten conquer in this matter? How

is it possible? If we were placed in the scales, must not the heavier

draw down the scale in which it is.

How strange then that Socrates should have been so treated by the

Athenians. Slave, why do you say Socrates? Speak of the thing as it is:

how strange that the poor body of Socrates should have been carried off

and dragged to prison by stronger men, and that anyone should have

given hemlock to the poor body of Socrates, and that it should breathe

out the life. Do these things seem strange, do they seem unjust, do you

on account of these things blame God? Had Socrates then no equivalent

for these things? Where then for him was the nature of good? Whom shall

we listen to, you or him? And what does Socrates say? “Anytus and

Melitus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me.” And further, he says,

“If it so pleases God, so let it be.”

But show me that he who has the inferior principles overpowers him who

is superior in principles. You will never show this, nor come near

showing it; for this is the law of nature and of God that the superior

shall always overpower the inferior. In what? In that in which it is

superior. One body is stronger than another: many are stronger than

one: the thief is stronger than he who is not a thief. This is the

reason why I also lost my lamp, because in wakefulness the thief was

superior to me. But the man bought the lamp at this price: for a lamp

he became a thief, a faithless fellow, and like a wild beast. This

seemed to him a good bargain. Be it so. But a man has seized me by the

cloak, and is drawing me to the public place: then others bawl out,

Philosopher, what has been the use of your opinions? see, you are

dragged to prison, you are going to be beheaded. And what system of

philosophy ([Greek: eisagogaen)] could I have made so that, if a

stronger man should have laid hold of my cloak, I should not be dragged

off; that if ten men should have laid hold of me and cast me into

prison, I should not be cast in? Have I learned nothing else then? I

have learned to see that everything which happens, if it be independent

of my will, is nothing to me. I may ask, if you have not gained by

this. Why then do you seek advantage in anything else than in that in

which you have learned that advantage is?

Will you not leave the small arguments ([Greek: logaria]) about these

matters to others, to lazy fellows, that they may sit in a corner and

receive their sorry pay, or grumble that no one gives them anything;

and will you not come forward and make use of what you have learned?

For it is not these small arguments that are wanted now; the writings

of the Stoics are full of them. What then is the thing which is wanted?

A man who shall apply them, one who by his acts shall bear testimony to

his words. Assume, I intreat you, this character, that we may no longer

use in the schools the examples of the ancients, but may have some

example of our own.

To whom then does the contemplation of these matters (philosophical

inquiries) belong? To him who has leisure, for man is an animal that

loves contemplation. But it is shameful to contemplate these things as

runaway slaves do; we should sit, as in a theatre, free from

distraction, and listen at one time to the tragic actor, at another

time to the lute-player; and not do as slaves do. As soon as the slave

has taken his station he praises the actor and at the same time looks

round; then if any one calls out his master’s name, the slave is

immediately frightened and disturbed. It is shameful for philosophers

thus to contemplate the works of nature. For what is a master? Man is

not the master of man; but death is, and life and pleasure and pain;

for if he comes without these things, bring Cæsar to me and you will

see how firm I am. But when he shall come with these things, thundering

and lightning, and when I am afraid of them, what do I do then except

to recognize my master like the runaway slave? But so long as I have

any respite from these terrors, as a runaway slave stands in the

theatre, so do I. I bathe, I drink, I sing; but all this I do with

terror and uneasiness. But if I shall release myself from my masters,

that is from those things by means of which masters are formidable,

what further trouble have I, what master have I still?

What then, ought we to publish these things to all men? No, but we

ought to accommodate ourselves to the ignorant ([Greek: tois idiotais])

and to say: “This man recommends to me that which he thinks good for

himself. I excuse him.” For Socrates also excused the jailer who had

the charge of him in prison and was weeping when Socrates was going to

drink the poison, and said, “How generously he laments over us.” Does

he then say to the jailer that for this reason we have sent away the

women? No, but he says it to his friends who were able to hear

(understand) it; and he treats the jailer as a child.

THAT CONFIDENCE (COURAGE) IS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH CAUTION.—The opinion

of the philosophers perhaps seem to some to be a paradox; but still let

us examine as well as we can, if it is true that it is possible to do

everything both with caution and with confidence. For caution seems to

be in a manner contrary to confidence, and contraries are in no way

consistent. That which seems to many to be a paradox in the matter

under consideration in my opinion is of this kind; if we asserted that

we ought to employ caution and confidence in the same things, men might

justly accuse us of bringing together things which cannot be united.

But now where is the difficulty in what is said? for if these things

are true, which have been often said and often proved, that the nature

of good is in the use of appearances, and the nature of evil likewise,

and that things independent of our will do not admit either the nature

of evil or of good, what paradox do the philosophers assert if they say

that where things are not dependent on the will, there you should

employ confidence, but where they are dependent on the will, there you

should employ caution? For if the bad consists in the bad exercise of

the will, caution ought only to be used where things are dependent on

the will. But if things independent of the will and not in our power

are nothing to us, with respect to these we must employ confidence; and

thus we shall both be cautious and confident, and indeed confident

because of our caution. For by employing caution towards things which

are really bad, it will result that we shall have confidence with

respect to things which are not so.

We are then in the condition of deer; when they flee from the

huntsmen’s feathers in fright, whither do they turn and in what do they

seek refuge as safe? They turn to the nets, and thus they perish by

confounding things which are objects of fear with things that they

ought not to fear. Thus we also act: in what cases do we fear? In

things which are independent of the will. In what cases on the contrary

do we behave with confidence, as if there were no danger? In things

dependent on the will. To be deceived then, or to act rashly, or

shamelessly, or with base desire to seek something, does not concern us

at all, if we only hit the mark in things which are independent of our

will. But where there is death or exile or pain or infamy, there we

attempt to run away, there we are struck with terror. Therefore, as we

may expect it to happen with those who err in the greatest matters, we

convert natural confidence (that is, according to nature) into

audacity, desperation, rashness, shamelessness; and we convert natural

caution and modesty into cowardice and meanness, which are full of fear

and confusion. For if a man should transfer caution to those things in

which the will may be exercised and the acts of the will, he will

immediately by willing to be cautious have also the power of avoiding

what he chooses; but if he transfer it to the things which are not in

his power and will, and attempt to avoid the things which are in the

power of others, he will of necessity fear, he will be unstable, he

will be disturbed; for death or pain is not formidable, but the fear of

pain or death. For this reason we commend the poet, who said:

“Not death is evil, but a shameful death.”

Confidence (courage) then ought to be employed against death, and

caution against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary, and

employ against death the attempt to escape; and to our opinion about it

we employ carelessness, rashness, and indifference. These things

Socrates properly used to call tragic masks; for as to children masks

appear terrible and fearful from inexperience, we also are affected in

like manner by events (the things which happen in life) for no other

reason than children are by masks. For what is a child? Ignorance. What

is a child? Want of knowledge. For when a child knows these things, he

is in no way inferior to us. What is death? A tragic mask. Turn it and

examine it. See, it does not bite. The poor body must be separated from

the spirit either now or later as it was separated from it before. Why

then are you troubled if it be separated now? for if it is not

separated now, it will be separated afterwards. Why? That the period of

the universe may be completed, for it has need of the present, and of

the future, and of the past. What is pain? A mask. Turn it and examine

it. The poor flesh is moved roughly, then on the contrary smoothly. If

this does not satisfy (please) you, the door is open; if it does, bear

(with things). For the door ought to be open for all occasions; and so

we have no trouble.

What then is the fruit of these opinions? It is that which ought to be

the most noble and the most becoming to those who are really educated,

release from perturbation, release from fear. Freedom. For in these

matters we must not believe the many, who say that free persons only

ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who

say that the educated only are free. How is this? In this manner: Is

freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing

else. Tell me then, ye men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No

one then who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do

you wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in perturbation? By no

means. No one then who is in a state of fear or sorrow or perturbation

is free; but whoever is delivered from sorrows and fears and

perturbations, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude.

How then can we continue to believe you, most dear legislators, when

you say, We only allow free persons to be educated? For philosophers

say we allow none to be free except the educated; that is, God does not

allow it. When then a man has turned round before the prætor his own

slave, has he done nothing? He has done something. What? He has turned

round his own slave before the prætor. Has he done nothing more? Yes:

he is also bound to pay for him the tax called the twentieth. Well

then, is not the man who has gone through this ceremony become free? No

more than he is become free from perturbations. Have you who are able

to turn round (free) others no master? is not money your master, or a

girl or a boy, or some tyrant or some friend of the tyrant? Why do you

trouble then when you are going off to any trial (danger) of this kind?

It is for this reason that I often say, study and hold in readiness

these principles by which you may determine what those things are with

reference to which you ought to be cautious, courageous in that which

does not depend on your will, cautious in that which does depend on it.

OF TRANQUILLITY (FREEDOM FROM PERTURBATION).—Consider, you who are

going into court, what you wish to maintain and what you wish to

succeed in. For if you wish to maintain a will conformable to nature,

you have every security, every facility, you have no troubles. For if

you wish to maintain what is in your own power and is naturally free,

and if you are content with these, what else do you care for? For who

is the master of such things? Who can take them away? If you choose to

be modest and faithful, who shall not allow you to be so? If you choose

not to be restrained or compelled, who shall compel you to desire what

you think that you ought not to desire? who shall compel you to avoid

what you do not think fit to avoid? But what do you say? The judge will

determine against you something that appears formidable; but that you

should also suffer in trying to avoid it, how can he do that? When then

the pursuit of objects and the avoiding of them are in your power, what

else do you care for? Let this be your preface, this your narrative,

this your confirmation, this your victory, this your peroration, this

your applause (or the approbation which you will receive).

Therefore Socrates said to one who was reminding him to prepare for his

trial, Do you not think then that I have been preparing for it all my

life? By what kind of preparation? I have maintained that which was in

my own power. How then? I have never done anything unjust either in my

private or in my public life.

But if you wish to maintain externals also, your poor body, your little

property, and your little estimation, I advise you to make from this

moment all possible preparation, and then consider both the nature of

your judge and your adversary. If it is necessary to embrace his knees,

embrace his knees; if to weep, weep; if to groan, groan. For when you

have subjected to externals what is your own, then be a slave and do

not resist, and do not sometimes choose to be a slave, and sometimes

not choose, but with all your mind be one or the other, either free or

a slave, either instructed or uninstructed, either a well-bred cock or

a mean one, either endure to be beaten until you die or yield at once;

and let it not happen to you to receive many stripes and then to yield.

But if these things are base, determine immediately. Where is the

nature of evil and good? It is where truth is: where truth is and where

nature is, there is caution: where truth is, there is courage where

nature is.

For this reason also it is ridiculous to say, Suggest something to me

(tell me what to do). What should I suggest to you? Well, form my mind

so as to accommodate itself to any event. Why that is just the same as

if a man who is ignorant of letters should say, Tell me what to write

when any name is proposed to me. For if I should tell him to write

Dion, and then another should come and propose to him not the name of

Dion but that of Theon, what will be done? what will he write? But if

you have practised writing, you are also prepared to write (or to do)

anything that is required. If you are not, what can I now suggest? For

if circumstances require something else, what will you say, or what

will you do? Remember then this general precept and you will need no

suggestion. But if you gape after externals, you must of necessity

ramble up and down in obedience to the will of your master. And who is

the master? He who has the power over the things which you seek to gain

or try to avoid.

HOW MAGNANIMITY IS CONSISTENT WITH CARE.—Things themselves (materials)

are indifferent; but the use of them is not indifferent. How then shall

a man preserve firmness and tranquillity, and at the same time be

careful and neither rash nor negligent? If he imitates those who play

at dice. The counters are indifferent; the dice are indifferent. How do

I know what the cast will be? But to use carefully and dexterously the

cast of the dice, this is my business. Thus then in life also the chief

business is this: distinguish and separate things, and say: Externals

are not in my power: will is in my power. Where shall I seek the good

and the bad? Within, in the things which are my own. But in what does

not belong to you call nothing either good or bad, or profit or damage

or anything of the kind.

What then? Should we use such things carelessly? In no way: for this on

the other hand is bad for the faculty of the will, and consequently

against nature; but we should act carefully because the use is not

indifferent, and we should also act with firmness and freedom from

perturbations because the material is indifferent. For where the

material is not indifferent, there no man can hinder me or compel me.

Where I can be hindered and compelled, the obtaining of those things is

not in my power, nor is it good or bad; but the use is either bad or

good, and the use is in my power. But it is difficult to mingle and to

bring together these two things—the carefulness of him who is affected

by the matter (or things about him), and the firmness of him who has no

regard for it; but it is not impossible: and if it is, happiness is

impossible. But we should act as we do in the case of a voyage. What

can I do? I can choose the master of the ship, the sailors, the day,

the opportunity. Then comes a storm. What more have I to care for? for

my part is done. The business belongs to another, the master. But the

ship is sinking—what then have I to do? I do the only thing that I can,

not to be drowned full of fear, nor screaming nor blaming God, but

knowing that what has been produced must also perish: for I am not an

immortal being, but a man, a part of the whole, as an hour is a part of

the day: I must be present like the hour, and past like the hour. What

difference then does it make to me how I pass away, whether by being

suffocated or by a fever, for I must pass through some such means.

How then is it said that some external things are according to nature

and others contrary to nature? It is said as it might be said if we

were separated from union (or society): for to the foot I shall say

that it is according to nature for it to be clean; but if you take it

as a foot and as a thing not detached (independent), it will befit it

both to step into the mud and tread on thorns, and sometimes to be cut

off for the good of the whole body; otherwise it is no longer a foot.

We should think in some such way about ourselves also. What are you? A

man. If you consider yourself as detached from other men, it is

according to nature to live to old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But

if you consider yourself as a man and a part of a certain whole, it is

for the sake of that whole that at one time you should be sick, at

another time take a voyage and run into danger, and at another time be

in want, and in some cases die prematurely. Why then are you troubled?

Do you not know, that as a foot is no longer a foot if it is detached

from the body, so you are no longer a man if you are separated from

other men. For what is a man? A part of a state, of that first which

consists of gods and of men; then of that which is called next to it,

which is a small image of the universal state. What then must I be

brought to trial; must another have a fever, another sail on the sea,

another die, and another be condemned? Yes, for it is impossible in

such a universe of things, among so many living together, that such

things should not happen, some to one and others to others. It is your

duty then since you are come here, to say what you ought, to arrange

these things as it is fit. Then some one says, “I shall charge you with

doing me wrong.” Much good may it do you: I have done my part; but

whether you also have done yours, you must look to that; for there is

some danger of this too, that it may escape your notice.

OF INDIFFERENCE.—The hypothetical proposition is indifferent: the

judgment about it is not indifferent, but it is either knowledge or

opinion or error. Thus life is indifferent: the use is not indifferent.

When any man then tells you that these things also are indifferent, do

not become negligent; and when a man invites you to be careful (about

such things), do not become abject and struck with admiration of

material things. And it is good for you to know your own preparation

and power, that in those matters where you have not been prepared, you

may keep quiet, and not be vexed, if others have the advantage over

you. For you too in syllogisms will claim to have the advantage over

them; and if others should be vexed at this, you will console them by

saying, “I have learned them, and you have not.” Thus also where there

is need of any practice, seek not that which is acquired from the need

(of such practice), but yield in that matter to those who have had

practice, and be yourself content with firmness of mind.

Go and salute a certain person. How? Not meanly. But I have been shut

out, for I have not learned to make my way through the window; and when

I have found the door shut, I must either come back or enter through

the window. But still speak to him. In what way? Not meanly. But

suppose that you have not got what you wanted. Was this your business,

and not his? Why then do you claim that which belongs to another?

Always remember what is your own, and what belongs to another; and you

will not be disturbed. Chrysippus therefore said well, So long as

future things are uncertain, I always cling to those which are more

adapted to the conservation of that which is according to nature; for

God himself has given me the faculty of such choice. But if I knew that

it was fated (in the order of things) for me to be sick, I would even

move towards it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would move

to go into the mud. For why are ears of corn produced? Is it not that

they may become dry? And do they not become dry that they may be

reaped? for they are not separated from communion with other things. If

then they had perception, ought they to wish never to be reaped? But

this is a curse upon ears of corn to be never reaped. So we must know

that in the case of men too it is a curse not to die, just the same as

not to be ripened and not to be reaped. But since we must be reaped,

and we also know that we are reaped, we are vexed at it; for we neither

know what we are nor have we studied what belongs to man, as those who

have studied horses know what belongs to horses. But Chrysantas when he

was going to strike the enemy checked himself when he heard the trumpet

sounding a retreat: so it seemed better to him to obey the general’s

command than to follow his own inclination. But not one of us chooses,

even when necessity summons, readily to obey it, but weeping and

groaning we suffer what we do suffer, and we call them “circumstances.”

What kind of circumstances, man? If you give the name of circumstances

to the things which are around you, all things are circumstances; but

if you call hardships by this name, what hardship is there in the dying

of that which has been produced? But that which destroys is either a

sword, or a wheel, or the sea, or a tile, or a tyrant. Why do you care

about the way of going down to Hades? All ways are equal. But if you

will listen to the truth, the way which the tyrant sends you is

shorter. A tyrant never killed a man in six months: but a fever is

often a year about it. All these things are only sound and the noise of

empty names.

HOW WE OUGHT TO USE DIVINATION.—Through an unreasonable regard to

divination many of us omit many duties. For what more can the diviner

see than death or danger or disease, or generally things of that kind?

If then I must expose myself to danger for a friend, and if it is my

duty even to die for him, what need have I then for divination? Have I

not within me a diviner who has told me the nature of good and of evil,

and has explained to me the signs (or marks) of both? What need have I

then to consult the viscera of victims or the flight of birds, and why

do I submit when he says, It is for your interest? For does he know

what is for my interest, does he know what is good; and as he has

learned the signs of the viscera, has he also learned the signs of good

and evil? For if he knows the signs of these, he knows the signs both

of the beautiful and of the ugly, and of the just and of the unjust. Do

you tell me, man, what is the thing which is signified for me: is it

life or death, poverty or wealth? But whether these things are for my

interest or whether they are not, I do not intend to ask you. Why don’t

you give your opinion on matters of grammar, and why do you give it

here about things on which we are all in error and disputing with one

another?

What then leads us to frequent use of divination? Cowardice, the dread

of what will happen. This is the reason why we flatter the diviners.

Pray, master, shall I succeed to the property of my father? Let us see:

let us sacrifice on the occasion. Yes, master, as fortune chooses. When

he has said, You shall succeed to the inheritance, we thank him as if

we received the inheritance from him. The consequence is that they play

upon us.

Will you not then seek the nature of good in the rational animal? for

if it is not there, you will not choose to say that it exists in any

other thing (plant or animal). What then? are not plants and animals

also the works of God? They are; but they are not superior things, nor

yet parts of the gods. But you are a superior thing; you are a portion

separated from the Deity; you have in yourself a certain portion of

him. Why then are you ignorant of your own noble descent? Why do you

not know whence you came? will you not remember when you are eating who

you are who eat and whom you feed? When you are in social intercourse,

when you are exercising yourself, when you are engaged in discussion,

know you not that you are nourishing a god, that you are exercising a

god? Wretch, you are carrying about a god with you, and you know it

not. Do you think that I mean some god of silver or of gold, and

external? You carry him within yourself, and you perceive not that you

are polluting him by impure thoughts and dirty deeds. And if an image

of God were present, you would not dare to do any of the things which

you are doing; but when God himself is present within and sees all and

hears all, you are not ashamed of thinking such things and doing such

things, ignorant as you are of your own nature and subject to the anger

of God. Then why do we fear when we are sending a young man from the

school into active life, lest he should do anything improperly, eat

improperly, have improper intercourse with women; and lest the rags in

which he is wrapped should debase him, lest fine garments should make

him proud. This youth (if he acts thus) does not know his own God; he

knows not with whom he sets out (into the world). But can we endure

when he says, “I wish I had you (God) with me.” Have you not God with

you? and do you seek for any other when you have him? or will God tell

you anything else than this? If you were a statue of Phidias, either

Athena or Zeus, you would think both of yourself and of the artist, and

if you had any understanding (power of perception) you would try to do

nothing unworthy of him who made you or of yourself, and try not to

appear in an unbecoming dress (attitude) to those who look upon you.

But now because Zeus has made you, for this reason do you care not how

you shall appear? And yet is the artist (in the one case) like the

artist in the other? or the work in the one case like the other? And

what work of an artist, for instance, has in itself the faculties,

which the artist shows in making it? Is it not marble or bronze, or

gold or ivory? and the Athena of Phidias, when she has once extended

the hand and received in it the figure of Victory, stands in that

attitude for ever. But the works of God have power of motion, they

breathe, they have the faculty of using the appearances of things and

the power of examining them. Being the work of such an artist do you

dishonor him? And what shall I say, not only that he made you, but also

entrusted you to yourself and made you a deposit to yourself? Will you

not think of this too, but do you also dishonor your guardianship? But

if God had entrusted an orphan to you, would you thus neglect him? He

has delivered yourself to your own care, and says: “I had no one fitter

to entrust him to than yourself; keep him for me such as he is by

nature, modest, faithful, erect, unterrified, free from passion and

perturbation.” And then you do not keep him such.

But some will say, Whence has this fellow got the arrogance which he

displays and these supercilious looks? I have not yet so much gravity

as befits a philosopher; for I do not yet feel confidence in what I

have learned and in what I have assented to. I still fear my own

weakness. Let me get confidence and then you shall see a countenance

such as I ought to have and an attitude such as I ought to have; then I

will show to you the statue, when it is perfected, when it is polished.

What do you expect? a supercilious countenance? Does the Zeus at

Olympia lift up his brow? No, his look is fixed as becomes him who is

ready to say:

Irrevocable is my word and shall not fail.—Iliad, i., 526.

Such will I show myself to you, faithful, modest, noble, free from

perturbation. What, and immortal, too, except from old age, and from

sickness? No, but dying as becomes a god, sickening as becomes a god.

This power I possess; this I can do. But the rest I do not possess, nor

can I do. I will show the nerves (strength) of a philosopher. What

nerves are these? A desire never disappointed, an aversion which never

falls on that which it would avoid, a proper pursuit ([Greek:

hormaen]), a diligent purpose, an assent which is not rash. These you

shall see.

THAT WHEN WE CANNOT FULFIL THAT WHICH THE CHARACTER OF A MAN PROMISES,

WE ASSUME THE CHARACTER OF A PHILOSOPHER.—It is no common (easy) thing

to do this only, to fulfil the promise of a man’s nature. For what is a

man? The answer is, A rational and mortal being. Then by the rational

faculty from whom are we separated? From wild beasts. And from what

others? From sheep and like animals. Take care then to do nothing like

a wild beast; but if you do, you have lost the character of a man; you

have not fulfilled your promise. See that you do nothing like a sheep;

but if you do, in this case also the man is lost. What then do we do as

sheep? When we act gluttonously, when we act lewdly, when we act

rashly, filthily, inconsiderately, to what have we declined? To sheep.

What have we lost? The rational faculty. When we act contentiously and

harmfully and passionately and violently, to what have we declined? To

wild beasts. Consequently some of us are great wild beasts, and others

little beasts, of a bad disposition and small, whence we may say, Let

me be eaten by a lion. But in all these ways the promise of a man

acting as a man is destroyed. For when is a conjunctive (complex)

proposition maintained? When it fulfils what its nature promises; so

that the preservation of a complex proposition is when it is a

conjunction of truths. When is a disjunctive maintained? When it

fulfils what it promises. When are flutes, a lyre, a horse, a dog,

preserved? (When they severally keep their promise.) What is the wonder

then if man also in like manner is preserved, and in like manner is

lost? Each man is improved and preserved by corresponding acts, the

carpenter by acts of carpentry, the grammarian by acts of grammar. But

if a man accustoms himself to write ungrammatically, of necessity his

art will be corrupted and destroyed. Thus modest actions preserve the

modest man, and immodest actions destroy him; and actions of fidelity

preserve the faithful man, and the contrary actions destroy him. And on

the other hand contrary actions strengthen contrary characters:

shamelessness strengthens the shameless man, faithlessness the

faithless man, abusive words the abusive man, anger the man of an angry

temper, and unequal receiving and giving make the avaricious man more

avaricious.

For this reason philosophers admonish us not to be satisfied with

learning only, but also to add study, and then practice. For we have

long been accustomed to do contrary things, and we put in practice

opinions which are contrary to true opinions. If then we shall not also

put in practice right opinions, we shall be nothing more than the

expositors of the opinions of others. For now who among us is not able

to discourse according to the rules of art about good and evil things

(in this fashion)? That of things some are good, and some are bad, and

some are indifferent: the good then are virtues, and the things which

participate in virtues; and the bad are the contrary; and the

indifferent are wealth, health, reputation. Then, if in the midst of

our talk there should happen some greater noise than usual, or some of

those who are present should laugh at us, we are disturbed.

Philosopher, where are the things which you were talking about? Whence

did you produce and utter them? From the lips, and thence only. Why

then do you corrupt the aids provided by others? Why do you treat the

weightiest matters as if you were playing a game of dice? For it is one

thing to lay up bread and wine as in a storehouse, and another thing to

eat. That which has been eaten, is digested, distributed, and is become

sinews, flesh, bones, blood, healthy color, healthy breath. Whatever is

stored up, when you choose you can readily take and show it; but you

have no other advantage from it except so far as to appear to possess

it. For what is the difference between explaining these doctrines and

those of men who have different opinions? Sit down now and explain

according to the rules of art the opinions of Epicurus, and perhaps you

will explain his opinions in a more useful manner than Epicurus

himself. Why then do you call yourself a Stoic? Why do you deceive the

many? Why do you act the part of a Jew, when you are a Greek? Do you

not see how (why) each is called a Jew, or a Syrian, or an Egyptian?

and when we see a man inclining to two sides, we are accustomed to say,

This man is not a Jew, but he acts as one. But when he has assumed the

affects of one who has been imbued with Jewish doctrine and has adopted

that sect, then he is in fact and he is named a Jew.

HOW WE MAY DISCOVER THE DUTIES OF LIFE FROM NAMES.—Consider who you

are. In the first place, you are a man; and this is one who has nothing

superior to the faculty of the will, but all other things subjected to

it; and the faculty itself he possesses unenslaved and free from

subjection. Consider then from what things you have been separated by

reason. You have been separated from wild beasts; you have been

separated from domestic animals ([Greek: probaton]). Further, you are a

citizen of the world, and a part of it, not one of the subservient

(serving), but one of the principal (ruling) parts, for you are capable

of comprehending the divine administration and of considering the

connection of things. What then does the character of a citizen promise

(profess)? To hold nothing as profitable to himself; to deliberate

about nothing as if he were detached from the community, but to act as

the hand or foot would do, if they had reason and understood the

constitution of nature, for they would never put themselves in motion

nor desire anything otherwise than with reference to the whole.

Therefore, the philosophers say well, that if the good man had

foreknowledge of what would happen, he would co-operate towards his own

sickness and death and mutilation, since he knows that these things are

assigned to him according to the universal arrangement, and that the

whole is superior to the part, and the state to the citizen. But now

because we do not know the future, it is our duty to stick to the

things which are in their nature more suitable for our choice, for we

were made among other things for this.

After this, remember that you are a son. What does this character

promise? To consider that everything which is the son’s belongs to the

father, to obey him in all things, never to blame him to another, nor

to say or do anything which does him injury, to yield to him in all

things and give way, co-operating with him as far as you can. After

this know that you are a brother also, and that to this character it is

due to make concessions; to be easily persuaded, to speak good of your

brother, never to claim in opposition to him any of the things which

are independent of the will, but readily to give them up, that you may

have the larger share in what is dependent on the will. For see what a

thing it is, in place of a lettuce, if it should so happen, or a seat,

to gain for yourself goodness of disposition. How great is the

advantage.

Next to this, if you are a senator of any state, remember that you are

a senator; if a youth, that you are a youth; if an old man, that you

are an old man; for each of such names, if it comes to be examined,

marks out the proper duties. But if you go and blame your brother, I

say to you, You have forgotten who you are and what is your name. In

the next place, if you were a smith and made a wrong use of the hammer,

you would have forgotten the smith; and if you have forgotten the

brother and instead of a brother have become an enemy, would you appear

not to have changed one thing for another in that case? And if instead

of a man, who is a tame animal and social, you are become a mischievous

wild beast, treacherous, and biting, have you lost nothing? But (I

suppose) you must lose a bit of money that you may suffer damage? And

does the loss of nothing else do a man damage? If you had lost the art

of grammar or music, would you think the loss of it a damage? and if

you shall lose modesty, moderation ([Greek: chtastolaen]) and

gentleness, do you think the loss nothing? And yet the things first

mentioned are lost by some cause external and independent of the will,

and the second by our own fault; and as to the first neither to have

them nor to lose them is shameful; but as to the second, not to have

them and to lose them is shameful and matter of reproach and a

misfortune.

What then? shall I not hurt him who has hurt me? In the first place

consider what hurt ([Greek: blabae]) is, and remember what you have

heard from the philosophers. For if the good consists in the will

(purpose, intention, [Greek: proaireeis]), and the evil also in the

will, see if what you say is not this: What then, since that man has

hurt himself by doing an unjust act to me, shall I not hurt myself by

doing some unjust act to him? Why do we not imagine to ourselves

(mentally think of) something of this kind? But where there is any

detriment to the body or to our possession, there is harm there; and

where the same thing happens to the faculty of the will, there is (you

suppose) no harm; for he who has been deceived or he who has done an

unjust act neither suffers in the head nor in the eye nor in the hip,

nor does he lose his estate; and we wish for nothing else than

(security to) these things. But whether we shall have the will modest

and faithful or shameless and faithless, we care not the least, except

only in the school so far as a few words are concerned. Therefore our

proficiency is limited to these few words; but beyond them it does not

exist even in the slightest degree.

WHAT THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY IS.—The beginning of philosophy, to

him at least who enters on it in the right way and by the door is a

consciousness of his own weakness and inability about necessary things;

for we come into the world with no natural notion of a right-angled

triangle, or of a diesis (a quarter tone), or of a half-tone; but we

learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art;

and for this reason those who do not know them do not think that they

know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and

becoming and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and

improper, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, who ever

came into the world without having an innate idea of them? Wherefore we

all use these names, and we endeavor to fit the preconceptions to the

several cases (things) thus: he has done well; he has not done well; he

has done as he ought, not as he ought; he has been unfortunate, he has

been fortunate; he is unjust, he is just; who does not use these names?

who among us defers the use of them till he has learned them, as he

defers the use of the words about lines (geometrical figures) or

sounds? And the cause of this is that we come into the world already

taught as it were by nature some things on this matter ([Greek:

topon]), and proceeding from these we have added to them self-conceit

([Greek: oiaesin]). For why, a man says, do I not know the beautiful

and the ugly? Have I not the notion of it? You have. Do I not adapt it

to particulars? You do. Do I not then adapt it properly? In that lies

the whole question; and conceit is added here; for beginning from these

things which are admitted men proceed to that which is matter of

dispute by means of unsuitable adaptation; for if they possessed this

power of adaptation in addition to those things, what would hinder them

from being perfect? But now since you think that you properly adapt the

preconceptions to the particulars, tell me whence you derive this

(assume that you do so). Because I think so. But it does not seem so to

another, and he thinks that he also makes a proper adaptation; or does

he not think so? He does think so. Is it possible then that both of you

can properly apply the preconceptions to things about which you have

contrary opinions? It is not possible. Can you then show us anything

better towards adapting the preconceptions beyond your thinking that

you do? Does the madman do any other things than the things which seem

to him right? Is then this criterion sufficient for him also? It is not

sufficient. Come then to something which is superior to seeming

([Greek: tou dochein]). What is this?

Observe, this is the beginning of philosophy, a perception of the

disagreement of men with one another, and an inquiry into the cause of

the disagreement, and a condemnation and distrust of that which only

“seems,” and a certain investigation of that which “seems” whether it

“seems” rightly, and a discovery of some rule ([Greek: chanonos]), as

we have discovered a balance in the determination of weights, and a

carpenter’s rule (or square) in the case of straight and crooked

things.—This is the beginning of philosophy. Must we say that all

things are right which seem so to all? And how is it possible that

contradictions can be right?—Not all then, but all which seem to us to

be right.—How more to you than those which seem right to the Syrians?

why more than what seem right to the Egyptians? why more than what

seems right to me or to any other man? Not at all more. What then

“seems” to every man is not sufficient for determining what “is”; for

neither in the case of weights nor measures are we satisfied with the

bare appearance, but in each case we have discovered a certain rule. In

this matter then is there no rule superior to what “seems”? And how is

it possible that the most necessary things among men should have no

sign (mark), and be incapable of being discovered? There is then some

rule. And why then do we not seek the rule and discover it, and

afterwards use it without varying from it, not even stretching out the

finger without it? For this, I think, is that which when it is

discovered cures of their madness those who use mere “seeming” as a

measure, and misuse it; so that for the future proceeding from certain

things (principles) known and made clear we may use in the case of

particular things the preconceptions which are distinctly fixed.

What is the matter presented to us about which we are inquiring?

Pleasure (for example). Subject it to the rule, throw it into the

balance. Ought the good to be such a thing that it is fit that we have

confidence in it? Yes. And in which we ought to confide? It ought to

be. Is it fit to trust to anything which is insecure? No. Is then

pleasure anything secure? No. Take it then and throw it out of the

scale, and drive it far away from the place of good things. But if you

are not sharp-sighted, and one balance is not enough for you, bring

another. Is it fit to be elated over what is good? Yes. Is it proper

then to be elated over present pleasure? See that you do not say that

it is proper; but if you do, I shall then not think you worthy even of

the balance. Thus things are tested and weighed when the rules are

ready. And to philosophize is this, to examine and confirm the rules;

and then to use them when they are known is the act of a wise and good

man.

OF DISPUTATION OR DISCUSSION.—What things a man must learn in order to

be able to apply the art of disputation, has been accurately shown by

our philosophers (the Stoics); but with respect to the proper use of

the things, we are entirely without practice. Only give to any of us,

whom you please, an illiterate man to discuss with, and he cannot

discover how to deal with the man. But when he has moved the man a

little, if he answers beside the purpose, he does not know how to treat

him, but he then either abuses or ridicules him, and says, He is an

illiterate man; it is not possible to do anything with him. Now a

guide, when he has found a man out of the road, leads him into the

right way; he does not ridicule or abuse him and then leave him. Do you

also show the illiterate man the truth, and you will see that he

follows. But so long as you do not show him the truth, do not ridicule

him, but rather feel your own incapacity.

Now this was the first and chief peculiarity of Socrates, never to be

irritated in argument, never to utter anything abusive, anything

insulting, but to bear with abusive persons and to put an end to the

quarrel. If you would know what great power he had in this way, read

the Symposium of Xenophon, and you will see how many quarrels he put an

end to. Hence with good reason in the poets also this power is most

highly praised:

Quickly with skill he settles great disputes.

Hesiod, Theogony, v. 87.

ON ANXIETY (SOLICITUDE).—When I see a man anxious, I say, What does

this man want? If he did not want something which is not in his power,

how could he be anxious? For this reason a lute player when he is

singing by himself has no anxiety, but when he enters the theatre, he

is anxious, even if he has a good voice and plays well on the lute; for

he not only wishes to sing well, but also to obtain applause: but this

is not in his power. Accordingly, where he has skill, there he has

confidence. Bring any single person who knows nothing of music, and the

musician does not care for him. But in the matter where a man knows

nothing and has not been practised, there he is anxious. What matter is

this? He knows not what a crowd is or what the praise of a crowd is.

However, he has learned to strike the lowest chord and the highest; but

what the praise of the many is, and what power it has in life, he

neither knows nor has he thought about it. Hence he must of necessity

tremble and grow pale. Is any man then afraid about things which are

not evils? No. Is he afraid about things which are evils, but still so

far within his power that they may not happen? Certainly he is not. If

then the things which are independent of the will are neither good nor

bad, and all things which do depend on the will are within our power,

and no man can either take them from us or give them to us, if we do

not choose, where is room left for anxiety? But we are anxious about

our poor body, our little property, about the will of Cæsar; but not

anxious about things internal. Are we anxious about not forming a false

opinion? No, for this is in my power. About not exerting our movements

contrary to nature? No, not even about this. When then you see a man

pale, as the physician says, judging from the complexion, this man’s

spleen is disordered, that man’s liver; so also say, this man’s desire

and aversion are disordered, he is not in the right way, he is in a

fever. For nothing else changes the color, or causes trembling or

chattering of the teeth, or causes a man to

Sink in his knees and shift from foot to foot.

Iliad, xiii., 281.

For this reason, when Zeno was going to meet Antigonus, he was not

anxious, for Antigonus had no power over any of the things which Zeno

admired; and Zeno did not care for those things over which Antigonus

had power. But Antigonus was anxious when he was going to meet Zeno,

for he wished to please Zeno; but this was a thing external (out of his

power). But Zeno did not want to please Antigonus; for no man who is

skilled in any art wishes to please one who has no such skill.

Should I try to please you? Why? I suppose, you know the measure by

which one man is estimated by another. Have you taken pains to learn

what is a good man and what is a bad man, and how a man becomes one or

the other? Why then are you not good yourself? How, he replies, am I

not good? Because no good man laments or groans or weeps, no good man

is pale and trembles, or says, How will he receive me, how will he

listen to me? Slave, just as it pleases him. Why do you care about what

belongs to others? Is it now his fault if he receives badly what

proceeds from you? Certainly. And is it possible that a fault should be

one man’s, and the evil in another? No. Why then are you anxious about

that which belongs to others? Your question is reasonable; but I am

anxious how I shall speak to him. Cannot you then speak to him as you

choose? But I fear that I may be disconcerted? If you are going to

write the name of Dion, are you afraid that you would be disconcerted?

By no means. Why? is it not because you have practised writing the

name? Certainly. Well, if you were going to read the name, would you

not feel the same? and why? Because every art has a certain strength

and confidence in the things which belong to it. Have you then not

practised speaking? and what else did you learn in the school?

Syllogisms and sophistical propositions? For what purpose? was it not

for the purpose of discoursing skilfully? and is not discoursing

skilfully the same as discoursing seasonably and cautiously and with

intelligence, and also without making mistakes and without hindrance,

and besides all this with confidence? Yes. When then you are mounted on

a horse and go into a plain, are you anxious at being matched against a

man who is on foot, and anxious in a matter in which you are practised,

and he is not? Yes, but that person (to whom I am going to speak) has

power to kill me. Speak the truth, then, unhappy man, and do not brag,

nor claim to be a philosopher, nor refuse to acknowledge your masters,

but so long as you present this handle in your body, follow every man

who is stronger than yourself. Socrates used to practice speaking, he

who talked as he did to the tyrants, to the dicasts (judges), he who

talked in his prison. Diogenes had practised speaking, he who spoke as

he did to Alexander, to the pirates, to the person who bought him.

These men were confident in the things which they practised. But do you

walk off to your own affairs and never leave them: go and sit in a

corner, and weave syllogisms, and propose them to another. There is not

in you the man who can rule a state.

TO NASO.—When a certain Roman entered with his son and listened to one

reading, Epictetus said, This is the method of instruction; and he

stopped. When the Roman asked him to go on, Epictetus said, Every art

when it is taught causes labor to him who is unacquainted with it and

is unskilled in it, and indeed the things which proceed from the arts

immediately show their use in the purpose for which they were made; and

most of them contain something attractive and pleasing. For indeed to

be present and to observe how a shoemaker learns is not a pleasant

thing; but the shoe is useful and also not disagreeable to look at. And

the discipline of a smith when he is learning is very disagreeable to

one who chances to be present and is a stranger to the art: but the

work shows the use of the art. But you will see this much more in

music; for if you are present while a person is learning, the

discipline will appear most disagreeable; and yet the results of music

are pleasing and delightful to those who know nothing of music. And

here we conceive the work of a philosopher to be something of this

kind: he must adapt his wish ([Greek: boulaesin]) to what is going on,

so that neither any of the things which are taking place shall take

place contrary to our wish, nor any of the things which do not take

place shall not take place when we wish that they should. From this the

result is to those who have so arranged the work of philosophy, not to

fail in the desire, nor to fall in with that which they would avoid;

without uneasiness, without fear, without perturbation to pass through

life themselves, together with their associates maintaining the

relations both natural and acquired, as the relation of son, of father,

of brother, of citizen, of man, of wife, of neighbor, of

fellow-traveller, of ruler, of ruled. The work of a philosopher we

conceive to be something like this. It remains next to inquire how this

must be accomplished.

We see then that the carpenter ([Greek: techton]) when he has learned

certain things becomes a carpenter; the pilot by learning certain

things becomes a pilot. May it not then in philosophy also not be

sufficient to wish to be wise and good, and that there is also a

necessity to learn certain things? We inquire then what these things

are. The philosophers say that we ought first to learn that there is a

God and that he provides for all things; also that it is not possible

to conceal from him our acts, or even our intentions and thoughts. The

next thing is to learn what is the nature of the gods; for such as they

are discovered to be, he, who would please and obey them, must try with

all his power to be like them. If the divine is faithful, man also must

be faithful; if it is free, man also must be free; if beneficent, man

also must be beneficent; if magnanimous, man also must be magnanimous;

as being then an imitator of God he must do and say everything

consistently with this fact.

TO OR AGAINST THOSE WHO OBSTINATELY PERSIST IN WHAT THEY HAVE

DETERMINED.—When some persons have heard these words, that a man ought

to be constant (firm), and that the will is naturally free and not

subject to compulsion, but that all other things are subject to

hindrance, to slavery, and are in the power of others, they suppose

that they ought without deviation to abide by everything which they

have determined. But in the first place that which has been determined

ought to be sound (true). I require tone (sinews) in the body, but such

as exists in a healthy body, in an athletic body; but if it is plain to

me that you have the tone of a frenzied man and you boast of it, I

shall say to you, Man, seek the physician; this is not tone, but atony

(deficiency in right tone). In a different way something of the same

kind is felt by those who listen to these discourses in a wrong manner;

which was the case with one of my companions, who for no reason

resolved to starve himself to death. I heard of it when it was the

third day of his abstinence from food, and I went to inquire what had

happened. “I have resolved,” he said. “But still tell me what it was

which induced you to resolve; for if you have resolved rightly, we

shall sit with you and assist you to depart, but if you have made an

unreasonable resolution, change your mind.” “We ought to keep to our

determinations.” “What are you doing, man? We ought to keep not to all

our determinations, but to those which are right; for if you are now

persuaded that it is right, do not change your mind, if you think fit,

but persist and say, We ought to abide by our determinations. Will you

not make the beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the

determination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it firmness

and security? But if you lay a rotten and ruinous foundation, will not

your miserable little building fall down the sooner, the more and the

stronger are the materials which you shall lay on it? Without any

reason would you withdraw from us out of life a man who is a friend and

a companion, a citizen of the same city, both the great and the small

city? Then while you are committing murder and destroying a man who has

done no wrong, do you say that you ought to abide by your

determinations? And if it ever in any way came into your head to kill

me, ought you to abide by your determinations?”

Now this man was with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But it

is impossible to convince some persons at present; so that I seem now

to know what I did not know before, the meaning of the common saying,

that you can neither persuade nor break a fool. May it never be my lot

to have a wise fool for my friend; nothing is more untractable. “I am

determined,” the man says. Madmen are also, but the more firmly they

form a judgment on things which do not exist, the more hellebore they

require. Will you not act like a sick man and call in the physician?—I

am sick, master, help me; consider what I must do: it is my duty to

obey you. So it is here also: I know not what I ought to do, but I am

come to learn.—Not so; but speak to me about other things: upon this I

have determined.—What other things? for what is greater and more useful

than for you to be persuaded that it is not sufficient to have made

your determination and not to change it. This is the tone (energy) of

madness, not of health.—I will die, if you compel me to this.—Why, man?

What has happened?—I have determined—I have had a lucky escape that you

have not determined to kill me—I take no money. Why?—I have

determined—Be assured that with the very tone (energy) which you now

use in refusing to take, there is nothing to hinder you at some time

from inclining without reason to take money, and then saying, I have

determined. As in a distempered body, subject to defluxions, the humor

inclines sometimes to these parts, and then to those, so too a sickly

soul knows not which way to incline; but if to this inclination and

movement there is added a tone (obstinate resolution), then the evil

becomes past help and cure.

THAT WE DO NOT STRIVE TO USE OUR OPINIONS ABOUT GOOD AND EVIL.—Where is

the good? In the will. Where is the evil? In the will. Where is neither

of them? In those things which are independent of the will. Well then?

Does any one among us think of these lessons out of the schools? Does

any one meditate (strive) by himself to give an answer to things as in

the case of questions?—Is it day?—Yes.—Is it night?—No.—Well, is the

number of stars even?—I cannot say.—When money is shown (offered) to

you, have you studied to make the proper answer, that money is not a

good thing? Have you practised yourself in these answers, or only

against sophisms? Why do you wonder then if in the cases which you have

studied, in those you have improved; but in those which you have not

studied, in those you remain the same? When the rhetorician knows that

he has written well, that he has committed to memory what he has

written, and brings an agreeable voice, why is he still anxious?

Because he is not satisfied with having studied. What then does he

want? To be praised by the audience? For the purpose then of being able

to practise declamation he has been disciplined; but with respect to

praise and blame he has not been disciplined. For when did he hear from

any one what praise is, what blame is, what the nature of each is, what

kind of praise should be sought, or what kind of blame should be

shunned? And when did he practise this discipline which follows these

words (things)? Why then do you still wonder, if in the matters which a

man has learned, there he surpasses others, and in those in which he

has not been disciplined, there he is the same with the many. So the

lute player knows how to play, sings well, and has a fine dress, and

yet he trembles when he enters on the stage; for these matters he

understands, but he does not know what a crowd is, nor the shouts of a

crowd, nor what ridicule is. Neither does he know what anxiety is,

whether it is our work or the work of another, whether it is possible

to stop it or not. For this reason if he has been praised, he leaves

the theatre puffed up, but if he has been ridiculed, the swollen

bladder has been punctured and subsides.

This is the case also with ourselves. What do we admire? Externals.

About what things are we busy? Externals. And have we any doubt then

why we fear or why we are anxious? What then happens when we think the

things, which are coming on us, to be evils? It is not in our power not

to be afraid, it is not in our power not to be anxious. Then we say,

Lord God, how shall I not be anxious? Fool, have you not hands, did not

God make them for you? Sit down now and pray that your nose may not

run. Wipe yourself rather and do not blame him. Well then, has he given

to you nothing in the present case? Has he not given to you endurance?

Has he not given to you magnanimity? Has he not given to you manliness?

When you have such hands do you still look for one who shall wipe your

nose? But we neither study these things nor care for them. Give me a

man who cares how he shall do anything, not for the obtaining of a

thing, but who cares about his own energy. What man, when he is walking

about, cares for his own energy? Who, when he is deliberating, cares

about his own deliberation, and not about obtaining that about which he

deliberates? And if he succeeds, he is elated and says, How well we

have deliberated; did I not tell you, brother, that it is impossible,

when we have thought about anything, that it should not turn out thus?

But if the thing should turn out otherwise, the wretched man is

humbled; he knows not even what to say about what has taken place. Who

among us for the sake of this matter has consulted a seer? Who among us

as to his actions has not slept in indifference? Who? Give (name) to me

one that I may see the man whom I have long been looking for, who is

truly noble and ingenuous, whether young or old; name him.

What then are the things which are heavy on us and disturb us? What

else than opinions? What else than opinions lies heavy upon him who

goes away and leaves his companions and friends and places and habits

of life? Now little children, for instance, when they cry on the nurse

leaving them for a short time, forget their sorrow if they receive a

small cake. Do you choose then that we should compare you to little

children? No, by Zeus, for I do not wish to be pacified by a small

cake, but by right opinions. And what are these? Such as a man ought to

study all day, and not to be affected by anything that is not his own,

neither by companion nor place nor gymnasia, and not even by his own

body, but to remember the law and to have it before his eyes. And what

is the divine law? To keep a man’s own, not to claim that which belongs

to others, but to use what is given, and when it is not given, not to

desire it; and when a thing is taken away, to give it up readily and

immediately, and to be thankful for the time that a man has had the use

of it, if you would not cry for your nurse and mamma. For what matter

does it make by what thing a man is subdued, and on what he depends? In

what respect are you better than he who cries for a girl, if you grieve

for a little gymnasium, and little porticos, and young men, and such

places of amusement? Another comes and laments that he shall no longer

drink the water of Dirce. Is the Marcian water worse than that of

Dirce? But I was used to the water of Dirce. And you in turn will be

used to the other. Then if you become attached to this also, cry for

this too, and try to make a verse like the verse of Euripides,

The hot baths of Nero and the Marcian water.

See how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men.

When then shall I see Athens again and the Acropolis? Wretch, are you

not content with what you see daily? Have you anything better or

greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the

sea? But if indeed you comprehend Him who administers the whole, and

carry him about in yourself, do you still desire small stones and a

beautiful rock?

HOW WE MUST ADAPT PRECONCEPTIONS TO PARTICULAR CASES.—What is the first

business of him who philosophizes? To throw away self-conceit ([Greek:

oiaesis]). For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn that which

he thinks that he knows. As to things then which ought to be done and

ought not to be done, and good and bad, and beautiful and ugly, all of

us talking of them at random go to the philosophers; and on these

matters we praise, we censure, we accuse, we blame, we judge and

determine about principles honorable and dishonorable. But why do we go

to the philosophers? Because we wish to learn what we do not think that

we know. And what is this? Theorems. For we wish to learn what

philosophers say as being something elegant and acute; and some wish to

learn that they may get profit from what they learn. It is ridiculous

then to think that a person wishes to learn one thing, and will learn

another; or further, that a man will make proficiency in that which he

does not learn. But the many are deceived by this which deceived also

the rhetorician Theopompus, when he blames even Plato for wishing

everything to be defined. For what does he say? Did none of us before

you use the words good or just, or do we utter the sounds in an

unmeaning and empty way without understanding what they severally

signify? Now who tells you, Theopompus, that we had not natural notions

of each of these things and preconceptions ([Greek: prolaepseis])? But

it is not possible to adapt preconceptions to their correspondent

objects if we have not distinguished (analyzed) them, and inquired what

object must be subjected to each preconception. You may make the same

charge against physicians also. For who among us did not use the words

healthy and unhealthy before Hippocrates lived, or did we utter these

words as empty sounds? For we have also a certain preconception of

health, but we are not able to adapt it. For this reason one says,

Abstain from food; another says, Give food; another says, Bleed; and

another says, Use cupping. What is the reason? is it any other than

that a man cannot properly adapt the preconceptions of health to

particulars?

HOW WE SHOULD STRUGGLE AGAINST APPEARANCES.—Every habit and faculty is

maintained and increased by the corresponding actions: the habit of

walking by walking, the habit of running by running. If you would be a

good reader, read; if a writer, write. But when you shall not have read

for thirty days in succession, but have done something else, you will

know the consequence. In the same way, if you shall have lain down ten

days, get up and attempt to make a long walk, and you will see how your

legs are weakened. Generally then if you would make anything a habit,

do it; if you would not make it a habit, do not do it, but accustom

yourself to do something else in place of it.

So it is with respect to the affections of the soul: when you have been

angry, you must know that not only has this evil befallen you, but that

you have also increased the habit, and in a manner thrown fuel upon

fire.

In this manner certainly, as philosophers say, also diseases of the

mind grow up. For when you have once desired money, if reason be

applied to lead to a perception of the evil, the desire is stopped, and

the ruling faculty of our mind is restored to the original authority.

But if you apply no means of cure, it no longer returns to the same

state, but being again excited by the corresponding appearance, it is

inflamed to desire quicker than before: and when this takes place

continually, it is henceforth hardened (made callous), and the disease

of the mind confirms the love of money. For he who has had a fever, and

has been relieved from it, is not in the same state that he was before,

unless he has been completely cured. Something of the kind happens also

in diseases of the soul. Certain traces and blisters are left in it,

and unless a man shall completely efface them, when he is again lashed

on the same places, the lash will produce not blisters (weals) but

sores. If then you wish not to be of an angry temper, do not feed the

habit: throw nothing on it which will increase it: at first keep quiet,

and count the days on which you have not been angry. I used to be in

passion every day; now every second day; then every third, then every

fourth. But if you have intermitted thirty days, make a sacrifice to

God. For the habit at first begins to be weakened, and then is

completely destroyed. “I have not been vexed to-day, nor the day after,

nor yet on any succeeding day during two or three months; but I took

care when some exciting things happened.” Be assured that you are in a

good way.

How then shall this be done? Be willing at length to be approved by

yourself, be willing to appear beautiful to God, desire to be in purity

with your own pure self and with God. Then when any such appearance

visits you, Plato says, Have recourse to expiations, go a suppliant to

the temples of the averting deities. It is even sufficient if you

resort to the society of noble and just men, and compare yourself with

them, whether you find one who is living or dead.

But in the first place, be not hurried away by the rapidity of the

appearance, but say, Appearances, wait for me a little; let me see who

you are, and what you are about; let me put you to the test. And then

do not allow the appearance to lead you on and draw lively pictures of

the things which will follow; for if you do, it will carry you off

wherever it pleases. But rather bring in to oppose it some other

beautiful and noble appearance, and cast out this base appearance. And

if you are accustomed to be exercised in this way, you will see what

shoulders, what sinews, what strength you have. But now it is only

trifling words, and nothing more.

This is the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such

appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the combat,

divine is the work; it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness, for

freedom from perturbation. Remember God; call on him as a helper and

protector, as men at sea call on the Dioscuri in a storm. For what is a

greater storm than that which comes from appearances which are violent

and drive away the reason? For the storm itself, what else is it but an

appearance? For take away the fear of death, and suppose as many

thunders and lightnings as you please, and you will know what calm and

serenity there is in the ruling faculty. But if you have once been

defeated and say that you will conquer hereafter, and then say the same

again, be assured that you will at last be in so wretched a condition

and so weak that you will not even know afterwards that you are doing

wrong, but you will even begin to make apologies (defences) for your

wrong-doing, and then you will confirm the saying of Hesiod to be true,

With constant ills the dilatory strives.

OF INCONSISTENCY.—Some things men readily confess, and other things

they do not. No one then will confess that he is a fool or without

understanding; but quite the contrary you will hear all men saying, I

wish that I had fortune equal to my understanding. But men readily

confess that they are timid, and they say: I am rather timid, I

confess; but as to other respects you will not find me to be foolish. A

man will not readily confess that he is intemperate; and that he is

unjust, he will not confess at all. He will by no means confess that he

is envious or a busybody. Most men will confess that they are

compassionate. What then is the reason?

The chief thing (the ruling thing) is inconsistency and confusion in

the things which relate to good and evil. But different men have

different reasons; and generally what they imagine to be base, they do

not confess at all. But they suppose timidity to be a characteristic of

a good disposition, and compassion also; but silliness to be the

absolute characteristic of a slave. And they do not at all admit

(confess) the things which are offences against society. But in the

case of most errors for this reason chiefly they are induced to confess

them, because they imagine that there is something involuntary in them

as in timidity and compassion; and if a man confess that he is in any

respect intemperate, he alleges love (or passion) as an excuse for what

is involuntary. But men do not imagine injustice to be at all

involuntary. There is also in jealousy, as they suppose, something

involuntary; and for this reason they confess to jealousy also.

Living then among such men, who are so confused, so ignorant of what

they say, and of the evils which they have or have not, and why they

have them, or how they shall be relieved of them, I think it is worth

the trouble for a man to watch constantly (and to ask) whether I also

am one of them, what imagination I have about myself, how I conduct

myself, whether I conduct myself as a prudent man, whether I conduct

myself as a temperate man, whether I ever say this, that I have been

taught to be prepared for everything that may happen. Have I the

consciousness, which a man who knows nothing ought to have, that I know

nothing? Do I go to my teacher as men go to oracles, prepared to obey?

or do I like a snivelling boy go to my school to learn history and

understand the books which I did not understand before, and, if it

should happen so, to explain them also to others? Man, you have had a

fight in the house with a poor slave, you have turned the family upside

down, you have frightened the neighbors, and you come to me as if you

were a wise man, and you take your seat and judge how I have explained

some word, and how I have babbled whatever came into my head. You come

full of envy, and humbled, because you bring nothing from home; and you

sit during the discussion thinking of nothing else than how your father

is disposed towards you and your brother. What are they saying about me

there? now they think that I am improving, and are saying, He will

return with all knowledge. I wish I could learn everything before I

return; but much labor is necessary, and no one sends me anything, and

the baths at Nicopolis are dirty; everything is bad at home, and bad

here.

ON FRIENDSHIP.—What a man applies himself to earnestly, that he

naturally loves. Do men then apply themselves earnestly to the things

which are bad? By no means. Well, do they apply themselves to things

which in no way concern themselves? Not to these either. It remains

then that they employ themselves earnestly only about things which are

good; and if they are earnestly employed about things, they love such

things also. Whoever then understands what is good can also know how to

love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are

neither good nor bad from both, how can he possess the power of loving?

To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.

For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing

so much as to its own interests. Whatever then appears to it an

impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father, or

a child, or beloved, or lover, it hates, spurns, curses; for its nature

is to love nothing so much as its own interests: this is father, and

brother, and kinsman, and country, and God. When then the gods appear

to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down their

statues and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of

Aesculapius to be burned when his dear friend died.

For this reason, if a man put in the same place his interest, sanctity,

goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these are secured:

but if he puts in one place his interest, in another his friends, and

his country and his kinsmen and justice itself, all these give way,

being borne down by the weight of interest. For where the I and the

Mine are placed, to that place of necessity the animal inclines; if in

the flesh, there is the ruling power; if in the will, it is there; and

if it is in externals, it is there. If then I am there where my will

is, then only shall I be a friend such as I ought to be, and son, and

father; for this will be my interest, to maintain the character of

fidelity, of modesty, of patience, of abstinence, of active

co-operation, of observing my relations (towards all). But if I put

myself in one place, and honesty in another, then the doctrine of

Epicurus becomes strong, which asserts either that there is no honesty

or it is that which opinion holds to be honest (virtuous).

It was through this ignorance that the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians

quarrelled, and the Thebans with both; and the great king quarrelled

with Hellas, and the Macedonians with both: and the Romans with the

Getae. And still earlier the Trojan war happened for these reasons.

Alexander was the guest of Menelaus, and if any man had seen their

friendly disposition, he would not have believed any one who said that

they were not friends. But there was cast between them (as between

dogs) a bit of meat, a handsome woman, and about her war arose. And now

when you see brothers to be friends appearing to have one mind, do not

conclude from this anything about their friendship, not even if they

swear it and say that it is impossible for them to be separated from

one another. For the ruling principle of a bad man cannot be trusted;

it is insecure, has no certain rule by which it is directed, and is

overpowered at different times by different appearances. But examine,

not what other men examine, if they are born of the same parents and

brought up together, and under the same pedagogue; but examine this

only, wherein they place their interest, whether in externals or in the

will. If in externals, do not name them friends, no more than name them

trustworthy or constant, or brave or free; do not name them even men,

if you have any judgment. For that is not a principle of human nature

which makes them bite one another, and abuse one another, and occupy

deserted places or public places, as if they were mountains, and in the

courts of justice display the acts of robbers; nor yet that which makes

them intemperate and adulterers and corrupters, nor that which makes

them do whatever else men do against one another through this one

opinion only, that of placing themselves and their interests in the

things which are not within the power of their will. But if you hear

that in truth these men think the good to be only there, where will is,

and where there is a right use of appearances, no longer trouble

yourself whether they are father or son, or brothers, or have

associated a long time and are companions, but when you have

ascertained this only, confidently declare that they are friends, as

you declare that they are faithful, that they are just. For where else

is friendship than where there is fidelity, and modesty, where there is

a communion of honest things and of nothing else.

But you may say, Such a one treated me with regard so long; and did he

not love me? How do you know, slave, if he did not regard you in the

same way as he wipes his shoes with a sponge, or as he takes care of

his beast? How do you know, when you have ceased to be useful as a

vessel, he will not throw you away like a broken platter? But this

woman is my wife, and we have lived together so long. And how long did

Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, and was the mother of children and of

many? But a necklace came between them: and what is a necklace? It is

the opinion about such things. That was the bestial principle, that was

the thing which broke asunder the friendship between husband and wife,

that which did not allow the woman to be a wife nor the mother to be a

mother. And let every man among you who has seriously resolved either

to be a friend himself or to have another for his friend, cut out these

opinions, hate them, drive them from his soul. And thus first of all he

will not reproach himself, he will not be at variance with himself, he

will not change his mind, he will not torture himself. In the next

place, to another also, who is like himself, he will be altogether and

completely a friend. But he will bear with the man who is unlike

himself, he will be kind to him, gentle, ready to pardon on account of

his ignorance, on account of his being mistaken in things of the

greatest importance; but he will be harsh to no man, being well

convinced of Plato’s doctrine that every mind is deprived of truth

unwillingly. If you cannot do this, yet you can do in all other

respects as friends do, drink together, and lodge together, and sail

together, and you may be born of the same parents, for snakes also are:

but neither will they be friends, nor you, so long as you retain these

bestial and cursed opinions.

ON THE POWER OF SPEAKING.—Every man will read a book with more pleasure

or even with more ease, if it is written in fairer characters.

Therefore every man will also listen more readily to what is spoken, if

it is signified by appropriate and becoming words. We must not say then

that there is no faculty of expression: for this affirmation is the

characteristic of an impious and also of a timid man. Of an impious

man, because he undervalues the gifts which come from God, just as if

he would take away the commodity of the power of vision, or hearing, or

of seeing. Has then God given you eyes to no purpose? and to no purpose

has he infused into them a spirit so strong and of such skilful

contrivance as to reach a long way and to fashion the forms of things

which are seen? What messenger is so swift and vigilant? And to no

purpose has he made the interjacent atmosphere so efficacious and

elastic that the vision penetrates through the atmosphere which is in a

manner moved? And to no purpose has he made light, without the presence

of which there would be no use in any other thing?

Man, be neither ungrateful for these gifts nor yet forget the things

which are superior to them. But indeed for the power of seeing and

hearing, and indeed for life itself, and for the things which

contribute to support it, for the fruits which are dry, and for wine

and oil give thanks to God: but remember that he has given you

something else better than all these, I mean the power of using them,

proving them, and estimating the value of each. For what is that which

gives information about each of these powers, what each of them is

worth? Is it each faculty itself? Did you ever hear the faculty of

vision saying anything about itself? or the faculty of hearing? or

wheat, or barley, or a horse, or a dog? No; but they are appointed as

ministers and slaves to serve the faculty which has the power of making

use of the appearances of things. And if you inquire what is the value

of each thing, of whom do you inquire? who answers you? How then can

any other faculty be more powerful than this, which uses the rest as

ministers and itself proves each and pronounces about them? for which

of them knows what itself is, and what is its own value? which of them

knows when it ought to employ itself and when not? what faculty is it

which opens and closes the eyes, and turns them away from objects to

which it ought not to apply them and does apply them to other objects?

Is it the faculty of vision? No, but it is the faculty of the will.

What is that faculty which closes and opens the ears? what is that by

which they are curious and inquisitive, or on the contrary unmoved by

what is said? is it the faculty of hearing? It is no other than the

faculty of the will. Will this faculty then, seeing that it is amidst

all the other faculties which are blind and dumb and unable to see

anything else except the very acts for which they are appointed in

order to minister to this (faculty) and serve it, but this faculty

alone sees sharp and sees what is the value of each of the rest; will

this faculty declare to us that anything else is the best, or that

itself is? And what else does the eye do when it is opened than see?

But whether we ought to look on the wife of a certain person, and in

what manner, who tells us? The faculty of the will. And whether we

ought to believe what is said or not to believe it, and if we do

believe, whether we ought to be moved by it or not, who tells us? Is it

not the faculty of the will?

But if you ask me what then is the most excellent of all things, what

must I say? I cannot say the power of speaking, but the power of the

will, when it is right ([Greek: orthae]). For it is this which uses the

other (the power of speaking), and all the other faculties both small

and great. For when this faculty of the will is set right, a man who is

not good becomes good: but when it fails, a man becomes bad. It is

through this that we are unfortunate, that we are fortunate, that we

blame one another, are pleased with one another. In a word, it is this

which if we neglect it makes unhappiness, and if we carefully look

after it, makes happiness.

What then is usually done? Men generally act as a traveller would do on

his way to his own country, when he enters a good inn, and being

pleased with it should remain there. Man, you have forgotten your

purpose: you were not travelling to this inn, but you were passing

through it. But this is a pleasant inn. And how many other inns are

pleasant? and how many meadows are pleasant? yet only for passing

through. But your purpose is this, to return to your country, to

relieve your kinsmen of anxiety, to discharge the duties of a citizen,

to marry, to beget children, to fill the usual magistracies. For you

are not come to select more pleasant places, but to live in these where

you were born and of which you were made a citizen. Something of the

kind takes place in the matter which we are considering. Since by the

aid of speech and such communication as you receive here you must

advance to perfection, and purge your will and correct the faculty

which makes use of the appearances of things; and since it is necessary

also for the teaching (delivery) of theorems to be effected by a

certain mode of expression and with a certain variety and sharpness,

some persons captivated by these very things abide in them, one

captivated by the expression, another by syllogisms, another again by

sophisms, and still another by some other inn ([Greek: paudocheiou]) of

the kind; and there they stay and waste away as they were among sirens.

Man, your purpose (business) was to make yourself capable of using

conformably to nature the appearances presented to you, in your desires

not to be frustrated, in your aversion from things not to fall into

that which you would avoid, never to have no luck (as one may say), nor

ever to have bad luck, to be free, not hindered, not compelled,

conforming yourself to the administration of Zeus, obeying it, well

satisfied with this, blaming no one, charging no one with fault, able

from your whole soul to utter these verses:

Lead me, O Zeus, and thou too Destiny.

TO (OR AGAINST) A PERSON WHO WAS ONE OF THOSE WHO WERE NOT VALUED

(ESTEEMED) BY HIM.—A certain person said to him (Epictetus): Frequently

I desired to hear you and came to you, and you never gave me any

answer; and now, if it is possible, I entreat you to say something to

me. Do you think, said Epictetus, that as there is an art in anything

else, so there is also an art in speaking, and that he who has the art,

will speak skilfully, and he who has not, will speak unskilfully?—I do

think so.—He then who by speaking receives benefit himself, and is able

to benefit others, will speak skilfully; but he who is rather damaged

by speaking and does damage to others, will he be unskilled in this art

of speaking? And you may find that some are damaged and others

benefited by speaking. And are all who hear benefited by what they

hear? Or will you find that among them also some are benefited and some

damaged? There are both among these also, he said. In this case also

then those who hear skilfully are benefited, and those who hear

unskilfully are damaged? He admitted this. Is there then a skill in

hearing also, as there is in speaking? It seems so. If you choose,

consider the matter in this way also. The practice of music, to whom

does it belong? To a musician. And the proper making of a statue, to

whom do you think that it belongs? To a statuary. And the looking at a

statue skilfully, does this appear to you to require the aid of no art?

This also requires the aid of art. Then if speaking properly is the

business of the skilful man, do you see that to hear also with benefit

is the business of the skilful man? Now as to speaking and hearing

perfectly, and usefully, let us for the present, if you please, say no

more, for both of us are a long way from everything of the kind. But I

think that every man will allow this, that he who is going to hear

philosophers requires some amount of practice in hearing. Is it not so?

Why then do you say nothing to me? I can only say this to you, that he

who knows not who he is, and for what purpose he exists, and what is

this world, and with whom he is associated, and what things are the

good and the bad, and the beautiful and the ugly, and who neither

understands discourse nor demonstration, nor what is true nor what is

false, and who is not able to distinguish them, will neither desire

according to nature nor turn away nor move towards, nor intend (to

act), nor assent, nor dissent, nor suspend his judgment: to say all in

a few words, he will go about dumb and blind, thinking that he is

somebody, but being nobody. Is this so now for the first time? Is it

not the fact that ever since the human race existed, all errors and

misfortunes have arisen through this ignorance?

This is all that I have to say to you; and I say even this not

willingly. Why? Because you have not roused me. For what must I look to

in order to be roused, as men who are expert in riding are roused by

generous horses? Must I look to your body? You treat it disgracefully.

To your dress? That is luxurious. To your behavior, to your look? That

is the same as nothing. When you would listen to a philosopher, do not

say to him, You tell me nothing; but only show yourself worthy of

hearing or fit for hearing; and you will see how you will move the

speaker.

THAT LOGIC IS NECESSARY.—When one of those who were present said,

Persuade me that logic is necessary, he replied, Do you wish me to

prove this to you? The answer was, Yes. Then I must use a demonstrative

form of speech. This was granted. How then will you know if I am

cheating you by my argument? The man was silent. Do you see, said

Epictetus, that you yourself are admitting that logic is necessary, if

without it you cannot know so much as this, whether logic is necessary

or not necessary?

OF FINERY IN DRESS.—A certain young man, a rhetorician, came to see

Epictetus, with his hair dressed more carefully than was usual and his

attire in an ornamental style; whereupon Epictetus said, Tell me if you

do not think that some dogs are beautiful and some horses, and so of

all other animals. I do think so, the youth replied. Are not then some

men also beautiful and others ugly? Certainly. Do we then for the same

reason call each of them in the same kind beautiful, or each beautiful

for something peculiar? And you will judge of this matter thus. Since

we see a dog naturally formed for one thing, and a horse for another,

and for another still, as an example, a nightingale, we may generally

and not improperly declare each of them to be beautiful then when it is

most excellent according to its nature; but since the nature of each is

different, each of them seems to me to be beautiful in a different way.

Is it not so? He admitted that it was. That then which makes a dog

beautiful, makes a horse ugly; and that which makes a horse beautiful,

makes a dog ugly, if it is true that their natures are different. It

seems to be so. For I think that what makes a Pancratiast beautiful,

makes a wrestler to be not good, and a runner to be most ridiculous;

and he who is beautiful for the Pentathlon, is very ugly for wrestling.

It is so, said he. What then makes a man beautiful? Is it that which in

its kind makes both a dog and a horse beautiful? It is, he said. What

then makes a dog beautiful? The possession of the excellence of a dog.

And what makes a horse beautiful? The possession of the excellence of a

horse. What then makes a man beautiful? Is it not the possession of the

excellence of a man? And do you then, if you wish to be beautiful,

young man, labor at this, the acquisition of human excellence? But what

is this? Observe whom you yourself praise, when you praise many persons

without partiality: do you praise the just or the unjust? The just.

Whether do you praise the moderate or the immoderate? The moderate. And

the temperate or the intemperate? The temperate. If then you make

yourself such a person, you will know that you will make yourself

beautiful; but so long as you neglect these things, you must be ugly

([Greek: aischron]), even though you contrive all you can to appear

beautiful.

IN WHAT A MAN OUGHT TO BE EXERCISED WHO HAS MADE PROFICIENCY; AND THAT

WE NEGLECT THE CHIEF THINGS.—There are three things (topics, [Greek:

topoi]) in which a man ought to exercise himself who would be wise and

good. The first concerns the desires and the aversions, that a man may

not fail to get what he desires, and that he may not fall into that

which he does not desire. The second concerns the movements towards an

object and the movements from an object, and generally in doing what a

man ought to do, that he may act according to order, to reason, and not

carelessly. The third thing concerns freedom from deception and

rashness in judgment, and generally it concerns the assents ([Greek:

sugchatatheseis]). Of these topics the chief and the most urgent is

that which relates to the affects ([Greek: ta pathae] perturbations);

for an affect is produced in no other way than by a failing to obtain

that which a man desires or falling into that which a man would wish to

avoid. This is that which brings in perturbations, disorders, bad

fortune, misfortunes, sorrows, lamentations, and envy; that which makes

men envious and jealous; and by these causes we are unable even to

listen to the precepts of reason. The second topic concerns the duties

of a man; for I ought not to be free from affects ([Greek: apathae])

like a statue, but I ought to maintain the relations ([Greek:

scheseis]) natural and acquired, as a pious man, as a son, as a father,

as a citizen.

The third topic is that which immediately concerns those who are making

proficiency, that which concerns the security of the other two, so that

not even in sleep any appearance unexamined may surprise us, nor in

intoxication, nor in melancholy. This, it may be said, is above our

power. But the present philosophers neglecting the first topic and the

second (the affects and duties), employ themselves on the third, using

sophistical arguments ([Greek: metapiptontas]), making conclusions from

questioning, employing hypotheses, lying. For a man must, it is said,

when employed on these matters, take care that he is not deceived. Who

must? The wise and good man. This then is all that is wanting to you.

Have you successfully worked out the rest? Are you free from deception

in the matter of money? If you see a beautiful girl do you resist the

appearance? If your neighbor obtains an estate by will, are you not

vexed? Now is there nothing else wanting to you except unchangeable

firmness of mind ([Greek: ametaptosia])? Wretch, you hear these very

things with fear and anxiety that some person may despise you, and with

inquiries about what any person may say about you. And if a man come

and tell you that in a certain conversation in which the question was,

Who is the best philosopher, a man who was present said that a certain

person was the chief philosopher, your little soul which was only a

finger’s length stretches out to two cubits. But if another who is

present says, You are mistaken; it is not worth while to listen to a

certain person, for what does he know? he has only the first

principles, and no more? then you are confounded, you grow pale, you

cry out immediately, I will show him who I am, that I am a great

philosopher. It is seen by these very things: why do you wish to show

it by others? Do you not know that Diogenes pointed out one of the

sophists in this way by stretching out his middle finger? And then when

the man was wild with rage, This, he said, is the certain person: I

have pointed him out to you. For a man is not shown by the finger, as a

stone or a piece of wood; but when any person shows the man’s

principles, then he shows him as a man.

Let us look at your principles also. For is it not plain that you value

not at all your own will ([Greek: proairesis]), but you look externally

to things which are independent of your will? For instance, what will a

certain person say? and what will people think of you? Will you be

considered a man of learning; have you read Chrysippus or Antipater?

for if you have read Archedamus also, you have every thing (that you

can desire). Why you are still uneasy lest you should not show us who

you are? Would you let me tell you what manner of man you have shown us

that you are? You have exhibited yourself to us as a mean fellow,

querulous, passionate, cowardly, finding fault with everything, blaming

everybody, never quiet, vain: this is what you have exhibited to us. Go

away now and read Archedamus; then if a mouse should leap down and make

a noise, you are a dead man. For such a death awaits you as it did—what

was the man’s name—Crinis; and he too was proud, because he understood

Archedamus. Wretch, will you not dismiss these things that do not

concern you at all? These things are suitable to those who are able to

learn them without perturbation, to those who can say: “I am not

subject to anger, to grief, to envy: I am not hindered, I am not

restrained. What remains for me? I have leisure, I am tranquil: let us

see how we must deal with sophistical arguments; let us see how when a

man has accepted an hypothesis he shall not be led away to any thing

absurd.” To them such things belong. To those who are happy it is

appropriate to light a fire, to dine; if they choose, both to sing and

to dance. But when the vessel is sinking, you come to me and hoist the

sails.

WHAT IS THE MATTER ON WHICH A GOOD MAN SHOULD BE EMPLOYED, AND IN WHAT

WE OUGHT CHIEFLY TO PRACTISE OURSELVES.—The material for the wise and

good man is his own ruling faculty: and the body is the material for

the physician and the aliptes (the man who oils persons); the land is

the matter for the husbandman. The business of the wise and good man is

to use appearances conformably to nature: and as it is the nature of

every soul to assent to the truth, to dissent from the false, and to

remain in suspense as to that which is uncertain; so it is its nature

to be moved towards the desire for the good, and to aversion from the

evil; and with respect to that which is neither good nor bad it feels

indifferent. For as the money-changer (banker) is not allowed to reject

Cæsar’s coin, nor the seller of herbs, but if you show the coin,

whether he chooses or not, he must give up what is sold for the coin;

so it is also in the matter of the soul. When the good appears, it

immediately attracts to itself; the evil repels from itself. But the

soul will never reject the manifest appearance of the good, any more

than persons will reject Cæsar’s coin. On this principle depends every

movement both of man and God.

Against (or with respect to) this kind of thing chiefly a man should

exercise himself. As soon as you go out in the morning, examine every

man whom you see, every man whom you hear; answer as to a question,

What have you seen? A handsome man or woman? Apply the rule. Is this

independent of the will, or dependent? Independent. Take it away. What

have you seen? A man lamenting over the death of a child. Apply the

rule. Death is a thing independent of the will. Take it away. Has the

proconsul met you? Apply the rule. What kind of a thing is a

proconsul’s office? Independent of the will or dependent on it?

Independent. Take this away also; it does not stand examination; cast

it away; it is nothing to you.

If we practised this and exercised ourselves in it daily from morning

to night, something indeed would be done. But now we are forthwith

caught half asleep by every appearance, and it is only, if ever, that

in the school we are roused a little. Then when we go out, if we see a

man lamenting, we say, He is undone. If we see a consul, we say, He is

happy. If we see an exiled man, we say, He is miserable. If we see a

poor man, we say, He is wretched; he has nothing to eat.

We ought then to eradicate these bad opinions, and to this end we

should direct all our efforts. For what is weeping and lamenting?

Opinion. What is bad fortune? Opinion. What is civil sedition, what is

divided opinion, what is blame, what is accusation, what is impiety,

what is trifling? All these things are opinions, and nothing more, and

opinions about things independent of the will, as if they were good and

bad. Let a man transfer these opinions to things dependent on the will,

and I engage for him that he will be firm and constant, whatever may be

the state of things around him. Such as is a dish of water, such is the

soul. Such as is the ray of light which falls on the water, such are

the appearances. When the water is moved, the ray also seems to be

moved, yet it is not moved. And when then a man is seized with

giddiness, it is not the arts and the virtues which are confounded, but

the spirit (the nervous power) on which they are impressed; but if the

spirit be restored to its settled state, those things also are

restored.

MISCELLANEOUS.—When some person asked him how it happened that since

reason has been more cultivated by the men of the present age, the

progress made in former times was greater. In what respect, he

answered, has it been more cultivated now, and in what respect was the

progress greater then? For in that in which it has now been more

cultivated, in that also the progress will now be found. At present it

has been cultivated for the purpose of resolving syllogisms, and

progress is made. But in former times it was cultivated for the purpose

of maintaining the governing faculty in a condition conformable to

nature, and progress was made. Do not then mix things which are

different, and do not expect, when you are laboring at one thing to

make progress in another. But see if any man among us when he is intent

upon this, the keeping himself in a state conformable to nature and

living so always, does not make progress. For you will not find such a

man.

It is not easy to exhort weak young men; for neither is it easy to hold

(soft) cheese with a hook. But those who have a good natural

disposition, even if you try to turn them aside, cling still more to

reason.

TO THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FREE CITIES WHO WAS AN EPICUREAN.—When the

administrator came to visit him, and the man was an Epicurean,

Epictetus said, It is proper for us who are not philosophers to inquire

of you who are philosophers, as those who come to a strange city

inquire of the citizens and those who are acquainted with it, what is

the best thing in the world, in order that we also after inquiry may go

in quest of that which is best and look at it, as strangers do with the

things in cities. For that there are three things which relate to

man—soul, body, and things external, scarcely any man denies. It

remains for you philosophers to answer what is the best. What shall we

say to men? Is the flesh the best? and was it for this that Maximus

sailed as far as Cassiope in winter (or bad weather) with his son, and

accompanied him that he might be gratified in the flesh? When the man

said that it was not, and added, Far be that from him. Is it not fit

then, Epictetus said, to be actively employed about the best? It is

certainly of all things the most fit. What then do we possess which is

better than the flesh? The soul, he replied. And the good things of the

best, are they better, or the good things of the worse? The good things

of the best. And are the good things of the best within the power of

the will or not within the power of the will? They are within the power

of the will. Is then the pleasure of the soul a thing within the power

of the will? It is, he replied. And on what shall this pleasure depend?

On itself? But that cannot be conceived; for there must first exist a

certain substance or nature ([Greek: ousia]) of good, by obtaining

which we shall have pleasure in the soul. He assented to this also. On

what then shall we depend for this pleasure of the soul? for if it

shall depend on things of the soul, the substance (nature) of the good

is discovered; for good cannot be one thing, and that at which we are

rationally delighted another thing; nor if that which precedes is not

good, can that which comes after be good, for in order that the thing

which comes after may be good, that which precedes must be good. But

you would not affirm this, if you are in your right mind, for you would

then say what is inconsistent both with Epicurus and the rest of your

doctrines. It remains then that the pleasure of the soul is in the

pleasure from things of the body; and again that those bodily things

must be the things which precede and the substance (nature) of the

good.

Seek for doctrines which are consistent with what I say, and by making

them your guide you will with pleasure abstain from things which have

such persuasive power to lead us and overpower us. But if to the

persuasive power of these things, we also devise such a philosophy as

this which helps to push us on towards them and strengthens us to this

end, what will be the consequence? In a piece of toreutic art which is

the best part? the silver or the workmanship? The substance of the hand

is the flesh; but the work of the hand is the principal part (that

which precedes and leads the rest). The duties then are also three:

those which are directed towards the existence of a thing; those which

are directed towards its existence in a particular kind; and third, the

chief or leading things themselves. So also in man we ought not to

value the material, the poor flesh, but the principal (leading things,

[Greek: ta proaegoumena]). What are these? Engaging in public business,

marrying, begetting children, venerating God, taking care of parents,

and generally, having desires, aversions ([Greek: echchlinein]),

pursuits of things and avoidances, in the way in which we ought to do

these things, and according to our nature. And how are we constituted

by nature? Free, noble, modest; for what other animal blushes? what

other is capable of receiving the appearance (the impression) of shame?

and we are so constituted by nature as to subject pleasure to these

things, as a minister, a servant, in order that it may call forth our

activity, in order that it may keep us constant in acts which are

conformable to nature.

HOW WE MUST EXERCISE OURSELVES AGAINST APPEARANCES ([Greek:

phantasias]).—As we exercise ourselves against sophistical questions,

so we ought to exercise ourselves daily against appearances; for these

appearances also propose questions to us. A certain person’s son is

dead. Answer; the thing is not within the power of the will: it is not

an evil. A father has disinherited a certain son. What do you think of

it? It is a thing beyond the power of the will, not an evil. Cæsar has

condemned a person. It is a thing beyond the power of the will, not an

evil. The man is afflicted at this. Affliction is a thing which depends

on the will: it is an evil. He has borne the condemnation bravely. That

is a thing within the power of the will: it is a good. If we train

ourselves in this manner, we shall make progress; for we shall never

assent to anything of which there is not an appearance capable of being

comprehended. Your son is dead. What has happened? Your son is dead.

Nothing more? Nothing. Your ship is lost. What has happened? Your ship

is lost. A man has been led to prison. What has happened? He has been

led to prison. But that herein he has fared badly, every man adds from

his own opinion. But Zeus, you say, does not do right in these matters.

Why? because he has made you capable of endurance? because he has made

you magnanimous? because he has taken from that which befalls you the

power of being evils? because it is in your power to be happy while you

are suffering what you suffer? because he has opened the door to you,

when things do not please you? Man, go out and do not complain!

Hear how the Romans feel towards philosophers, if you would like to

know. Italicus, who was the most in repute of the philosophers, once

when I was present, being vexed with his own friends and as if he was

suffering something intolerable, said: “I cannot bear it, you are

killing me; you will make me such as that man is,” pointing to me.

TO A CERTAIN RHETORICIAN WHO WAS GOING UP TO ROME ON A SUIT.—When a

certain person came to him, who was going up to Rome on account of a

suit which had regard to his rank, Epictetus inquired the reason of his

going to Rome, and the man then asked what he thought about the matter.

Epictetus replied: If you ask me what you will do in Rome, whether you

will succeed or fail, I have no rule ([Greek: theoraema]) about this.

But if you ask me how you will fare, I can tell you: if you have right

opinions ([Greek: dogmata]), you will fare well; if they are false, you

will fare ill. For to every man the cause of his acting is opinion. For

what is the reason why you desired to be elected governor of the

Cnossians? Your opinion. What is the reason that you are now going up

to Rome? Your opinion. And going in winter, and with danger and

expense? I must go. What tells you this? Your opinion. Then if opinions

are the causes of all actions, and a man has bad opinions, such as the

cause may be, such also is the effect! Have we then all sound opinions,

both you and your adversary? And how do you differ? But have you

sounder opinions than your adversary? Why? You think so. And so does he

think that his opinions are better; and so do madmen. This is a bad

criterion. But show to me that you have made some inquiry into your

opinions and have taken some pains about them. And as now you are

sailing to Rome in order to become governor of the Cnossians, and you

are not content to stay at home with the honors which you had, but you

desire something greater and more conspicuous, so when did you ever

make a voyage for the purpose of examining your own opinions, and

casting them out, if you have any that are bad? Whom have you

approached for this purpose? What time have you fixed for it? What age?

Go over the times of your life by yourself, if you are ashamed of me

(knowing the fact) when you were a boy, did you examine your own

opinions? and did you not then, as you do all things now, do as you did

do? and when you were become a youth and attended the rhetoricians, and

yourself practised rhetoric, what did you imagine that you were

deficient in? And when you were a young man and engaged in public

matters, and pleaded causes yourself, and were gaining reputation, who

then seemed your equal? And when would you have submitted to any man

examining and showing that your opinions are bad? What then do you wish

me to say to you? Help me in this matter. I have no theorem (rule) for

this. Nor have you, if you came to me for this purpose, come to me as a

philosopher, but as to a seller of vegetables or a shoemaker. For what

purpose then have philosophers theorems? For this purpose, that

whatever may happen, our ruling faculty may be and continue to be

conformable to nature. Does this seem to you a small thing? No; but the

greatest. What then? does it need only a short time? and is it possible

to seize it as you pass by? If you can, seize it.

Then you will say, I met with Epictetus as I should meet with a stone

or a statue: for you saw me and nothing more. But he meets with a man

as a man, who learns his opinions, and in his turn shows his own. Learn

my opinions: show me yours; and then say that you have visited me. Let

us examine one another: if I have any bad opinion, take it away; if you

have any, show it. This is the meaning of meeting with a philosopher.

Not so (you say): but this is only a passing visit, and while we are

hiring the vessel, we can also see Epictetus. Let us see what he says.

Then you go away and say: Epictetus was nothing; he used solecisms and

spoke in a barbarous way. For of what else do you come as judges? Well,

but a man may say to me, if I attend to such matters (as you do), I

shall have no land as you have none; I shall have no silver cups as you

have none, nor fine beasts as you have none. In answer to tins it is

perhaps sufficient to say: I have no need of such things; but if you

possess many things you have need of others: whether you choose or not,

you are poorer than I am. What then have I need of? Of that which you

have not? of firmness, of a mind which is conformable to nature, of

being free from perturbation.

IN WHAT MANNER WE OUGHT TO BEAR SICKNESS.—When the need of each opinion

comes, we ought to have it in readiness: on the occasion of breakfast,

such opinions as relate to breakfast; in the bath, those that concern

the bath; in bed, those that concern bed.

Let sleep not come upon thy languid eyes

Before each daily action thou hast scann’d;

What’s done amiss, what done, what left undone;

From first to last examine all, and then

Blame what is wrong, in what is right rejoice.

And we ought to retain these verses in such way that we may use them,

not that we may utter them aloud, as when we exclaim, “Paean Apollo.”

Again in fever we should have ready such opinions as concern a fever;

and we ought not, as soon as the fever begins, to lose and forget all.

A man who has a fever may say: If I philosophize any longer, may I be

hanged: wherever I go, I must take care of the poor body, that a fever

may not come. But what is philosophizing? Is it not a preparation

against events which may happen? Do you not understand that you are

saying something of this kind? “If I shall still prepare myself to bear

with patience what happens, may I be hanged.” But this is just as if a

man after receiving blows should give up the Pancratium. In the

Pancratium it is in our power to desist and not to receive blows.

But in the other matter if we give up philosophy, what shall we gain?

What then should a man say on the occasion of each painful thing? It

was for this that I exercised myself, for this I disciplined myself.

God says to you: Give me a proof that you have duly practised

athletics, that you have eaten what you ought, that you have been

exercised, that you have obeyed the aliptes (the oiler and rubber).

Then do you show yourself weak when the time for action comes? Now is

the time for the fever. Let it be borne well. Now is the time for

thirst, bear it well. Now is the time for hunger, bear it well. Is it

not in your power? Who shall hinder you? The physician will hinder you

from drinking; but he cannot prevent you from bearing thirst well: and

he will hinder you from eating; but he cannot prevent you from bearing

hunger well.

But I cannot attend to my philosophical studies. And for what purpose

do you follow them? Slave, is it not that you may be happy, that you

may be constant, is it not that you may be in a state conformable to

nature and live so? What hinders you when you have a fever from having

your ruling faculty conformable to nature? Here is the proof of the

thing, here is the test of the philosopher. For this also is a part of

life, like walking, like sailing, like journeying by land, so also is

fever. Do you read when you are walking? No. Nor do you when you have a

fever. But if you walk about well, you have all that belongs to a man

who walks. If you bear a fever well, you have all that belongs to a man

in a fever. What is it to bear a fever well? Not to blame God or man;

not to be afflicted at that which happens, to expect death well and

nobly, to do what must be done: when the physician comes in, not to be

frightened at what he says; nor if he says you are doing well, to be

overjoyed. For what good has he told you? and when you were in health,

what good was that to you? And even if he says you are in a bad way, do

not despond. For what is it to be ill? is it that you are near the

severance of the soul and the body? what harm is there in this? If you

are not near now, will you not afterwards be near? Is the world going

to be turned upside down when you are dead? Why then do you flatter the

physician? Why do you say if you please, master, I shall be well? Why

do you give him an opportunity of raising his eyebrows (being proud; or

showing his importance)? Do you not value a physician, as you do a

shoemaker when he is measuring your foot, or a carpenter when he is

building your house, and so treat the physician as to the body which is

not yours, but by nature dead? He who has a fever has an opportunity of

doing this: if he does these things, he has what belongs to him. For it

is not the business of a philosopher to look after these externals,

neither his wine nor his oil nor his poor body, but his own ruling

power. But as to externals how must he act? so far as not to be

careless about them. Where then is there reason for fear? where is

there then still reason for anger, and of fear about what belongs to

others, about things which are of no value? For we ought to have these

two principles in readiness, that except the will nothing is good nor

bad; and that we ought not to lead events, but to follow them. My

brother ought not to have behaved thus to me. No, but he will see to

that; and, however he may behave, I will conduct myself towards him as

I ought. For this is my own business; that belongs to another: no man

can prevent this, the other thing can be hindered.

ABOUT EXERCISE.—We ought not to make our exercises consist in means

contrary to nature and adapted to cause admiration, for if we do so, we

who call ourselves philosophers, shall not differ at all from jugglers.

For it is difficult even to walk on a rope; and not only difficult, but

it is also dangerous. Ought we for this reason to practice walking on a

rope, or setting up a palm-tree, or embracing statues? By no means.

Every thing which is difficult and dangerous is not suitable for

practice; but that is suitable which conduces to the working out of

that which is proposed to us. And what is that which is proposed to us

as a thing to be worked out? To live with desire and aversion

(avoidance of certain things) free from restraint. And what is this?

Neither to be disappointed in that which you desire, nor to fall into

anything which you would avoid. Towards this object then exercise

(practice) ought to tend. For since it is not possible to have your

desire not disappointed and your aversion free from falling into that

which you would avoid, without great and constant practice, you must

know that if you allow your desire and aversion to turn to things which

are not within the power of the will, you will neither have your desire

capable of attaining your object, nor your aversion free from the power

of avoiding that which you would avoid. And since strong habit leads

(prevails), and we are accustomed to employ desire and aversion only to

things which are not within the power of our will, we ought to oppose

to this habit a contrary habit, and where there is great slipperiness

in the appearances, there to oppose the habit of exercise. Then at

last, if occasion presents itself, for the purpose of trying yourself

at a proper time you will descend into the arena to know if appearances

overpower you as they did formerly. But at first fly far from that

which is stronger than yourself; the contest is unequal between a

charming young girl and a beginner in philosophy. The earthen pitcher,

as the saying is, and the rock do not agree.

WHAT SOLITUDE IS, AND WHAT KIND OF PERSON A SOLITARY MAN IS.—Solitude

is a certain condition of a helpless man. For because a man is alone,

he is not for that reason also solitary; just as though a man is among

numbers, he is not therefore not solitary. When then we have lost

either a brother, or a son, or a friend on whom we were accustomed to

repose, we say that we are left solitary, though we are often in Rome,

though such a crowd meet us, though so many live in the same place, and

sometimes we have a great number of slaves. For the man who is

solitary, as it is conceived, is considered to be a helpless person and

exposed to those who wish to harm him. For this reason when we travel,

then especially do we say that we are lonely when we fall among

robbers, for it is not the sight of a human creature which removes us

from solitude, but the sight of one who is faithful and modest and

helpful to us. For if being alone is enough to make solitude, you may

say that even Zeus is solitary in the conflagration and bewails himself

saying, Unhappy that I am who have neither Hera, nor Athena, nor

Apollo, nor brother, nor son, nor descendant, nor kinsman. This is what

some say that he does when he is alone at the conflagration. For they

do not understand how a man passes his life when he is alone, because

they set out from a certain natural principle, from the natural desire

of community and mutual love and from the pleasure of conversation

among men. But none the less a man ought to be prepared in a manner for

this also (being alone), to be able to be sufficient for himself and to

be his own companion. For as Zeus dwells with himself, and is tranquil

by himself, and thinks of his own administration and of its nature, and

is employed in thoughts suitable to himself; so ought we also to be

able to talk with ourselves, not to feel the want of others also, not

to be unprovided with the means of passing our time; to observe the

divine administration, and the relation of ourselves to everything

else; to consider how we formerly were affected towards things that

happened and how at present; what are still the things which give us

pain; how these also can be cured and how removed; if any things

require improvement, to improve them according to reason.

Well then, if some man should come upon me when I am alone and murder

me? Fool, not murder You, but your poor body.

What kind of solitude then remains? what want? why do we make ourselves

worse than children; and what do children do when they are left alone?

They take up shells and ashes, and they build something, then pull it

down, and build something else, and so they never want the means of

passing the time. Shall I then, if you sail away, sit down and weep,

because I have been left alone and solitary? Shall I then have no

shells, no ashes? But children do what they do through want of thought

(or deficiency in knowledge), and we through knowledge are unhappy.

Every great power (faculty) is dangerous to beginners. You must then

bear such things as you are able, but conformably to nature: but not

... Practise sometimes a way of living like a person out of health that

you may at some time live like a man in health.

CERTAIN MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS.—As bad tragic actors cannot sing alone,

but in company with many, so some persons cannot walk about alone. Man,

if you are anything, both walk alone and talk to yourself, and do not

hide yourself in the chorus. Examine a little at last, look around,

stir yourself up, that you may know who you are.

You must root out of men these two things, arrogance (pride) and

distrust. Arrogance then is the opinion that you want nothing (are

deficient in nothing); but distrust is the opinion that you cannot be

happy when so many circumstances surround you. Arrogance is removed by

confutation; and Socrates was the first who practised this. And (to

know) that the thing is not impossible inquire and seek. This search

will do you no harm; and in a manner this is philosophizing, to seek

how it is possible to employ desire and aversion ([Greek: echchlisis])

without impediment.

I am superior to you, for my father is a man of consular rank. Another

says, I have been a tribune, but you have not. If we were horses, would

you say, My father was swifter? I have much barley and fodder, or

elegant neck ornaments. If then you were saying this, I said, Be it so:

let us run then. Well, is there nothing in a man such as running in a

horse, by which it will be known which is superior and inferior? Is

there not modesty ([Greek: aidos]), fidelity, justice? Show yourself

superior in these, that you may be superior as a man. If you tell me

that you can kick violently, I also will say to you, that you are proud

of that which is the act of an ass.

THAT WE OUGHT TO PROCEED WITH CIRCUMSPECTION TO EVERYTHING.[Footnote:

Compare Encheiridion, 29.]—In every act consider what precedes and what

follows, and then proceed to the act. If you do not consider, you will

at first begin with spirit, since you have not thought at all of the

things which follow; but afterwards when some consequences have shown

themselves, you will basely desist (from that which you have begun).—I

wish to conquer at the Olympic games.—(And I too, by the gods; for it

is a fine thing.) But consider here what precedes and what follows; and

then, if it is for your good, undertake the thing. You must act

according to rules, follow strict diet, abstain from delicacies,

exercise yourself by compulsion at fixed times, in heat, in cold; drink

no cold water, nor wine, when there is opportunity of drinking it. In a

word, you must surrender yourself to the trainer, as you do to a

physician. Next in the contest, you must be covered with sand,

sometimes dislocate a hand, sprain an ankle, swallow a quantity of

dust, be scourged with the whip; and after undergoing all this, you

must sometimes be conquered. After reckoning all these things, if you

have still an inclination, go to the athletic practice. If you do not

reckon them, observe you will behave like children who at one time play

as wrestlers, then as gladiators, then blow a trumpet, then act a

tragedy, when they have seen and admired such things. So you also do:

you are at one time a wrestler (athlete), then a gladiator, then a

philosopher, then a rhetorician; but with your whole soul you are

nothing: like the ape you imitate all that you see; and always one

thing after another pleases you, but that which becomes familiar

displeases you. For you have never undertaken anything after

consideration, nor after having explored the whole matter and put it to

a strict examination; but you have undertaken it at hazard and with a

cold desire. Thus some persons having seen a philosopher and having

heard one speak like Euphrates—and yet who can speak like him?—wish to

be philosophers themselves.

Man, consider first what the matter is (which you propose to do), then

your own nature also, what it is able to bear. If you are a wrestler,

look at your shoulders, your thighs, your loins: for different men are

naturally formed for different things. Do you think that, if you do

(what you are doing daily), you can be a philosopher? Do you think that

you can eat as you do now, drink as you do now, and in the same way be

angry and out of humor? You must watch, labor, conquer certain desires,

you must depart from your kinsmen, be despised by your slaves, laughed

at by those who meet you, in everything you must be in an inferior

condition, as to magisterial office, in honors, in courts of justice.

When you have considered all these things completely, then, if you

think proper, approach to philosophy, if you would gain in exchange for

these things freedom from perturbations, liberty, tranquillity. If you

have not considered these things, do not approach philosophy: do not

act like children, at one time a philosopher, then a tax collector,

then a rhetorician, then a procurator (officer) of Cæsar. These things

are not consistent. You must be one man either good or bad; you must

either labor at your own ruling faculty or at external things; you must

either labor at things within or at external things; that is, you must

either occupy the place of a philosopher or that of one of the vulgar.

A person said to Rufus when Galba was murdered: Is the world now

governed by Providence? But Rufus replied: Did I ever incidentally form

an argument from Galba that the world is governed by Providence?

THAT WE OUGHT WITH CAUTION TO ENTER INTO FAMILIAR INTERCOURSE WITH

MEN.—If a man has frequent intercourse with others either for talk, or

drinking together, or generally for social purposes, he must either

become like them, or change them to his own fashion. For if a man

places a piece of quenched charcoal close to a piece that is burning,

either the quenched charcoal will quench the other, or the burning

charcoal will light that which is quenched. Since then the danger is so

great, we must cautiously enter into such intimacies with those of the

common sort, and remember that it is impossible that a man can keep

company with one who is covered with soot without being partaker of the

soot himself. For what will you do if a man speaks about gladiators,

about horses, about athletes, or what is worse about men? Such a person

is bad, such a person is good; this was well done, this was done badly.

Further, if he scoff, or ridicule, or show an ill-natured disposition?

Is any man among us prepared like a lute-player when he takes a lute,

so that as soon as he has touched the strings, he discovers which are

discordant, and tunes the instrument? Such a power as Socrates had who

in all his social intercourse could lead his companions to his own

purpose? How should you have this power? It is therefore a necessary

consequence that you are carried about by the common kind of people.

Why then are they more powerful than you? Because they utter these

useless words from their real opinions; but you utter your elegant

words only from your lips; for this reason they are without strength

and dead, and it is nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your

miserable virtue, which is talked of everywhere (up and down). In this

way the vulgar have the advantage over you; for every opinion ([Greek:

dogma]) is strong and invincible. Until then the good ([Greek:

chompsai]) sentiments ([Greek: hupolaepseis]) are fixed in you, and you

shall have acquired a certain power for your security, I advise you to

be careful in your association with common persons; if you are not,

every day like wax in the sun there will be melted away whatever you

inscribe on your minds in the school. Withdraw then yourselves far from

the sun so long as you have these waxen sentiments. For this reason

also philosophers advise men to leave their native country, because

ancient habits distract them and do not allow a beginning to be made of

a different habit; nor can we tolerate those who meet us and say: See

such a one is now a philosopher, who was once so and so. Thus also

physicians send those who have lingering diseases to a different

country and a different air; and they do right. Do you also introduce

other habits than those which you have; fix you opinions and exercise

yourselves in them. But you do not so; you go hence to a spectacle, to

a show of gladiators, to a place of exercise ([Greek: chuston]), to a

circus; then you come back hither, and again from this place you go to

those places, and still the same persons. And there is no pleasing

(good) habit, nor attention, nor care about self and observation of

this kind. How shall I use the appearances presented to me? according

to nature, or contrary to nature? how do I answer to them? as I ought,

or as I ought not? Do I say to those things which are independent of

the will, that they do not concern me? For if you are not yet in this

state, fly from your former habits, fly from the common sort, if you

intend ever to begin to be something.

ON PROVIDENCE.-When you make any charge against Providence, consider,

and you will learn that the thing has happened according to reason.

Yes, but the unjust man has the advantage. In what? In money. Yes, for

he is superior to you in this, that he flatters, is free from shame,

and is watchful. What is the wonder? But see if he has the advantage

over you in being faithful, in being modest; for you will not find it

to be so; but wherein you are superior, there you will find that you

have the advantage. And I once said to a man who was vexed because

Philostorgus was fortunate: Would you choose to lie with Sura? May it

never happen, he replied, that this day should come? Why then are you

vexed, if he receives something in return for that which he sells; or

how can you consider him happy who acquires those things by such means

as you abominate; or what wrong does Providence, if he gives the better

things to the better men? Is it not better to be modest than to be

rich? He admitted this. Why are you vexed then, man, when you possess

the better thing? Remember then always and have in readiness the truth,

that this is a law of nature, that the superior has an advantage over

the inferior in that in which he is superior; and you will never be

vexed.

But my wife treats me badly. Well, if any man asks you what this is,

say, my wife treats me badly. Is there then nothing more? Nothing. My

father gives me nothing. (What is this? my father gives me nothing. Is

there nothing else then? Nothing); but to say that this is an evil is

something which must be added to it externally, and falsely added. For

this reason we must not get rid of poverty, but of the opinion about

poverty, and then we shall be happy.

ABOUT CYNICISM.—When one of his pupils inquired of Epictetus, and he

was a person who appeared to be inclined to Cynicism, what kind of

person a Cynic ought to be, and what was the notion ([Greek:

prolaepsis]) of the thing, we will inquire, said Epictetus, at leisure;

but I have so much to say to you that he who without God attempts so

great a matter, is hateful to God, and has no other purpose than to act

indecently in public.

In the first place, in the things which relate to yourself, you must

not be in any respect like what you do now; you must not blame God or

man; you must take away desire altogether, you must transfer avoidance

([Greek: echchlisis]) only to the things which are within the power of

the will; you must not feel anger nor resentment or envy nor pity; a

girl must not appear handsome to you, nor must you love a little

reputation, nor be pleased with a boy or a cake. For you ought to know

that the rest of men throw walls around them and houses and darkness

when they do any such things, and they have many means of concealment.

A man shuts the door, he sets somebody before the chamber; if a person

comes, say that he is out, he is not at leisure. But the Cynic instead

of all these things must use modesty as his protection; if he does not,

he will be indecent in his nakedness and under the open sky. This is

his house, his door; this is the slave before his bedchamber; this is

his darkness. For he ought not to wish to hide anything that he does;

and if he does, he is gone, he has lost the character of a Cynic, of a

man who lives under the open sky, of a free man; he has begun to fear

some external thing, he has begun to have need of concealment, nor can

he get concealment when he chooses. For where shall he hide himself and

how? And if by chance this public instructor shall be detected, this

pædagogue, what kind of things will he be compelled to suffer? when

then a man fears these things, is it possible for him to be bold with

his whole soul to superintend men? It cannot be: it is impossible.

In the first place then you must make your ruling faculty pure, and

this mode of life also. Now (you should say), to me the matter to work

on is my understanding, as wood is to the carpenter, as hides to the

shoemaker; and my business is the right use of appearances. But the

body is nothing to me: the parts of it are nothing to me. Death? Let it

come when it chooses, either death of the whole or of a part. Fly, you

say. And whither; can any man eject me out of the world? He cannot. But

wherever I go, there is the sun, there is the moon, there are the

stars, dreams, omens, and the conversation ([Greek: omilia]) with gods.

Then, if he is thus prepared, the true Cynic cannot be satisfied with

this; but he must know that he is sent a messenger from Zeus to men

about good and bad things, to show them that they have wandered and are

seeking the substance of good and evil where it is not, but where it

is, they never think; and that he is a spy, as Diogenes was carried off

to Philip after the battle of Chaeroneia as a spy. For in fact a Cynic

is a spy of the things which are good for men and which are evil, and

it is his duty to examine carefully and to come and report truly, and

not to be struck with terror so as to point out as enemies those who

are not enemies, nor in any other way to be perturbed by appearances

nor confounded.

It is his duty then to be able with a loud voice, if the occasion

should arise, and appearing on the tragic stage to say like Socrates:

Men, whither are you hurrying, what are you doing, wretches? like blind

people you are wandering up and down; you are going by another road,

and have left the true road; you seek for prosperity and happiness

where they are not, and if another shows you where they are, you do not

believe him. Why do you seek it without? In the body? It is not there.

If you doubt, look at Myro, look at Ophellius. In possessions? It is

not there. But if you do not believe me, look at Croesus: look at those

who are now rich, with what lamentations their life is filled. In

power? It is not there. If it is, those must be happy who have been

twice and thrice consuls; but they are not. Whom shall we believe in

these matters? You who from without see their affairs and are dazzled

by an appearance, or the men themselves? What do they say? Hear them

when they groan, when they grieve, when on account of these very

consulships and glory and splendor they think that they are more

wretched and in greater danger. Is it in royal power? It is not: if it

were, Nero would have been happy, and Sardanapalus. But neither was

Agamemnon happy, though he was a better man than Sardanapalus and Nero;

but while others are snoring, what is he doing?

Much from his head he tore his rooted hair:

Iliad, x., 15.

and what does he say himself?

“I am perplexed,” he says, “and

Disturb’d I am,” and “my heart out of my bosom

Is leaping.”

Iliad, x., 91.

Wretch, which of your affairs goes badly? Your possessions? No. Your

body? No. But you are rich in gold and copper. What then is the matter

with you? That part of you, whatever it is, has been neglected by you

and is corrupted, the part with which we desire, with which we avoid,

with which we move towards and move from things. How neglected? He

knows not the nature of good for which he is made by nature and the

nature of evil; and what is his own, and what belongs to another; and

when anything that belongs to others goes badly, he says, Woe to me,

for the Hellenes are in danger. Wretched is his ruling faculty, and

alone neglected and uncared for. The Hellenes are going to die

destroyed by the Trojans. And if the Trojans do not kill them, will

they not die? Yes; but not all at once. What difference then does it

make? For if death is an evil, whether men die altogether, or if they

die singly, it is equally an evil. Is anything else then going to

happen than the separation of the soul and the body? Nothing. And if

the Hellenes perish, is the door closed, and is it not in your power to

die? It is. Why then do you lament (and say), Oh, you are a king and

have the sceptre of Zeus? An unhappy king does not exist more than an

unhappy god. What then art thou? In truth a shepherd: for you weep as

shepherds do, when a wolf has carried off one of their sheep: and these

who are governed by you are sheep. And why did you come hither? Was

your desire in any danger? was your aversion ([Greek: echchlisis])? was

your movement (pursuits)? was your avoidance of things? He replies, No;

but the wife of my brother was carried off. Was it not then a great

gain to be deprived of an adulterous wife? Shall we be despised then by

the Trojans? What kind of people are the Trojans, wise or foolish? If

they are wise, why do you fight with them? If they are fools, why do

you care about them?

Do you possess the body then free or is it in servile condition? We do

not know. Do you not know that it is the slave of fever, of gout,

ophthalmia, dysentery, of a tyrant, of fire, of iron, of everything

which is stronger? Yes, it is a slave. How then is it possible that

anything which belongs to the body can be free from hindrance? and how

is a thing great or valuable which is naturally dead, or earth, or mud?

Well then, do you possess nothing which is free? Perhaps nothing. And

who is able to compel you to assent to that which appears false? No

man. And who can compel you not to assent to that which appears true?

No man. By this then you see that there is something in you naturally

free. But to desire or to be averse from, or to move towards an object

or to move from it, or to prepare yourself, or to propose to do

anything, which of you can do this, unless he has received an

impression of the appearance of that which is profitable or a duty? No

man. You have then in these things also something which is not hindered

and is free. Wretched men, work out this, take care of this, seek for

good here.

THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO BE MOVED BY A DESIRE OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT

IN OUR POWER.—Let not that which in another is contrary to nature be an

evil to you; for you are not formed by nature to be depressed with

others nor to be unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. If a

man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God

has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations. For this

purpose he has given means to them, some things to each person as his

own, and other things not as his own; some things subject to hindrance

and compulsion and deprivation; and these things are not a man’s own;

but the things which are not subject to hindrances, are his own; and

the nature of good and evil, as it was fit to be done by him who takes

care of us and protects us like a father, he has made our own. But you

say, I have parted from a certain person, and he is grieved. Why did he

consider as his own that which belongs to another? why, when he looked

on you and was rejoiced, did he not also reckon that you are a mortal,

that it is natural for you to part from him for a foreign country?

Therefore he suffers the consequences of his own folly. But why do you

or for what purpose bewail yourself? Is it that you also have not

thought of these things? but like poor women who are good for nothing,

you have enjoyed all things in which you took pleasure, as if you would

always enjoy them, both places and men and conversation; and now you

sit and weep because you do not see the same persons and do not live in

the same places. Indeed you deserve this, to be more wretched than

crows and ravens who have the power of flying where they please and

changing their nests for others, and crossing the seas without

lamenting or regretting their former condition. Yes, but this happens

to them because they are irrational creatures. Was reason then given to

us by the gods for the purpose of unhappiness and misery, that we may

pass our lives in wretchedness and lamentation? Must all persons be

immortal and must no man go abroad, and must we ourselves not go

abroad, but remain rooted like plants; and if any of our familiar

friends goes abroad, must we sit and weep; and on the contrary, when he

returns, must we dance and clap our hands like children?

But my mother laments when she does not see me. Why has she not learned

these principles? and I do not say this, that we should not take care

that she may not lament, but I say that we ought not to desire in every

way what is not our own. And the sorrow of another is another’s sorrow;

but my sorrow is my own. I then will stop my own sorrow by every means,

for it is in my power; and the sorrow of another I will endeavor to

stop as far as I can; but I will not attempt to do it by every means;

for if I do, I shall be fighting against God, I shall be opposing Zeus

and shall be placing myself against him in the administration of the

universe; and the reward (the punishment) of this fighting against God

and of this disobedience not only will the children of my children pay,

but I also shall myself, both by day and by night, startled by dreams,

perturbed, trembling at every piece of news, and having my tranquillity

depending on the letters of others. Some person has arrived from Rome.

I only hope there is no harm. But what harm can happen to you, where

you are not? From Hellas (Greece) some one is come; I hope that there

is no harm. In this way every place may be the cause of misfortune to

you. Is it not enough for you to be unfortunate there where you are,

and must you be so even beyond sea, and by the report of letters? Is

this the way in which your affairs are in a state of security? Well

then suppose that my friends have died in the places which are far from

me. What else have they suffered than that which is the condition of

mortals? Or how are you desirous at the same time to live to old age,

and at the same time not to see the death of any person whom you love?

Know you not that in the course of a long time many and various kinds

of things must happen; that a fever shall overpower one, a robber

another, and a third a tyrant? Such is the condition of things around

us, such are those who live with us in the world; cold and heat, and

unsuitable ways of living, and journeys by land, and voyages by sea,

and winds, and various circumstances which surround us, destroy one

man, and banish another, and throw one upon an embassy and another into

an army. Sit down then in a flutter at all these things, lamenting,

unhappy, unfortunate, dependent on another, and dependent not on one or

two, but on ten thousands upon ten thousands.

Did you hear this when you were with the philosophers? did you learn

this? do you not know that human life is a warfare? that one man must

keep watch, another must go out as a spy, and a third must fight? and

it is not possible that all should be in one place, nor is it better

that it should be so. But you neglecting to do the commands of the

general complain when anything more hard than usual is imposed on you,

and you do not observe what you make the army become as far as it is in

your power; that if all imitate you, no man will dig a trench, no man

will put a rampart round, nor keep watch, nor expose himself to danger,

but will appear to be useless for the purposes of an army. Again, in a

vessel if you go as a sailor, keep to one place and stick to it. And if

you are ordered to climb the mast, refuse; if to run to the head of the

ship, refuse; and what master of a ship will endure you? and will he

not pitch you overboard as a useless thing, an impediment only and bad

example to the other sailors? And so it is here also: every man’s life

is a kind of warfare, and it is long and diversified. You must observe

the duty of a soldier and do every thing at the nod of the general; if

it is possible, divining what his wishes are; for there is no

resemblance between that general and this, neither in strength nor in

superiority of character. Know you not that a good man does nothing for

the sake of appearance, but for the sake of doing right? What advantage

is it then to him to have done right? And what advantage is it to a man

who writes the name of Dion to write it as he ought? The advantage is

to have written it. Is there no reward then? Do you seek a reward for a

good man greater than doing what is good and just? At Olympia you wish

for nothing more, but it seems to you enough to be crowned at the

games. Does it seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good

and happy? For these purposes being introduced by the gods into this

city (the world), and it being now your duty to undertake the work of a

man, do you still want nurses also and a mamma, and do foolish women by

their weeping move you and make you effeminate? Will you thus never

cease to be a foolish child? know you not that he who does the acts of

a child, the older he is, the more ridiculous he is?

So in this matter also: if you kiss your own child, or your brother or

friend, never give full license to the appearance ([Greek:

phantasian]), and allow not your pleasure to go as far as it chooses;

but check it, and curb it as those who stand behind men in their

triumphs and remind them that they are mortal. Do you also remind

yourself in like manner, that he whom you love is mortal, and that what

you love is nothing of your own; it has been given to you for the

present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been

given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of

grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish for these

things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your son or friend

when it is not allowed to you, you must know that you are wishing for a

fig in winter. For such as winter is to a fig, such is every event

which happens from the universe to the things which are taken away

according to its nature. And further, at the times when you are

delighted with a thing, place before yourself the contrary appearances.

What harm is it while you are kissing your child to say with a lisping

voice: To-morrow you will die; and to a friend also: To-morrow you will

go away or I shall, and never shall we see one another again? But these

are words of bad omen—and some incantations also are of bad omen; but

because they are useful, I don’t care for this; only let them be

useful. But do you call things to be of bad omen except those which are

significant of some evil? Cowardice is a word of bad omen, and meanness

of spirit, and sorrow, and grief, and shamelessness. These words are of

bad omen; and yet we ought not to hesitate to utter them in order to

protect ourselves against the things. Do you tell me that a name which

is significant of any natural thing is of evil omen? say that even for

the ears of corn to be reaped is of bad omen, for it signifies the

destruction of the ears, but not of the world. Say that the falling of

the leaves also is of bad omen, and for the dried fig to take the place

of the green fig, and for raisins to be made from the grapes. For all

these things are changes from a former state into other states; not a

destruction, but a certain fixed economy and administration. Such is

going away from home and a small change: such is death, a greater

change, not from the state which now is to that which is not, but to

that which is not now. Shall I then no longer exist? You will not

exist, but you will be something else, of which the world now has need;

for you also came into existence not when you chose, but when the world

had need of you.

Let these thoughts be ready to hand by night and by day; these you

should write, these you should read; about these you should talk to

yourself and to others. Ask a man: Can you help me at all for this

purpose? and further, go to another and to another. Then if anything

that is said be contrary to your wish, this reflection first will

immediately relieve you, that it is not unexpected. For it is a great

thing in all cases to say: I knew that I begot a son who is mortal. For

so you also will say: I knew that I am mortal, I knew that I may leave

my home, I knew that I may be ejected from it, I knew that I may be led

to prison. Then if you turn round and look to yourself, and seek the

place from which comes that which has happened, you will forthwith

recollect that it comes from the place of things which are out of the

power of the will, and of things which are not my own. What then is it

to me? Then, you will ask, and this is the chief thing: And who is it

that sent it? The leader, or the general, the state, the law of the

state. Give it me then, for I must always obey the law in everything.

Then, when the appearance (of things) pains you, for it is not in your

power to prevent this, contend against it by the aid of reason, conquer

it: do not allow it to gain strength nor to lead you to the

consequences by raising images such as it pleases and as it pleases. If

you be in Gyara, do not imagine the mode of living at Rome, and how

many pleasures there were for him who lived there and how many there

would be for him who returned to Rome; but fix your mind on this

matter, how a man who lives in Gyara ought to live in Gyara like a man

of courage. And if you be in Rome, do not imagine what the life in

Athens is, but think only of the life in Rome.

Then in the place of all other delights substitute this, that of being

conscious that you are obeying God, that not in word, but in deed you

are performing the acts of a wise and good man. For what a thing it is

for a man to be able to say to himself: Now whatever the rest may say

in solemn manner in the schools and may be judged to be saying in a way

contrary to common opinion (or in a strange way), this I am doing; and

they are sitting and are discoursing of my virtues and inquiring about

me and praising me; and of this Zeus has willed that I shall receive

from myself a demonstration, and shall myself know if he has a soldier

such as he ought to have, a citizen such as he ought to have, and if he

has chosen to produce me to the rest of mankind as a witness of the

things which are independent of the will: See that you fear without

reason, that you foolishly desire what you do desire; seek not the good

in things external; seek it in yourselves: if you do not, you will not

find it. For this purpose he leads me at one time hither, at another

time sends me thither, shows me to men as poor, without authority, and

sick; sends me to Gyara, leads me into prison, not because he hates

me—far from him be such a meaning, for who hates the best of his

servants? nor yet because he cares not for me, for he does not neglect

any even of the smallest things; but he does this for the purpose of

exercising me and making use of me as a witness to others. Being

appointed to such a service, do I still care about the place in which I

am, or with whom I am, or what men say about me? and do I not entirely

direct my thoughts to God and to his instructions and commands?

Having these things (or thoughts) always in hand, and exercising them

by yourself, and keeping them in readiness, you will never be in want

of one to comfort you and strengthen you. For it is not shameful to be

without something to eat, but not to have reason sufficient for keeping

away fear and sorrow. But if once you have gained exemption from sorrow

and fear, will there any longer be a tyrant for you, or a tyrant’s

guard, or attendants on Cæsar? Or shall any appointment to offices at

court cause you pain, or shall those who sacrifice in the Capitol on

the occasion of being named to certain functions, cause pain to you who

have received so great authority from Zeus? Only do not make a proud

display of it, nor boast of it; but show it by your acts; and if no man

perceives it, be satisfied that you are yourself in a healthy state and

happy.

TO THOSE WHO FALL OFF (DESIST) FROM THEIR PURPOSE.—Consider as to the

things which you proposed to yourself at first, which you have secured,

and which you have not; and how you are pleased when you recall to

memory the one, and are pained about the other; and if it is possible,

recover the things wherein you failed. For we must not shrink when we

are engaged in the greatest combat, but we must even take blows. For

the combat before us is not in wrestling and the Pancration, in which

both the successful and the unsuccessful may have the greatest merit,

or may have little, and in truth may be very fortunate or very

unfortunate; but the combat is for good fortune and happiness

themselves. Well then, even if we have renounced the contest in this

matter (for good fortune and happiness), no man hinders us from

renewing the combat again, and we are not compelled to wait for another

four years that the games at Olympia may come again; but as soon as you

have recovered and restored yourself, and employ the same zeal, you may

renew the combat again; and if again you renounce it, you may again

renew it; and if you once gain the victory, you are like him who has

never renounced the combat. Only do not through a habit of doing the

same thing (renouncing the combat), begin to do it with pleasure, and

then like a bad athlete go about after being conquered in all the

circuit of the games like quails who have run away.

TO THOSE WHO FEAR WANT.—Are you not ashamed at being more cowardly and

more mean than fugitive slaves? How do they when they run away leave

their masters? on what estates do they depend, and what domestics do

they rely on? Do they not after stealing a little, which is enough for

the first days, then afterwards move on through land or through sea,

contriving one method after another for maintaining their lives? And

what fugitive slave ever died of hunger? But you are afraid lest

necessary things should fail you, and are sleepless by night. Wretch,

are you so blind, and don’t you see the road to which the want of

necessaries leads?—Well, where does it lead?—to the same place to which

a fever leads, or a stone that falls on you, to death. Have you not

often said this yourself to your companions? have you not read much of

this kind, and written much? and how often have you boasted that you

were easy as to death?

Learn then first what are the things which are shameful, and then tell

us that you are a philosopher: but at present do not, even if any other

man calls you so, allow it.

Is that shameful to you which is not your own act, that of which you

are not the cause, that which has come to you by accident, as a

headache, as a fever? If your parents were poor, and left their

property to others, and if while they live, they do not help you at

all, is this shameful to you? Is this what you learned with the

philosophers? Did you never hear that the thing which is shameful ought

to be blamed, and that which is blamable is worthy of blame? Whom do

you blame for an act which is not his own, which he did not do himself?

Did you then make your father such as he is, or is it in your power to

improve him? Is this power given to you? Well then, ought you to wish

the things which are not given to you, or to be ashamed if you do not

obtain them? And have you also been accustomed while you were studying

philosophy to look to others and to hope for nothing from yourself?

Lament then and groan and eat with fear that you may not have food

to-morrow. Tremble about your poor slaves lest they steal, lest they

run away, lest they die. So live, and continue to live, you who in name

only have approached philosophy, and have disgraced its theorems as far

as you can by showing them to be useless and unprofitable to those who

take them up; you, who have never sought constancy, freedom from

perturbation, and from passions; you who have not sought any person for

the sake of this object, but many for the sake of syllogisms; you who

have never thoroughly examined any of these appearances by yourself, Am

I able to bear, or am I not able to bear? What remains for me to do?

But as if all your affairs were well and secure, you have been resting

on the third topic, that of things being unchanged, in order that you

may possess unchanged—what? cowardice, mean spirit, the admiration of

the rich, desire without attaining any end, and avoidance ([Greek:

echchlisin]) which fails in the attempt? About security in these things

you have been anxious.

Ought you not to have gained something in addition from reason, and

then to have protected this with security? And whom did you ever see

building a battlement all around and encircling it with a wall? And

what doorkeeper is placed with no door to watch? But you practise in

order to be able to prove—what? You practise that you may not be tossed

as on the sea through sophisms, and tossed about from what? Show me

first what you hold, what you measure, or what you weigh; and show me

the scales or the medimnus (the measure); or how long will you go on

measuring the dust? Ought you not to demonstrate those things which

make men happy, which make things go on for them in the way as they

wish, and why we ought to blame no man, accuse no man, and acquiesce in

the administration of the universe?

ABOUT FREEDOM.—He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is

neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose

movements to action ([Greek: hormai]) are not impeded, whose desires

attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would

avoid ([Greek: echchliseis aperiptotoi]). Who then chooses to live in

error? No man. Who chooses to live deceived, liable to mistake, unjust,

unrestrained, discontented, mean? No man. Not one then of the bad lives

as he wishes; nor is he then free. And who chooses to live in sorrow,

fear, envy, pity, desiring and failing in his desires, attempting to

avoid something and falling into it? Not one. Do we then find any of

the bad free from sorrow, free from fear, who does not fall into that

which he would avoid, and does not obtain that which he wishes? Not

one; nor then do we find any bad man free.

Further, then, answer me this question, also: does freedom seem to you

to be something great and noble and valuable? How should it not seem

so? Is it possible then when a man obtains anything so great and

valuable and noble to be mean? It is not possible. When then you see

any man subject to another or flattering him contrary to his own

opinion, confidently affirm that this man also is not free; and not

only if he do this for a bit of supper, but also if he does it for a

government (province) or a consulship; and call these men little slaves

who for the sake of little matters do these things, and those who do so

for the sake of great things call great slaves, as they deserve to be.

This is admitted also. Do you think that freedom is a thing independent

and self-governing? Certainly. Whomsoever then it is in the power of

another to hinder and compel, declare that he is not free. And do not

look, I entreat you, after his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, or

inquire about his being bought or sold, but if you hear him saying from

his heart and with feeling, “Master,” even if the twelve fasces precede

him (as consul), call him a slave. And if you hear him say, “Wretch

that I am, how much I suffer,” call him a slave. If, finally, you see

him lamenting, complaining, unhappy, call him a slave, though he wears

a praetexta. If, then, he is doing nothing of this kind do not yet say

that he is free, but learn his opinions, whether they are subject to

compulsion, or may produce hindrance, or to bad fortune, and if you

find him such, call him a slave who has a holiday in the Saturnalia;

say that his master is from home; he will return soon, and you will

know what he suffers.

What then is that which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him

his own master? For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor

provincial government, nor royal power; but something else must be

discovered. What then is that which when we write makes us free from

hindrance and unimpeded? The knowledge of the art of writing. What then

is it in playing the lute? The science of playing the lute. Therefore

in life also it is the science of life. You have then heard in a

general way; but examine the thing also in the several parts. Is it

possible that he who desires any of the things which depend on others

can be free from hindrance? No. Is it possible for him to be unimpeded?

No. Therefore he cannot be free. Consider then, whether we have nothing

which is in our own power only, or whether we have all things, or

whether some things are in our own power, and others in the power of

others. What do you mean? When you wish the body to be entire (sound)

is it in your power or not? It is not in my power. When you wish it to

be healthy? Neither is this in my power. When you wish it to be

handsome? Nor is this. Life or death? Neither is this in my power. Your

body then is another’s, subject to every man who is stronger than

yourself. It is. But your estate is it in your power to have it when

you please, and as long as you please, and such as you please? No. And

your slaves? No. And your clothes? No. And your house? No. And your

horses? Not one of these things. And if you wish by all means your

children to live, or your wife, or your brother, or your friends, is it

in your power? This also is not in my power.

Whether then have you nothing which is in your own power, which depends

on yourself only and cannot be taken from you, or have you anything of

the kind? I know not. Look at the thing then thus, and examine it. Is

any man able to make you assent to that which is false? No man. In the

matter of assent then you are free from hindrance and obstruction.

Granted. Well; and can a man force you to desire to move towards that

to which you do not choose? He can, for when he threatens me with death

or bonds he compels me to desire to move towards it. If then you

despise death and bonds, do you still pay any regard to him? No. Is

then the despising of death an act of your own or is it not yours? It

is my act.

When you have made this preparation, and have practised this

discipline, to distinguish that which belongs to another from that

which is your own, the things which are subject to hindrance from those

which are not, to consider the things free from hindrance to concern

yourself, and those which are not free not to concern yourself, to keep

your desire steadily fixed to the things which do concern yourself, and

turned from the things which do not concern yourself; do you still fear

any man? No one. For about what will you be afraid? About the things

which are your own, in which consists the nature of good and evil? and

who has power over these things? who can take them away? who can impede

them? No man can, no more than he can impede God. But will you be

afraid about your body and your possessions, about things which are not

yours, about things which in no way concern you? and what else have you

been studying from the beginning than to distinguish between your own

and not your own, the things which are in your power and not in your

power, the things subject to hindrance and not subject? and why have

you come to the philosophers? was it that you may nevertheless be

unfortunate and unhappy? You will then in this way, as I have supposed

you to have done, be without fear and disturbance. And what is grief to

you? for fear comes from what you expect, but grief from that which is

present. But what further will you desire? For of the things which are

within the power of the will, as being good and present, you have a

proper and regulated desire; but of the things which are not in the

power of the will you do not desire any one, and so you do not allow

any place to that which is irrational, and impatient, and above measure

hasty.

Then after receiving everything from another and even yourself, are you

angry and do you blame the giver if he takes anything from you? Who are

you, and for what purpose did you come into the world? Did not he (God)

introduce you here, did he not show you the light, did he not give you

fellow-workers, and perceptions and reason? and as whom did he

introduce you here? did he not introduce you as subject to death, and

as one to live on the earth with a little flesh, and to observe his

administration, and to join with him in the spectacle and the festival

for a short time? Will you not then, as long as you have been

permitted, after seeing the spectacle and the solemnity, when he leads

you out, go with adoration of him and thanks for what you have heard

and seen? No; but I would still enjoy the feast. The initiated too

would wish to be longer in the initiation; and perhaps also those at

Olympia to see other athletes. But the solemnity is ended; go away like

a grateful and modest man; make room for others; others also must be

born, as you were, and, being born, they must have a place, and houses,

and necessary things. And if the first do not retire, what remains? Why

are you insatiable? Why are you not content? why do you contract the

world? Yes, but I would have my little children with me and my wife.

What, are they yours? do they not belong to the giver, and to him who

made you? then will you not give up what belongs to others? will you

not give way to him who is superior? Why then did he introduce me into

the world on these conditions? And if the conditions do not suit you,

depart. He has no need of a spectator who is not satisfied. He wants

those who join in the festival, those who take part in the chorus, that

they may rather applaud, admire, and celebrate with hymns the

solemnity. But those who can bear no trouble, and the cowardly, he will

not unwillingly see absent from the great assembly ([Greek:

panaeguris]) for they did not when they were present behave as they

ought to do at a festival nor fill up their place properly, but they

lamented, found fault with the deity, fortune, their companions; not

seeing both what they had, and their own powers, which they received

for contrary purposes, the powers of magnanimity, of a generous mind,

manly spirit, and what we are now inquiring about, freedom. For what

purpose then have I received these things? To use them. How long? So

long as he who has lent them chooses. What if they are necessary to me?

Do not attach yourself to them and they will not be necessary; do not

say to yourself that they are necessary, and then they are not

necessary.

You then, a man may say, are you free? I wish, by the gods, and pray to

be free; but I am not yet able to face my masters, I still value my

poor body, I value greatly the preservation of it entire, though I do

not possess it entire. But I can point out to you a free man, that you

may no longer seek an example. Diogenes was free. How was he free? Not

because he was born of free parents, but because he was himself free,

because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and it was not

possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man the means of

laying hold of him to enslave him. He had everything easily loosed,

everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his property, he

would have rather let it go and be yours, than he would have followed

you for it; if you had laid hold of his leg, he would have let go his

leg; if of all his body, all his poor body; his intimates, friends,

country, just the same. For he knew from whence he had them, and from

whom, and on what conditions. His true parents indeed, the gods, and

his real country he would never have deserted, nor would he have

yielded to any man in obedience to them and to their orders, nor would

any man have died for his country more readily. For he was not used to

inquire when he should be considered to have done anything on behalf of

the whole of things (the universe, or all the world), but he remembered

that everything which is done comes from thence and is done on behalf

of that country and is commanded by him who administers it. Therefore

see what Diogenes himself says and writes: “For this reason,” he says,

“Diogenes, it is in your power to speak both with the King of the

Persians and with Archidamus the King of the Lacedaemonians, as you

please.” Was it because he was born of free parents? I suppose all the

Athenians and all the Lacedaemonians, because they were born of slaves,

could not talk with them (these kings) as they wished, but feared and

paid court to them. Why then does he say that it is in his power?

Because I do not consider the poor body to be my own, because I want

nothing, because law is everything to me, and nothing else is. These

were the things which permitted him to be free.

Think of these things, these opinions, these words; look to these

examples, if you would be free, if you desire the thing according to

its worth. And what is the wonder if you buy so great a thing at the

price of things so many and so great? For the sake of this which is

called liberty, some hang themselves, others throw themselves down

precipices, and sometimes even whole cities have perished; and will you

not for the sake of the true and unassailable and secure liberty give

back to God when he demands them the things which he has given? Will

you not, as Plato says, study not to die only, but also to endure

torture, and exile, and scourging, and, in a word, to give up all which

is not your own? If you will not, you will be a slave among slaves,

even if you be ten thousand times a consul; and if you make your way up

to the palace (Cæsar’s residence), you will no less be a slave; and you

will feel that perhaps philosophers utter words which are contrary to

common opinion (paradoxes), as Cleanthes also said, but not words

contrary to reason. For you will know by experience that the words are

true, and that there is no profit from the things which are valued and

eagerly sought to those who have obtained them; and to those who have

not yet obtained them there is an imagination ([Greek: phantasia]),

that when these things are come, all that is good will come with them;

then, when they are come, the feverish feeling is the same, the tossing

to and fro is the same, the satiety, the desire of things, which are

not present; for freedom is acquired not by the full possession of the

things which are desired, but by removing the desire. And that you may

know that this is true, as you have labored for those things, so

transfer your labor to these: be vigilant for the purpose of acquiring

an opinion which will make you free; pay court to a philosopher instead

of to a rich old man; be seen about a philosopher’s doors; you will not

disgrace yourself by being seen; you will not go away empty nor without

profit, if you go to the philosopher as you ought, and if not (if you

do not succeed), try at least; the trial (attempt) is not disgraceful.

ON FAMILIAR INTIMACY.—To this matter before all you must attend, that

you be never so closely connected with any of your former intimates or

friends as to come down to the same acts as he does. If you do not

observe this rule, you will ruin yourself. But if the thought arises in

your mind, “I shall seem disobliging to him and he will not have the

same feeling towards me,” remember that nothing is done without cost,

nor is it possible for a man if he does not do the same things to be

the same man that he was. Choose then which of the two you will have,

to be equally loved by those by whom you were formerly loved, being the

same with your former self; or, being superior, not to obtain from your

friends the same that you did before.

WHAT THINGS WE SHOULD EXCHANGE FOR OTHER THINGS.—Keep this thought in

readiness, when you lose anything external, what you acquire in place

of it; and if it be worth more, never say, I have had a loss; neither

if you have got a horse in place of an ass, or an ox in place of a

sheep, nor a good action in place of a bit of money, nor in place of

idle talk such tranquillity as befits a man, nor in place of lewd talk

if you have acquired modesty. If you remember this, you will always

maintain your character such as it ought to be. But if you do not,

consider that the times of opportunity are perishing, and that whatever

pains you take about yourself, you are going to waste them all and

overturn them. And it needs only a few things for the loss and

overturning of all—namely, a small deviation from reason. For the

steerer of a ship to upset it, he has no need of the same means as he

has need of for saving it; but if he turns it a little to the wind, it

is lost; and if he does not do this purposely, but has been neglecting

his duty a little, the ship is lost. Something of the kind happens in

this case also; if you only fall a nodding a little, all that you have

up to this time collected is gone. Attend therefore to the appearances

of things, and watch over them; for that which you have to preserve is

no small matter, but it is modesty and fidelity and constancy, freedom

from the affects, a state of mind undisturbed, freedom from fear,

tranquillity, in a word liberty. For what will you sell these things?

See what is the value of the things which you will obtain in exchange

for these.—But shall I not obtain any such thing for it?—See, and if

you do in return get that, see what you receive in place of it. I

possess decency, he possesses a tribuneship: he possesses a prætorship,

I possess modesty. But I do not make acclamations where it is not

becoming: I will not stand up where I ought not; for I am free, and a

friend of God. and so I obey him willingly. But I must not claim (seek)

anything else, neither body nor possession, nor magistracy, nor good

report, nor in fact anything. For he (God) does not allow me to claim

(seek) them, for if he had chosen, he would have made them good for me;

but he has not done so, and for this reason I cannot transgress his

commands. Preserve that which is your own good in everything; and as to

every other thing, as it is permitted, and so far as to behave

consistently with reason in respect to them, content with this only. If

you do not, you will be unfortunate, you will fail in all things, you

will be hindered, you will be impeded. These are the laws which have

been sent from thence (from God); these are the orders. Of these laws a

man ought to be an expositor, to these he ought to submit, not to those

of Masurius and Cassius.

TO THOSE WHO ARE DESIROUS OF PASSING LIFE IN TRANQUILLITY.—Remember

that not only the desire of power and of riches makes us mean and

subject to others, but even the desire of tranquillity, and of leisure,

and of travelling abroad, and of learning. For, to speak plainly,

whatever the external thing may be, the value which we set upon it

places us in subjection to others. What then is the difference between

desiring to be a senator or not desiring to be one; what is the

difference between desiring power or being content with a private

station; what is the difference between saying, I am unhappy, I have

nothing to do, but I am bound to my books as a corpse; or saying, I am

unhappy, I have no leisure for reading? For as salutations and power

are things external and independent of the will, so is a book. For what

purpose do you choose to read? Tell me. For if you only direct your

purpose to being amused or learning something, you are a silly fellow

and incapable of enduring labor. But if you refer reading to the proper

end, what else is this than a tranquil and happy life ([Greek:

eusoia])? But if reading does not secure for you a happy and tranquil

life, what is the use of it? But it does secure this, the man replies,

and for this reason I am vexed that I am deprived of it.—And what is

this tranquil and happy life, which any man can impede, I do not say

Cæsar or Cæsar’s friend, but a crow, a piper, a fever, and thirty

thousand other things? But a tranquil and happy life contains nothing

so sure as continuity and freedom from obstacle. Now I am called to do

something: I will go then with the purpose of observing the measures

(rules) which I must keep, of acting with modesty, steadiness, without

desire and aversion to things external; and then that I may attend to

men, what they say, how they are moved; and this not with any bad

disposition, or that I may have something to blame or to ridicule; but

I turn to myself, and ask if I also commit the same faults. How then

shall I cease to commit them? Formerly I also acted wrong, but now I do

not: thanks to God.

What then is the reason of this? The reason is that we have never read

for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that we

may in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the appearances

presented to us; but we terminate in this, in learning what is said,

and in being able to expound it to another, in resolving a syllogism,

and in handling the hypothetical syllogism. For this reason where our

study (purpose) is, there alone is the impediment. Would you have by

all means the things which are not in your power? Be prevented then, be

hindered, fail in your purpose. But if we read what is written about

action (efforts, [Greek: hormae]), not that we may see what is said

about action, but that we may act well; if we read what is said about

desire and aversion (avoiding things), in order that we may neither

fail in our desires, nor fall into that which we try to avoid; if we

read what is said about duty (officium), in order that remembering the

relations (of things to one another) we may do nothing irrationally nor

contrary to these relations; we should not be vexed, in being hindered

as to our readings, but we should be satisfied with doing the acts

which are conformable (to the relations), and we should be reckoning

not what so far we have been accustomed to reckon: To-day I have read

so many verses, I have written so many; but (we should say), To-day I

have employed my action as it is taught by the philosophers; I have not

employed my desire; I have used avoidance ([Greek: echchlisei]) only

with respect to things which are within the power of my will; I have

not been afraid of such a person, I have not been prevailed upon by the

entreaties of another; I have exercised my patience, my abstinence, my

co-operation with others; and so we should thank God for what we ought

to thank him.

There is only one way to happiness, and let this rule be ready both in

the morning and during the day and by night: the rule is not to look

towards things which are out of the power of our will, to think that

nothing is our own, to give up all things to the Divinity, to Fortune;

to make them the superintendents of these things, whom Zeus also has

made so; for a man to observe that only which is his own, that which

cannot be hindered; and when we read, to refer our reading to this

only, and our writing and our listening. For this reason I cannot call

the man industrious, if I hear this only, that he reads and writes; and

even if a man adds that he reads all night, I cannot say so, if he

knows not to what he should refer his reading. For neither do you say

that a man is industrious if he keeps awake for a girl, nor do I. But

if he does it (reads and writes) for reputation, I say that he is a

lover of reputation. And if he does it for money, I say that he is a

lover of money, not a lover of labor; and if he does it through love of

learning, I say that he is a lover of learning. But if he refers his

labor to his own ruling power that he may keep it in a state

conformable to nature and pass his life in that state, then only do I

say that he is industrious. For never commend a man on account of these

things which are common to all, but on account of his opinions

(principles); for these are the things which belong to each man, which

make his actions bad or good. Remembering these rules, rejoice in that

which is present, and be content with the things which come in season.

If you see anything which you have learned and inquired about occurring

to you in your course of life (or opportunely applied by you to the

acts of life), be delighted at it. If you have laid aside or have

lessened bad disposition and a habit of reviling; if you have done so

with rash temper, obscene words, hastiness, sluggishness; if you are

not moved by what you formerly were, and not in the same way as you

once were, you can celebrate a festival daily, to-day because you have

behaved well in one act, and to-morrow because you have behaved well in

another. How much greater is this a reason for making sacrifices than a

consulship or the government of a province? These things come to you

from yourself and from the gods. Remember this, who gives these things

and to whom, and for what purpose. If you cherish yourself in these

thoughts, do you still think that it makes any difference where you

shall be happy, where you shall please God? Are not the gods equally

distant from all places? Do they not see from all places alike that

which is going on?

AGAINST THE QUARRELSOME AND FEROCIOUS.—The wise and good man neither

himself fights with any person, nor does he allow another, so far as he

can prevent it. And an example of this as well as of all other things

is proposed to us in the life of Socrates, who not only himself on all

occasions avoided fights (quarrels), but would not allow even others to

quarrel. See in Xenophon’s Symposium how many quarrels he settled, how

further he endured Thrasymachus and Polus and Callicles; how he

tolerated his wife, and how he tolerated his son who attempted to

confute him and to cavil with him. For he remembered well that no man

has in his power another man’s ruling principle. He wished therefore

for nothing else than that which was his own. And what is this? Not

that this or that man may act according to nature, for that is a thing

which belongs to another; but that while others are doing their own

acts, as they choose, he may nevertheless be in a condition conformable

to nature and live in it, only doing what is his own to the end that

others also may be in a state conformable to nature. For this is the

object always set before him by the wise and good man. Is it to be

commander (a prætor) of an army? No; but if it is permitted him, his

object is in this matter to maintain his own ruling principle. Is it to

marry? No; but if marriage is allowed to him, in this matter his object

is to maintain himself in a condition conformable to nature. But if he

would have his son not to do wrong or his wife, he would have what

belongs to another not to belong to another: and to be instructed is

this, to learn what things are a man’s own and what belongs to another.

How then is there left any place for fighting (quarrelling) to a man

who has this opinion (which he ought to have)? Is he surprised at any

thing which happens, and does it appear new to him? Does he not expect

that which comes from the bad to be worse and more grievous than that

what actually befalls him? And does he not reckon as pure gain whatever

they (the bad) may do which falls short of extreme wickedness? Such a

person has reviled you. Great thanks to him for not having struck you.

But he has struck me also. Great thanks that he did not wound you. But

he wounded me also. Great thanks that he did not kill you. For when did

he learn or in what school that man is a tame animal, that men love one

another, that an act of injustice is a great harm to him who does it.

Since then he has not learned this and is not convinced of it, why

shall he not follow that which seems to be for his own interest? Your

neighbor has thrown stones. Have you then done anything wrong? But the

things in the house have been broken. Are you then a utensil? No; but a

free power of will. What then is given to you (to do) in answer to

this? If you are like a wolf, you must bite in return, and throw more

stones. But, if you consider what is proper for a man, examine your

storehouse, see with what faculties you came into the world. Have you

the disposition of a wild beast, have you the disposition of revenge

for an injury? When is a horse wretched? When he is deprived of his

natural faculties, not when he cannot crow like a cock, but when he

cannot run. When is a dog wretched? Not when he cannot fly, but when he

cannot track his game. Is then a man also unhappy in this way, not

because he cannot strangle lions or embrace statues, for he did not

come into the world in the possession of certain powers from nature for

this purpose, but because he has lost his probity and his fidelity?

People ought to meet and lament such a man for the misfortunes into

which he has fallen; not indeed to lament because a man has been born

or has died, but because it has happened to him in his lifetime to have

lost the things which are his own, not that which he received from his

father, not his land and house, and his inn, and his slaves; for not

one of these things is a man’s own, but all belong to others, are

servile, and subject to account ([Greek: hupeithuna]), at different

times given to different persons by those who have them in their power:

but I mean the things which belong to him as a man, the marks (stamps)

in his mind with which he came into the world, such as we seek also on

coins, and if we find them we approve of the coins, and if we do not

find the marks we reject them. What is the stamp on this sestertius?

The stamp of Trajan. Present it. It is the stamp of Nero. Throw it

away; it cannot be accepted, it is counterfeit. So also in this case:

What is the stamp of his opinions? It is gentleness, a sociable

disposition, a tolerant temper, a disposition to mutual affections.

Produce these qualities. I accept them: I consider this man a citizen,

I accept him as a neighbor, a companion in my voyages. Only see that he

has not Nero’s stamp. Is he passionate, is he full of resentment, is he

fault-finding? If the whim seizes him, does he break the heads of those

who come in his way? (If so), why then did you say that he is a man? Is

everything judged (determined) by the bare form? If that is so, say

that the form in wax is an apple and has the smell and the taste of an

apple. But the external figure is not enough: neither then is the nose

enough and the eyes to make the man, but he must have the opinions of a

man. Here is a man who does not listen to reason, who does not know

when he is refuted: he is an ass; in another man the sense of shame is

become dead: he is good for nothing, he is anything rather than a man.

This man seeks whom he may meet and kick or bite, so that he is not

even a sheep or an ass, but a kind of wild beast.

What then? would you have me to be despised?—By whom? by those who know

you? and how shall those who know you despise a man who is gentle and

modest? Perhaps you mean by those who do not know you? What is that to

you? For no other artisan cares for the opinion of those who know not

his art. But they will be more hostile to me for this reason. Why do

you say “me”? Can any man injure your will, or prevent you from using

in a natural way the appearances which are presented to you? In no way

can he. Why then are you still disturbed and why do you choose to show

yourself afraid? And why do you not come forth and proclaim that you

are at peace with all men whatever they may do, and laugh at those

chiefly who think that they can harm you? These slaves, you can say,

know not either who I am, nor where lies my good or my evil, because

they have no access to the things which are mine.

In this way also those who occupy a strong city mock the besiegers (and

say): What trouble these men are now taking for nothing; our wall is

secure, we have food for a very long time, and all other resources.

These are the things which make a city strong and impregnable; but

nothing else than his opinions makes a man’s soul impregnable. For what

wall is so strong, or what body is so hard, or what possession is so

safe, or what honor (rank, character) so free from assault (as a man’s

opinions)? All (other) things everywhere are perishable, easily taken

by assault, and if any man in any way is attached to them, he must be

disturbed, except what is bad, he must fear, lament, find his desires

disappointed, and fall into things which he would avoid. Then do we not

choose to make secure the only means of safety which are offered to us,

and do we not choose to withdraw ourselves from that which is

perishable and servile and to labor at the things which are

imperishable and by nature free; and do we not remember that no man

either hurts another or does good to another, but that a man’s opinions

about each thing, is that which hurts him, is that which overturns him;

this is fighting, this is civil discord, this is war? That which made

Eteocles and Polynices enemies was nothing else than this opinion which

they had about royal power, their opinion about exile, that the one is

the extreme of evils, the other the greatest good. Now this is the

nature of every man to seek the good, to avoid the bad; to consider him

who deprives us of the one and involves us in the other an enemy and

treacherous, even if he be a brother, or a son, or a father. For

nothing is more akin to us than the good; therefore, if these things

(externals) are good and evil, neither is a father a friend to sons,

nor a brother to a brother, but all the world is everywhere full of

enemies, treacherous men, and sycophants. But if the will ([Greek:

proairesis], the purpose, the intention) being what it ought to be, is

the only good; and if the will being such as it ought not to be, is the

only evil, where is there any strife, where is there reviling? about

what? about the things which do not concern us? and strife with whom?

with the ignorant, the unhappy, with those who are deceived about the

chief things?

Remembering this Socrates managed his own house and endured a very

ill-tempered wife and a foolish (ungrateful?) son.

AGAINST THOSE WHO LAMENT OVER BEING PITIED.—I am grieved, a man says,

at being pitied. Whether then is the fact of your being pitied a thing

which concerns you or those who pity you? Well, is it in your power to

stop this pity? It is in my power, if I show them that I do not require

pity. And whether then are you in the condition of not deserving

(requiring) pity, or are you not in that condition? I think that I am

not; but these persons do not pity me, for the things for which, if

they ought to pity me, it would be proper, I mean, for my faults; but

they pity me for my poverty, for not possessing honorable offices, for

diseases and deaths and other such things. Whether then are you

prepared to convince the many, that not one of these things is an evil,

but that it is possible for a man who is poor and has no office

([Greek: anarchonti)] and enjoys no honor to be happy; or to show

yourself to them as rich and in power? For the second of these things

belong to a man who is boastful, silly, and good for nothing. And

consider by what means the pretence must be supported. It will be

necessary for you to hire slaves and to possess a few silver vessels,

and to exhibit them in public, if it is possible, though they are often

the same, and to attempt to conceal the fact that they are the same,

and to have splendid garments, and all other things for display, and to

show that you are a man honored by the great, and to try to sup at

their houses, or to be supposed to sup there, and as to your person to

employ some mean arts, that you may appear to be more handsome and

nobler than you are. These things you must contrive, if you choose to

go by the second path in order not to be pitied. But the first way is

both impracticable and long, to attempt the very thing which Zeus has

not been able to do, to convince all men what things are good and bad.

Is this power given to you? This only is given to you, to convince

yourself; and you have not convinced yourself. Then I ask you, do you

attempt to persuade other men? and who has lived so long with you as

you with yourself? and who has so much power of convincing you as you

have of convincing yourself; and who is better disposed and nearer to

you than you are to yourself? How then have you not yet convinced

yourself in order to learn? At present are not things upside down? Is

this what you have been earnest about doing, to learn to be free from

grief and free from disturbance, and not to be humbled (abject), and to

be free? Have you not heard then that there is only one way which leads

to this end, to give up (dismiss) the things which do not depend on the

will, to withdraw from them, and to admit that they belong to others?

For another man then to have an opinion about you, of what kind is it?

It is a thing independent of the will—Then is it nothing to you? It is

nothing. When then you are still vexed at this and disturbed, do you

think that you are convinced about good and evil?

ON FREEDOM FROM FEAR.—What makes the tyrant formidable? The guards, you

say, and their swords, and the men of the bedchamber, and those who

exclude them who would enter. Why then if you bring a boy (child) to

the tyrant when he is with his guards, is he not afraid; or is it

because the child does not understand these things? If then any man

does understand what guards are and that they have swords, and comes to

the tyrant for this very purpose because he wishes to die on account of

some circumstance and seeks to die easily by the hand of another, is he

afraid of the guards? No, for he wishes for the thing which makes the

guards formidable. If then any man neither wishing to die nor to live

by all means, but only as it may be permitted, approaches the tyrant

what hinders him from approaching the tyrant without fear? Nothing. If

then a man has the same opinion about his property as the man whom I

have instanced has about his body; and also about his children and his

wife, and in a word is so affected by some madness or despair that he

cares not whether he possesses them or not, but like children who are

playing with shells (quarrel) about the play, but do not trouble

themselves about the shells, so he too has set no value on the

materials (things), but values the pleasure that he has with them and

the occupation, what tyrant is then formidable to him, or what guards

or what swords?

What hinders a man, who has clearly separated (comprehended) these

things, from living with a light heart and bearing easily the reins,

quietly expecting everything which can happen, and enduring that which

has already happened? Would you have me to bear poverty? Come and you

will know what poverty is when it has found one who can act well the

part of a poor man. Would you have me to possess power? Let me have

power, and also the trouble of it. Well, banishment? Wherever I shall

go, there it will be well with me; for here also where I am, it was not

because of the place that it was well with me, but because of my

opinions which I shall carry off with me, for neither can any man

deprive me of them; but my opinions alone are mine and they cannot be

taken from me, and I am satisfied while I have them, wherever I may be

and whatever I am doing. But now it is time to die. Why do you say to

die? Make no tragedy show of the thing, but speak of it as it is. It is

now time for the matter (of the body) to be resolved into the things

out of which it was composed. And what is the formidable thing here?

what is going to perish of the things which are in the universe? what

new thing or wondrous is going to happen? Is it for this reason that a

tyrant is formidable? Is it for this reason that the guards appear to

have swords which are large and sharp? Say this to others; but I have

considered about all these things; no man has power over me. I have

been made free; I know his commands, no man can now lead me as a slave.

I have a proper person to assert my freedom; I have proper judges. (I

say) are you not the master of my body? What then is that to me? Are

you not the master of my property? What then is that to me? Are you not

the master of my exile or of my chains? Well, from all these things and

all the poor body itself I depart at your bidding, when you please.

Make trial of your power, and you will know how far it reaches.

Whom then can I still fear? Those who are over the bedchamber? Lest

they should do, what? Shut me out? If they find that I wish to enter,

let them shut me out. Why then do you go to the doors? Because I think

it befits me, while the play (sport) lasts, to join in it. How then are

you not shut out? Because unless some one allows me to go in, I do not

choose to go in, but am always content with that which happens; for I

think that what God chooses is better than what I choose. I will attach

myself as a minister and follower to him; I have the same movements

(pursuits) as he has, I have the same desires; in a word, I have the

same will ([Greek: sunthelo]). There is no shutting out for me, but for

those who would force their way in. Why then do not I force my way in?

Because I know that nothing good is distributed within to those who

enter. But when I hear any man called fortunate because he is honored

by Cæsar, I say what does he happen to get? A province (the government

of a province). Does he also obtain an opinion such as he ought? The

office of a Prefect. Does he also obtain the power of using his office

well? Why do I still strive to enter (Cæsar’s chamber)? A man scatters

dried figs and nuts: the children seize them, and fight with one

another; men do not, for they think them to be a small matter. But if a

man should throw about shells, even the children do not seize them.

Provinces are distributed: let children look to that. Money is

distributed; let children look to that. Prætorships, consulships, are

distributed; let children scramble for them, let them be shut out,

beaten, kiss the hands of the giver, of the slaves: but to me these are

only dried figs and nuts. What then? If you fail to get them, while

Cæsar is scattering them about, do not be troubled; if a dried fig come

into your lap, take it and eat it; for so far you may value even a fig.

But if I shall stoop down and turn another over, or be turned over by

another, and shall flatter those who have got into (Cæsar’s) chamber,

neither is a dried fig worth the trouble, nor anything else of the

things which are not good, which the philosophers have persuaded me not

to think good.

TO A PERSON WHO HAD BEEN CHANGED TO A CHARACTER OF SHAMELESSNESS.—When

you see another man in the possession of power (magistracy), set

against this the fact that you have not the want (desire) of power;

when you see another rich, see what you possess in place of riches: for

if you possess nothing in place of them, you are miserable; but if you

have not the want of riches, know that you possess more than this man

possesses and what is worth much more.

WHAT THINGS WE OUGHT TO DESPISE AND WHAT THINGS WE OUGHT TO VALUE.—The

difficulties of all men are about external things, their helplessness

is about external. What shall I do? how will it be? how will it turn

out? will this happen? will that? All these are the words of those who

are turning themselves to things which are not within the power of the

will. For who says, How shall I not assent to that which is false? how

shall I not turn away from the truth? If a man be of such a good

disposition as to be anxious about these things I will remind him of

this: Why are you anxious? The thing is in your own power, be assured;

do not be precipitate in assenting before you apply the natural rule.

On the other side, if a man is anxious (uneasy) about desire, lest it

fail in its purpose and miss its end, and with respect to the avoidance

of things, lest he should fall into that which he would avoid, I will

first kiss (love) him, because he throws away the things about which

others are in a flutter (others desire) and their fears, and employs

his thoughts about his own affairs and his own condition. Then I shall

say to him: If you do not choose to desire that which you will fail to

obtain nor to attempt to avoid that into which you will fall, desire

nothing which belongs to (which is in the power of) others, nor try to

avoid any of the things which are not in your power. If you do not

observe this rule, you must of necessity fail in your desires and fall

into that which you would avoid. What is the difficulty here? where is

there room for the words How will it be? and How will it turn out? and

Will this happen or that?

Now is not that which will happen independent of the will? Yes. And the

nature of good and of evil, is it not in the things which are within

the power of the will? Yes. Is it in your power then to treat according

to nature everything which happens? Can any person hinder you? No man.

No longer then say to me, How will it be? For, however it may be, you

will dispose of it well, and the result to you will be a fortunate one.

What would Hercules have been if he said: How shall a great lion not

appear to me, or a great boar, or savage men? And what do you care for

that? If a great boar appear, you will fight a greater fight; if bad

men appear, you will relieve the earth of the bad. Suppose then that I

lose my life in this way. You will die a good man, doing a noble act.

For since he must certainly die, of necessity a man must be found doing

something, either following the employment of a husbandman, or digging,

or trading, or serving in a consulship, or suffering from indigestion

or from diarrhoea. What then do you wish to be doing when you are found

by death? I, for my part, would wish to be found doing something which

belongs to a man, beneficent, suitable to the general interest, noble.

But if I cannot be found doing things so great, I would be found doing

at least that which I cannot be hindered from doing, that which is

permitted me to do, correcting myself, cultivating the faculty which

makes use of appearances, laboring at freedom from the affects

(laboring at tranquillity of mind); rendering to the relations of life

their due. If I succeed so far, also (I would be found) touching on

(advancing to) the third topic (or head) safety in forming judgments

about things. If death surprises me when I am busy about these things,

it is enough for me if I can stretch out my hands to God and say: The

means which I have received from thee for seeing thy administration (of

the world) and following it I have not neglected; I have not dishonored

thee by my acts; see how I have used my perceptions, see how I have

used my preconceptions; have I ever blamed thee? have I been

discontented with anything that happens, or wished it to be otherwise?

have I wished to transgress the (established) relations (of things)?

That thou hast given me life, I thank thee for what thou hast given. So

long as I have used the things which are thine I am content. Take them

back and place them wherever thou mayest choose, for thine were all

things, thou gavest them to me. Is it not enough to depart in this

state of mind? and what life is better and more becoming than that of a

man who is in this state of mind? and what end is more happy?

ABOUT PURITY (CLEANLINESS).—Some persons raise a question whether the

social feeling is contained in the nature of man; and yet I think that

these same persons would have no doubt that love of purity is certainly

contained in it, and that if man is distinguished from other animals by

anything, he is distinguished by this. When then we see any other

animal cleaning itself, we are accustomed to speak of the act with

surprise, and to add that the animal is acting like a man; and on the

other hand, if a man blames an animal for being dirty, straightway, as

if we were making an excuse for it, we say that of course the animal is

not a human creature. So we suppose that there is something superior in

man, and that we first receive it from the gods. For since the gods by

their nature are pure and free from corruption, so far as men approach

them by reason, so far do they cling to purity and to a love (habit) of

purity. But since it is impossible that man’s nature ([Greek: ousia])

can be altogether pure, being mixed (composed) of such materials,

reason is applied, as far as it is possible, and reason endeavors to

make human nature love purity.

The first then and highest purity is that which is in the soul; and we

say the same of impurity. Now you could not discover the impurity of

the soul as you could discover that of the body; but as to the soul,

what else could you find in it than that which makes it filthy in

respect to the acts which are her own? Now the acts of the soul are

movement towards an object or movement from it, desire, aversion,

preparation, design (purpose), assent. What then is it which in these

acts makes the soul filthy and impure? Nothing else than her own bad

judgments ([Greek: chrimata]). Consequently the impurity of the soul is

the soul’s bad opinions; and the purification of the soul is the

planting in it of proper opinions; and the soul is pure which has

proper opinions, for the soul alone in her own acts is free from

perturbation and pollution.

For we ought not even by the appearance of the body to deter the

multitude from philosophy; but as in other things, a philosopher should

show himself cheerful and tranquil, so also he should in the things

that relate to the body. See, ye men, that I have nothing, that I want

nothing; see how I am without a house, and without a city, and an

exile, if it happens to be so, and without a hearth I live more free

from trouble and more happily than all of noble birth and than the

rich. But look at my poor body also and observe that it is not injured

by my hard way of living. But if a man says this to me, who has the

appearance (dress) and face of a condemned man, what god shall persuade

me to approach philosophy, if it makes men such persons? Far from it; I

would not choose to do so, even if I were going to become a wise man. I

indeed would rather that a young man, who is making his first movements

towards philosophy, should come to me with his hair carefully trimmed

than with it dirty and rough, for there is seen in him a certain notion

(appearance) of beauty and a desire of (attempt at) that which is

becoming; and where he supposes it to be, there also he strives that it

shall be. It is only necessary to show him (what it is), and to say:

Young man, you seek beauty, and you do well; you must know then that it

(is produced) grows in that part of you where you have the rational

faculty; seek it there where you have the movements towards and

movements from things, where you have the desires towards and the

aversion from things; for this is what you have in yourself of a

superior kind; but the poor body is naturally only earth; why do you

labor about it to no purpose? if you shall learn nothing else, you will

learn from time that the body is nothing. But if a man comes to me

daubed with filth, dirty, with a moustache down to his knees, what can

I say to him, by what kind of resemblance can I lead him on? For about

what has he busied himself which resembles beauty, that I may be able

to change him and say, Beauty is not in this, but in that? Would you

have me to tell him, that beauty consists not in being daubed with

muck, but that it lies in the rational part? Has he any desire of

beauty? has he any form of it in his mind? Go and talk to a hog, and

tell him not to roll in the mud.

ON ATTENTION.—When you have remitted your attention for a short time,

do not imagine this, that you will recover it when you choose; but let

this thought be present to you, that in consequence of the fault

committed today your affairs must be in a worse condition for all that

follows. For first, and what causes most trouble, a habit of not

attending is formed in you; then a habit of deferring your attention.

And continually from time to time you drive away by deferring it the

happiness of life, proper behavior, the being and living conformably to

nature. If then the procrastination of attention is profitable, the

complete omission of attention is more profitable; but if it is not

profitable, why do you not maintain your attention constant? Today I

choose to play. Well then, ought you not to play with attention? I

choose to sing. What then hinders you from doing so with attention? Is

there any part of life excepted, to which attention does not extend?

For will you do it (anything in life) worse by using attention, and

better by not attending at all? And what else of the things in life is

done better by those who do not use attention? Does he who works in

wood work better by not attending to it? Does the captain of a ship

manage it better by not attending? and are any of the smaller acts done

better by inattention? Do you not see that when you have let your mind

loose, it is no longer in your power to recall it, either to propriety,

or to modesty, or to moderation; but you do everything that comes into

your mind in obedience to your inclinations.

First then we ought to have these (rules) in readiness, and to do

nothing without them, and we ought to keep the soul directed to this

mark, to pursue nothing external, and nothing which belongs to others

(or is in the power of others), but to do as he has appointed who has

the power; we ought to pursue altogether the things which are in the

power of the will, and all other things as it is permitted. Next to

this we ought to remember who we are, and what is our name, and to

endeavor to direct our duties towards the character (nature) of our

several relations (in life) in this manner: what is the season for

singing, what is the season for play, and in whose presence; what will

be the consequence of the act; whether our associates will despise us,

whether we shall despise them; when to jeer ([Greek: schopsai]), and

whom to ridicule; and on what occasion to comply and with whom; and

finally, in complying how to maintain our own character. But wherever

you have deviated from any of these rules, there is damage immediately,

not from anything external, but from the action itself.

What then? is it possible to be free from faults (if you do all this)?

It is not possible; but this is possible, to direct your efforts

incessantly to being faultless. For we must be content if by never

remitting this attention we shall escape at least a few errors. But now

when you have said, Tomorrow I will begin to attend, you must be told

that you are saying this, Today I will be shameless, disregardful of

time and place, mean; it will be in the power of others to give me

pain; today I will be passionate and envious. See how many evil things

you are permitting yourself to do. If it is good to use attention

tomorrow, how much better is it to do so today? if tomorrow it is in

your interest to attend, much more is it today, that you may be able to

do so tomorrow also, and may not defer it again to the third day.

AGAINST OR TO THOSE WHO READILY TELL THEIR OWN AFFAIRS.—When a man has

seemed to us to have talked with simplicity (candor) about his own

affairs, how is it that at last we are ourselves also induced to

discover to him our own secrets and we think this to be candid

behavior? In the first place, because it seems unfair for a man to have

listened to the affairs of his neighbor, and not to communicate to him

also in turn our own affairs; next, because we think that we shall not

present to them the appearance of candid men when we are silent about

our own affairs. Indeed, men are often accustomed to say, I have told

you all my affairs, will you tell me nothing of your own? where is this

done? Besides, we have also this opinion that we can safely trust him

who has already told us his own affairs; for the notion rises in our

mind that this man could never divulge our affairs because he would be

cautious that we also should not divulge his. In this way also the

incautious are caught by the soldiers at Rome. A soldier sits by you in

a common dress and begins to speak ill of Cæsar; then you, as if you

had received a pledge of his fidelity by his having begun the abuse,

utter yourself also what you think, and then you are carried off in

chains.

Something of this kind happens to us also generally. Now as this man

has confidently intrusted his affairs to me, shall I also do so to any

man whom I meet? (No), for when I have heard, I keep silence, if I am

of such a disposition; but he goes forth and tells all men what he has

heard. Then, if I hear what has been done, if I be a man like him, I

resolve to be revenged, I divulge what he has told me; I both disturb

others, and am disturbed myself. But if I remember that one man does

not injure another, and that every man’s acts injure and profit him, I

secure this, that I do not anything like him, but still I suffer what I

do suffer through my own silly talk.

True, but it is unfair when you have heard the secrets of your neighbor

for you in your turn to communicate nothing to him. Did I ask you for

your secrets, my man? did you communicate your affairs on certain

terms, that you should in return hear mine also? If you are a babbler

and think that all who meet you are friends, do you wish me also to be

like you? But why, if you did well in intrusting your affairs to me,

and it is not well for me to intrust mine to you, do you wish me to be

so rash? It is just the same as if I had a cask which is water-tight,

and you one with a hole in it, and you should come and deposit with me

your wine that I might put it into my cask, and then should complain

that I also did not intrust my wine to you, for you have a cask with a

hole in it. How then is there any equality here? You intrusted your

affairs to a man who is faithful and modest, to a man who thinks that

his own actions alone are injurious and (or) useful, and that nothing

external is. Would you have me intrust mine to you, a man who has

dishonored his own faculty of will, and who wishes to gain some small

bit of money or some office or promotion in the court (emperor’s

palace), even if you should be going to murder your own children, like

Medea? Where (in what) is this equality (fairness)? But show yourself

to me to be faithful, modest, and steady; show me that you have

friendly opinions; show that your cask has no hole in it; and you will

see how I shall not wait for you to trust me with your own affairs, but

I myself shall come to you and ask you to hear mine. For who does not

choose to make use of a good vessel? Who does not value a benevolent

and faithful adviser? Who will not willingly receive a man who is ready

to bear a share, as we may say, of the difficulty of his circumstances,

and by this very act to ease the burden, by taking a part of it.

THE ENCHEIRIDION, OR MANUAL.

I.

Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are

opinion ([Greek: hupolaepsis]), movement towards a thing ([Greek:

hormae]), desire, aversion ([Greek: echchlisis]), turning from a thing;

and in a word, whatever are our acts. Not in our power are the body,

property, reputation, offices (magisterial power), and in a word,

whatever are not our own acts. And the things in our power are by

nature free, not subject to restraint or hindrance; but the things not

in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, in the power of

others. Remember then, that if you think the things which are by nature

slavish to be free, and the things which are in the power of others to

be your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be

disturbed, you will blame both gods and men; but if you think that only

which is your own to be your own, and if you think that what is

another’s, as it really is, belongs to another, no man will ever compel

you, no man will hinder you, you will never blame any man, you will

accuse no man, you will do nothing involuntarily (against your will),

no man will harm you, you will have no enemy, for you will not suffer

any harm.

If then you desire (aim at) such great things remember that you must

not (attempt to) lay hold of them with a small effort; but you must

leave alone some things entirely, and postpone others for the present.

But if you wish for these things also (such great things), and power

(office) and wealth, perhaps you will not gain even these very things

(power and wealth) because you aim also at those former things (such

great things); certainly you will fail in those things through which

alone happiness and freedom are secured. Straightway then practise

saying to every harsh appearance: You are an appearance, and in no

manner what you appear to be. Then examine it by the rules which you

possess, and by this first and chiefly, whether it relates to the

things which are in our power or to things which are not in our power;

and if it relates to anything which is not in our power, be ready to

say that it does not concern you.

II.

Remember that desire contains in it the profession (hope) of obtaining

that which you desire; and the profession (hope) in aversion (turning

from a thing) is that you will not fall into that which you attempt to

avoid; and he who fails in his desire is unfortunate; and he who falls

into that which he would avoid is unhappy. If then you attempt to avoid

only the things contrary to nature which are within your power you will

not be involved in any of the things which you would avoid. But if you

attempt to avoid disease, or death, or poverty, you will be unhappy.

Take away then aversion from all things which are not in our power, and

transfer it to the things contrary to nature which are in our power.

But destroy desire completely for the present. For if you desire

anything which is not in our power, you must be unfortunate; but of the

things in our power, and which it would be good to desire, nothing yet

is before you. But employ only the power of moving towards an object

and retiring from it; and these powers indeed only slightly and with

exceptions and with remission.

III.

In everything which pleases the soul, or supplies a want, or is loved,

remember to add this to the (description, notion): What is the nature

of each thing, beginning from the smallest? If you love an earthen

vessel, say it is an earthen vessel which you love; for when it has

been broken you will not be disturbed. If you are kissing your child or

wife, say that it is a human being whom you are kissing, for when the

wife or child dies you will not be disturbed.

IV.

When you are going to take in hand any act remind yourself what kind of

an act it is. If you are going to bathe, place before yourself what

happens in the bath; some splashing the water, others pushing against

one another, others abusing one another, and some stealing; and thus

with more safety you will undertake the matter, if you say to yourself,

I now intend to bathe, and to maintain my will in a manner conformable

to nature. And so you will do in every act; for thus if any hindrance

to bathing shall happen let this thought be ready. It was not this only

that I intended, but I intended also to maintain my will in a way

conformable to nature; but I shall not maintain it so if I am vexed at

what happens.

V.

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions

about the things; for example, death is nothing terrible, for if it

were it would have seemed so to Socrates; for the opinion about death

that it is terrible, is the terrible thing. When then we are impeded,

or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame others, but ourselves—that

is, our opinions. It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame

others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to

be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose

instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

VI.

Be not elated at any advantage (excellence) which belongs to another.

If a horse when he is elated should say, I am beautiful, one might

endure it. But when you are elated, and say, I have a beautiful horse,

you must know that you are elated at having a good horse. What then is

your own? The use of appearances. Consequently when in the use of

appearances you are conformable to nature, then be elated, for then you

will be elated at something good which is your own.

VII.

As on a voyage when the vessel has reached a port, if you go out to get

water it is an amusement by the way to pick up a shellfish or some

bulb, but your thoughts ought to be directed to the ship, and you ought

to be constantly watching if the captain should call, and then you must

throw away all those things, that you may not be bound and pitched into

the ship like sheep. So in life also, if there be given to you instead

of a little bulb and a shell a wife and child, there will be nothing to

prevent (you from taking them). But if the captain should call, run to

the ship and leave all those things without regard to them. But if you

are old, do not even go far from the ship, lest when you are called you

make default.

VIII.

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but

wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a

tranquil flow of life.

IX.

Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the

will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to

the will. And add this reflection on the occasion of everything that

happens; for you will find it an impediment to something else, but not

to yourself.

X.

On the occasion of every accident (event) that befalls you, remember to

turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

If you see a fair man or a fair woman, you will find that the power to

resist is temperance (continence). If labor (pain) be presented to you,

you will find that it is endurance. If it be abusive words, you will

find it to be patience. And if you have been thus formed to the

(proper) habit, the appearances will not carry you along with them.

XI.

Never say about anything, I have lost it, but say I have restored it.

Is your child dead? It has been restored. Is your wife dead? She has

been restored. Has your estate been taken from you? Has not then this

also been restored? But he who has taken it from me is a bad man. But

what is it to you, by whose hands the giver demanded it back? So long

as he may allow you, take care of it as a thing which belongs to

another, as travellers do with their inn.

XII.

If you intend to improve, throw away such thoughts as these: if I

neglect my affairs, I shall not have the means of living: unless I

chastise my slave, he will be bad. For it is better to die of hunger

and so to be released from grief and fear than to live in abundance

with perturbation; and it is better for your slave to be bad than for

you to be unhappy. Begin then from little things. Is the oil spilled?

Is a little wine stolen? Say on the occasion, at such price is sold

freedom from perturbation; at such price is sold tranquillity, but

nothing is got for nothing. And when you call your slave, consider that

it is possible that he does not hear; and if he does hear, that he will

do nothing which you wish. But matters are not so well with him, but

altogether well with you, that it should be in his power for you to be

not disturbed.

XIII.

If you would improve, submit to be considered without sense and foolish

with respect to externals. Wish to be considered to know nothing; and

if you shall seem to some to be a person of importance, distrust

yourself. For you should know that it is not easy both to keep your

will in a condition conformable to nature and (to secure) external

things: but if a man is careful about the one, it is an absolute

necessity that he will neglect the other.

XIV.

If you would have your children and your wife and your friends to live

for ever, you are silly; for you would have the things which are not in

your power to be in your power, and the things which belong to others

to be yours. So if you would have your slave to be free from faults,

you are a fool; for you would have badness not to be badness, but

something else. But if you wish not to fail in your desires, you are

able to do that. Practise then this which you are able to do. He is the

master of every man who has the power over the things which another

person wishes or does not wish, the power to confer them on him or to

take them away. Whoever then wishes to be free let him neither wish for

anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not

observe this rule, he must be a slave.

XV.

Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a banquet. Suppose that

something is carried round and is opposite to you. Stretch out your

hand and take a portion with decency. Suppose that it passes by you. Do

not detain it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you. Do not send your

desire forward to it, but wait till it is opposite to you. Do so with

respect to children, so with respect to a wife, so with respect to

magisterial offices, so with respect to wealth, and you will be some

time a worthy partner of the banquets of the gods. But if you take none

of the things which are set before you, and even despise them, then you

will be not only a fellow banqueter with the gods, but also a partner

with them in power. For by acting thus Diogenes and Heracleitus and

those like them were deservedly divine, and were so called.

XVI.

When you see a person weeping in sorrow either when a child goes abroad

or when he is dead, or when the man has lost his property, take care

that the appearance do not hurry you away with it, as if he were

suffering in external things. But straightway make a distinction in

your own mind, and be in readiness to say, it is not that which has

happened that afflicts this man, for it does not afflict another, but

it is the opinion about this thing which afflicts the man. So far as

words then do not be unwilling to show him sympathy, and even if it

happens so, to lament with him. But take care that you do not lament

internally also.

XVII.

Remember that thou art an actor in a play, of such a kind as the

teacher (author) may choose; if short, of a short one; if long, of a

long one: if he wishes you to act the part of a poor man, see that you

act the part naturally; if the part of a lame man, of a magistrate, of

a private person, (do the same). For this is your duty, to act well the

part that is given to you; but to select the part, belongs to another.

XVIII.

When a raven has croaked inauspiciously, let not the appearance hurry

you away with it; but straightway make a distinction in your mind and

say, None of these things is signified to me, but either to my poor

body, or to my small property, or to my reputation, or to my children,

or to my wife: but to me all significations are auspicious if I choose.

For whatever of these things results, it is in my power to derive

benefit from it.

XIX.

You can be invincible, if you enter into no contest in which it is not

in your power to conquer. Take care then when you observe a man honored

before others or possessed of great power or highly esteemed for any

reason, not to suppose him happy, and be not carried away by the

appearance. For if the nature of the good is in our power, neither envy

nor jealousy will have a place in us. But you yourself will not wish to

be a general or senator ([Greek: prutanis]) or consul, but a free man:

and there is only one way to this, to despise (care not for) the things

which are not in our power.

XX.

Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults

you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When

then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion

which has irritated you. Therefore especially try not to be carried

away by the appearance. For if you once gain time and delay, you will

more easily master yourself.

XXI.

Let death and exile and every other thing which appears dreadful be

daily before your eyes; but most of all death: and you will never think

of anything mean nor will you desire anything extravagantly.

XXII.

If you desire philosophy, prepare yourself from the beginning to be

ridiculed, to expect that many will sneer at you, and say, He has all

at once returned to us as a philosopher; and whence does he get this

supercilious look for us? Do you not show a supercilious look; but hold

on to the things which seem to you best as one appointed by God to this

station. And remember that if you abide in the same principles, these

men who first ridiculed will afterwards admire you; but if you shall

have been overpowered by them, you will bring on yourself double

ridicule.

XXIII.

If it should ever happen to you to be turned to externals in order to

please some person, you must know that you have lost your purpose in

life. Be satisfied then in everything with being a philosopher; and if

you wish to seem also to any person to be a philosopher, appear so to

yourself, and you will be able to do this.

XXIV.

Let not these thoughts afflict you, I shall live unhonored and be

nobody nowhere. For if want of honor ([Greek: atimia]) is an evil, you

cannot be in evil through the means (fault) of another any more than

you can be involved in anything base. Is it then your business to

obtain the rank of a magistrate, or to be received at a banquet? By no

means. How then can this be want of honor (dishonor)? And how will you

be nobody nowhere, when you ought to be somebody in those things only

which are in your power, in which indeed it is permitted to you to be a

man of the greatest worth? But your friends will be without assistance!

What do you mean by being without assistance? They will not receive

money from you, nor will you make them Roman citizens. Who then told

you that these are among the things which are in our power, and not in

the power of others? And who can give to another what he has not

himself? Acquire money then, your friends say, that we also may have

something. If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest and

faithful and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it. But

if you ask me to lose the things which are good and my own, in order

that you may gain the things which are not good, see how unfair and

silly you are. Besides, which would you rather have, money or a

faithful and modest friend? For this end then rather help me to be such

a man, and do not ask me to do this by which I shall lose that

character. But my country, you say, as far as it depends on me, will be

without my help. I ask again, what help do you mean? It will not have

porticos or baths through you. And what does this mean? For it is not

furnished with shoes by means of a smith, nor with arms by means of a

shoemaker. But it is enough if every man fully discharges the work that

is his own: and if you provided it with another citizen faithful and

modest, would you not be useful to it? Yes. Then you also cannot be

useless to it. What place then, you say, shall I hold in the city?

Whatever you can, if you maintain at the same time your fidelity and

modesty. But if when you wish to be useful to the state, you shall lose

these qualities, what profit could you be to it, if you were made

shameless and faithless?

XXV.

Has any man been preferred before you at a banquet, or in being

saluted, or in being invited to a consultation? If these things are

good, you ought to rejoice that he has obtained them; but if bad, be

not grieved because you have not obtained them. And remember that you

cannot, if you do not the same things in order to obtain what is not in

our own power, be considered worthy of the same (equal) things. For how

can a man obtain an equal share with another when he does not visit a

man’s doors as that other man does; when he does not attend him when he

goes abroad, as the other man does; when he does not praise (flatter)

him as another does? You will be unjust then and insatiable, if you do

not part with the price, in return for which those things are sold, and

if you wish to obtain them for nothing. Well, what is the price of

lettuces? An obolus perhaps. If then a man gives up the obolus, and

receives the lettuces, and if you do not give up the obolus and do not

obtain the lettuces, do not suppose that you receive less than he who

has got the lettuces; for as he has the lettuces, so you have the

obolus which you did not give. In the same way then in the other matter

also you have not been invited to a man’s feast, for you did not give

to the host the price at which the supper is sold; but he sells it for

praise (flattery), he sells it for personal attention. Give then the

price, if it is for your interest, for which it is sold. But if you

wish both not to give the price and to obtain the things, you are

insatiable and silly. Have you nothing then in place of the supper? You

have indeed, you have the not flattering of him, whom you did not

choose to flatter; you have the not enduring of the man when he enters

the room.

XXVI.

We may learn the wish (will) of nature from the things in which we do

not differ from one another: for instance, when your neighbor’s slave

has broken his cup, or anything else, we are ready to say forthwith,

that it is one of the things which happen. You must know then that when

your cup also is broken, you ought to think as you did when your

neighbor’s cup was broken. Transfer this reflection to greater things

also. Is another man’s child or wife dead? There is no one who would

not say, This is an event incident to man. But when a man’s own child

or wife is dead, forthwith he calls out, Woe to me, how wretched I am!

But we ought to remember how we feel when we hear that it has happened

to others.

XXVII.

As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing the aim, so neither

does the nature of evil exist in the world.

XXVIII.

If any person was intending to put your body in the power of any man

whom you fell in with on the way, you would be vexed; but that you put

your understanding in the power of any man whom you meet, so that if he

should revile you, it is disturbed and troubled, are you not ashamed at

this?

XXIX.

In every act observe the things which come first, and those which

follow it; and so proceed to the act. If you do not, at first you will

approach it with alacrity, without having thought of the things which

will follow; but afterwards, when certain base (ugly) things have shown

themselves, you will be ashamed. A man wishes to conquer at the Olympic

games. I also wish indeed, for it is a fine thing. But observe both the

things which come first, and the things which follow; and then begin

the act. You must do everything according to rule, eat according to

strict orders, abstain from delicacies, exercise yourself as you are

bid at appointed times, in heat, in cold, you must not drink cold

water, nor wine as you choose; in a word, you must deliver yourself up

to the exercise master as you do to the physician, and then proceed to

the contest. And sometimes you will strain the hand, put the ankle out

of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this

be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go

to the contest: if you do not you will behave like children, who at one

time play at wrestlers, another time as flute players, again as

gladiators, then as trumpeters, then as tragic actors. So you also will

be at one time an athlete, at another a gladiator, then a rhetorician,

then a philosopher, but with your whole soul you will be nothing at

all; but like an ape you imitate everything that you see, and one thing

after another pleases you. For you have not undertaken anything with

consideration, nor have you surveyed it well; but carelessly and with

cold desire. Thus some who have seen a philosopher and having heard one

speak, as Euphrates speaks—and who can speak as he does?—they wish to

be philosophers themselves also. My man, first of all consider what

kind of thing it is; and then examine your own nature, if you are able

to sustain the character. Do you wish to be a pentathlete or a

wrestler? Look at your arms, your thighs, examine your loins. For

different men are formed by nature for different things. Do you think

that if you do these things, you can eat in the same manner, drink in

the same manner, and in the same manner loathe certain things? You must

pass sleepless nights, endure toil, go away from your kinsmen, be

despised by a slave, in everything have the inferior part, in honor, in

office, in the courts of justice, in every little matter. Consider

these things, if you would exchange for them, freedom from passions,

liberty, tranquillity. If not, take care that, like little children,

you be not now a philosopher, then a servant of the publicani, then a

rhetorician, then a procurator (manager) for Cæsar. These things are

not consistent. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must

either cultivate your own ruling faculty, or external things. You must

either exercise your skill on internal things or on external things;

that is you must either maintain the position of a philosopher or that

of a common person.

XXX.

Duties are universally measured by relations ([Greek: tais schsesi]).

Is a man a father? The precept is to take care of him, to yield to him

in all things, to submit when he is reproachful, when he inflicts

blows. But suppose that he is a bad father. Were you then by nature

made akin to a good father? No; but to a father. Does a brother wrong

you? Maintain then your own position towards him, and do not examine

what he is doing, but what you must do that your will shall be

conformable to nature. For another will not damage you, unless you

choose: but you will be damaged then when you shall think that you are

damaged. In this way then you will discover your duty from the relation

of a neighbor, from that of a citizen, from that of a general, if you

are accustomed to contemplate the relations.

XXXI.

As to piety towards the gods you must know that this is the chief

thing, to have right opinions about them, to think that they exist, and

that they administer the All well and justly; and you must fix yourself

in this principle (duty), to obey them, and to yield to them in

everything which happens, and voluntarily to follow it as being

accomplished by the wisest intelligence. For if you do so, you will

never either blame the gods, nor will you accuse them of neglecting

you. And it is not possible for this to be done in any other way than

by withdrawing from the things which are not in our power, and by

placing the good and the evil only in those things which are in our

power. For if you think that any of the things which are not in our

power is good or bad, it is absolutely necessary that, when you do not

obtain what you wish, and when you fall into those things which you do

not wish, you will find fault and hate those who are the cause of them;

for every animal is formed by nature to this, to fly from and to turn

from the things which appear harmful and the things which are the cause

of the harm, but to follow and admire the things which are useful and

the causes of the useful. It is impossible then for a person who thinks

that he is harmed to be delighted with that which he thinks to be the

cause of the harm, as it is also impossible to be pleased with the harm

itself. For this reason also a father is reviled by his son, when he

gives no part to his son of the things which are considered to be good;

and it was this which made Polynices and Eteocles enemies, the opinion

that royal power was a good. It is for this reason that the cultivator

of the earth reviles the gods, for this reason the sailor does, and the

merchant, and for this reason those who lose their wives and their

children. For where the useful (your interest) is, there also piety is.

Consequently he who takes care to desire as he ought and to avoid

([Greek: echchlinein]) as he ought, at the same time also cares after

piety. But to make libations and to sacrifice and to offer first-fruits

according to the custom of our fathers, purely and not meanly nor

carelessly nor scantily nor above our ability, is a thing which belongs

to all to do.

XXXII.

When you have recourse to divination, remember that you do not know how

it will turn out, but that you are come to inquire from the diviner.

But of what kind it is, you know when you come, if indeed you are a

philosopher. For if it is any of the things which are not in our power,

it is absolutely necessary that it must be neither good nor bad. Do not

then bring to the diviner desire or aversion ([Greek: echchlinein]): if

you do, you will approach him with fear. But having determined in your

mind that everything which shall turn out (result) is indifferent, and

does not concern you, and whatever it may be, for it will be in your

power to use it well, and no man will hinder this, come then with

confidence to the gods as your advisers. And then when any advice shall

have been given, remember whom you have taken as advisers, and whom you

will have neglected, if you do not obey them. And go to divination, as

Socrates said that you ought, about those matters in which all the

inquiry has reference to the result, and in which means are not given

either by reason nor by any other art for knowing the thing which is

the subject of the inquiry. Wherefore when we ought to share a friend’s

danger, or that of our country, you must not consult the diviner

whether you ought to share it. For even if the diviner shall tell you

that the signs of the victims are unlucky, it is plain that this is a

token of death, or mutilation of part of the body, or of exile. But

reason prevails, that even with these risks, we should share the

dangers of our friend, and of our country. Therefore attend to the

greater diviner, the Pythian god, who ejected from the temple him who

did not assist his friend, when he was being murdered.

XXXIII.

Immediately prescribe some character and some form to yourself, which

you shall observe both when you are alone and when you meet with men.

And let silence be the general rule, or let only what is necessary be

said, and in few words. And rarely, and when the occasion calls, we

shall say something; but about none of the common subjects, not about

gladiators, nor horse-races, nor about athletes, nor about eating or

drinking, which are the usual subjects; and especially not about men,

as blaming them or praising them, or comparing them. If then you are

able, bring over by your conversation, the conversation of your

associates, to that which is proper; but if you should happen to be

confined to the company of strangers, be silent.

Let not your laughter be much, nor on many occasions, nor excessive.

Refuse altogether to take an oath, if it is possible; if it is not,

refuse as far as you are able.

Avoid banquets which are given by strangers and by ignorant persons.

But if ever there is occasion to join in them, let your attention be

carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manners of the vulgar (the

uninstructed). For you must know, that if your companion be impure, he

also who keeps company with him must become impure, though he should

happen to be pure.

Take (apply) the things which relate to the body as far as the bare

use, as food, drink, clothing, house, and slaves; but exclude

everything which is for show or luxury.

As to pleasure with women, abstain as far as you can before marriage;

but if you do indulge in it, do it in the way which is conformable to

custom. Do not however be disagreeable to those who indulge in these

pleasures, or reprove them; and do not often boast that you do not

indulge in them yourself.

If a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you,

do not make any defence (answer) to what has been told you; but reply,

The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have

mentioned these only.

It is not necessary to go to the theatres often: but if there is ever a

proper occasion for going, do not show yourself as being a partisan of

any man except yourself, that is, desire only that to be done which is

done, and for him only to gain the prize who gains the prize; for in

this way you will meet with no hindrance. But abstain entirely from

shouts and laughter at any (thing or person), or violent emotions. And

when you are come away, do not talk much about what has passed on the

stage, except about that which may lead to your own improvement. For it

is plain, if you do talk much, that you admired the spectacle (more

than you ought).

Do not go to the hearing of certain persons’ recitations, nor visit

them readily. But if you do attend, observe gravity and sedateness, and

also avoid making yourself disagreeable.

When you are going to meet with any person, and particularly one of

those who are considered to be in a superior condition, place before

yourself what Socrates or Zeno would have done in such circumstances,

and you will have no difficulty in making a proper use of the occasion.

When you are going to any of those who are in great power, place before

yourself that you will not find the man at home, that you will be

excluded, that the door will not be opened to you, that the man will

not care about you. And if with all this it is your duty to visit him,

bear what happens, and never say to yourself that it was not worth the

trouble. For this is silly, and marks the character of a man who is

offended by externals.

In company take care not to speak much and excessively about your own

acts or dangers; for as it is pleasant to you to make mention of your

own dangers, it is not so pleasant to others to hear what has happened

to you. Take care also not to provoke laughter; for this is a slippery

way towards vulgar habits, and is also adapted to diminish the respect

of your neighbors. It is a dangerous habit also to approach obscene

talk. When then, anything of this kind happens, if there is a good

opportunity, rebuke the man who has proceeded to this talk; but if

there is not an opportunity, by your silence at least, and blushing and

expression of dissatisfaction by your countenance, show plainly that

you are displeased at such talk.

XXXIV.

If you have received the impression ([Greek: phantasion]) of any

pleasure, guard yourself against being carried away by it; but let the

thing wait for you, and allow yourself a certain delay on your own

part. Then think of both times, of the time when you will enjoy the

pleasure, and of the time after the enjoyment of the pleasure, when you

will repent and will reproach yourself. And set against these things

how you will rejoice, if you have abstained from the pleasure, and how

you will commend yourself. But if it seem to you seasonable to

undertake (do) the thing, take care that the charm of it, and the

pleasure, and the attraction of it shall not conquer you; but set on

the other side the consideration, how much better it is to be conscious

that you have gained this victory.

XXXV.

When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it,

never avoid being seen doing it, though the many shall form an

unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid

doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who

shall find fault wrongly?

XXXVI.

As the proposition, it is either day, or it is night, is of great

importance for the disjunctive argument, but for the conjunctive, is of

no value, so in a symposium (entertainment) to select the larger share

is of great value for the body, but for the maintenance of the social

feeling is worth nothing. When, then, you are eating with another,

remember, to look not only to the value for the body of the things set

before you, but also to the value of the behavior towards the host

which ought to be observed.

XXXVII.

If you have assumed a character above your strength, you have both

acted in this manner in an unbecoming way, and you have neglected that

which you might have fulfilled.

XXXVIII.

In walking about, as you take care not to step on a nail, or to sprain

your foot, so take care not to damage your own ruling faculty; and if

we observe this rule in every act, we shall undertake this act with

more security.

XXXIX.

The measure of possession (property) is to every man the body, as the

foot is of the shoe. If then you stand on this rule (the demands of the

body), you will maintain the measure; but if you pass beyond it, you

must then of necessity be hurried as it were down a precipice. As also

in the matter of the shoe, if you go beyond the (necessities of the)

foot, the shoe is gilded, then of a purple color, then embroidered; for

there is no limit to that which has once passed the true measure.

XL.

Women forthwith from the age of fourteen are called by the men

mistresses ([Greek: churiai], dominæ). Therefore, since they see that

there is nothing else that they can obtain, but only the power of lying

with men, they begin to decorate themselves, and to place all their

hopes in this. It is worth our while then to take care that they may

know that they are valued (by men) for nothing else than appearing

(being) decent and modest and discreet.

XLI.

It is a mark of a mean capacity to spend much time on the things which

concern the body, such as much exercise, much eating, much drinking,

much easing of the body, much copulation. But these things should be

done as subordinate things; and let all your care be directed to the

mind.

XLII.

When any person treats you ill or speaks ill of you, remember that he

does this or says this because he thinks that it is his duty. It is not

possible then for him to follow that which seems right to you, but that

which seems right to himself. Accordingly if he is wrong in his

opinion, he is the person who is hurt, for he is the person who has

been deceived; for if a man shall suppose the true conjunction to be

false, it is not the conjunction which is hindered, but the man who has

been deceived about it. If you proceed then from these opinions, you

will be mild in temper to him who reviles you; for say on each

occasion, It seemed so to him.

XLIII.

Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be borne, the other

by which it may not. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold of

the act by that handle wherein he acts unjustly, for this is the handle

which cannot be borne; but lay hold of the other, that he is your

brother, that he was nurtured with you, and you will lay hold of the

thing by that handle by which it can be borne.

XLIV.

These reasonings do not cohere: I am richer than you, therefore I am

better than you; I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better

than you. On the contrary, these rather cohere: I am richer than you,

therefore my possessions are greater than yours; I am more eloquent

than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither

possession nor speech.

XLV.

Does a man bathe quickly (early)? do not say that he bathes badly, but

that he bathes quickly. Does a man drink much wine? do not say that he

does this badly, but say that he drinks much. For before you shall have

determined the opinion how do you know whether he is acting wrong? Thus

it will not happen to you to comprehend some appearances which are

capable of being comprehended, but to assent to others.

XLVI.

On no occasion call yourself a philosopher, and do not speak much among

the uninstructed about theorems (philosophical rules, precepts); but do

that which follows from them. For example, at a banquet do not say how

a man ought to eat, but eat as you ought to eat. For remember that in

this way Socrates also altogether avoided ostentation. Persons used to

come to him and ask to be recommended by him to philosophers, and he

used to take them to philosophers, so easily did he submit to being

overlooked. Accordingly, if any conversation should arise among

uninstructed persons about any theorem, generally be silent; for there

is great danger that you will immediately vomit up what you have not

digested. And when a man shall say to you that you know nothing, and

you are not vexed, then be sure that you have begun the work (of

philosophy). For even sheep do not vomit up their grass and show to the

shepherds how much they have eaten; but when they have internally

digested the pasture, they produce externally wool and milk. Do you

also show not your theorems to the uninstructed, but show the acts

which come from their digestion.

XLVII.

When at a small cost you are supplied with everything for the body, do

not be proud of this; nor, if you drink water, say on every occasion, I

drink water. But consider first how much more frugal the poor are than

we, and how much more enduring of labor. And if you ever wish to

exercise yourself in labor and endurance, do it for yourself, and not

for others. Do not embrace statues; but if you are ever very thirsty,

take a draught of cold water and spit it out, and tell no man.

XLVIII.

The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he

never expects from himself profit (advantage) nor harm, but from

externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this:

he expects all advantage and all harm from himself. The signs (marks)

of one who is making progress are these: he censures no man, he praises

no man, he blames no man, he accuses no man, he says nothing about

himself as if he were somebody or knew something; when he is impeded at

all or hindered, he blames himself; if a man praises him he ridicules

the praiser to himself; if a man censures him he makes no defence; he

goes about like weak persons, being careful not to move any of the

things which are placed, before they are firmly fixed; he removes all

desire from himself, and he transfers aversion ([Greek: echchlisin]) to

those things only of the things within our power which are contrary to

nature; he employs a moderate movement towards everything; whether he

is considered foolish or ignorant he cares not; and in a word he

watches himself as if he were an enemy and lying in ambush.

XLIX.

When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings

of Chrysippus, say to yourself, If Chrysippus had not written

obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of. But what is

it that I wish? To understand nature and to follow it. I inquire

therefore who is the interpreter? and when I have heard that it is

Chrysippus, I come to him (the interpreter). But I do not understand

what is written, and therefore I seek the interpreter. And so far there

is yet nothing to be proud of. But when I shall have found the

interpreter, the thing that remains is to use the precepts (the

lessons). This itself is the only thing to be proud of. But if I shall

admire the exposition, what else have I been made unless a grammarian

instead of a philosopher? except in one thing, that I am explaining

Chrysippus instead of Homer. When, then, any man says to me, Read

Chrysippus to me, I rather blush, when I cannot show my acts like to

and consistent with his words.

L.

Whatever things (rules) are proposed to you (for the conduct of life)

abide by them, as if they were laws, as if you would be guilty of

impiety if you transgressed any of them. And whatever any man shall say

about you, do not attend to it; for this is no affair of yours. How

long will you then still defer thinking yourself worthy of the best

things, and in no matter transgressing the distinctive reason? Have you

accepted the theorems (rules), which it was your duty to agree to, and

have you agreed to them? what teacher then do you still expect that you

defer to him the correction of yourself? You are no longer a youth, but

already a full-grown man. If, then, you are negligent and slothful, and

are continually making procrastination after procrastination, and

proposal (intention) after proposal, and fixing day after day, after

which you will attend to yourself, you will not know that you are not

making improvement, but you will continue ignorant (uninstructed) both

while you live and till you die. Immediately then think it right to

live as a full-grown man, and one who is making proficiency, and let

everything which appears to you to be the best be to you a law which

must not be transgressed. And if anything laborious or pleasant or

glorious or inglorious be presented to you, remember that now is the

contest, now are the Olympic games, and they cannot be deferred; and

that it depends on one defeat and one giving way that progress is

either lost or maintained. Socrates in this way became perfect, in all

things improving himself, attending to nothing except to reason. But

you, though you are not yet a Socrates, ought to live as one who wishes

to be a Socrates.

LI.

The first and most necessary place (part, [Greek: topos]) in philosophy

is the use of theorems (precepts, [Greek: theoraemata]), for instance,

that we must not lie; the second part is that of demonstrations, for

instance, How is it proved that we ought not to lie? The third is that

which is confirmatory of these two, and explanatory, for example, How

is this a demonstration? For what is demonstration, what is

consequence, what is contradiction, what is truth, what is falsehood?

The third part (topic) is necessary on account of the second, and the

second on account of the first; but the most necessary and that on

which we ought to rest is the first. But we do the contrary. For we

spend our time on the third topic, and all our earnestness is about it;

but we entirely neglect the first. Therefore we lie; but the

demonstration that we ought not to lie we have ready to hand.

LII.

In every thing (circumstance) we should hold these maxims ready to

hand:

Lead me, O Zeus, and thou O Destiny,

The way that I am bid by you to go:

To follow I am ready. If I choose not,

I make myself a wretch, and still must follow.

But whoso nobly yields unto necessity,

We hold him wise, and skill’d in things divine.

And the third also: O Crito, if so it pleases the gods, so let it be;

Anytus and Melitus are able indeed to kill me, but they cannot harm me.